For fans of the music on Songs:Illinois this coming Saturday’s booking at Fitzgerald’s is a dream come true. Ana Egge has just released her new record Road To My Love and has just picked up a nice review in Rolling Stone. Buy it here. Rachel Ries is a longtime favorite of S:I who despite her talent doesn’t play out in Chicago near enough. So here’s your chance to see both in the comfy confines of Chicago’s finest roadhouse.
Bully Of New – Ana Egge
Waiting To Fall – Rachel Ries w/Anais Mitchell
Just a quick note to say the semi-bi-annual quarterly Songs:Illinois house concert is this Sunday night somewhere on the outskirts of Chicago. The lineup is a Guaranteed good time. I can say that because we’ve had the honor of having Rachel Ries and Anais Mitchell play for us a year or so ago. It was really a magical night and I’m expecting the same or better since they are touring behind a joint ep they issued on Righteous Babe called simply the country ep.
As of 5 minutes ago I’ve also added Hayward Williams as the opener. I’ve tried to get him to play before but never could put it together. This time the stars aligned so he’s going to open the show up. Hayward’s debut record, Another Sailors Dream, was produced by the great Peter Mulvey. Critics have called that record “fantastic”, “a masterpiece” and “the first major score for 2007″.
Hit me up here (cbonnell @ gmail.com) for an invite and directions.
Rachel Ries and Anais Mitchell
—–
Speaking of house concerts: one of our most memorable (and shortest) was by singer songwriter Joe Pug. At the time he was a relatively unknown commodity so we gave him a shot at a doing a couple songs opening for Michael Fracasso. Now he’s practically a made man and I wish he would have just played and played.
My Old Kentucky Blog has a new video series called Laundro Matinee and this week he’s featured on it (along with a noisy cricket). Here’s two unreleased songs plus a video of Joe doing his signature song “Hymn 101″ from his new EP.
Joe Pug – Hymn 101 from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.
Rachel Ries is an F.O.B. (friend of blog). She’s attained that status not by hiring one of the hundreds of PR folks that barrage my inbox daily or by being signed to one of the top indie labels. She’s done it quite simply by releasing some of the best music over the past 4 years that I’ve written about on S:I.
Her newest project is a split e.p. with friend (and S:I favorite) Anais Mitchell called the country e.p.. The e.p. has two songs written by each woman and then a cover of their friend Louis Ledford’s song . On each song they create lovely harmonies together, something they’ve been perfecting on tour with each other for the last few years. If you like either of these two artists than this e.p. is an essential buy. You can get it now from Anais’ label Righteous Babe here (and you can hear one more song streaming here).
