“Low fi from weird america's rural roots. railroad guitar, whiskey banjo and skeliton washboard. hi energy oldtime and juke blues.”

Woody Pines had been writing and playing as well as any of his generation long before producing his debut solo album in 2005. The material is rich in character and redolent of place, namely rural, real America. His style has been compared to Paul Burch and his presentation likened to Mark Olson, but he’d dug even deeper for his source inspiration, with a passion for the early ragtime and jug band greats. Earlier, those leanings set him off on a musical journey which led him to form the highly-rated Kitchen Syncopators with Gill Landry (Old Crow Medicine Show) who performed everywhere from New Orleans to Seattle’s Folklife Festival and the Oregon Country Fair.

After striking out on his own and moving to Asheville, western North Carolina, his repertoire was re-shaped to create an intriguing blend of old-time/juke joint/country blues so authentic and evocative you’d swear they might be period pieces. The 2007-issued Lonesome Shack Blues with its great pickin’ and just-right lightness of touch, won him an even bigger following among the kinda folks who seek their musical fix courtesy of Professor Longhair or Mississippi John Hurt.

Woody Pines Circa ’09 is now a person and a band, his playing companions - Zack Pozebanchuk (bass), Darin Gentry (fiddle) and Nathan Taylor (drums) - providing so much brotherly support and bonhomie they are now one and the same and have adopted the stage name. In between a busy touring schedule that has taken them to venues and festival stages from Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon and Michigan to Indiana, Texas, Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio, they recorded killer tracks for the widely-acclaimed new album, Counting Alligators which has been picking up rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. As soon as it landed on his desk, Bob Harris put it straight on to his BBC Radio 2 show.

"In a pinch, Pines and his pair of cohorts might be described as a group that makes the type of American roots music that sounds good coming out of a busted AM radio speaker. In a tinny but effective voice that would make Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan proud, Pines croons about rounders, trains and good gals long gone, over a bouncy and unhurried blues picking style that keeps toes tapping with ease." ~ High Country Press, Boone, N. Carolina

www.myspace.com/woodypines

We have been following the progress of Sarah at SXSW since the release of Silver City in 2005. Her gigs are always exciting events with feisty rock, driving country and heartfelt ballads found during the course of a live show. Now with a catalogue of three great releases Sarah and the boys are going to do a headline tour of the UK for the first time in 2010.

Since SXSW this year, Sarah has gone on to perform at the AMAs in Nashville and was nominated for newcomer of the year. Following shows at the Grand Ole Opry and the Mercy Lounge, Plus a session was Bob Harris.

As the great thespian Patrick Swayze once said, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." The same is true of Sarah Borges. On the basis of her critically-lauded early work, particularly Diamonds in the Dark (2007), some pundits decided they know exactly where the Boston-area rocker and her cohorts, the Broken Singles, belong in the musical spectrum. They were mistaken. Her new record, The Stars Are Out, is about to stun them with a more vibrant, far-reaching display of what Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles are all about. And yes, there will be dancing.

www.sarahborges.com/

The Duke & The King are a glam-soul-folk quartet from New York featuring Simone Felice, Bobbie Bird Burke, Simi Stone and Nowell Haskins. Named after the travelling Shakespeare Hustlers in Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' these curious blood-brothers (and sweet sister) have found a home together, a travelling church of harmony and sin where its OK to French kiss your cousin and all strays are welcome to come out of the cold and sing along to songs of love, loss, pathos and hope. . In just a short time since the release of their debut album The Duke & The King have garnered a barrage of international acclaim, earning comparisons to some of pop history's most hallowed acts, from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to Smokey Robinson, Fleetwood Mac, Sly & the Family Stone, and Simon & Garfunkel.

About DANNY AND THE CHAMPIONSOF THE WORLD - "a dusty, wistful sepia-toned postcard from an imagined past, it slots right in between peak Kerouac, Pat Garrett-era Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young" **** MOJO

"Danny Wilson is turning into one of those artists whose work he has venerated - Ryan Adams, Mark Olson, Bruce Springsteen even" **** THE TIMES

"it would seem fair if Paulo Nutini now held the door open for Danny & The Champions Of The World" **** THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

"footloose folk music big on soul - a bit special" **** THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

myspace.com/dukeandtheking
www.myspace.com/dannyandthechampionsoftheworld

“The mixture of country tales with a folk sensibility, seasoned with a Scandinavian sense of melancholy and kitted out in a distinctly Woody Guthrie wardrobe, Sarah proved to be every bit the folk troubadour we initially anticipated.”- Folk and Roots Magazine

Sara MacDougall is Swedish- born, Canadian based alt.country/ indie folksinger who has been everywhere and anywhere with her heartfelt songs and original style and lyrics, and has won over audiences from Vancouver to the UK to Poland. Often compared to the likes of Eliza Gilkyson, Buffy Saint Marie, Joan Baez, Tracy Chapman, just to name a few.

Across the Atlantic is Sarah’s first official release. This raw but polished and richly textured album features ten songs with serious stick-in-your-head melodies and poignant, sometimes quirky lyrics. Shifting back and forth between driving up-tempo ditties and bittersweet ballads, it is a beautiful album. Sarah writes simple yet multi-layered songs that sometimes make you want to tap your toes and sing along. Sometimes they will break your heart.

Sarah’s music has been heard on CBC (including Vinyl Café), BBC (including Bob Harris) as well as on Lufthansa airplanes! She has played everything from coffee shops to theatres, along with small and large festivals in Canada and the UK. Sarah is joined on stage with her trusted friend and virtuoso lapsteel player Tim Tweedale (Headwater, Viper Central). She is currently working on her upcoming album, which should be available for the world’s ears in 2010.

MATT KEATING - After consistently putting out critically acclaimed records throughout the 1990s Keating joins the current resurgence of American singer/songwriters with his latest work, SUMMER TONIGHT, set for release on KEALON RECORDS (the newest UK label from Alan McGee) on July 11th.

"Matt Keating is in that same class of songwriter as Ron Sexsmith and Elliot Smith, but doesn't sound at all like either of them. His songs are elegant in structure and packed with wordplay that can amuse, dazzle, or hit way too close to home" - No Depression.

SUMMER TONIGHT REVIEW - "With a passel of fine indie rock albums to his credit, NYC-based singer/songwriter Matt Keating has switched gears and come up with a grassroots, back-to-the-basics CD that is dazzling in its beauty, conviction and simplicity."

www.myspace.com/sarahmacdougall
www.myspace.com/mattkeating

Jace is playing just 4 full band shows on this tour and we are pleased to be hosting one of them.

RED REVELATIONS, the new album by Nashville-based singer-songwriter JACE EVERETT, is a work of rare accomplishment and abandon, brimming with barely-contained emotions and urges. They are pervasive in the music, the voice and the songwriting. The primal, penetrating power of Everett’s roots-music fusion, revving up from insinuation to howling gale-force rock in a second, has already started listeners wondering: So, where’ve you been, man? The answer is: Everywhere, and right in front of your nose.

Just “Google” Jace Everett’s name and you’ll find yourself knee-deep in the ooh’s and ahh’s of daily papers from Boston to Chicago and Seattle that can’t discuss the second season debut of HBO’s rocketing Golden Globe-honored drama TRUE BLOOD without mentioning the brilliant opening title montage, devised around the swampy rockabilly come-on of Everett’s “Bad Things.” True Blood creator Alan Ball’s series and films, including Six Feet Under and American Beauty, have regularly made music cues into iconic characters.

Everett’s music evokes the complex, vividly emotional and often over-heated works of Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Jim Morrison and Marvin Gaye, among others, precisely because it so plainly springs from the same sources of inspiration, contradiction and risk. Indiana-born and Texas-raised Everett’s upbringing in the evangelical church, and his far-flung travels are apparent in his songs:

“I took a chance on this album, and like most people it was prompted due to the `True Blood' theme tune which I really liked. I wasn't disappointed. Jace Everett has a wonderful bluesy voice with a great original sound that crosses lots of barriers. You get a county/blues/rock hybrid that is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is also one of those rare albums where I love every track”

www.myspace.com/jaceeverett

“Chuck Prophet is not a country singer, doesn’t claim to be. In fact, his new record, Let Freedom Ring!, is more of a tribute to the birth of rock and roll than anything, with its shades of Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent.”

Quite simply Chuck and his Mission Express is one great rock and roll band and once again it’s a privilege to have them back at the Maze. It’s criminal that this band are not playing the Nottingham Arena (when so many that do, shouldn’t) but as we all know in music there is no justice. If you saw them last time then welcome back only this time bring a friend who will be forever in your debt. Here is a little about the great, Chuck Prophet.......

Chuck Prophet began his musical journey as Dan Stuart’s foil in Green on Red, an often tremendous band that mixed scabrous garage, Dylan-Velvets poesy, and American roots in cool ways. At the heart of hugely underrated singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet’s sound there’s always been a kind of tug-of-war among disparate eras. In turns Petty-esque, Springsteen-like and generally rife with Stones swagger, there’s also an undeniably coy, modern indie slant. Sure there’s “Born to Run”-style driving guitars, and even some “shoobie-doo-wop” backing vocals, but, hey, LeBron James gets name-checked too. In fact, Prophet’s latest sounds a bit like Franz Ferdinand after an all-night bout of Studs Terkel: old-timey, good times rock, but with a conscience.

‘Let Freedom Ring” is a good representation of the best in Prophet’s solo career. Prophet is a sharp, never pretentious, lyricist. The songs on his new record ‘Let Freedom Ring” illuminate the current American predicament, wryly capturing the woes of the workaday and the marginalized.

www.chuckprophet.com/
www.myspace.com/chuckprophetofficial

A show not to miss, Stacey and Mark reach back and grab songs of the past, then fast forward to present and into the future. They will be performing from their own new solo releases as well during their tour. Stacey and Mark is each veteran Dukes (of Steve Earle and the Dukes fame)

When your brother is the legendary Steve Earle, there's a weight of expectation. Happily, Stacey and husband Mark long ago established themselves as one of the finest and most engaging pairings in the folk country world. Few husband-wife musical duos provide audiences with the complete entertainment package that Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart dish out in a live performance. Armed with clever acoustic guitar interplay, autobiographical songwriting, lovely harmonies, and humorous storytelling this couple captivates your attention from the first moment they are onstage. Based out of Tennessee, Earle and Stuart draw from blues, pop, country, rock, and more in their heartfelt music. The years of touring the folk/Americana circuit (playing 170 concerts a year) have given them a knack for reaching out to the audience in an intimate “come in to my living room” fashion.

www.staceyandmark.com/
www.myspace.com/staceyearleandmarkstuart

From the centre of Canada, deep in the prairies, comes an unstoppable force that is becoming a household name across the globe: Romi Mayes. Suitably pronounced "Raw Me", Mayes is a straight shooter with heart on your sleeve lyrics, edgy innuendo, and some serious bad ass guitar playing. She writes about sex, drugs, love, and the road. She can be soft and sweet or just down right dirty.

Her latest release "Achin In Yer Bones" is another testament to exactly that. With no filters and no shame, she unravels herself layer by layer baring her being to her listeners from song to song. But honesty is only part of the charm, not the main talent here. Having won a WCMA Songwriter Of The Year award for her previous album "Sweet Somethin Steady" one can really hear where her true gift rests.

Commonly referred to as the hardest working musician in Canada, Mayes tours steadily and relentlessly across the globe from solo shows in smaller venues to rowdy rockin bar shows to tightly arranged full band sold out theatre shows. She has shared the stage with the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Iris Dement, Jim Cuddy, The Flatlanders, Martha Wainwright, Fred Eaglesmith, Corb Lund, Billy Joe Shaver, Sue Foley, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and many many more. Romi Mayes is charming, passionate, comedic, and with whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other can out-cuss any sailor on a Saturday night.

"Underneath the cursed swilling beer infested bluegrass tinges from her past albums, breathes the heart of Winnipeg songster Romi Mayes now covered with the subtle beauty of dirt jangled guitars bursting with confident sparse arrangements unearthing the gritty heart of 'I eat nails for breakfast before I hand out a whupin' woman with a passion for life, living and music rarely seen in her genre....and she can play her f**king guitar." - - Gordie Tentrees, Musician

MARYBETH D’AMICO - An American singer-songwriter who lives in Germany, Marybeth D'Amico came to song writing relatively late in life. But she makes up for it with the passion she puts into her music. In July 2008 Marybeth released her first full-length album, "Heaven, Hell, Sin & Redemption".

"Marybeth's songs combine the dark storytelling of folk, the melancholy feel of country and a melodic pop sensibility. Emotion-driven songs along the lines of Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams or Lori McKenna."

www.myspace.com/romimayes
www.myspace.com/marylisbeth

Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard mixes country, folk, and blues elements in a repertoire of gritty original songs that include some of the richest literary references and compelling melodies to be found in contemporary acoustic music.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald issued his classic conclusion that ‘There are no second acts in American lives,' he failed to envision the career of legendary Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard. A willing conspirator in the late seventies Cosmic Cowboy revolt that ushered in the mythical Outlaw era, Hubbard was a catalyst in the cultural upheaval that led to the peaceful coexistence of Lone Star music enthusiasts who comprised each end of the social and political spectrum of that troubled time. In the stellar company of iconic colleagues like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Doug Sahm and Jerry Jeff Walker, Ray Wylie Hubbard was an architect of the musical legacy that continues to inspire subsequent generations of up-and-coming Texas talent.

Raised in the Oak Cliff neighbourhood of Dallas, Ray Wylie was making music from an early age, but ironically enough found initial success with the tongue-in-cheek "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers," made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker in the early 1970s. Nonetheless, the singer-songwriter has forged a reputation since then as a crafter of rootsy, intelligent tunes. Live and on recent acclaimed albums like Snake Farm and his new A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment, Ray reveals a compelling juxtaposition of deep blues and primal grooves with spiritually aware lyrics, as well as a deep inner well of humility and keen humour.

“Ray Wylie is rock ‘n roll's last samurai - he writes like he has the devil at his tail, the Good Lord in his heart, a saddlebag of poetry and a pistol in his boot. His songs evoke images of Sam Peckinpah, Fellini and the best of (Robert) Altman.” – Filmmaker Tiller Russell.

www.raywylie.com/
www.myspace.com/raywylie

"...They meet through their humour as lyricists and their shared love of GOOD OLD-FASHIONED SWAMP-BRED GUITAR RIFFS, and as amply evidenced throughout this album, the result is AN INFECTIOUSLY GOOD TIME for all concerned." ¬ BluegrassSpecial.com

Alabama homeboy Will Kimbrough (2005 Americana Music Association Instrumentalist of the Year) and Kentucky-bred Tommy Womack (Two-time winner of the Nashville Scene Best Song Award) first came together in 1992 in the bis-quits, who made one impressive guitar-fest record for John Prine¹s Oh-Boy! label. They discovered a musical and personal kinship that has continued to grow over the years and individual careers - which is now DADDY. Sounding like The Faces with two Ron Woods backed by echoes of Los Lobos and The Band's reverence for all American music, DADDY most recent release is their first studio album "FOR A SECOND TIME".

DADDY's new studio record - FOR A SECOND TIME - was released just in time for Father's Day '09. Consistent with the band¹s 2005 fan-favorite live CD - AT THE WOMEN'S CLUB - DADDY's new album is a seamless mesh of rock, gospel, rockabilly and gritty juke-joint blues.

"'For A Second Time' may well be THE BEST COLLECTION OF PURE MUSIC-MAKING THAT YOU'LL HEAR OUT OF NASHVILLE THIS YEAR." ¬ Rev. Keith A. Gordon, Blurt!

www.myspace.com/daddytheband

“Neal Casal is one of the more productive of the current generation of musicians; producing on average an album a year for most of the last decade. The possessor of a great voice and a more than adept lead guitarist, he is equally at home in a band or solo situation”.

Neal Casal has released 11 solo records since 1995, and three records with the rock/soul trio Hazy Malaze since 2002. He was the guitarist with Ryan Adams and the Cardinals from 2005-2009, playing on three of their records, and touring the world extensively. He has recorded and toured with many other artists including Willie Nelson, Beachwood Sparks, James Iha, Gin Wigmore, Shannon McNally, and Lucinda Williams. He is also a photographer, and will release a book of his documentary work, titled “A View Of Other Windows”, through Abrams Image, in March 2010. His newest solo record “Sweeten The Distance”, will be released in the fall of 2010.

LEEROY STAGGER - With a performing history opening shows for the likes of The Pixies, Ron Sexsmith, Tegan and Sara, Kathleen Edwards, George Thorogood, Joel Plaskett, The Drive by Truckers and Jason Isbell just to name a few, Stagger is no stranger to the stage. Thriving on live performance, he is truly happy when he is on the road playing and connecting personally with his loyal fans

www.myspace.com/nealcasal
www.myspace.com/leeroystagger

The Coal Porters were formed a decade ago in Los Angeles by ex Long Ryder Sid Griffin, author of the hit single "Looking For Lewis And Clark`.

The Coal Porters new album ‘DURANGO’ was recorded during two fruitful weeks in the mountains right outside the Colorado town which gave the album its name, this is the fourth and best "alt-bluegrass" album by ex-Long Ryder Sid Griffin's outfit, The Coal Porters. This highly anticipated follow up to 2007's Turn The Water On, Boy! is a clear country mile step forward. Featuring the amazing fiddle of Carly Frey, the virtuoso banjo of Europe's best five string picker Dick Smith, the songs and mandolin of writer/author/broadcaster Sid Griffin and the production of the legendary Ed Stasium (Ramones, Smithereens, Belinda Carlisle, Jeff Healey Band) without question Durango is one of the choice musical highlights of the year.

"...the best excuse for plenty of fiery fiddle, wild but spot-on banjo and fluid mandolin playing.. .perfect for whipping up the most lethargic of crowds..." Q magazine

The album features two key guest appearances; the first being Tim O'Brien who plays a wild mandolin solo on Roadkill Breakdown and the second being Peter Rowan who duets with Miss Frey on his own song Moonlight Midnight. This is the sound of a bluegrass, Clash, of a Bill Monroe for the 21st century, of a folk Goddess, two ex-punks, an Americana founder and ...errr...a London lawyer making the best music of not just their careers but their lives.

However it is the live show which shows this group at their best, and they are now firmly established on the UK touring circuit as one of the best acts around - the Coal Porters are an acoustic act with attitude!

...the Coal Porters whisk together a hugely listenable cocktail of bluegrass, folk and country.. .Griffin is the mandolins's Joe Strummer..." Uncut magazine

www.myspace.com/thecoalporters