“Gibbs’ songwriting is deeply personal and profound. It’s plain to see Otis Gibbs is a man you should give a damn about. ” –Rolling Stone Magazine

“Gibbs has been likened to everyone from Guthrie to Springsteen — but his is the rare voice that stands on its own.” -Esquire Magazine

“Man, can this singer tell a story …”  - USA Today

Otis Gibbs is a songwriter, storyteller, painter, photographer and planter of 7,176 trees. He once wrestled a bear, and lost. He has been described as “The best unknown songwriter in music today.” If you ask him, he’ll simply say he’s a folk singer.
He also hosts a podcast called Thanks For Giving Damn which features your favourite musicians, journalists and historians sharing memories, backstage stories and history lessons. His podcast quickly became a cult favourite and lead to him hosting Country Built on Pandora (USA) where Otis tells stories about the history of country music to his 3 million+ subscribers. He grew up in Wanamaker, Indiana, spent 12 years in East Nashville and has recently returned home to Indianapolis with his long time partner, Amy Lashley.

Emily Duff's small batch brand of Sweet & Sour Rock & Roll with a great big hit of Country Soul, digs deep, weaving a patchwork of sin, tragedy, romance and regret. A humble servant of song as well as a dark optimist, Emily is a prolific and unique voice at a crazy & crucial time. Born in Flushing Queens, NYC and raised by a pack of cigarettes, her Mama taught her four perfect chords and then ran off, leaving Emily to figure the rest out on her own. Emily has recorded and released 5 records in the past 6 years. Two at FAME, the legendary Muscle Shoals, Alabama studio, one at NY Noise and two with producer, Eric "Roscoe" Ambel at his Brooklyn studio, Cowboy Technical Services.

From the stage of CBGB's — where she played her first show — to the confines of her 340 square foot Greenwich Village tenement apartment where she is happily raising her two teenage children and hound dog with her husband, Emily Duff has never been afraid to chase her muse into uncharted territory. Duff presently has three records in production with three very talented and very different producers. All are "modern records" inspired by classic American roots music, with Duff upholding her status as a genre-bending, story-telling, humble servant of song.

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As part of this excellent double bill Lachlan Bryan will be accompanied by Emily Lawler on fiddle.

Lachlan Bryan grew up in a musical family in the suburbs of Melbourne, reluctantly taking piano lessons as a teenager before eventually falling under the spell of songwriters like Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt and, eventually, Willie Nelson. He and his band The Wildes have gained a passionate following from the seedy bars of their hometown to the music clubs and festival stages of Europe. Lachlan has also toured extensively as a solo artist - opening for the likes of Lord Huron, Joe Pug, Justin Townes Earle and John Hiatt.

 Lachlan Bryan has built his reputation on storytelling. Over the past eight years Lachlan and the Wildes have released four records, toured Europe and the USA multiple times, shared stages with Americana and country heavyweights and picked up a string of awards, including the Golden Guitar for ‘alt country album of the year’ with their landmark release Black Coffee.

PHIL LEE (USA)

Phil Lee is a weathered, wizened troubadour, and he sounds like the sort of guy you’d cross at your own peril. But his lyrics are strong and paint evocative pictures. And the musicianship and arrangement is a tasty balance of laid-back and tight-as-a-duck’s ass. The songs all sound as if they were cut with all the effects knobs turned to zero: no bullshit studio trickery for this guy. The latest album, “The Fall and the Further Decline of

the Mighty King of Love” consists of a dozen bittersweet and rough-hewn originals (including a co-write with Barry Goldberg — the pianist in Bob Dylan’s group when Dylan famously went “electric” at Newport in 1965.

 Along with working with the Flying Burrito Brothers, driving a truck for Neil Young and playing drums for decades, Lee has carved a unique niche for himself in the alt-country, acoustic post-modern honky tonk world. Fans of Steve Forbert, Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons, Guy Clark, Phil Cody and Greg Brown will dig Lee’s strong fourth album.
“The Mighty King of Love is back, sounding as much like Dylan’s twisted kid brother as he ever did, and hauling along with him a particularly luminous cast of Nashville’s finest…He started writing relatively late in life but there’s two generations of great music absorbed into his bones and it seems to flow right back out of him with a fresh twist that is pure Phil Lee”

AMANDA ANNE PLATT has been writing and performing her original songs in front of live audiences for almost two decades. With her band The Honeycutters she has released nine albums of her own original material and toured extensively in the US as well as Europe and Canada. In 2022 she released a double album, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which has been called “her finest work yet” by The Bluegrass Situation and landed on top ten lists across the globe. The much-anticipated follow up LP, The Ones That Stay, which was co-produced by Scott McMicken (Dr Dog) and Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound), is slated for release later this year.

Platt delivers a live performance as captivating as her songwriting and has been privileged over the years to share the stage with the likes of Guy Clark, Amy Ray, Billy Joe Shaver, Tift Merrit, and Radney Foster. “No matter where she takes you, Platt never skimps on setting the scene: the feeling of the road beneath her, the music playing in the background, the way the light fades. She captures it all unflinchingly in her songwriting, whether she’s exploring nostalgia, faith, memories, or a changing world around her. In the sweetness or in the grit, Platt remains a formidable storyteller.” —No Depression.

Hannah Kaminer is an Asheville, North Carolina-based artist who is known for her poignant songwriting, clear voice, and often comedic stage presence. Raised in small towns in Western North Carolina, she fuses echoes of Appalachian and country traditions with wistful, Americana-style songwriting. She has released three studio albums: Acre by Acre (2015), Heavy Magnolias (2018) which was coproduced with GRAMMY-winning engineer Julian Dreyer, and Heavy on the Vine (2024) which she produced with her band, The Wistfuls. “A very satisfying set of songs, which is very likely to be one of the albums of the year.” — Americana UK, 2024

EMILY NENNI has quickly emerged as one of the freshest and most electrifying voices in Nashville. Her sound is rooted in classic honky tonk and spiked with serious country, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll fire, with sweet-and-sassy lyrics that chronicle hard living, hot nights, heartbreak, and other universal truths about the human condition. Drive & Cry follows her critically acclaimed 2022 long player On the Ranch, which Holler said put “her firmly in the ring with any other heavyweight country contender looking to lift that title belt.” While the Nashville Scene called it “an irresistible vintage-country masterwork.” Whereas On the Ranch saw Nenni uproot herself to lend a hand —and write—while assisting at a ranch in southern Colorado, Drive & Cry drops the listener smack in the middle of her boisterous and bustling Nashville world. Over the past several years, she has enraptured audiences across Music City (and the nation with near-constant touring alongside Charley Crockett, Orville Peck, and more) with sizzling sets in smoky bars and clubs, honing her command of the stage. She has perfected her skills as a band leader and sharpened her already astute world view, all of which are on full display on Drive & Cry.

TEDDY & THE ROUGH RIDERS will be backing Emily Nenni for her set as well opening the show. They’re everything you’ve ever loved about US country music and fiery 70s rock n roll all mixed up together in one big sizzling hotpot of salvation and fervour. They’re capable of sounding like all the bands you’ve ever loved at the same time as sounding like nothing you’ve ever heard before in your life. They don't innovate country rock; they embody it.

“The Rough Riders are my favourite Nashville bands, and, given the chance, they will unite the hippies and the cowboys, the bikers and the stoners with their groovy country songs"-Margo Price“

There is no question that Willy Tea Taylor’s life as a singer/songwriter was predetermined – his role realized the moment he wrote his first song. His inspirations drawn from two separate wells; Living the life of a cattleman’s kid and experiencing true visionaries music like Greg Brown, John Hartford, and Guy Clark. The image of Guy Clark and friends sitting around the kitchen table loaded with ashtrays full of butts, half-smoked cigarettes, food, and booze on one Christmas Eve in 1975 burned into Taylor’s soul. Those guys, swapping songs without pretence, lit Willy Tea’s fire. And ever since, its led purpose with passion – finding a hang by curating relationships through musical friendships that get him closer to his own Clark style kitchen table.

From his early days co-fronting The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, to singing solo in countless cowboy bars, to pitching countless wiffle ball games, Willy Tea has never lost the vision. Now Willy Tea Taylor has taken his vision of the “hero hang” on the road. and his talented traveling band The Fellership is made up of his fantastically talented buds who play Willy’s songs with a brand of reckless abandon and utter humility that spits in the face of pretense. The way The Fellership plays Will’s songs is the way they demand to be played and, in their short time together, they have been awe-ing every audience lucky enough to see them.

THE GREAT WESTERN HANGOVER

The ten-song LP features a sample-size blend of Willy’s musical influences like Tom Petty-esque rock anthems, riders of the storm rattling westerns, and bait’n tackle choir chants, while delivering the masterful songwriting that Taylor’s cult of underground folk followers devour. The Great Western Hangover features other talents like Anna Tivel, Jeffrey Martin, The Rainbow Girls, and members of Fruition, and TK & the Holy Know-Nothings.

“Willy is a storyteller’s storyteller and weaved a spell during the evening made of stories of his relatives…Can I really be blamed for leaving the concert with a picture in my head of Gandalf riding a moped, waving his sword, beard in the wind?”  No Depressionthey are ‘supposed to be’.

On A Golden Shore - their fifth album and their second for the pioneering Loose Music, following 2022’s Hollow Heart - finds them definitively themselves and presents a set of disparate songs whose fundamental linkage is the band that made them. It was recorded at Edwyn Collins’ Clashnarrow Studios with Sean Read producing. Singer/guitarist Richard Olson, drummer Paulie Cobra, multi-instrumentalist Patrick Ralla, plus freshman bassist Paul Milne – laid down the album’s backbone over eight days and mostly recorded live, even the solos done as a piece. Much is first-take because trying better, never worked as well. Pedal-steel player Joe Harvey-Whyte created and added his parts at his London studio bringing ‘shimmery psychedelic goodness’.
It is ultimately an album of sensation as much as thought, filled with fleeting moments of blissful excess, and stumbling, rushing flutters of sound; its evanescent psychedelia, divine choruses, and shards of strings combine into an infectious, compelling Cosmic Heartbreak Boogie.

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