PFS Presents Gina Chavez

Saturday, September 21, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

$14 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $17 Not-Yet-Members | $20 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Gina Chavez

Austin musician Gina Chavez never thought she’d see the day when two women could marry in Texas. Then again, she never thought she would marry a woman.

“Heaven Knows,” the first single off her upcoming five-song EP, Lightbeam, is the musical journey of twelve years in love; a love Chavez never thought she would experience.

“I was 24, staunchly Catholic and I’d had great, healthy relationships. But I’d never been in love,” Chavez said. “Then I met this girl with a smile that made me question everything I thought I knew.”

Lightbeam, set to release on Friday, September 14, 2018, is a sonic departure for Chavez who is known for her signature style of bilingual Latin folk-pop that topped the iTunes and Amazon Latin charts with her award-winning album, Up.Rooted. The 2015 Austin Musician of the Year traded her acoustic guitar for the smooth tones of a Gibson hollow body, and called upon producer Dwight A. Baker (MISSIO, Alpha Rev, The Wind and The Wave, Josh Abbott Band) to lay down five soulful and diverse songs, that expand upon her previous work with same lively and sophisticated spirit that her fans have grown to love.

Lightbeam boasts intensely personal lyrics — heaven knows our souls, our story / the shape of your heart when you hold me / wouldn’t tear us apart or disown me” — strong melodic hooks and a pop aesthetic that showcase Chavez’s versatility as an artist.

“These are songs my heart has been wanting to sing for so long,” Chavez said. “To shout from the rooftops that I am in love! To tell the world about this incredible woman who lights me up and calls me to my best self, and show that our love is more than tolerable. It’s the kind of love we’re made for.”

Recorded in eight days at Matchbox Studios in Austin, Texas, the EP features some of Austin’s finest — Dave Boyle (keys), Conrad Choucroun (drums), and Steve Terebecki (bass) — on five unapologetically personal tracks that explore longing, faith, beauty, and sacrifice.

“I took some time to allow myself to write,” Chavez said. “No boundaries, no genres, just me and my guitar, and I was pretty surprised when these soul-tinged songs bubbled up. But this is the story my heart wanted to tell; the story what it means to be a Catholic Latina and fall in love with a woman; the story of what it means to live your heart no matter what the world says.”

Chavez and her wife, Jodi Granado, met at the University Catholic Center at UT Austin. The next decade would see the couple through the ups and downs of a long-distance relationship, coming out to friends and family, hiding their love while volunteering in El Salvador, and building a life together in Austin. Last year, Chavez and Granado, still practicing Catholics, tied the knot at Tiny T Ranch just east of Austin — two years after marriage equality became legal in Texas.

With 10 Austin Music Awards, an NPR Tiny Desk with more than half a million views, frequent tours as a cultural ambassador with the U.S. State Department, being named an official 2018 SXSW artist for the fifth year in a row with her six-piece band and a trip to Kyrgyzstan in April 2018, Chavez and her wife, Jodi, have embarked on a European mini-tour that kicks off the couple’s honeymoon and the release of “Lightbeam.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF GINA CHAVEZ

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO GINA CHAVEZ ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GINA CHAVEZ

September Monthly Concert with Amanda Rheaume

Sunday, September 22, 2019
Doors 2:30pm | Music 3pm

Get your tickets here!

FREE for Members *While Supplies Last* | $10 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF AMANDA RHEAUME

About Amanda Rheaume

The fifth album from Ottawa-raised, Toronto-based singer/songwriter Amanda Rheaume, The Skin I’m In presents a compellingly portrait of an artist fully comfortable in her own skin, personally and musically.

Produced by Colin Cripps (Blue Rodeo, Junkhouse) at The Tragically Hip’s famed Bathouse Studio, it sports a full-blooded band sound, thanks to the contributions of an A-list musical supporting cast.

Rheaume’s supple and expressive vocals fit neatly in the centre of the sonic landscape, while her eloquent and well-crafted songs were written with such noted collaborators as Jason Blaine, Melanie Brulée, Jim Bryson, Justin Glasco, and Tim Bovaconti.

One of Rheaume’s great gifts as a songwriter is her ability to take the personal and make it universal, drawing upon her own experience to deliver messages with a wide resonance. She digs deep on The Skin I’m In, reflecting upon her Metis heritage, as on the profoundly moving title track and “Return To The Water,” and addressing issues of identity and mental health.

Her earlier albums met with widespread critical acclaim. 2013’s Keep A Fireearned her a 2014 Canadian Folk Music Award for Aboriginal Songwriter of The Year as well as a Juno Award nomination for Aboriginal Album of the Year, while 2016’s Holding Patterns received a Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination.

An engaging performer, Rheaume has developed a following across Canada and in Europe, where she tours regularly.

She has long employed her music as a force for good, as shown by three trips to Afghanistan to perform for Canadian military personnel, plus visits to the Alert base in Canada’s far north and the troubled Indigenous community of Attawapiskat.

Rheaume co-founded Babes4Breasts, an initiative that, through concerts and recording projects, raised money for breast cancer charities across Canada over a 10-year period.

This is an artist with a heart as big as her talent.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO AMANDA RHEAUME ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT AMANDA RHEAUME

**Ticketing Policy**

The Philadelphia Folksong Society is proud to offer its’ members one or two free tickets (depending on membership level) to our selected Monthly Member Concert and Monthly House Concert every month. Due to the large number of members and limited seating, we ask that members reserve tickets when they know they can attend. If a member has reserved a ticket and cannot make it to the member concert of their choosing, they must contact the PFS office by phone or email prior to the event to cancel. Failure to do so will result in an inability to reserve your free member ticket to the following member concert.

If you arrive at a PFS member concert and have not reserved a ticket, you will only be seated ten minutes before show time if seats are still available.

If a member concert is listed as “sold out,” please contact Katie Kresz at kkresz@pfs.org to secure your spot atop the waitlist. You will be notified prior to the concert if seats become available.

PFS asks that all members show respect to their fellow members and the Society through following this policy.

PFS Presents Jonathan Byrd & The Pickup Boys

Friday, September 27, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Jonathan Byrd

Jonathan Byrd and The Pickup Cowboys are musical gunslingers, vaudevillian hucksters, and old-fashioned tent revivalists. Between heartbreaking ballads and heart-lifting sing-alongs, the Cowboys entertain and get audiences involved in the show.

Byrd is a preacher’s son, a Gulf War veteran, and an award-winning songwriter from Chapel Hill, NC, known for literary, outsider songs that have become campfire favorites. The Chicago Tribune called Byrd “one of the top 50 songwriters of the past 50 years.”

Joined on drums by Austin McCall (Kaira Ba, Violet Bell), and musical renaissance man Johnny Waken on guitar, saw, and mandolin, Byrd shares the often-missed, always poignant tales of the small people that make the world such a big place.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF JONATHAN BYRD

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO JONATHAN BYRD ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JONATHAN BYRD

PFS Presents Talisk

Saturday, September 28, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Click here to get your tickets!

$15 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $18 Not-Yet-Members | $21 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF TALISK

About Talisk

In their five years, Scottish firebrands Talisk have stacked up several major awards for their explosively energetic yet artfully woven sound, including 2018’s Belhaven Bursary for Innovation & 2017’s Folk Band of the Year both at the BBC Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, and a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award.

Mohsen Amini – the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards’ Musician of the Year 2018, Hayley Keenan and Graeme Armstrong seamlessly meld concertina, fiddle and guitar to produce a multi-layered, enthralling signature that has effortlessly captivated audiences from the USA to Australia, and throughout the UK.

Appearances at world-leading festivals – including the Cambridge Folk Festival, Denmark’s Tønder, WOMAD UK and Las Palmas, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Celtic Colours, Milwaukee Irish Festival and five successive outings at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections – have amassed a die-hard following, whilst the world’s folk and world music media have also lauded high credits upon the trio. The release of their hotly anticipated second album, Beyond, in October 2018 was met with a five-star ‘Top of the World’ review in Songlines, praising the band as “incredibly infectious and endearing… fresh, invigorating, accomplished and playfully frisky.”

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO TALISK ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT TALISK

PFS Presents Roanoke

Friday, October 4, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$8 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $10 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Roanoke

“Brimming with optimism, youthful exuberance and creative energy….” – The Huffington Post

Based in Music City, Nashville, TN, Roanoke is a 5 piece that bridges a gap between Alternative and Americana/Folk by writing palatable & melodic songs under a blanket of roots instrumentation, electric guitars, multi-part harmonies and the instantly-recognizable vocals of principle lead singers Taylor Dupuis and Joey Beesley. Transitioning to a
full-time touring entity in 2018, Roanoke’s 2017 touring resume includes appearances at MerleFest, SunFest and Master Musicians Festival, while also being sought for private, corporate functions for LinkedIn and Opryland Resort — all of which came as a surprise in the band’s inbox. Artistically, Roanoke’s praise has been sung by Huffington Post and Spotify, the latter of which includes four Roanoke originals, “Silent Films,” “Tennessee Stone,” “Jordan” and “The Light,” on its OFFICIAL playlists, “Southern Gothic,” “Rustic Romance,” “Fresh Folk,” “Pulse of Americana,” and “Seize The Day!” respectively. New EP, distributed by Tone Tree, was released in summer 2018.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ROANOKE

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ROANOKE ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ROANOKE

PFS Presents Wild Ponies

Saturday, October 5, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK 

About Wild Ponies

Although they’re based in Nashville, Wild Ponies have always looked to Southwest Virginia — where bandmates Doug and Telisha Williams were both born and raised — for inspiration. There, in mountain towns like Galax, old-time American music continues to thrive, supported by a community of fiddlers, flat-pickers, and fans.

Wild Ponies pay tribute to that powerful music and rugged landscape with 2017’s Galax, a stripped-back album that nods to the band’s history while still pushing forward. Doug and Telisha took some of their favorite musicians from Nashville (Fats Kaplin, Will Kimbrough, Neilson Hubbard and Audrey Spillman) and met up with revered Old-Time players from Galax, Virginia (Snake Smith, Kyle Dean Smith, and Kilby Spencer). Recorded in the shed behind Doug’s old family farm in the Appalachians (steps away from the site where Doug and Telisha were married), it returns Wild Ponies to their musical and geographic roots.

Growing up, a young Doug Williams spent many an hour watching and learning as his grandfather played banjo alongside local musical legends like Snake and Kyle Dean. Although both of his grandparents have now passed away, they would surely be proud to see Doug and Telisha gathered in the shed with Snake, Kyle Dean, Kilby, and a diverse handful of the best musicians from Nashville. The result is a broad, bold approach to Appalachian music, created by a multi-cultural band whose members span several generations.

Wild Ponies proudly dive into their old-school influences with songs like “Pretty Bird” — a rendition of the Hazel Dickens original — and the traditional mountain song “Sally Anne.” “My grandfather used to say, ‘It oughta been the goddamn National Anthem!'” Doug says of the latter song, which kicks off the album with gang vocals and fiddle. Even so, don’t mistake Galax for a traditionally-minded folk album. Wild Ponies offer up plenty of contemporary material, too, building a bridge between past and present. The lyrics reflect a similar mix of old and new, with Doug and Telisha Williams writing songs inspired by family heirlooms (including a wooden-bound, 70 year-old book of poems written by Doug’s grandfather, whose lines form the basis of “Here With Me”), the Catawba tree on the farm, the nostalgic pull of one’s birthplace, a mother’s tough lough, leaving and believing, and the cyclical natures of death and love. Although named after the town in which it was recorded, Galax looks far beyond the southwestern tip of Virginia for its source material.

“We didn’t want to go home to Virginia and just make an Old-Time record,” explains Doug. “We wanted to make something that still sounded like Wild Ponies. We asked everybody to stretch and reach towards something new, something different. We wanted to not only reconnect with our roots, but learn how those roots can also weave into our current world.”

Once everyone had arrived at the farm, Neilson Hubbard set up a makeshift studio in the shed.  Just a few nice microphones in a circle. There’s no cell phone signal on the mountain. No WiFi. No distractions. Instead, everyone focused on making raw, genuine music, filling Galax’s track list with upright bass, acoustic guitar, twin fiddles, Telecaster, banjo, pedal steel, mandolin, harmonies, gang vocals, and even some stripped-down percussion. They recorded the songs live, never once pausing the process to listen to the performance they’d just captured. It wasn’t until Wild Ponies returned home to Nashville that they finally heard the wild magic documented during those mountaintop sessions.

Released on August 25th on Gearbox Records, Galax salutes Wild Ponies’ traditional roots while exploring new, progressive territory. It’s an album about the pieces of our past that stick with us, informing our present while pushing us toward a future. An album about a town, a country, and a world that’s forever spinning toward something new. An album that redefines Wild Ponies’ sound, while highlighting influences that have always rested just beneath the surface.

“We’ll always be the pinball that bounces between folk, rock & roll and country,” says Telisha, “and this Old-Time style will always weave its way through everything we do. It’s been there from the start, even on the loudest songs we’ve made. It only took us a couple of days to record it, but this is the album we’ve been making our whole lives. We just needed the right people and the right songs to finish it.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF WILD PONIES MAKING THEIR ALBUM ‘GALAX’

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SONGS FROM WILD PONIES

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WILD PONIES

PFS Presents Irish Mythen with Andrea Nardello

Saturday, November 16, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$14 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $17 Not-Yet-Members | $20 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Irish Mythen

Irish Mythen was born in Ireland and now resides in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island Canada.

“This Island creates music and musicians, art and artists. I found a shift to take things more seriously when I moved here.” And she did just that. Her latest release, the self titled Irish Mythen, gained her recognition around the globe with nominations and wins coming from Music PEI, East Coast Music Association, Folk Alliance International and Socan. Write-ups in Australian Guitar Magazine, the Rolling Stone, and a plethora of online publications world wide have helped plant Irish firmly on the map of ‘Must See Artists’.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF IRISH MYTHEN

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO IRISH MYTHEN ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IRISH MYTHEN

OPENING ACT: ANDREA NARDELLO

Philly’s Andrea Nardello has garnered favorable comparisons to Melissa Etheridge and Shawn Colvin for melding pop songwriting smarts with a confessional and literate songwriting style, exploring relationships, romance, and her out family life. Nardello’s refined accessibility draws from folk, pop, rock, and even the swagger of hip-hop. She can tug at your heartstrings with her softer tunes and get you dancing on your feet with her upbeat songs and powerful voice. Fans ride an unforgettable emotional roller coaster during her live shows.

Nardello has been busy touring and has opened for well known artists like Colbie Caillat, Brandi Carlile, Tony Lucca, Gabe Dixon, Ron Pope, Emerson Hart of Tonic Fame, and Tim Reynolds of The Dave Matthews Band. After releasing ECHO, Nardello won the prestigious Philadelphia Songwriter’s Project Contest and won Tri-State Indie’s “Acoustic Artist Of The Year.” Her songs, “Leave The Light On” and “Home To Me” each won WSTW’s Award for Folk Song Of The Year.

Nardello also spends time fundraising for important causes like The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The MILE (Music Is Love Exchange). Nardello completed two service trips to Guatemala in support of the MILE. The MILE is a network of artists, musicians, and music lovers that bring positivity and change to the lives of disadvantaged and underserved children, strengthening families and communities both in the U.S. and abroad. Nardello is always willing to help, offer her time and believes that music is a universal language that helps heal and connects us all.

Nardello teamed up with long time friend and collaborator, Matt Duke, to produce her new EP, Human, which was released on Noble Steed Music, last year. This beautifully haunting EP was recorded in Nardello’s home. She is excited to share it with her fans and expects to tour in the fall.

“For me, “Human” is a collection of songs that explores vulnerable topics. Loving someone when they are broken. Striving to challenge yourself when you are stuck. The final stages of life and all that is unknown. It is truly a soundtrack of my life and the people in it. I always get nervous before releasing new music and my only hope is that anyone who listens can connect to these songs in some special way.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ANDREA NARDELLO

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ANDREA NARDELLO ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ANDREA NARDELLO

September Monthly Concert with Amanda Rheaume

Sunday, September 22, 2019
Doors 2:30pm | Music 3pm

Get your tickets here!

FREE for Members *While Supplies Last* | $10 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF AMANDA RHEAUME

About Amanda Rheaume

The fifth album from Ottawa-raised, Toronto-based singer/songwriter Amanda Rheaume, The Skin I’m In presents a compellingly portrait of an artist fully comfortable in her own skin, personally and musically.

Produced by Colin Cripps (Blue Rodeo, Junkhouse) at The Tragically Hip’s famed Bathouse Studio, it sports a full-blooded band sound, thanks to the contributions of an A-list musical supporting cast.

Rheaume’s supple and expressive vocals fit neatly in the centre of the sonic landscape, while her eloquent and well-crafted songs were written with such noted collaborators as Jason Blaine, Melanie Brulée, Jim Bryson, Justin Glasco, and Tim Bovaconti.

One of Rheaume’s great gifts as a songwriter is her ability to take the personal and make it universal, drawing upon her own experience to deliver messages with a wide resonance. She digs deep on The Skin I’m In, reflecting upon her Metis heritage, as on the profoundly moving title track and “Return To The Water,” and addressing issues of identity and mental health.

Her earlier albums met with widespread critical acclaim. 2013’s Keep A Fireearned her a 2014 Canadian Folk Music Award for Aboriginal Songwriter of The Year as well as a Juno Award nomination for Aboriginal Album of the Year, while 2016’s Holding Patterns received a Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination.

An engaging performer, Rheaume has developed a following across Canada and in Europe, where she tours regularly.

She has long employed her music as a force for good, as shown by three trips to Afghanistan to perform for Canadian military personnel, plus visits to the Alert base in Canada’s far north and the troubled Indigenous community of Attawapiskat.

Rheaume co-founded Babes4Breasts, an initiative that, through concerts and recording projects, raised money for breast cancer charities across Canada over a 10-year period.

This is an artist with a heart as big as her talent.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO AMANDA RHEAUME ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT AMANDA RHEAUME

**Ticketing Policy**

The Philadelphia Folksong Society is proud to offer its’ members one or two free tickets (depending on membership level) to our selected Monthly Member Concert and Monthly House Concert every month. Due to the large number of members and limited seating, we ask that members reserve tickets when they know they can attend. If a member has reserved a ticket and cannot make it to the member concert of their choosing, they must contact the PFS office by phone or email prior to the event to cancel. Failure to do so will result in an inability to reserve your free member ticket to the following member concert.

If you arrive at a PFS member concert and have not reserved a ticket, you will only be seated ten minutes before show time if seats are still available.

If a member concert is listed as “sold out,” please contact Katie Kresz at kkresz@pfs.org to secure your spot atop the waitlist. You will be notified prior to the concert if seats become available.

PFS asks that all members show respect to their fellow members and the Society through following this policy.

PFS Presents Jonathan Byrd & The Pickup Boys

Friday, September 27, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Jonathan Byrd

Jonathan Byrd and The Pickup Cowboys are musical gunslingers, vaudevillian hucksters, and old-fashioned tent revivalists. Between heartbreaking ballads and heart-lifting sing-alongs, the Cowboys entertain and get audiences involved in the show.

Byrd is a preacher’s son, a Gulf War veteran, and an award-winning songwriter from Chapel Hill, NC, known for literary, outsider songs that have become campfire favorites. The Chicago Tribune called Byrd “one of the top 50 songwriters of the past 50 years.”

Joined on drums by Austin McCall (Kaira Ba, Violet Bell), and musical renaissance man Johnny Waken on guitar, saw, and mandolin, Byrd shares the often-missed, always poignant tales of the small people that make the world such a big place.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF JONATHAN BYRD

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO JONATHAN BYRD ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JONATHAN BYRD

PFS Presents Talisk

Saturday, September 28, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Click here to get your tickets!

$15 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $18 Not-Yet-Members | $21 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF TALISK

About Talisk

In their five years, Scottish firebrands Talisk have stacked up several major awards for their explosively energetic yet artfully woven sound, including 2018’s Belhaven Bursary for Innovation & 2017’s Folk Band of the Year both at the BBC Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, and a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award.

Mohsen Amini – the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards’ Musician of the Year 2018, Hayley Keenan and Graeme Armstrong seamlessly meld concertina, fiddle and guitar to produce a multi-layered, enthralling signature that has effortlessly captivated audiences from the USA to Australia, and throughout the UK.

Appearances at world-leading festivals – including the Cambridge Folk Festival, Denmark’s Tønder, WOMAD UK and Las Palmas, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Celtic Colours, Milwaukee Irish Festival and five successive outings at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections – have amassed a die-hard following, whilst the world’s folk and world music media have also lauded high credits upon the trio. The release of their hotly anticipated second album, Beyond, in October 2018 was met with a five-star ‘Top of the World’ review in Songlines, praising the band as “incredibly infectious and endearing… fresh, invigorating, accomplished and playfully frisky.”

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO TALISK ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT TALISK

PFS Presents Roanoke

Friday, October 4, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$8 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $10 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Roanoke

“Brimming with optimism, youthful exuberance and creative energy….” – The Huffington Post

Based in Music City, Nashville, TN, Roanoke is a 5 piece that bridges a gap between Alternative and Americana/Folk by writing palatable & melodic songs under a blanket of roots instrumentation, electric guitars, multi-part harmonies and the instantly-recognizable vocals of principle lead singers Taylor Dupuis and Joey Beesley. Transitioning to a
full-time touring entity in 2018, Roanoke’s 2017 touring resume includes appearances at MerleFest, SunFest and Master Musicians Festival, while also being sought for private, corporate functions for LinkedIn and Opryland Resort — all of which came as a surprise in the band’s inbox. Artistically, Roanoke’s praise has been sung by Huffington Post and Spotify, the latter of which includes four Roanoke originals, “Silent Films,” “Tennessee Stone,” “Jordan” and “The Light,” on its OFFICIAL playlists, “Southern Gothic,” “Rustic Romance,” “Fresh Folk,” “Pulse of Americana,” and “Seize The Day!” respectively. New EP, distributed by Tone Tree, was released in summer 2018.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ROANOKE

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ROANOKE ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ROANOKE

PFS Presents Wild Ponies

Saturday, October 5, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK 

About Wild Ponies

Although they’re based in Nashville, Wild Ponies have always looked to Southwest Virginia — where bandmates Doug and Telisha Williams were both born and raised — for inspiration. There, in mountain towns like Galax, old-time American music continues to thrive, supported by a community of fiddlers, flat-pickers, and fans.

Wild Ponies pay tribute to that powerful music and rugged landscape with 2017’s Galax, a stripped-back album that nods to the band’s history while still pushing forward. Doug and Telisha took some of their favorite musicians from Nashville (Fats Kaplin, Will Kimbrough, Neilson Hubbard and Audrey Spillman) and met up with revered Old-Time players from Galax, Virginia (Snake Smith, Kyle Dean Smith, and Kilby Spencer). Recorded in the shed behind Doug’s old family farm in the Appalachians (steps away from the site where Doug and Telisha were married), it returns Wild Ponies to their musical and geographic roots.

Growing up, a young Doug Williams spent many an hour watching and learning as his grandfather played banjo alongside local musical legends like Snake and Kyle Dean. Although both of his grandparents have now passed away, they would surely be proud to see Doug and Telisha gathered in the shed with Snake, Kyle Dean, Kilby, and a diverse handful of the best musicians from Nashville. The result is a broad, bold approach to Appalachian music, created by a multi-cultural band whose members span several generations.

Wild Ponies proudly dive into their old-school influences with songs like “Pretty Bird” — a rendition of the Hazel Dickens original — and the traditional mountain song “Sally Anne.” “My grandfather used to say, ‘It oughta been the goddamn National Anthem!'” Doug says of the latter song, which kicks off the album with gang vocals and fiddle. Even so, don’t mistake Galax for a traditionally-minded folk album. Wild Ponies offer up plenty of contemporary material, too, building a bridge between past and present. The lyrics reflect a similar mix of old and new, with Doug and Telisha Williams writing songs inspired by family heirlooms (including a wooden-bound, 70 year-old book of poems written by Doug’s grandfather, whose lines form the basis of “Here With Me”), the Catawba tree on the farm, the nostalgic pull of one’s birthplace, a mother’s tough lough, leaving and believing, and the cyclical natures of death and love. Although named after the town in which it was recorded, Galax looks far beyond the southwestern tip of Virginia for its source material.

“We didn’t want to go home to Virginia and just make an Old-Time record,” explains Doug. “We wanted to make something that still sounded like Wild Ponies. We asked everybody to stretch and reach towards something new, something different. We wanted to not only reconnect with our roots, but learn how those roots can also weave into our current world.”

Once everyone had arrived at the farm, Neilson Hubbard set up a makeshift studio in the shed.  Just a few nice microphones in a circle. There’s no cell phone signal on the mountain. No WiFi. No distractions. Instead, everyone focused on making raw, genuine music, filling Galax’s track list with upright bass, acoustic guitar, twin fiddles, Telecaster, banjo, pedal steel, mandolin, harmonies, gang vocals, and even some stripped-down percussion. They recorded the songs live, never once pausing the process to listen to the performance they’d just captured. It wasn’t until Wild Ponies returned home to Nashville that they finally heard the wild magic documented during those mountaintop sessions.

Released on August 25th on Gearbox Records, Galax salutes Wild Ponies’ traditional roots while exploring new, progressive territory. It’s an album about the pieces of our past that stick with us, informing our present while pushing us toward a future. An album about a town, a country, and a world that’s forever spinning toward something new. An album that redefines Wild Ponies’ sound, while highlighting influences that have always rested just beneath the surface.

“We’ll always be the pinball that bounces between folk, rock & roll and country,” says Telisha, “and this Old-Time style will always weave its way through everything we do. It’s been there from the start, even on the loudest songs we’ve made. It only took us a couple of days to record it, but this is the album we’ve been making our whole lives. We just needed the right people and the right songs to finish it.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF WILD PONIES MAKING THEIR ALBUM ‘GALAX’

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SONGS FROM WILD PONIES

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WILD PONIES