Squinty eyes & breakfast beers were cracked & cheered to the start of In A Jam, Down By the River festival day two. It's hard to choose what was the best part of the day as the air itself carried magic on the breeze.
If you don't know who Rachel Cole (@goth.brooks) is yet, consider this your big sign from the universe to change your life. This Americana artist shook the rafters of the inside bar stage with her gritty vibrato & beautiful storytelling. She mentioned her mentor Todd Snider, covering his "I Can't Complain" in a bluesy, throw some dirt on it kind of way. Definitely a voice to watch.
Cameron Smith took the indoor stage. His vocal tenacity is similar to The Tallest Man on Earth band, while his nasally tone gently carries solid rhythm. A lot can go wrong with harmonica playing, but Smith skillfully uses the instrument in his songs to move listeners along, following a calm flow. But the takeaway from this artist is his songwriting. He has a way of transporting you to another time & place, five decades before your existence in a train town or a contemplative range of feelings. We have a full interview with him coming next week!
My personal favorite of the day was the last acoustic artist Colton French. I've never seen this artist before yesterday & was actually dumbfounded by his superior-- and I truly, truly mean superior-- songwriting. French sat in his bar stool, suit jacket crisp & jeans a deep blue. The best way to describe him would be the ranchero style straw hat with a sweat ring & a hacienda dip to the brim that rests atop his red head. That hat is the sound of his music. His small bodied parlor guitar with "panty hose strings" had one of the clearest tones I've heard out of a guitar in a long time. It is apparent French takes great care in his guitar, in himself, & in his songwriting. His writing style is real storytelling. His songs are poems, are novels, are stand alone works of art. We have a full interview coming out with him next week. I cannot recommend his writing enough.
John Fullbright headlined the evening, but I have extreme bias because he's my favorite artist; so I'll spare the sobbing & sucking up to his gloriousness. Just ask me in person, & I won't shut up. Instead, let's talk about the most surprising & funnest band of the evening: Pendulum Hearts.
Pendulum Hearts came with their show pants on, complete with upright bass, fiddle, & train gang snare. My first immediate thought was "I wanna ride in a van with these guys." There's not really a singular box to put them in. It's bass driven funk, it's moonshine meets New Orleans. It's "surf swing?" (Thanks for that Aaron Bentley). Their blues had your neck swanging while their western waltzes were fun & heating up the dirt dance floor.
There were so many other superb artists like Jonna Mae, Justin Osborne, & Billy Hartman-- but there isn't enough time in the day to describe the ingenuity coming through this festival. We are currently on day 3 & can't wait to tell y'all about it.
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