American Roots Music Festival

The Milk Carton Kids

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Waltzing into disaster and its aftermath, The Milk Carton Kids’ All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do is available now on ANTI- Records.

The new project marks the first time that acoustic duo Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale have brought a band into the studio with them. “We wanted to do something new,” Pattengale says. “We had been going around the country yet another time to do the duo show, going to the places we’d been before. There arose some sort of need for change.”

“Musically we knew we were going to make the record with a bigger sonic palette,” says Ryan. “It was liberating to know we wouldn’t have to be able to carry every song with just our two guitars.”

Since their last studio album, Monterey (ANTI- 2015), life has changed dramatically for The Milk Carton Kids. Pattengale has moved to, and is now producing records in Nashville. Ryan is now the father of two children and works as a producer on “Live from Here with Chris Thile,” the reboot of “A Prairie Home Companion.” A break from years of non-stop touring, Ryan says, has yielded “space outside of the band that gives us perspective on what the band is.”

But it’s not just the addition of the band here that creates something new. National politics left Ryan feeling disoriented and mournful. Pattengale’s relationship of seven years ended, and he found himself unexpectedly needing surgery for cancer. (He is cancer-free now, and accidentally broke his cigarette habit in the process.)

Though they didn’t approach the new album conceptually, a theme of shattered realities began to emerge out of the songs that sparked to life. Recent events provided a bruising background for the record, yet the project is somehow bigger than any personal grief. Two-part harmonies ride acoustic guitars high above the haunting landscape created by the presence of the band, as if Americana went searching for a lost America.

Produced by Joe Henry and engineered by Ryan Freeland, All the Things That I Did and All The Things That I Didn’t Do was recorded in October 2017 in the Sun Room at House of Blues Studio in Nashville. Musicians who joined them there included Brittany Haas on violin and mandolin, Paul Kowert and Dennis Crouch on bass, Jay Bellerose on drums, Levon Henry on clarinet and saxophone, Nat Smith on cello, Pat Sansone on piano, mellotron, and Hammond organ, Russ Pahl on pedal steel and other guitars and Lindsay Lou and Logan Ledger as additional singers. Mixed by Pattengale, the album was mastered by Kim Rosen.

Amythyst Kiah

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A professed Southern Gothic, alt-country blues singer/songwriter based in Johnson City, TN, Amythyst Kiah’s commanding stage presence is only matched by her raw and powerful vocals — a deeply moving, hypnotic sound that stirs echoes of a distant and restless past.

Accoutered interchangeably with banjo, acoustic guitar, or a full band (Her Chest of Glass), Amythyst’s toolbox is augmented by her scholarship of African-American roots music. Her eclectic influences span decades, drawing heavily on old time music (Mississippi Sheiks, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers, Olla Belle Reed, Carter Family), inspired by strong R&B and country music vocalists from the ’50s-’70s (Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn) and influenced by contemporary artists with powerful vocal integrity (Adele, Florence and the Machine, Megan Jean and the KFB, Janelle Monae).

Recent tours in Scotland and the U.K. have seen Amythyst performing for audiences at the Americana Music Association UK Showcase, the Southern Fried Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and SummerTyne Americana Festival. She is a crowd favorite at Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion in the U.S., has performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival.

Provocative and coolly fierce, Amythyst Kiah’s ability to cross the boundaries of blues and old-time through reinterpretation is groundbreaking and simply unforgettable.

Deva Mahal

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Born with blues in her blood, Deva Mahal is a genre-defying artist, powerhouse vocalist, and astute songwriter. Allowing her blues roots to blossom from the fertile soil of modern R&B, indie-pop, soul, rock, and gospel, her undeniable vocal talent never ceases to blow audiences away.

Her star continues to rise with Run Deep, her aptly-named debut album, produced by Scott Jacoby. The New York Times calls her music “hand-clapping, piano-pounding, call-and-response buildup.” Her energy and enthusiasm breathe wild life into her songs with a knockout voice that combines pulse pounding soul with a decidedly modern edge. She has had the pleasure of collaborating with Jaleel Bunton of TV on the Radio, Binky Griptite of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Living Color, and the New York Pops Orchestra, and has performed onstage alongside such legends as Etta James, Dianne Reeves, Maceo Parker, Bettye Lavette, The Roots, and Cyndi Lauper.

Bumper Jacksons

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Bumper Jacksons are hot and sweet, painting America’s story from the streets of New Orleans to Appalachian hollers. Unafraid to scrap together new sounds from forgotten 78’s, the Bumper Jacksons elegantly balance paying homage to the traditions while fashioning their own unique, playful style. The group began as a duo, a city-meets-country experiment between songstress Jess Eliot Myhre and banjo player Chris Ousley. They hopped on bicycles, touring the country, instruments on their backs, seeking to reimagine roots music. In five short years, Bumper Jacksons grew to a brassy six-piece, with horns and pedal steel.

They’ve been honored multiple times as the Mid-Atlantic’s “Artist of the Year” & “Best Traditional Band” at the Washington Area Music Awards. Bursting at the seams with some of the richest threads of old America, Bumper Jacksons bring you into the center of a party where everyone’s invited and the dance floor never sleeps.

Youth in a Roman Field

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Youth in a Roman Field wants to help you break the rules. The bastardized string quartet meets folk band meets jazz combo from singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Claire Wellin incorporates sounds of “Appalachia, cayenne pepper, & ghosts.” The band includes collaborators Tiffany Topol, Scott Stangland, Cassidy Stirtz, Katrina Lenk, and Jamie Mohamdein. Their debut LP, ‘Of Grit and Grace,’ was released in May of 2012, and the EP ‘Suits for Children’ in October 2014. Originally out of Chicago, the band now resides in New York City and released their second full-length album, ‘Storm Conductor,’ produced with the legendary Stewart Lerman, on April 20.

Oliver the Crow

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“Within a week of meeting each other, we began mapping musical ideas and plans to record an EP,” cellist Kaitlyn Raitz says of her first encounter with fiddler Ben Plotnick, before they even lived in the same city.

The term mapping is spot on. Each of the ten original songs on Kaitlyn and Ben’s first full-length offering unlocks a different musical world. Oliver the Crow navigates effortlessly between the gravitas of chamber composition, the longing of folk music, the near dreamlike quality of atmospheric sound art, and above all, pop music’s candy-sweet escape. It’s no wonder NPR Music has named their duo “an inspired collaboration.”

Kaitlyn and Ben’s chameleon-like ability to skip between genres stems from their roots as classically-trained performers (Kaitlyn has a masters degree in classical cello from McGill University and Ben has performed as a soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic) but also from their love of bluegrass, gypsy jazz, everything from Hank Williams to Prince. Raitz is a founding member of folk duo Bride & Groom, tours with The Bombadils, and has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Station Inn. Ben is a primary member of the JUNO award-winning folk string quartet, The Fretless, and has contributed to hundreds of recordings as one of North America’s elite fiddle players.

One thing is certain: Oliver the Crow cannot be defined by genre, and yet is timeless, indelible. Kaitlyn and Ben have mastered the art of anchoring a folk song in epic pop sensibility, and it is so fun to hear them smash all the rules.

Oliver the Crow’s debut record was released in June 2018.