Doors 4:00pm • Music 5:00pm

Do NOT miss this very special Sunday afternoon patio show Featuring the legendary....

GIUSEPPE SCUNGILI and THE SCREAMIN' SEAGULL REVUE!!!

Note: This show is a benefit for the Crisis Nursery, a very, very worthy cause.

Live music, drink specials...an unforgettable day is in store!!!

Tickets: $10 and on sale now at Abilene and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Get your tix early as there'll be limited capacity for this show!!!

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 7:30pm

Singer-Songwriter
BILL SCORZARI

with special guest

”Every word I say is true and someday you will see, spending all of our time always tryin' to break through, leaves us no time for tryin' to break free, and it's time to break free." -Now I'm Free ©2017 Bill Scorzari

Bill Scorzari’s sound is gritty, raw and sometimes downright sad. His songs transition through a multitude of emotions and themes centered on the experiences of the human condition. Of his music, some say it’s spoken word, and others, an amalgam of the voice of Tom Waits, the delivery of Sam Baker and the soul of Kris Kristofferson. No Depression says: New York based, singer-songwriter, “Bill Scorzari is a force. His songwriting is stellar, his picking above par and his voice fits his songs perfectly."
On the very day that Bill was born, his dad (a preeminent New York Trial Attorney), met with the Dean of his law-school alma mater, and together, the two friends completed a “mock” application for young Bill’s immediate enrollment as a student of the law. Some twenty-seven years later, Bill graduated from that very same law school. And, thus began the long and formative passage upon which Bill was at first destined to follow in the footsteps and ethos of his proud father. The later passing of Bill’s dad and role model, opened a new chapter – one that required a giant leap towards pursuing a passion that had long been tucked away in Bill's heart.

Bill picked up his first guitar at the age of 8. It was a nylon string acoustic, a gift from his mom and dad. He later formed his first band with some of the older kids in and around his home town, and played his first club gig at the age of 13. Bill's musical tastes grew to be all-inclusive as he explored different genres throughout his high school and college years. In 2008, he stumbled upon a Live-at-Paste recording of Justin Townes Earle performing “Mama’s Eyes.” The song resonated with his soul and sparked the kind of life-altering moment that you hear a person speak of, that singular moment when everything changed.

Bill began writing songs again, and with the encouragement of a close friend/local recording engineer, he recorded and released his debut album, Just The Same, in 2014. He later formed a band with a group of local musicians and began performing his own music live.

In 2015, Bill was introduced to Yep Roc recording artist, Jonah Tolchin. They became friends and later agreed that Tolchin would produce Bill's second release. In November of 2015, they met at the famed Bomb Shelter in East Nashville. There, together with musicians Joachim Cooder, Kim Richey, Will Kimbrough, Chris Scruggs, Laur Joamets, Eamon Mclaughlin, Brent Burke and more, they recorded, mixed and mastered Bill’s second record, Through These Waves, in just 14 days. The record was released on March 10, 2017 to critical acclaim and jumped straight to #1 on the Americana Music Association’s Most-Added-Radio-Stations Top-50 chart. It later also landed on many Top-Albums-of-2017 lists, including Folk Alley and Elmore Magazine.

Bill has shared bills with Sarah Jarosz, Sam Outlaw, The Dustbowl Revival, Tall Tall Trees, Seldom Scene, Billy Strings, Frank Fairfield, Tom Marion, Zak Sokolow, Jonah Tolchin, Jenni Lyn Gardner (Della Mae), Jeff Scroggins and Colorado, Twisted Pine, Whiskey Myers, Big Country and others.

In July of 2019 Bill became "One of the folk," giving his milestone first-performance at Newport Folk Festival.Bill recorded his third full length album of all original music in April of 2019. The album titled, Now I’m Free, produced by Neilson Hubbard, was recorded at Skinny Elephant Recording in Inglewood, Tennessee, and includes performances by Erin Rae, Will Kimbrough, Eamon McLoughlin, Michael Rinne and more. Bill says of the record: “During the past three years and beyond, I found myself in a place that demanded prolonged introspection and profound healing to be able to navigate through and journey past. This record is a journal of some of the lessons and discoveries that I’ve encountered along the way.” Now I'm Free is scheduled for release on September 20, 2019.

“Tom Waits or Malcolm Holcombe... Scorzari’s voice is in that neighborhood but still stands apart. …thoughtful, cinematically shaped songs that continue to resonate after repeated listens. Yes, this is a 'must hear' for singer-songwriter aficionados." -Elmore Magazine “Scorzari sings, but his version of singing is more of the spoken poetry…that Sam Baker has perfected over the course of four albums and innumerable gigs. ... You listen and think, Yes—I’ve felt that…” Fervor Coulee. “Artists that have this ability are rare—Waits, Dylan, Cohen, and today’s John Moreland and Jason Isbell….” Lonesome Banjo Chronicles. “…That voice will make you pay attention to lyrics that can turn a phrase, make you think, or make you thankful that there’s someone out there to relate to.” Medium "Bill Scorzari has a lived-in voice that says, 'Listen to these songs. They spring from the earth and the ocean with an open heart and the wisdom of experience.’" John Platt (WFUV).

https://www.billscorzari.com

Special Low-Dough Show–Only Ten Bucks at the Door!

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 7:30pm

Amy LaVere & Will Sexton

With Special Guest: Steve Lyons

Amy LaVere is an established artist from Memphis, TN renowned worldwide for her songwriting, bass playing, and vocals. She’s an inventive, thoughtful singer-songwriter who has crowds throughout the US and Europe smitten. Currently, Amy is working on her 7th studio album, slated for release in the Summer of 2019. She tours tirelessly. She’ll be performing all around the US this spring and touring in Italy this summer.

Music fans first discovered this “sweet soprano” on This World is Not My Home in 2005, but it was her Jim Dickinson-produced breakout album Anchors & Anvils two years later that put Amy LaVere on the map.

The success of Anchors & Anvils drew the attention of the UK market, and soon Amy was invited to perform on the BBC’s Later with Jools Holland – the appearance introduced her to an international audience, and to Craig Silvey (Arcade Fire, Jamie Cullum), who she’d later team with to produce Stranger Me (Archer Records).

Spin called the 2011 release “the break-up album of the year,” Paste said it was “among the year’s best,” and it earned a first listen feature from NPR’s All Things Considered. She followed it in 2014 with another critical smash: Runaway’s Diary, a concept album based on her own experience as a teenage runaway, produced by Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars). American Songwriter called it “boundary pushing… heartfelt, reflective, challenging and consistently compelling.” NPR Music’s Robert Christgau said it was her best yet.

Hallelujah I’m A Dreamer (Archer Records, 2015), was a surprise for fans just nine months after Runaway’s Diary, recorded with LaVere’s husband and noted guitarist Will Sexton. On Hallelujah, Amy and Will capture the immediacy of the live show they developed on the road together, reveling in a more stripped-down sound and celebrating the freedoms and limitations that come with it in stunning form. No Depression said simply: “pure bliss.”

In addition to her solo records and a tireless touring schedule, Amy enjoys collaborating with other artists. In 2012 she joined an all-star collaboration called The Wandering, composed of Amy, Luther Dickinson, Shannon McNally, Sharde Thomas and Valerie June. They released Go On Now, You Can’t Stay Here (Songs Of The South, 2012) to critical acclaim and sold out shows.

In the afterglow of The Wandering, Amy and Shannon McNally hit the road together and released an EP titled Chasing the Ghost, The Rehearsal Sessions (Archer Records, 2012) which featured songs from both artists recorded live during rehearsals for the tour.

Amy next paired up with noted rocker John Paul Keith to create Motel Mirrors. Their styles clearly complemented one another, which made for magic on stage and in the recording studio. Their eponymous vinyl EP release was named one of the “10 Essential Albums of 2013” by No Depression.

In 2017 Motel Mirrors released a full length record In the Meantime. This record has the addition of Will Sexton contributing several songs.

In early 2018 two records were released that Amy collaborated on. Luther Dickinson and the Sisters of the Strawberry Moon released their debut recording, Solstice. Amy contributed 3 songs for the project. Amy Helm, Allison Russell, Sharde Thomas and The Como Mammas also contributed songs to the project. Motel Mirrors also released a live recording Gotta Lotta Rhythmon Italian label Wild Honey

Although she’s a singer and songwriter first, Amy is also an actress. In 2005 she was cast in the role of Wanda Jackson in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line (Twentieth Century Fox). Since she has appeared in a variety of independent and studio productions: Black Snake Moan (Paramount, 2006), $5 Cover (MTV, 2009), Woman’s Picture (2011) The Romance of Loneliness (2012) and most recently with Grace Zabriski in Only Child (2015). Dig That Zeebo (2017)

http://amylavere.com/

https://www.facebook.com/steve.lyons.75

Tickets: $12 advance, $15 day of show, on sale now at Abilene, Bop Shop Records, Record Archive and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

LARA HOPE & THE ARK-TONES!

Featuring...Winner of the 2017 Ameripolitan Music Award for Best Female Rockabilly Artist Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones

Named the “Best Up-And-Coming Band” by Hudson Valley Magazine, Lara Hope and the Ark-Tones are New York’s premier "Roots Rock n' Roll & Rockabilly Twang" outfit. They recently released their 2nd full length album, "Love You to Life", in August 2017, and have been hitting the road hard, spreading the gospel of American music wherever they go. Describing their sound, Hope explained to Rockabilly Online “I would say we are a new take on an old sound. It’s been described as ‘pan-americana’ which means we use many areas of early rock and roots music as a creative launchpad. Where it goes from there is anyone’s guess, because while we appreciate old music, we don’t want to write songs that have already been written."

They’ve built a great network of venues in the US by touring heavily, and like many American bands, they have gained supportive fans and excellent press overseas as well. They recently completed their first European tour, successfully spending the month of April 2018 in Belgium and Holland. Hope was featured on the cover of UK Rock n’ Roll magazine in March 2015, and New York’s Ulster Magazine in March 2016. The band has had the privilidge of playing with many of their musical heroes including Joan Jett, The Reverend Horton Heat, Tiger Army, Gary US Bonds, Dale Watson, Big Sandy, Wayne Hancock, and America, and has performed at at a variety of national festivals including Viva Las Vegas, Ink n Iron, and The Nashville Boogie.

Born from a hybrid of Lara’s former rockabilly band The Champtones, and upright bassist Matt’s international psychobilly act, The Arkhams, The Ark-Tones hit the ground running in 2012 and haven’t slowed down since. Lara and Matt also perform as a duo (The Gold Hope Duo), and can even be found as the country/western entertainers at the one of longest running family resorts in New York, the Rocking Horse Ranch, performing under the name Lara and the Hope'Alongs. In 2017, Lara Hope won the Ameripolitan Music Award for Best Female Rockabilly Artist, accepting the award at The Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas, surrounded by musical heroes. The band is also known for their visually arresting videos - “Whiskey Pick” (from their debut album) and “I’m the One” (re-recorded for the new album) were official selections in the 2014 and 2016 Woodstock Film Festival.

https://www.larahopeandtheark-tones.com

Cover: Low-dough Show--Ten Bucks at the Door!

Doors 3:00pm • Music 5:30pm

Happy Hour with great drink specials (4-7pm) including $1 off well drinks and craft draft pints from 3pm till 7pm, free munchies and the return to Abilene of The Latriste Fulton Band! The best in high-energy soul, R&B, and blues!

http://www.facebook.com/pg/Musicology1/about/

Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:30pm

Hipnosis - Tragically Hip Tribute Night!

What happens when you get 5 young American gents that enjoy some jams from up North? You get Hipnotized… Well, actually, you get Hipnosis.

Beginning in 2011 as nothing more than an idea, a group of friends set out to the Great White North for a road trip that would end up being a concert for the ages, The Big Music Fest in Bobcaygeon, Ontario. Five members of this friend group just happened to also play music of their own, so this was a real treat. Looking up at the stage that day, seeing The Trews, Sam Roberts and most importantly, The Tragically Hip, an idea was born. “People should see and hear this music back home in the States, so let’s bring it to them.”

Andy Simpson (Vocals), Stephen Frankosky (Guitar/ Vocals), Mike Heilemann (Lead Guitar/Vocals), Ryan Horab (Bass) and Chris Graf (Drums) had plenty of experience already playing across Western New York in previous local bands, the plan was ready to roll.

After a few years of life getting in the way, the guys were finally able to make their Canadian Rock dreams a reality, forming Hipnosis officially in the Summer of 2016. Since then, you no longer have to tune the FM radio to 102.1, or 97.7 to hear “yer favourite” Tragically Hip tunes.

https://www.facebook.com/hipnosis716

Cover: $10

Doors 7:00pm • Music 9:00pm

Free Casino

with Glenmary's Ghost

Formed in late 2018, Free Casino is a Rochester-based rock band with a diverse mix of musical influences. The band writes and performs their own original music with a handful of cover songs in their set lists as well.

Guitarists Jake Denning and Sean Saville both switch between singing in the band, alongside Marc Gabriel on bass guitar and P.K. White on the drums. The four members are committed to their musical craft and are always eager to perform and meet new musicians.

https://www.facebook.com/FreeCasinoBand/

Glenmary's Ghost, an alternative-rock/Jam rock band from Owego, N.Y. Their music consists of original material and covers of great eras in rock by artists such as The Grateful Dead, Phish, The Beatles, The Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Sublime, and many more. Glenmary's Ghost members include Jon Lipka (vocals/guitar), Jacob Kurtz (bass), Drew Thomas (guitar/vocals), and Jeremiah Harvey (drums/vocals).

https://www.facebook.com/GlenmarysGhost/

Cover: $5

Doors 4:00pm • Music 5:00pm

Abilene Bar and Lounge and WRUR present

A Celebration of the upcoming Ken Burns Country Music series on WXXI-TV

TAMMI SAVOY & THE CHRIS CASELLO COMBO

Music-Food Trucks-Drink Specials!

Chicago vocalist and The Ameripolitan Awards “2019 Rockabilly Female of the Year” Tammi Savoy and award winning guitarist Chris Casello lay down Original 40's, 50s & 60s inspired Music, Early Roots Rhythm and Blues, Jump Blues, Rockabilly, Classic Country, Roots Jazz, Blues and Swing. It is Mid-Century Rockin’ R&B.

Pure Rhythm & Roll.

Rhythm & Roll best describes the music of Tammi Savoy and The Chris Casello Combo. Tammi with her beautiful, strong and resonant voice combined with Chris’s dynamic “wild” guitar and steel playing perform their Original music as well as the music that continues to inspire the passion in their performances. Tammi’s influences include songs from Ruth Brown, Annisteen Allen, Lavern Baker, Esther Phillips, Varetta Dillard, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and so many others.

Get ready to reminisce a little, bob your head and smile to familiar tunes, then get out of your seats, dance, and have a rockin' good time.

Lead Vocals: Tammi Savoy • Guitar & Vocals: Chris Casello • Electric & Upright Bass & Vocals: Jesse Woelfel • Drums & Vocals: Russ Deluca

https://www.misstammisavoy.com/tammi-savoy-and-the-chris-casello-combo

“Super Low-Dough Show”—Only $10 at the door!

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 3:00pm • Music 7:30pm

Abilene Bar and Lounge and Bop Shop Records present..

The Fred Eaglesmith Show with Tif Ginn

Acclaimed Canadian singer, songwriter and rock ‘n’ roll bandleader Fred Eaglesmith is a genuine iconoclast, old-time showman, and true original with nineteen albums to his name. He has doggedly gone his own way as an independent artist, becoming almost a cult figure as a result. His thousands of devoted fans across North America flock to his live shows and have built festivals to showcase his concerts. He has been honored with a Juno Award, song placement in films by Martin Scorsese, a #1 hit on the bluegrass charts; he has wowed David Letterman, and found his songs included in the curriculum at two colleges.

Often found in the company of his large traveling family of sidemen, kids and roadies, Fred will be performing an intimate duo concert with long time accompanist Tif Ginn. This Texas native is a gutsy, amazing singer and a transcendent songwriter. Sharing Eaglesmith’s flair for showmanship and drama, her songs ranging from jazzy country to folk to Americana and pop, and honest portrayals of trailer parks and pills, confinement and release. She and Fred bring out the best in each other’s art and this will be a night to remember.

https://www.fredeaglesmith.com/

Tickets: $25 advance, $30 day of show, on sale at Abilene Bar & Lounge, Bop Shop Records and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Doors 7:00pm • Music 9:00pm

The Best of the Dead with Delilah Jones! The awesome 5 piece Grateful Dead tribute band featuring 5 veteran musicians with diverse backgrounds- together for the love of the music….featuring Mike Bowers on drums, Steve Kralles on guitar and vocals, Jack Moore on guitar, pedal steel and vocals, Chris Ott on keyboards and vocals, and Joe Worden on bass and vocals.

https://www.facebook.com/DelilahJonesBand

Doors 4:00pm • Music 5:30pm

In anticipation of Ken Burn's Country Music documentary series, WXXI is proud to a media partner for this Abilene Bar & Lounge concert with NICK YOUNG on Tuesday, September 10 at 5:30 p.m.

"A WXXI "Country Music" Series Pre-Party!!!

NICK YOUNG & THE LESS FORTUNATE are a four-piece band led (unsurprisingly) by Rochester based singer/songwriter Nick Young. While Nick handles lead vocals and guitar, the lineup is rounded out by Jeff Simpson (The Genesee Revelers) on bass, Steve Nelson (Blue Jimmy) on drums and Chad Ayers (Blue Jimmy, The Ayers Bros) on lead guitar/vocals. The band’s sound & set list draws heavily from both alternative country & the country rock sound of Gram Parsons with some classic country thrown in for good measure. For this all covers Happy Hour set, expect to hear songs by artists like Wilco, Old 97s and The Bottle Rockets as well as Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and George Jones…oh, and bring your dancing shoes.

“A stripped-down Americana and lush pop smoothie. Yeah, there's a splash of country sour mash too, but it doesn't require boots and a hat."
~Rochester City Newspaper

"Fresh & boisterous alt-country."
~Portland Phoenix

"Young writes and performs my favorite kind of music – Americana/Alt-Country/Roots/The New Sincerity/Whatever the Hell You Call It. Formerly the frontman for Rochester’s Burning Daylight, Young just released his first solo album, 'Truth Is'. If you’re fond of pedal steel guitars and twang, and post-Replacements Paul Westerberg, pick it up."
~Nick Zaino (Boston Music Critic)

www.nickyoungonline.com

www.twitter.comom/nickyoungmusic

https://www.wxxi.org/

No cover charge...but there'll certainly be a tip jar for these great musicians!

Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrini and Band
with Special Guests: Televisionaries

Surfer Joe is truly one of the key figures in modern surf music as well as one of the top touring artists for the genre. Participating to any world surf music event as artist or organizer, Surfer Joe has collected an experience of thousands of concerts since the late 90s. Constantly on tour worldwide, he had the honor to play on guitar or drums with several surf legends and to share the stage with many surf bands.

The music of Surfer Joe - Reverb, high rhythms and great energy! It is a concert that looks back to the origins of the genre, but shows its evolution and variety, going from the heavy Dick Dale sound to lounge and progressive atmospheres, always keeping an eye on the melody and the quality of the arrangements.

Highlights - Co-organizer of the yearly Surfer Joe Summer Festival, the most important, prestigious and awaited surf music event in then world. Several times in the line up of the Surf Guitar 101 Convention and Tiki Oasis in California, USA. One of the headliners of Surf-O-Rama (Spain), North Sea Surf Festival (Holland) and Asbury Park Surf Music Festival (New Jersey, USA). Mentioned or interviewed in movies like Reverb Junkies and Sound Of The Surf or in books about surf music's history like Surf Beat by Kent Crowley or the scientific paper Surfing About Music by Tim Cooley. Some of his music, like the album SEÑOR SURF (2013), is considered among the best modern surf music.

Co-owner of the only restaurants dedicated to surf music, the Surfer Joe Diner, which periodically host concerts and international events.

https://www.surfmusic.net/

Cover: Super Low-dough Show---Ten Bucks at the Door !

Doors 4:00pm • Music 5:30pm

Happy Hour with great drink specials including $1 off well drinks and craft draft pints from 3pm till 7pm, free munchies and the return to Abilene of THE TOBEY VILLAGE HOUSE BAND!

Tobey Village House Band plays a delicious blend of rock, soul, blues, funk, & pop…from The Band and Smokey Robinson to Bonnie Raitt and Marvin Gaye…and much, much more!

https://www.facebook.com/tobeyvillagehouseband/

Doors 7pm, Music 9pm

Bellwether Bayou is the solo folk project of Laura Schwartz, a classically-trained violinist who has been moving steadily in a more folksy direction since living in Ithaca, New Orleans, and Xi'an, China. Based in Washington, DC, Bellwether Bayou brings looping violin and soulful vocals together to create a modern take on classic folk sensibilities. The sound of Bellwether Bayou mixes original tunes with unexpected covers and new spins on old traditionals.

Copper Hill: Copper Hill creates a genre of music that combines the styles of folk, classical, singer-songwriting, and jazz. The group—violinists Willa Finck and Katie Knudsvig, bassist Caroline Samuels, and banjo player Ethan Cypress—refers to this genre as folk-art music. The band’s honest and relatable music creates a uniquely engaging concert experience. Aiming to connect a variety of audiences, Copper Hill combines the defining aspects of each genre: the accessibility of folk music, the technicality of classical music, the intimate singer-songwriter perspectives, and the spontaneity and active engagement of jazz. It is Copper Hill’s passion and love for these genres, for their individual elements and the way they can be combined into a more meaningful and evocative musical style, that drives and inspires them to create folk-art music. The band’s thoughtful arrangements of traditional folk tunes are harmoniously coupled with their sweet yet sometimes (heavily) sarcasm-tinged style of songwriting. The members of Copper Hill are classically trained musicians who met at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY and formed in the fall of 2017.

https://www.facebook.com/BellwetherBayou/
https://www.facebook.com/CopperHillFolk/

Cover: $6

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 7:30pm

From Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Singer-Songwriter
JOE NOLAN!

It’s hard to believe it was only in 2011 that Joe Nolan released his debut album, Goodbye Cinderella. At that time he was heralded by the Globe & Mail, No Depression and other publications as a roots rock wunderkind, an opinion confirmed by his 2014 Colin Linden-produced follow-up, Tornado. However, along with the acclaim came complications at odds with his creative vision.

Now the Edmonton, Alberta native is back with Cry Baby, an album that finally opens up what Nolan has kept locked tightly for the past three years. The 10-song collection is a trip through melancholic madness, touching on darkness and depression, broken relationships and endless booze-fuelled evenings. Yet, at its core is Nolan’s unwavering strength as a lyricist, and his wounded-heart delivery that reminds us of our humanity. Cry Baby is, in essence, Nolan unapologetically sharing his story, and through that finding a second chance and a new beginning.

“I’m feeling as if I’m becoming much more myself, and being true to who I am,” he says. “I have become a better listener and I have less fear of what people think. I am doing what I love, making music, and if I can continue to do that then for me, that’s success.”

Having amassed what he estimates to be hundreds of song ideas leading up to recording Cry Baby, Nolan contemplated returning to Nashville where Tornado was made. Ultimately, he chose to remain close to home, holing up over the course of an Edmonton winter with engineer Scott Franchuk at two local studios, The Audio Department and Riverdale Recorders. The process gave Nolan full creative control while also utilizing vintage analog technology.

“Looking at the amount of song ideas I had was kind of scary,” Nolan admits. “The selection process was difficult; I wanted all the songs to flow together in the way an album should sound when you listen front to back. So the biggest challenge for me was not overthinking. We could have gone in so many different directions but I am very happy with how everything ultimately fit together. We actually ended up adding a song I came up with two nights before out first session, ‘Ode To Sturgeon County,’ which I wrote on my grandmother’s old piano.”

If there’s a common thread to Cry Baby, it is indeed a sense of walking back from the edge and recapturing joy—and perhaps personal identity. It can be heard on the heart-wrenching “Music In The Streets” (featuring Lydia Loveless on backing vocals) in which two gun-shy lovers embark on a new relationship. It’s also there on “Dead Ends and a Damaged Heart” and “Stand Up For Your Love,” songs that carry more weight of experience than anyone Nolan’s age deserves. Still, it’s a weight he carries with dignity.

“A couple of these songs are about what’s happened to me over the past five years—being signed to a label at a young age, not knowing how to navigate the music industry, making poor choices, not being able to be artistically free... ‘Another Dead Poet’ is a pretty honest reflection about at the point of almost packing it because I was so sick of the struggle.”

Nolan adds, “My definition of rock ‘n roll is an artist letting their heart bleed on and off stage, without any fear. The imperfections in music are what turn me on the most, even when it's just a guy or girl on an acoustic guitar being honest to themselves.”

Therein lies the irony of Nolan choosing to call this album Cry Baby. Few other songwriters outside of, say, Ryan Adams and Mark Kozelek consistently demonstrate a willingness to venture as deeply into the dark corners of their psyches. With Cry Baby, Joe Nolan is now ready to live again after gazing into the void.

https://www.joenolanmusic.com/

This is a free show...but let's all fill the tip jar. This guy is the "real deal," and deserves your support!!!
PS: Canadian beer specials all night long!!!

Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

The Abilene debut of Lily Herne!

Lily Herne is Athens, Georgia's DreamRock Trio. Herne is a Celtic Stag deity who guards what is natural and wild. Lily is a flower held between his antlers. Some protection is inherently risky.

https://www.facebook.com/events/346621426021082/

https://www.lilyherne.com/

https://www.instagram.com/lilyherne/

https://www.facebook.com/dreamrockmusic/

https://twitter.com/LilyHerne

Cover: $5

Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

An Intimate Evening with Blues Great and Rochester Music Hall of Fame Member...
JOE BEARD and Very Special Guest: HANNA PK

Born and raised in Ashland, MS, guitarist Joe Beard grew up with the Murphy brothers, one of whom later found an international following as Matt "Guitar" Murphy. Guitarist Nathan Beauregard lived with Beard's cousin, so he was surrounded by aspiring and veteran blues musicians while growing up, and he began singing at an early age. Beard became interested in playing guitar via the Murphy brothers, who sat in with a young B.B. King when he played at the Roosevelt Lake Club. Beard began to learn guitar at age 17 from Ernest Scruggs, a neighbor, before heading to Chicago. Beard moved to Rochester, NY, and from time to time would visit one of his brothers in Chicago. He quickly became enamored of the blues being played in clubs there by people like Jimmy Reed and Sonny Boy Williamson. Beard sat in with John Lee Hooker one night and received encouraging words from Hooker, and also later sat in with his idol, Muddy Waters.While in Rochester, he formed the Soul Brothers Six, playing bass and singing, but he didn't perform in public on guitar until 1965. Beard befriended classic blues guitarist Son House, who was a neighbor in Rochester, and played a concert for students at the University of Rochester in 1968. Beard worked as an electrician by day and would occasionally play out at night and on weekends for most of the '60s on through to the '80s. He has a reputation as one of the best local players around, and though he may not be a household name in other parts of the U.S., he toured Europe in 1983 and did studio and stage work with Buster Benton, Lafayette Leake, and Memphis Slim. At the famed BK Lounge, Beard and his backing bands opened for Bobby Bland, Albert King, and others. More recently, Beard performed at President George H.W. Bush's inaugural gala. In 1990, he recorded an album for Kingsnake Records, No More Cherry Rose, which was well received by the blues radio community.Blues UnionBeard recorded an album with Ronnie Earl's band for the California-based AudioQuest label, Blues Union (1996). Accompanying him are Hammond B-3 organist Bruce Katz and tenor saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman. The album was a critical success, winning Offbeat Magazine's Blues Album of the Year award. He followed it up with 1998's For Real and 2000's Dealin', both records featuring Duke Robillard.

Hanna PK is a 2019 International Blues Challenge Semi-Finalist -- a solid pianist, soulful vocalist, and vibrant performer who channels a wide variety of the blues & swing, old school folk and boogie-woogie but with her own contemporary realness whether she’s performing her story-telling originals, breathing new life into songs that may be 100 years old, or anything in-between. Her seemingly sweet and soft-spoken appearance often leads to surprise when hearing for the first time her rich, resonating voice that goes from a whisper to belting with intensity. Her piano ranges from barrelhouse to jazzy to delicate, full of spontaneousness, and what draws the audience closer to her heartfelt and honest songs are her genuine passion and originality that comes from within. Once in a while, we meet an artist that seems to be quite nothing like what we’ve seen or heard, yet, reaching that common ground and emotions through their own creativity, makes us feel at ease, touched, and understood. With that kind of quality, Hanna is reaching out one show at a time.

https://www.facebook.com/joebeardblues
http://hannapk.com/index.html


Special thanks to our friends, Doug Camp and Cicero Ryland Jr..,true music fans.

Cover: $5

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:30pm
Abilene Bar and Lounge & Bop Shop Records present...

Augie Meyers & The Bandoleros

Augie Meyers' style and his Vox Continental has become one of music's most distinctive keyboard sounds around. Augie can be heard with the Sir Douglas Quintet, Texas Tornados, Meyers’ solo efforts as well as on landmark albums by Bob Dylan (”Time Out of Mind” and “Love and Theft”) and John Hammond (“Wicked Grin”). Echoes of the Meyers' style and sound can be heard in the music of the Doors, the Kinks, the Animals as well as the Beatles just to name a few.

Rolling out of San Antonio, Texas in the early 60's, the Sir Douglas Quintet, a musical partnership formed with Doug Sahm, brought such hit tunes as "Mendocino" and "She's About a Mover." By fusing Tex-Mex, Conjunto and soulful rock together along with the power of Meyers' distinctive Vox organ, an impact that is still being felt in rock 'n' roll today. While the Sir Douglas Quintet never broke up and never succumbed to the lure of the oldies circuit, when Meyers and his musical cohorts decided they wanted to do something different, they did. That led to the formation of The Texas Tornados and a Grammy awardwinning South Texas sound. Meyers worked steadily with Sahm until the kinetic guitarist/vocalist passed
away in 1999. Meyers has always pursued projects that interest him as an individual and as a collaborator and has long refused to lock himself into one style of music.

The release of Meyers' solo album "Blame It On Love," engineered and produced by son Clay Meyers, takes you through a musical journey that will enthrall you with his genre-mixing ballads, country and Texas funk. "My Freeholies Ain't Free Anymore" brings back the Tex-Mex feel that Meyers' has become known for. So, get ready all you "Kep Pa So" fans cause your freeholies are not going to be free anymore. The newest release "Through the Years" is a best of CD featuring re-mastered tracks from albums dating
back to the early 70's with the "Western Head Band" all the way up to some current stuff.

https://augiemeyers.com/

Tickets: $22 adv, $27 day of show, on sale at Abilene Bar & Lounge and Bop Shop Records

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

PATRICK SWEANY & BAND

Nashville vocalist/guitarist Patrick Sweany doesn’t hold back on his latest studio album, Ancient Noise.

Sweany recorded the new tunes with GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer/producer Matt Ross-Spang after Ross-Spang invited Sweany to check out his new homebase at legendary Sam Phillips Recording in Memphis. The studio that Phillips had custom built in the 70s has been meticulously refurbished by the Phillips family.

“Sam Phillips Recording is the best place on earth to record a rock ‘n’ roll album,” says Sweany. “I live for going into the sessions with no pre-production rehearsals with the band, we just cut the album on the floor of Studio A song-by-song.”

For the sessions, Sweany recruited longtime collaborator Ted Pecchio on bass (Doyle Bramhall II, Col. Bruce Hampton) and ex-Wilco drummer Ken Coomer both from Nashville. When Sweany needed some organ on a song, Ross-Spang got in touch with Charles Hodges, a veteran Memphis session player best known for playing with Al Green on all of his seminal records.

Hodges fit in so well, he ended up on nearly every track on Ancient Noise. “Charles truly elevated the entire experience,” says Sweany. “In fact, when we met on the first day of recording, Charles led us through a prayer before we had even played a single note together. I’m not particularly religious, but I have to say that was quite the experience and really set the tone of the album. The music is refined, emotional, and I was taken out of my comfort zone many times, which leads to the magic you’re looking for when the tape is rolling.”

The record opens with two tracks (“Old Time Ways” and “Up & Down”) that recall the howling vocals and raw guitar work that first put Sweany on the map over a decade ago.

However, getting out of his comfort zone meant reimagining a lot of the songs Sweany had penned for Ancient Noise, none more so that the third track “Country Loving.” With Hodges’ grand piano front and center, Sweany croons like a young Tom Waits about long-term relationships, the stresses, the simple pleasures, the building of memories. It’s the most vulnerable song he’s ever recorded - and it heralds a new confidence in taking risks.

That confidence pushes through the rest of the record, where Sweany and the band delve deep into Allen Toussaint-style funk on “No Way No How,” the organ fueled “Get Along,” and “Cry Of Amédé,” which touches on the life of Amédé Ardoin, a brilliant, pioneering Creole musician who was brutally beaten in 1934 for accepting a hankerchief from a white woman.

Other tracks recall even wider influences: “Outcast Blues” has a bluesy lurch that recalls The Stones’ Exile On Main Street; “Play Around” has an early 60s do wop feel, and album closer “Victory Lap” ends with a raving coda that would make Bob Seger proud.

Ancient Noise is Patrick Sweany’s eigth full-length album, and it finds Sweany in top form, willing to push himself stylistically to great effect.

http://www.patricksweany.com/

Special Low-Dough Show – Only Ten Bucks at the Door!

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

The National Reserve!

For nearly half a decade, The National Reserve has spent its Friday nights lighting it up at a Brooklyn bar, winning over boozers and barflies with epic sets and a remarkable breadth of songcraft and showmanship. Now, with their stunning new Ramseur Records debut album, MOTEL LA GRANGE, the band has captured every bit of that energy, emotion, and entertainment for all to hear.

Founded and fronted by singer-guitarist Sean Walsh, The National Reserve mine an archetypal musical seam, marrying gutbucket R&B, Laurel Canyon lyricism, New Orleans funk workouts, late night soul, and bluesy, boozy rock ‘n’ roll to create their own timeless brand of American music. Songs like “Found Me A Woman” and the indelible title track reveal a gifted new tunesmith while masterfully reminding one and all of the simple beauty of a great American bar band – two guitars, organ, bass and drums rocking out in the corner, singing their songs to soundtrack the night.

The New Jersey-born Walsh began his musical journey amongst New Brunswick’s all-ages house show punk scene, a formative experience that instilled his standing belief in the power of music to create community. New inspiration came in the form of classic American artists like The Band and Bob Dylan, whose rebellious, revolutionary spirit proved especially mind-blowing.

“When I heard BLONDE ON BLONDE,” he says. “I thought this is way more punk rock than anything I had ever heard.”

Walsh began writing songs and relocated to Brooklyn where he put together the first iteration of The National Reserve. The band worked hard, traveling constantly in an effort to both grow as artists and win over new fans.

In time, Walsh eventually united the ideal National Reserve lineup he’d been working towards – guitarist Jon LaDeau, bassist Matthew Stoulil, keyboardist Steve Okonski, and drummer Brian Geltner. Having found his crack combo, Walsh took The National Reserve off the road and began taking a more “old school approach” inspired by the paths taken by some of his greatest musical heroes.

“Look at The Band.” Walsh says, “Guys like Taj Mahal and Leon Russell, they cut their teeth doing what we call residencies now but were just a gig back then. You’d play three weeks at one club and then move on; play three weeks at the next club. You basically holed up somewhere and learned how to entertain people. And that, in my opinion, is something that has been lost.”

The National Reserve settled into their new paradigm and began playing marathon weekly gigs at Brooklyn’s Skinny Dennis in Williamsburg; four-hour sets that encompassed arcane R&B covers, classic rockers, and Walsh’s own increasingly potent original songs.

“We’ve missed maybe ten of ‘em,” Walsh says. “Last time I did the math, we had played close to a thousand hours, just at that one bar.”

Week after week of hard performance strengthened The National Reserve into an unstoppable unit. Walsh’s initial singer-songwriter approach merging with the band’s growing muscle to create a full-bodied rock ‘n’ roll that both warmed patrons’ hearts just as it kept them moving on the tightly packed dance floor.

“I just wanted to get good at playing music,” Walsh says. “I wanted us, as a band, to really learn how to communicate and learn the language of playing music together. That was the first goal. And second, I wanted to learn how to be an entertainer. I looked at all the bands and artists that I loved, and they all understood that was their job.”

Walsh still appreciated that making great records was part of said gig and led The National Reserve through a number of studio visits, chipping away in Lexington, KY, Denver, CO, and Brooklyn over the past five years, recording and re-recording tracks determined to nail it down beyond doubt.

“This group of songs is really important to me,” he says, “so I kept coming back to it. I just wanted to be sure we got it right.”

MOTEL LA GRANGE truly came together in 2017, produced by Walsh at Brooklyn’s Studio G with the help of longtime friend and collaborator, engineer Alexi Berthelot, and then mixed in Lexington, KY by Duane Lundy (Jim James, Ringo Starr). Despite a few prior National Reserve recordings, Walsh sees the album as his band’s first. Indeed, the album spans Walsh’s arc as both songwriter and bandleader, kicking off with “No More,” one of his earliest songs and still among his favorites.

“It’s one of the first songs I wrote where I thought, I’ve figured it out,” he says. “We were never able to record it properly though until now. I think I like my early songs better because I didn’t care about anything back then, I was just writing whatever I felt like writing. As you move on, you begin to get these weird pretensions in your head, but when you are just starting out, you don’t think about people actually hearing what you’re writing. That’s a constant struggle, really.”

Always determined to create a community, The National Reserve invited some of the innumerable friends they’ve made over the course of many, many Friday nights to join them in the studio, among them keyboardists Brian Mitchell (Levon Helm & The Midnight Ramble Band, Bob Dylan, BB King, Les Paul) and Brion Snyder, pedal steel guitarist Jonny Lam (Sinkane), percussionist Charlie Kessenich (Ensemble, et al.) and harmonicist Brian Hurd (Daddy Long Legs), with backing vocals contributed by Margo Valiante, Amanda Khiri (Sinkane), Kelli Scarr, and Alberta Cross’ Petter Ericson Stakee, among others. Walsh made certain the sessions caught fire by leading the band in the studio just as if they were on stage, giving full life to tracks like the album-closing cover of “Roll On Babe” (written by Derroll Adams and then made famous by the one and only Ronnie Lane) as well as the righteous R&B burner, “Other Side of Love.”

“We had no intention of recording it,” Walsh says of the latter, “but right at the end of the very last session, we had about twenty minutes left and someone said, what about ‘Other Side of Love’? We nailed it on the first take, just played it live, and as we listened back it really proved to me just how strong this band is.”

The National Reserve has now commenced their return to the road, eager to introduce audiences to MOTEL LA GRANGE, though Walsh admits traditional touring has taken some readjustment.

“At first, doing a regular 30 to 45 minute set was a bit of a challenge for us,” he says. “I can’t really turn on that fast. It takes us a couple of hours just to really get started now. So we’ve come up with a routine, we’ll play in the dressing room for a bit before the show starts, just to warm up.”

With MOTEL LA GRANGE, Walsh and The National Reserve have crafted a rich and raucous collection that instantly places them among Americana’s finest – its force, directness, and performance not unlike some lost recording unearthed from the golden age of 70s rock ‘n’ roll. Justifiably proud of what he’s accomplished, Walsh is now planning to bring all the fun and fire of The National Reserve’s fiery Friday night sets to the rest of the world, eager to pack as many folks into his band’s late night scene as possible.

“Music is really powerful,” says Sean Walsh. “It changed my life, which is why I do it. If I can reach people with our music, maybe change their life, that would really be incredible."

https://thenationalreserve.com/

Cover: Super Low-Dough Show - Only Ten Bucks at the Door!

Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:00pm

The Western Centuries

When did country music start to sound the same?
The first generation of country artists borrowed from everything around them: Appalachian stringband music, Texas fiddle traditions, cowboy songs, Delta blues. In an era of unprecedented access to our musical pasts, shouldn’t country music be even more diverse than it was in its infancy? Honky-tonk supergroup Western Centuries, back their latest album in 2018,, surely understands this. They aren’t bound by any dictum to write songs in a modern country, or even a retro country style; instead they’re taking their own personal influences as three very different songwriters and fusing it into a sound that moves beyond the constraints of country. Part of the reason they can make music with this range of influences is because of their roots in city life. Both Cahalen Morrison and Ethan Lawton, two of the three principal songwriters, live in Seattle’s diverse South end, and the third songwriter, Jim Miller, spends most of his time in and around New York City. The urban landscape is rarely mentioned in country music, but it makes for a refreshing sound that draws as easily from modern R&B as it does George Jones. It helps too that the album was recorded and co-produced by acclaimed musician and Grammy-winning producer Joel Savoy in Eunice, Louisiana, where local Cajun and Creole artists have always been adept at marrying old country sounds with R&B and rock n roll.

With Songs from the Deluge, on Free Dirt Records, Western Centuries brings three songwriting voices together into a more unified sound than ever before. Over the past year of heavy touring (since the release of their last album), they’ve pushed each other hard as songwriters. But with a band this well tested on the road, it’s the sonic and lyrical places where each artist’s styles depart that’s most interesting.

Ethan Lawton, known for his earlier work in Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers, loves to pen imaginative parables about people living at extremes. "Wild You Run" by Lawton tells the story of watching someone you love deteriorate with a crippling addiction. The subject chases his temptation, but loses his soul as Lawton cries out helplessly "I won't tell mama what you done, go have your fun....” Lawton's "My Own Private Honky Tonk" is a rambunctious new take on the drinkin' alone narrative which finds Lawton dancing and playing music until the downstairs neighbors call. It's a boogie-woogie flavored tune à la Fats Domino that highlights the upright bass work of Nokosee Fields, the band's newest member. With the opening track, “Far From Home,” Lawton wails "mother, dear mother, won't you spin a yarn about the way things were.” It's about the dark days that young men found abroad in Vietnam and the personal wars they had to fight when they returned back home.

Cahalen Morrison, known for his earlier duo work with Eli West, is the country boy to Lawton's urban cowboy, inspired by his love for cowboy poetry and the New Mexican desert where he grew up. He's got a knack for bending words around stories until they're as funny as they are tragic, as fantastic as they are real. His songs grow like mesquite in the desert; they twist and turn. On "Earthly Justice," Morrison sings of barflys and their troubles, remarking sardonically "if earthly justice just don't get them in the end, there's always a heavenly trial on its way" as vocal harmonies and pedal steel two step all around him. On Morrison’s album closer "Warm Guns,” he waxes quixotic about loss in love, singing in Spanish about being a victim of his own flaws.

Jim Miller, known for his earlier work with Donna the Buffalo, is the resident psychedelic poet. Like the best country songwriters, Miller's sense of communion with nature turns his songs into works of magical realism. On "Wild Birds", a song about a road-bound band, he consults the moss, befriends the tide, and survives fire all while asking for prayers to guide his band home to the end of their migration. "Borrow Time" features Louisiana accordion legend Roddie Romero, and the album's best harmonies between the three lead singers. Some of his most beautiful lines happen on "Time Does The Rest" as he sings "Your heart knows what’s best / Hold her close, the lips will confess / Let it rise let it fall, time does the rest”.

Western Centuries’ music crosses vastly differing geographies–the city, the southwest, the metaphysical. And their musical influences are equally as diverse. Together, they weave a tapestry of western music, without sacrificing their hard-earned country dancehall sound. Songs from the Deluge will levitate heavy hearts, turn spilled beer into ballads, and bring country music home as literate, epic odysseys from parts unknown.

Tickets: $10 on sale this Friday, June 21 at Abilene Bar & Lounge, and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

****Special Show****
Doors 7:00pm • Music 9:00pm

DURHAM COUNTY POETS!

Durham County Poets are from the Chateauguay valley located in Quebec, Canada. Their influences are varied, from blues to folk, from jazz to gospel, with elements of the Band, James Taylor, Jimmy Reed, even some Leon Redbone. Each member brings a different musical background to the band that marries into a sound that has been labeled as soulful folk.

“This group plays bluesy country/folk with a lot of verve. The lead singer sits in his wheelchair and just kills every vocal. The recording on “River” has mostly an ambient sound with very little reverb. It gives the listener a sense of sitting in a living room somewhere, listening to the band crank out one great tune after another.”- Acoustic Live in New York City, album review.

Here’s the deal, they tore it up at the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival and as part of the Little Theatre Concert Series…don’t miss them in the intimate setting that is Abilene!

www.durhamcountypoets.com

Tickets: $10 advance, $15 day of show, on sale now at Abilene and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:00pm

SMOOTH HOUND SMITH

The saga of Smooth Hound Smith begins in Southern California. It winds from there through countless club gigs to East Nashville, big-time arena shows opening for The Dixie Chicks and finally to a third album, on which the seeds planted by experience blossom into a sound unlike that of any other artist.

Dog In A Manger is the third effort from husband-and-wife duo Zack Smith and Caitlin Doyle-Smith. While their previous releases evince their unique vocal blend and ability to coax compelling music from minimal instrumentation, Dog In A Manger brings it all to a higher level of expression.

There are reasons for this, the first being their musical and personal synchronicity. They began building their bond in Los Angeles, when Zack sat in with Caitlin’s band. He was working as a bartender and playing bluegrass gigs on upright bass in addition to working solo as Smooth Hound Smith. She had grown up in Fresno, studied at the L.A. Music Academy, earned her degree at the Academy of Contemporary Music in England and returned to Southern California. When he sat in one night with her band Dustbowl Revival, something clicked. By 2013 she was supplementing his one-man-band, guitar/drums/whatever and singing with complementary vocals and percussion.

Cultural arbiters took note. In response to their eponymous debut album, No Depression marveled that Smooth Hound Smith’s “raucous clash of backwoods folk, raw blues and underground rock … generates enough power to fuel a full band.” A few years later, Ken Templeton extolled one of their shows for Red Line Roots, noting “Zack’s blistering guitar playing” and adding “I saw lots of folks shut their eyes just to take it in that much more.”

Which leads us to Dog In A Manger. Here, Zack’s writing is more concise yet more communicative than ever — Caitlin calls it “denser.” Their melodies, hooks and harmonies are in balance. Each song seems to stem from everyday, even mundane incidents. For example, over a sunny, skipping groove, “Life Isn’t Fair” recalls a friend who would, in Zack’s words, “constantly make himself the victim.” “Backslide” stems from the night Zack opened up his hotel window in Las Vegas and found a TRUMP sign blazing just outside. “Waiting For A Spark” cites the New Testament and Plato in picturing someone who is “weighing her options, just looking for … any little glimpse of light.”

Accessible as the music of Smooth Hound Smith can be, the underlying arc that unifies Dog In A Manger is elusive.
“I wasn’t conscious of it as I was writing this songs,” Zack explains. “But I realized when I finished that I can relate the lyrics back to was my dad went through before he passed. He had been diagnosed with CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease), which attacks the brain. Literally one in a million people suffer from it. There is no cure. The fatality rate is 100 percent, usually within a year.”

In fact, he died just three weeks after being diagnosed, though Zack and Caitlin were able to make it back to L.A. to say goodbye literally minutes before he passed. “That really lit a fire under my ass to get things done in a way I couldn’t have predicted, Zack says. “Caitlin and I knew it was sink or swim. We had to put out new content and it had to be good.”

So they cleared their slate, firing their management, assembling the best of their new material and bypassing offers from several prominent producers and instead asking their friends Steve Daly and Jesse Thompson to helm their new album. “They hadn’t done a whole lot of production,” Caitlin says. “But they’re friends of ours, great musicians with great ears, and it felt right to hang with them and see what happens.”

Caitlin also made a suggestion early in the process that would significantly affect how she and Zack would approach Dog In A Manger. “Around the time his father passed, we went out dinner,” she recalls. “And I told him that I wanted to step back on this album because he had more than he needed to express artistically at that time. Of course I was there throughout it all, adding my input. But it was right that he would take the reins.”
Recorded intermittently rather than in one marathon session, Dog In A Manger began in their living room, with Daly tracking on his Pro Tools setup. The results channel deep emotion into arrangements that somehow feel at once timeless and immediate. The lyrics never recount the events underlying the project, though through understatement and insightful irony they tap into the urgency that often flows below the surface of everyday living.

As much as they’ve achieved with Dog In A Manger, Smooth Hound Smith know that this is just one stop down their path toward promising horizons. “Caitlin and I feel like this is exploratory,” Zack explains. “It’s like, say, leather working: If you put in five or ten years of working leather, you’re going to be pretty good at it. If anybody throws a job at you, you’ll be able to do it.

“I feel that way about music. Everyone of our songs is a little different from the others. The next song I write could be the best one I’ve ever written. It could be the worst song I’ve ever written. But I do know that five years from now Caitlin and I are gonna be making music much better than anything we’d made before.”
A point well proven by Dog In A Manger, the next step in a unique adventure.

https://www.smoothhoundsmith.com/

Super Low-Dough Show–Only $10 at the Door!

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

SHAMARR ALLEN & THE UNDERDAWGS

Fresh off amazing performances at this year's Rochester International Jazz Festival, now catch Shamarr Allen and the Underdawgs in the intimate setting that is Abilene Bar and Lounge!!!

Shamarr Allen and the Underdawgs are a New Orleans based ensemble who blend hip-hop, jazz, funk, Latin and rock into a energetic yet soulful original sound called Hip-Rock.

Music has been a part of Shamarr Allen’s life for as long as he can recall. A musical prodigy, people have forever recognized his extraordinary talents as a musician. Shamarr’s countless career accomplishments, are highlighted by performances with artists Patti LaBelle, Lenny Kravitz, Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis, and a multi-city tour and studio recordings with country legend Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Leon Russell, and R.E.M. His personal compositions include music for the New Orleans Saints, “Bring Em To The Dome,” the ecologically conscious oil spill record, “Sorry Ain’t Enough No More.”

In 2011, he with his band the Underdawgs, were invited to tour Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as cultural ambassadors for the United States State Department. With all of those amazing achievements, Shamarr claims one of his favorite moments as being the first trumpet player to play the National Anthem for President Barack Obama. Ultimately, he played for the President twice, the second time with multi-platinum artist, Harry Connick Jr. at the White House.

His album, 504-799-8147, showcases immense musical diversity. Combining elements of hip hop, rock, soul, and pop it delivers a powerful wallop of fun, good music, and genre bending blends of his original sound, hip-rock. Filled with new classics, Typical Rock Star, pronounces that you will not catch Shamarr in skinny jeans, eye liner or any of the trappings of predictable rockers. A new version of Party All Night is sure to delight new and old fans, while Whatever You Wanna Do is an alternative rock sounding number with an astonishing guitar-amped trumpet solo. Shamarr has always done “his own thing,” which is only one4 of the many reasons his album contains no cover songs and only original material. “I’m just going to keep doing my own music, I believe that creating new music is just as important is live improvisation.” As Shamarr Allen’s star keeps rising, it is evident that everything he sets to do will be just like his music: unique and unforgettable

http://www.shamarrallen.com/

Tickets: $10 advance, $15 day of show and on sale at Abilene Bar and Lounge, Bop Shop Records, Record Archive, and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:00pm

From Cleveland, Ohio...get ready for the return to Abilene of...
DADDY LONGLEG’S HOMEGROWN REVIVAL

Daddy Longleg's Homegrown Revival weaves a rich tapestry of musical genres from all corners of the earth, complimented by live performance artists onstage. A mix of Middle East Afro-funk, Jazz, Latin, Reggae, French Cafe, Americana, Rock, Soul, and Gospel...

"Santana meets Lenny Kravitz w/hints of Green Day, Fela Kuti, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.." Do NOT miss this show!!!

https://daddylonglegshomegrownrevival.godaddysites.com

Cover: $6

****SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

David Gans

A David Gans "solo electric" performance is likely to consist of several elements: country-blues-style fingerpicking; loop-based improvisations created live in the moment; sweetly-sung ballads, original or borrowed; Grateful Dead songs reinterpreted to suit his voice and guitar; wry observations of the music-festival subculture and the larger world; soulful and passionate political commentary; favorites from the folk-rock canon of the last 50 years. Mix and match - it's never the same show twice, but it's always worth a listen.

https://www.dgans.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Into-the-Now-268609769874090

Tickets: $8 advance, $12 day of show...and on sale now at Abilene and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Doors 3:00pm • Music 5:30pm

KISSIN’ WHISKEY

Happy Hour with great drink specials including $1 off well drinks and craft draft pints from 3pm till 7pm, free munchies and the return to Abilene of Kissin’ Whiskey

They're a potent concoction of original music with vintage rock & roll, blues and your grand-dads soul. The band features Steve Scarpulla, Adam Schmitt. John Peck and Mike Kalinowski.

https://www.facebook.com/kissinwhiskey/

Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:00pm

The Cool Club & The Lipker Sisters are a unique blend of old and new.

It’s a blend of four veteran (the old) musicians, whose years of experience create a sound best described in the title of one of their originals…Jump, Jazz, Boogie-Woogie, Rag Time Swing.

The Lipker Sisters are three young singers (the new) that have been singing vocal harmony, in a way only family can, their entire lives. They bring back memories of The Andrew Sisters with the attitude of today’s Puppini Sisters, at the same time making it their own.
Together, The Cool Club & The Lipker Sisters have quickly become one of the most popular acts in the Finger Lakes region.

Band Members
The Cool Club:
Rick Hoyt - guitar and vocals
Trevor Findley - bass
Joe Galusha - drums
Tom McClure - sax, clarinet, flute

The Lipker Sisters:
Marilla
Grace
Elizabeth

https://www.coolclubandlipkersisters.com/

Cover: $5

***VERY SPECIAL SHOW!***
Doors 7:00pm • Music 8:00pm

Abilene on the Road and Record Archive present
Los Straitjackets

Historic German House, 315 Gregory Street, Rochester, NY 14620

Los Straitjackets are the leading practitioners of the lost art of the guitar instrumental. Using the music of the Ventures, The Shadows, and with Link Wray and Dick Dale as a jumping off point, the band has taken their unique, high-energy brand of original rock & roll around the world.

Clad in their trademark Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling masks, the “Jackets” have delivered their trademark guitar licks to 16 albums, thousands of concerts and dozens of films and TV shows. Viva Los Straitjackets!

https://www.straitjackets.com/

Tickets: $20 advance, $25 day of show, on sale at Bop Shop Records, Abilene Bar and Lounge, Record Archive and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

***SPECIAL SHOW****
Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

David Wax Museum

Live at Abilene Bar and Lounge

"Suz and I started this band as friends," says David Wax, "but now we’re married and have a child and have our family on the road with us. The stakes are different."

The roots of David Wax Museum stretch back nearly a decade, and all the way from New England to Mexico. As a student at Harvard, Wax began traveling south of the border to study and immerse himself in the country's traditional music and culture. Back in Boston, he met fiddler/singer Suz Slezak, whose love of traditional American and Irish folk music fused with Wax's Mexo-Americana into a singular, energetic blend that captivated audiences and critics alike. Their 2010 breakout performance at the Newport Folk Festival made them the most talked-about band of the weekend, with NPR hailing them as "pure, irresistible joy." They released a trio of albums that earned escalating raves everywhere from SPIN and Entertainment Weekly (who described them as sounding "like Andrew Bird with a Mexican folk bent") to the New York Times and The Guardian (which dubbed the music "global crossover at its best"). They earned an invitation to return to Newport, this time on the main stage, as well as dates supporting The Avett Brothers, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, Buena Vista Social Club, and more.

It was on the road over these past few years as the band and audiences grew, though, that Wax could feel their exuberant live show evolving beyond its formative roots.

"I felt empowered to start the band because of my time in Mexico studying folk music," Wax explains. "In Boston, the term 'Americana' or 'folk' was just this catchall to describe what everyone was doing. It was helpful to use that to talk about our music at first, but we've found that our hearts feel most shaken, and the band fires on all cylinders, when we're putting on a rock show. What we've tried to retain about our folk origins is the warm sound of people playing acoustic instruments together in a room.

David Wax Museum's latest album, Line of Light, will be released on August 23.

"David Wax Museum, the duo of David Wax and Suz Slezak, announced their seventh studio album Line of Light will release on August 23 via Nine Mile Records. The album was produced by Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket and was the first full length album he produced in his newly built recording studio in his home of Nashville, TN."

Line of Light marks the band's return for their first full-length album in four years. It finds the duo tackling subjects both political and personal in a way they haven't explored in the studio before. With Broemel taking the band's folk-pop underpinnings and outfitting them with serious sonic force, the songs push deeper into themes of interconnectedness, spiritual longing, and deep personal reflection. Being artists from Charlottesville, VA, where they raise their two children, they found themselves responding to the political milieu we all find ourselves in at this moment. While not necessarily sunny, the collection shares a firm optimism in the human condition: there's light beyond the darkness.d to make a record that leaned more heavily on us as a duo. We loved being in the studio with Carl Broemel that first time to record “Big Sur”, feeling like the process was so collaborative and the atmosphere so warm. We felt the resulting song was authentic in a new way, less dressed up with studio tricks and more about how our voices and instruments blend and live together.

https://www.davidwaxmuseum.com/

Tickets: $22 advance, $27 day of show, on sale now at Abilene Bar and Lounge and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

****SPECIAL SHOW!****
Doors 4pm, Music 8pm

Spend Election Night with…

Big Sandy & HIs Fly-Rite Boys!

Over the last three decades, Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys have kept up a constant cycle of traveling back and forth across the lower 48, then hopping across the pond to Europe and beyond. They bring with them a brand of American music that has earned them an induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, several national television appearances, guest spots on The Grand Ole Opry, and a slew of adoring fans.

 "I truly love being out on the road, and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to sing my songs all over the world," said Sandy. "But when I'm away from the U.S. for too long, it's like I need a recharge... like I need a solid dose of everything Americana. Give me a Chuck Berry song while rolling down the interstate, or a truck stop conversation with a waitress who once danced with Lefty Frizzell, and I'm good for another three thousand miles”.

https://www.bigsandy.net/

Tickets: $20 advance, $23 day of show, on sale at Abilene and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:00pm

CHAZ HEARNE & THE DAZZLERS, is a 4-8 piece band that ranges from intricate fingerpicked acoustic numbers to all-out rock anthems. Backed up by everything from mandolin and double bass to horns and harmonies, Chaz tops it off with thoughtful melodies and a barely restrained enthusiasm. Their new album Intelligence Is Rising is available on all streaming platforms now.
Chaz & The Dazzlers featuring Chaz Hearne, Susanna Rose, Emily Dipaola, Reilly Solomon Taylor Cook, and Nick Lord.

https://www.facebook.com/chazhearnemusic/

Cover: $6

Doors 7:00pm • Music 9:00pm

JACK KLATT and Band

We're super psyched to be hosting the Abilene debut of Jack Klatt.
If you're a fan of The Cactus Blossoms, The Hi-Risers, and JD McPherson, you're gonna love Jack Klatt

Musical missionary, tireless troubadour and producer Jack Klatt isn’t one to be easily categorized or relegated to a narrow niche. he comes across as a young man with a wizened and worldly perspective, an artist who possesses a timeless sensibility of both place and purpose. Yet, his artistic integrity extends to more than simply his songs. It embodies both execution and intent.. the way he’s mastered his deft finger-picking technique and used that sturdy approach to bring his material an authenticity reminiscent of the most revered musicians and storytellers.

His upcoming album It Ain’t The Same (due September 27 on Yep Roc Records) reflects that reverential attitude, but adds a depth and devotion that ensures its contemporary credence. With Klatt himself singing, playing guitar and sitting in the producer’s chair, it boasts the talents of a skilled set of session players -- John James Tourville (The Deslondes) on electric guitar and pedal steel, Casey McDonough (NRBQ) on bass skills, and Alex Hall (JD McPherson, The Cactus Blossoms, Robbie Fulks) on drums, percussion, keys and engineering. It Ain’t The Same is, as its title suggests, something truly special.

Ironically, the title track is the only song that Klatt didn’t write. It’s credited to guitar and steel player John James Tourville. The title itself aptly defines the overall vibe of the record, and the fact that it’s the only outside contribution provides a subtle way of alluding to the collaborative nature of the album.

Likewise, Klatt took a different approach to the production. “In the past, my records had been recorded live in two or three days, straight to tape, with little to no overdubbing,” Klatt explains. “I wanted to do something different this time...take some more care and explore all the possibilities the studio has to offer. I suppose that is part of where the title It Ain’t the Same came from. This record feels like a step forward for me, a departure from my earlier, country/blues based recordings. I learned and grew musically so much through the process. I can’t wait to get back in the studio and do it again.”

A product of the nation’s heartland, Klatt was born and bred in the twin cities. He dropped out of college before spending the next six years pursuing his wanderlust and hitch hiking across the country with nothing but a backpack and a Martin guitar. He eventually made his way overseas, where he slept under the stars, traded songs for spending money and enjoyed a life typical of one who’s a drifter and bohemian. All the while, he made it his mission to proffer the songs of the American masters, from Woody Guthrie and Eddie Cochrane to Hank Williams and Marty Robbins. In the process, he found himself captivated by the full gamut of archetypical American music -- a singular style that encompasses folk, blues, rock, rockabilly, R&B, and arcane country -- and began to refashion it to suit his own style.

As Americana Roots UK stated so succinctly, "Jack doesn’t rely on other writers for his diversity. He can write in pretty much any musical style of his choosing.”

”When I was very young and first becoming obsessed with music I got into punk rock and early rock n roll music, started forming bands with friends in junior high,” Klatt recalls. “All I really wanted to do was play like Scotty Moore, or Eddie Cochrane. I was always looking for who such and such a band was influenced by. The 14 year old me loved Rancid, which led me to the Clash, which, in turn, led me to Bob Marley and Woody Guthrie. Social Distortion helped me discover Country Music. As I followed the threads of American music backwards, I wound up at the beginning of recorded music and the sounds of country blues, jug band music, ragtime, early jazz, and folk Music. I stuck around there for a long time, and learned how to play guitar. but eventually I began to get thirsty for something new and started to crawl out of my purist country blues corner… In a way this record is a return to those early rock n’ roll influences of mine. A kind of full circle back to the time when everything was new and fresh. It’s more honest then anything I’ve ever recorded.”

As he continued to temper his technique, he began writing his own material. Once he returned home to Minneapolis, he put together a band and began playing venues and festivals throughout the Midwest.

“I met Jack and Page of the Cactus Blossoms right around the time I was getting into folk music about 10 or 12 years ago around a bonfire pit next to Cedar Lake in Minneapolis,” Klatt recalls. We have made music together over the years, and still do in fact. While hanging out, I’ll often roll out my song ideas to bounce off of them and vice versa. If it wasn’t for the Cactus Blossoms taking me out on the road as a solo opener, I wouldn’t have gotten to meet Alex Hall. Needless to say, those two brothers were a big part of the new record.”

In 2013, he recorded his first album, Love Me Lonely, a set of songs that found him mining his influences while honing a signature style. The followup, 2016’s Shadows in the Sunset, recorded with Tom Herbers (Low, Trampled by Turtles, the Jayhawks) in a 100 year-old farmhouse in Viroqua Wisconsin, garnered rave reviews. No Depression hailed it as a beautifully done album of classic American music.” City Pages said "Shadows showcases Klatt's growth as a songwriter. The expansive and gilded country record is tender, thumping, and relaxed." Klatt himself described the work by saying, “It holds in its grooves ten thousand miles of asphalt, about eight pairs of good shoes, and the generosity of a thousand strangers.”

It ‘s little wonder that the album found its way onto several ‘best of” lists, including Saving Country Music’s list of 2016‘s most essential albums.

For Klatt, it’s all been leading to this. Indeed, It Ain’t The Same is an album that portends an even bigger breakout. As always, Klatt keeps moving forward.

https://www.jackklatt.com/

Super Low-Dough Show—Ten Bucks at the Door!

***VERY SPECIAL SHOW!***
Doors 6:30pm • Music 7:30pm

Abilene on the Road & The House of Guitars present...

Sonny Landreth & Cindy Cashdollar

Hart Theatre, Louis S. Wolk JCC of Greater Rochester
1200 Edgewood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14618

Sonny Landreth and Cindy Cashdollar are making some rare duo appearances in 2019. Louisiana’s slide guitar wizard will deliver his bottle-neck style slide chops while Austin's sweetheart of the steel guitar will showcase the renowned talent that earned her a spot in the Texas Music Hall of Fame.

Revered for his unique slide guitar technique, Sonny Landreth has collaborated with many legendary performers including John Hiatt, Jimmy Buffett, Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton. Sonny will perform at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival in Dallas on September 20, his third Crossroads appearance.

Cindy Cashdollar's expertise is in great demand on both steel guitar and dobro. She has worked with many leading artists in various genres including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Rod Stewart and Ryan Adams. With the iconic western swing group Asleep At The Wheel, she garnered 5 Grammy awards and was the first woman to be inducted into the Texas Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2011.

Performing a mix of original songs with contemporary and traditional blues and roots music, the show is electric, virtuosic, and tastefully delivered by these two great instrumental masters.

https://sonnylandreth.com/

http://cindycashdollar.com/

Tickets: $30 advance, $35 day of show, on sale at Abilene Bar and Lounge, The House of Guitars, Record Archive, Bop Shop Records, and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

***SPECIAL SHOW!***
Doors 4:00pm • Music 8:00pm

JIMBO MATHUS & INCINERATOR - No one back home in Mississippi was really that surprised when, one night, they saw Jimbo appear in a monkey mask on national television. Friends and family weren’t shocked to see him leaping like a madman possessed, throwing $100 bills at David Letterman on Late Night. This was in 1998, the dregs of the 20th century. Jimbo was performing with his bizarre brainchild, Squirrel Nut Zippers who, quite accidentally, became America’s darlings and were riding high on a runaway hit single “Hell”.

No, they had noticed something odd about Jimbo early on. “He could do things other children couldn’t do,” says a close family friend. “He seemed always focused on some distant horizon, obsessed over a private thought no one else could fathom.”

He was haunted by ghosts from the nearby civil war battlefield… the bloodbath that was Shiloh. “I was fascinated by ancient things and the arcane,” Mathus, 47, states. “I saw visions… I could see and feel the Earth plummeting through the solar system and it, in turn grinding along, clock-like. I saw and heard time being sucked into the gaping maw of infinity. It’s taken me all these years to even figure out what it all meant. I always felt both frightened and comforted by these childhood episodes. The next thing I remember I woke up… and there was music!”

His father was a wild-ass banjo player, horse trader, and small town attorney, descended from Scottish fiddlers and singers. A profusion of alcohol-fueled music and all night singing surrounded the young Mathus. At age six he joined the ranks of adult musicians and joined the family band as mandolinist. “As a small child,” Mathus explains, “I was sort of self-contained…very adult. I was allowed to wander the back streets of Jackson or hillbilly towns in Arkansas you know, just alone with my mandolin absorbing songs. I never had any trouble just sitting in with and learning from the musicians I found there. It was weird because adults always told me their problems. They would like, confide in me…ask my advise…like I knew the answers?”

Mathus began creating his own original music. His first composition was entitled “Chokin’ on a ‘Lude”. “I spontaneously helped create a high school noise rock band called Johnny Vomit and the Dry Heaves,” Jimbo says. “My home town was Pentecostal Church-infested, you know, a conservative southern hillbilly town. Old men sat on the courthouse steps whittling, shit like that. Needless to say the band and song didn’t go over well in my area. I was asked to leave high school for generally being too subversive. They mailed me my diploma and said PLEASE GO!”

Various subsequent mishaps and minor fuck-ups led to his being incarcerated and sent to the Mississippi River to work as a deckhand. “I was basically an indentured servant to a barge company outta New Orleans,” Mathus relates about his formative years. “I had to perform extreme physical labor in the most brutal conditions, alongside and toe-to-toe with these bad men… you know, big motherfuckers! But it was interesting because all these bad men would kinda pull me aside and spill their guts to me. Men would seek my advice on shit with their old ladies or whatever. Grown women would inquire about their deceased father or grandmother…they thought I was some kinda fortune teller.”

Having set his sights on the life of a wayward jounrneyman, Mathus continued his wanderings and learnings, finally settling in North Carolina in the early 90’s. Immersing himself in the cultural and artistic oasis that was Chapel Hill, he immediately started assembling the troops that would become, a few years later, the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

“It was a step by step thing putting that band together,” Mathus says. “I already had the background on the deep south musical styles… black, white and creole. In Chapel Hill I was able to use the libraries, the record stores,bookstores, original music clubs, all that shit I had never seen before,I was able to do the kind of research I’d always dreamed of. I went back to the roots of American art and music. I found the Harry Smithanthology. I educated myself.”

The demise of the Squirrel Nut Zippers in 2000 was only the beginning for Mathus. He’d already begun a solo career with the 1997 release of his, Jas. Mathus Plays Songs For Rosetta, an effort to raise money for his ailing Aunt Rosetta, daughter of Charley Patton. He’d already had a huge role as guitarist and “spark plug” for the mind-bending record that is Buddy Guy’s SWEET TEA and had recorded it’s follow up… the Grammy winning BLUES SINGER. He had begun a tutelage under Memphis producer/shaman Jim Dickinson.

“I was ready and encouraged by great men to take on the full southern musical landscape and forge it into my own cannon of songs…to dig deep inside myself and to look and listen hard at what I found there.”

His first recordings done under this new reckoning were 2007’s Jimmy The Kid (Big Legal Mess Records), 2010’s Confederate Buddha (Memphis International Records) and Blue Light (Big Legal Mess Records). 2011 brought White Buffalo and began his affiliation with Oxford Mississippi’s own Fat Possum Records. In 2012 they released Dark Night of the Soul (Fat Possum) and a more national touring schedule ensued, playing multiple east and west coast tours to a broadening fan base.

BLUE HEALER is the name of Mathus’s latest and by far greatest record out on Fat Possum. The date is April 21, 2015. It is his eleventh effort under his own name and is once again produced by Bruce Watson at his Dial Back Sound in Water Valley Mississippi.

“It’s the story of a man in a southern landscape who is swept insanely apart by internal and external winds. He digs deeper and deeper into the very fabric of his reality, experiencing love and lust, despair, hope and sheer animal exhilaration on levels few ever do. He is tested in every way imaginable and achieves a sort of enlightenment… he gains power and understanding of life’s mysteries. Yet questions remain. He wonders if the struggle was worth it or even real. Maybe he just needs some love and affection? Is he madman or mystic? Con-man or honest council? Is this autobiographical or fictional? Only the BLUE HEALER knows the answer to the great cosmic HEEBIE JEEBIE!!!

https://www.fatpossum.com/artists/jimbo-mathus/

Tickets: $10 advance, $15 day of show, on sale now at Abilene Bar & Lounge, and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

***SPECIAL SHOW!***
Doors 3:00pm • Music 9:30pm

JEFFREY GAINES

Jeffrey Gaines has been heralded for his soul-searching lyrics and his powerful live performances.

With only his voice and a guitar for accompaniment, Jeffrey Gaines has earned a reputation as a captivating performer, entertaining audiences everywhere he goes.

Raised in Harrisburg, PA by parents more inclined to spin soul classics by Aretha and Otis than the New Wave and Brit Rock blasting from their son’s room, a teenaged Gaines began singing and playing guitar in several local garage bands. He soon decided to set out on his own and quickly landed a record deal, releasing Jeffrey Gaines, the first of his five studio releases. The album garnered four stars from The Philadelphia Inquirer, describing Gaines as “…an ethereal soul…insistent, impassioned, full of self-knowledge.” Somewhat Slightly Dazed, and Galore followed. Interview Magazine called Gaines’ music “soul-searching” and “refreshingly free of jargon, sentiment or cliché.”

Jeffrey Gaines released Always Be (Artemis) to both critical and commercial praise. Featuring his emotional interpretation of “In Your Eyes” and his own soaringly beautiful “Always Be,” the album hit #5 on R&R Callout America CHR/Pop list, also reaching #45 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. The New York Post proclaimed Always Be as “a dozen-song mix…that completely illustrates the depth he is capable of.”

Gaines’ impressive catalogue grew with Toward The Sun, produced by Mitchell Froom (Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, and Crowded House). The Boston Globe declared that “Gaines’ soulful, wounded vocals make a case for his being one of pop’s finest singers…an artist who deserves far more attention than some of his more hyped, yet less talented peers.” Mojo noted, “This established soul-folkie’s sexy growl has an underlying edge, making it a memorable album. Heartfelt unpretentious.”

Throughout his career, Gaines has built a rapport with his fans unlike any other in popular music today. Gaines goes as far as letting his fans influence the songs he performs each night. “When it’s just me playing, I only know the first song I’m going to play, but from there the energy and the vibe tell me what the next song is going to be. Someone may yell a song, and I’m like ‘Exactly! Good call.’ That’s so fun to me, keeping it exciting and spontaneous. I don’t even know what's around the corner, and the crowd doesn’t either.” Based on that relationship with the audience, Gaines released Jeffrey Gaines Live (CD / DVD) followed by Live In Europe, which was recorded during his 25-city tour with Joe Jackson.

http://www.jeffreygaines.com/

Tickets: $10 advance, $15 day of show and on sale at Abilene and online at https://abilene.showare.com/

Doors 3pm, Music 5:30pm

Happy Hour with great drink specials (4-7pm) including $1 off well drinks and craft draft pints, free munchies and live music featuring the return to Abilene of….

The Tragedy Brothers
Formed in 2013, The Tragedy Brothers are Abilene faves!. Drawing on Blues and Roots Rock sounds, they catch the listener's ear with something different. They have a strong reputation as a live
band, and are not to be missed! Their original music is a blend of Blues, Americana, Funk, Jazz, Celtic and Rock.
Their third CD, City Limits, is now available on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon music and all other major electronic distributors. Songs from this CD have been heard on traditional radio and electronic podcasts across the United States.

https://www.tragedybrothers.com/