Live at The Ark – Friday: Hiss Golden Messenger & Aoife O’Donovan / George Bedard
An Evening with
HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER & AOIFEO’DONOVAN
Friday, August 19, 2022, 8pm
Tickets: $61, $41 ($1 to charity)
Turn Tail in the Milky Way
Describing the Durham-based Hiss Golden Messenger Is like trying to grasp a forgotten word: It’s always on the tip of your tongue, but hard to speak. Songwriter and bandleader M.C. Taylor’s music is at once familiar, yet impossible to categorize: Elements from the American songbook—the steady, churning acoustic guitar and mandolin, the gospel emotion, the eerie steel guitar tracings, the bobbing and weaving organ and electric piano—provide the bedrock for existential ruminations about parenthood, joy, hope, and loneliness—our delicate, tightrope balance of dark and light—that offer fully engaged contemporary commentary on the present. And then there’s an indescribable spirit and movement: Hiss Golden Messenger’s music grooves. There’s nothing else quite like them. Hiss Golden Messenger has toured and recorded relentlessly, earning devotees along the roads, deep in festival pits, and across the seas, delivering earnest performances that morph from jam my freak out to private prayer in a matter of measures. He comes to Michigan with a new album,“ Terms of Surrender.” Hiss Golden Messenger songs create feelings to which devoted listeners attach their own meanings and memories with each repeated spin. Throughout “Terms of Surrender,” those feelings range from fearful to celebratory. But perhaps the title track—with its refrain of “I’m gonna give it/ but don’t make me say it/It’s one thing to bend it, my love, but another to break it”—best summarizes the nature of Hiss Golden Messenger’s work as a musician, father and spouse, and cultural communicator on this album.
Grammy award-winning artist Aoife O’Donovan operates in a thrilling musical world beyond genre. Deemed “a vocalist of unerring instinct” by the New York Times, she has released three critically-acclaimed and boundary-blurring solo albums including her most recent record, 2022’s boldly orchestrated and literarily crafted Age Of Apathy. Recorded and written over the course of Winter and Spring 2021 with acclaimed producer Joe Henry (Bonnie Raitt, Rhiannon Giddens), Age Of Apathy is “stunning”(Rolling Stone) and “taps into the propulsion of prime Joni Mitchell”(Pitchfork). A savvy and generous collaborator, Aoife is one third of the group I’m With Her with bandmates Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz. The trio’s debut album See You Around was hailed as “willfully open-hearted” by NPR Music. I’m With Her earned an Americana Music Association Award in 2019 for Duo/Group of the Year, and a Grammy-award in 2020 for Best American Roots Song. O’Donovan spent the preceding decade as co-founder and front woman of the string band, Crooked Still and is the featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo Sessions-the group with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. She has appeared as a featured vocalist with over a dozen symphonies including the National Symphony Orchestra, written for Alison Krauss, performed with jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas, and spent a decade as a regular contributor to the radio variety shows “Live From Here” and “A Prairie HomeCompanion.”$1 from every ticket goes to support the Durham Public Schools Foundation whose mission is to foster community support for public schools and invest in our students, educators, and families to ensure success and equity for every student.
http://www.hissgoldenmessenger.com/
https://www.aoifeodonovan.com/
GEORGE BEDARD
History of AmericanMusic Part IX
Saturday, August 20, 2022, 8:00pm
Tickets: $25
Ann Arbor’s homegrown guitar god! On Saturday, August 20, as the ninth installation of his “History of American Music” series, George Bedard will present a tribute to American music legend Johnny Cash. Probably no other country music figure transcended his genre to become so universally recognized and respected. Bedard will explore Cash’s self-proclaimed roots in gospel, early country music, and the blues and then move on to his great Sun and Columbia recordings from the ‘50s and ‘60s. “I am far from able to fill these giant shoes, but please spot me some low notes and join us for a fun and respectful tribute to this American music giant,” George says.
