The Special Consensus –
Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 6:00 pm at the Curry Public Library

The Special Consensus is a bluegrass band that has achieved a contemporary sound in their four decades of performing, making their music a modern classic. The band is led by Greg Cahill (banjo player and recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) and inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America Hall of Greats) and includes Dan Eubanks (bass), Greg Blake (guitar) and Michael Prewitt (mandolin). Special Consensus has received six awards from the IBMA and two Grammy nominations. They are four talented vocalists and instrumentalists who follow their creative desires without straying too far from their bluegrass roots. The 19th band recording, Rivers and Roads (Compass Records, 2018), was nominated for the 2018 Best Bluegrass Album GRAMMY award and received 2018 IBMA awards for Album of the Year and Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year (for the tune “Squirrel Hunters”). Chicago Barn Dance, released by Compass Records in 2020, is the 20th Special C recording that celebrates both the 45th band anniversary and the long-standing connection of country and bluegrass music with Chicago from the time of the WLS “National Barn Dance” that was a precursor to the Grand Ole Opry. The songs on this recording relate to Chicago and/or are written by artists who once lived in Chicago. The title song “Chicago Barn Dance” received the 2020 IBMA Song of the Year Award.

“Credit producer Alison Brown for inventive arrangements that showcase each band member, and such guests as singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks and fiddler Michael Cleveland also contribute, sounding happy to join the dance.”

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

“It’s a lively number that should find a welcome reception from bluegrass radio.”

BlueGrass Today

www.SpecialC.com
videos

The Lowest Pair –
Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 7:30 pm

Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee are two kindred spirits who first met on the banks of the Mississippi while touring the Midwest festival circuit.

Now, as The Lowest Pair, they have recorded and released five albums together, relentlessly toured North America, and ventured to the UK twice, playing over 500 live shows over the past five years.  

After each releasing solo albums via Conor Oberst’s Team Love Records in 2018, Winter and Lee began working on The Lowest Pair’s forthcoming 10-song set, The Perfect Plan. As a songwriting team, the duo tends to see artistic sparks all around them — in poems, people, ideas, and experiences – and throughout the process of writing these new songs, they felt the need to push their creative limits. Clawhammer banjo and acoustic guitar still hold the heart of The Lowest Pair, but the fleshed-out sound of The Perfect Plan leans gently into Winter’s punk past, as well as the sonic playground of her mind, to set the band down a new path on their musical journey. 

“The Perfect Plan is masterfully crafted”

American Songwriter

www.TheLowestPair.com
videos

Molly’s Revenge – CANCELED due to Coronavirus Precautions…
Saturday, March 21, 2020 at 8:00 pm

Molly’s Revenge is a dynamic, acoustic Celtic band known for its unique and infectious enthusiasm. The classic combination of bagpipes, whistle, and fiddle, with a backdrop of guitar, mandola, and bodhran guarantees an enjoyable experience for all fans of Scottish and Irish music. Molly’s Revenge has performed at many of the top folk festivals and performing arts events in the USA, and prestigious events in Scotland, Australia and China. Their arrangements of traditional Celtic jigs and reels bring these dance tunes up to date with a driving, hard-edged accent that always leaves audiences shouting for more.

“Revered in California as one of its most energetic, exciting and innovative bands.” 

SHAY BLACK, OF THE LEGENDARY BLACK FAMILY

“They bring to the music a vital and joyous creativity that excites even the hardest of hearts.”

JOHN DOYLE, FOUNDING MEMBER OF SOLAS

“The instruments are traditional… but the wild passion they exhibit is thoroughly modern.”

METRO SANTA CRUZ (CA)

“There is an engaging freshness and yet an impressive maturity in their playing.”

MICK MOLONEY, NATIONAL HERITAGE AWARD RECIPIENT

www.MollysRevenge.com
Videos

The Special Consensus – Saturday, February 22, 2020 at 8:00 pm

A BLUEGRASS LEGACY
Special Consensus is a superb bluegrass outfit in a classic vein but with more than enough modern sensibilities to attract every ear in this now pleasantly fractionating genre. The vocals are spotless, the playing as shiny as a newly minted penny, and music like this is the reason people come to love bluegrass… Special Consensus approaches this hallowed American musical form with boundless energy and an aesthetic reverence that tickles the ribs, tugs at the heart, and puts a restless two-step in boots and bare feet…

Formed in the Chicago area in 1975, The Special Consensus is a four-person acoustic bluegrass band with a repertoire that features traditional bluegrass standards, original compositions by band members and professional songwriters, and songs from other musical genres performed in the bluegrass format. The band has released 18 recordings and has appeared on numerous National Public Radio programs and cable television shows, including The Nashville Network and the Grand Ole Opry at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. International tours have brought the band to Australia, Canada, Europe, South America, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Special C has appeared in concert with many symphony orchestras nationwide and has brought an informative in-school presentation to schools nationally and internationally since 1984.

“Yes, Special Consensus may be Chicago’s very own veteran bluegrass band, but talent like this is the property of the world”

DAVID ROYKO; CHICAGO TRIBUNE

“Special Consensus exceeded our expectations as artists-in-residence. Your Traditional American Music program for the schools was well conceived and masterfully performed. Your community outreach mini-concerts were great fun and resulted in promoting ticket sales to the capstone concert. You earned the well-deserved standing ovation you received during the capstone concert”

ROCHESTER CIVIC MUSIC; ROCHESTER, MN

www.SpecialC.com
Videos

The Talbott Brothers –
Saturday, January 11, 2020 at 8:00 pm

Blood is thicker than water and there’s nothing like family creating music together to prove it. With contrasting blood-harmonies and left-handed/right-handed guitar playing, singer-songwriter duo The Talbott Brothers combine rock, blues and pop with honest storytelling.

Nick and Tyler were born and raised in Imperial, a small town in Southwestern Nebraska, just a stone’s throw from the Colorado border. They began writing and performing together before relocating to their mother’s birthplace of Portland, Oregon. Tyler, the youngest (lead vocals, baritone guitar, harmonica) and Nick, the oldest (backing vocals, lead guitar) discovered their love of music after digging their dad’s old dreadnaught guitar out of the basement and teaching themselves to play along to Johnny Cash, Bob Seger and the Beatles on vinyl.

Following the release of 2017’s GRAY, they found themselves in front of sold-out crowds in the US and sharing the stage with ZZ Ward, Johnnyswim and AJR. Ear to the Ground Music dubbed the record as one of the ‘Top 5 Albums of the Year’ stating it as, “equal parts optimistic and captivating, inspiring and hopeful.” Through rigorous touring and over half a million streams on Spotify, they continue to build a strong and loyal fanbase wherever they go.

www.TheTalbottBrothers.com
Video

McKasson, McDonald and McLane –
Saturday, November 16 at 8:00 pm

Ryan McKasson, Eric McDonald and Jeremiah McLane are masters of tradition who purposefully explore the dark corners floating on its edges. Their individual artistry is enhanced when together. In short, the sum creates a greater whole. The result is an alluring complexity, full of spontaneous musicality. Pulling from parallel strands of influence, they create a swirling level of intensity that traverses darkness, light, and everywhere in between. An air of mystery pervades a sound compelling enough to transcend boundaries and appeal to music lovers of all stripes.

Devon Leger of Hearth Music says, “This trio really shows how masterful musicians listen and play off each other.” The music they create is to share, and live performance is the forte. But their mutual attitude stretches beyond the music. They have been good friends ever since they met, and this is present in their live performances, which are full of organic banter and good humor to go along with the music. They create an environment of their own design, drawing in listeners without pretense. Despite living active musical lives thousands of miles apart these musicians have committed to working together to forge a new musical path.

Ryan, Eric and Jeremiah create music together that is at once energetic, sublime, pensive, thought provoking and jubilant.

Steve Behrens, 67 Music

There’s a certain spontenaity at work as the three musicians alternately contest and duel, combine and coalesce to bring their talents together.

Tim Carroll, Folkwords.com

The narrative power of McDonald’s vocals joins the darker riffs of McKasson’s fiddle [and McLane’s soulful accordion] for an album with pluck, depth, and good reels aplenty.

Lynne Wilkerson, folkradio.co.uk

McKassonAndMcDonald.com
Video

David Jacobs Strain and Bob Beach – Saturday, October 26 at 8:00 pm

David Jacobs-Strain is a fierce slide guitar player and a song poet from Oregon.  He’s known for both his virtuosity and spirit of emotional abandon; his live show moves from humorous, subversive blues, to delicate balladry, and then swings back to swampy rock and roll.  It’s a range that ties Jacobs-Strain to his own generation and to guitar-slinger troubadours like Robert Johnson and Jackson Browne.  “I try to make art that you can dance to, but I love that darker place, where in my mind,  Skip James, Nick Drake, and maybe Elliot Smith blur together.”

Jacobs-Strain began playing on street corners and at farmer’s markets as a teenager and bought his first steel guitar with the quarters he saved up.  Before he dropped out of Stanford to play full time, he had already appeared at festivals across the country, often billed as a blues prodigy, but he had to fight to avoid being a novelty act:  “I wanted to tell new stories, it just wasn’t enough to relive the feelings in other people’s music.”

Bob Beach’s career has spanned more than 45 years. With his roots in blues, rock and folk, his innate feel for the music transcends genre, and can be integrated into everything from hip hop to bluegrass to kids’ cabaret and more. “Bob Beach, you snuck into the tunes with us with the grace and sensitivity of an old school sax man, making everything better while calling attention to the music not yourself” Scott Ainslie, blues musician & educator.

David and Bob have been performing together since 2010. They currently perform between 70 and 100 shows a year on both east and west coasts. Their live show moves from humorous, subversive blues, to delicate balladry, and then swings back to swampy rock and roll.

David Jacobs-Strain and Bob Beach blew me away last summer at Swannanoa. As we say at home, they “knocked my hat in the creek.” I can’t envision the audience that could fail to take to them from the first chord and to the last. Hear them yourself as soon as you can .

Tom Paxton

DavidJacobs-Strain.com
Videos

Jimmy Grant Ensemble –
Saturday September 14 at 8:00 pm

The Jimmy Grant Ensemble performs primarily in the style of Django Reinhardt, infusing swing era pieces, original work, and traditional gypsy tunes with the jazz guitar pioneer’s crunchy rhythms and hot harmonies. Jimmy Grant was recently a finalist in the John Lennon songwriting competition for his original song “Insomnia,” and also had an interview with Guitar World for his “5 in 5″ project, in which he wrote five different songs in five days. His style synthesizes a rich blend of Russian folk, bluegrass, celtic and classical music while remaining true to Django’s innovative guitar technique. The Jimmy Grant Ensemble will bring together two guitars, bass, and violin in an intimate yet energy-charged performance.

“…He is a player to watch and listen to if you want to know where gypsy jazz is headed….”

Nick Lehr (Diangofest Northwest)

www.JimmyGrant.net
Music

Greg Blake Band – Saturday June 29, 2019 at 8:00pm

You’ll hear it in his voice immediately … the original strain of Appalachian mountain music that lies at the heart of all great modern bluegrass and country. Greg Blake grew up in the mountains of southwest West Virginia, and when he sings, you can hear a voice that connects to the great old generations of mountain singers, invested with a rich twang and rumbling drawl, and the kind of eerily powerful high tenor cry that first inspired the ‘high, lonesome sound.’

These days he’s traded the low, rolling mountains of his West Virginia homeland for the sky-scraping peaks of Colorado, and he’s moved his lifelong calling as a minister to the full-time bluegrass music scene, but he still keeps his faith close and his family closer. On songs like “Dreaming of a Little Cabin” or “Turn Your Heart Toward Home”, you can hear the gentle guidance of a pastor and a devout family man reflecting on the good path. While bluegrass gospel may be one of Greg Blake’s signature talents, he’s certainly not averse to a little rough-and-tumble country singing, and his new album features a blazing bluegrass version of Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter” that shows off Blake’s razor-sharp and lightning-fast guitar picking abilities. Drawing from a wide variety of song sources, from Cash to 80s country (Joe Diffie), to Canadian folk (Ian Tyson), to the original source himself, Big Mon, Greg Blake has a far ranging set of influences but a powerful Appalachian base to his music that resets these vocal gems in new ways.

Now after touring North America and raising a family, he’s poised to come into his own as one of the true Appalachian stars of modern bluegrass. This debut solo album, Songs of Heart and Home, measures Greg Blake spreading his wings as a vocalist and bandleader, crafting genre crossing music and following in the footsteps of his idol, Mac Wiseman, to make music that appeals to Bluegrass, Folk, Country, and Gospel fans alike.

“[Songs of Heart & Home] is a well conceived, nicely executed release with top-flight songs and excellent vocals and instrumental work. Highly recommended.” – Bluegrass Unlimited, March ’16

www.GregBlakeMusic.com
Music

Chris Jacome Flamenco – Saturday May 11, 2019 at 8:00pm

Chris B. Jácome is the artistic director and creator, Jácome Flamenco, Chris writes the music and lyrics for all of the touring company’s productions and has toured extensively throughout the US and beyond.

In November of 2015, Chris’ first feature film score “Just the Vampire Hunter” was released and is receiving RAVE REVIEWS!

Chris’ music has received critical acclaim from the beginning of his career. From Chris’ debut CD, Motivación, the title track “Motivación” finished in the Top 10 in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest World Music Category. Since his first CD’s debut Chris has written and recorded three other original flamenco albums: Pa’lante, Flamenco and LEVANTO. LEVANTO features the music, lyrics and even the footwork from the flamenco spectacular by flamenco dance company, CALO FLAMENCO. TWO of Chris’ original songs from LEVANTO, “Ritmo-Canix” and “Sin Ti” won the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest!

“LEVANTO is fabulous flamenco that can stand alongside any created in Spain or by those inspired beyond its borders.” — World Music Central.

www.ChrisBurtonJacome.com
Music