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Terry Robb

Terry Robb is hailed as one of the finest acoustic guitarists on the international scene and a virtuoso of acoustic blues guitar. His signature fingerpicking style landed him in the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and earned him international acclaim from worldwide audiences, esteemed music critics and his distinguished peers. In his latest album Confessin My Dues, Robb draws on his deep knowledge of Delta blues, ragtime and swing in 13 original compositions ranging from blistering instrumental blues and stunning ragtime fingerpicking to soulful singing backed by a powerhouse rhythm section. From country blues to Coltrane, ragtime to Hendrix, Americana to American Primitivism, Confessin’ My Dues will captivate listeners with its melodic and rhythmic invention and musical virtuosity. “Confessin’ My Dues is yet another example of Terry Robb doing what he does best – leaving us with a sense of awe and joy with every note he plays. It’s a winning formula that continues to lead the pack.” – Cascade Blues Association

WEBSITE: http://www.terryrobb.com/

WIKIPEDIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Robb

HIGH-RES PHOTOS: http://bit.ly/TerryRobbPromoPhotos

 

VIDEOS:

“Cool On The Bloom” exclusive for Vintage Guitar Magazine (instrumental acoustic guitar): http://bit.ly/TerryRobbVintageGuitarVideo

Brightside Blue

“Beautiful music, beautiful souls. These are the priceless experiences that hold true worth in this journey.”

BrightSide Blue is a duo from Nevada City that combines heart and soul filled vocals with virtuosic guitar-work to create brilliantly colored, original musical portraits. Songs that combine diverse elements of folk, jazz, blues, and world music are delivered with the couple’s unique brand of energy and sensitivity, leaving audiences smiling and spellbound.

Visit them on the web here: https://www.brightsideblue.com/press.

Jason McCue

Soon after arriving in Seattle, Jason McCue was ready to quit performing music for good.

After exploring Philadelphia’s voluminous DIY scene while studying for a year at Drexel University, the alt-folk songwriter moved across the country and enrolled at Seattle University. Armed with a guitar and a batch of quirky acoustic numbers, a not-so-confident McCue tepidly set out to break into Seattle’s house-show circuit. It didn’t go so well.

The young transplant, who grew up in a small Pennsylvania town, landed spots on two “huge” house shows in front of about 90 people. While larger more up-tempo bands got the ready-to-party crowd moving, they were largely indifferent to his spindly solo folk songs.

“I went into it thinking, ‘Yeah cool, so many people will see me!’ ” recalls the 21-year-old, bellied up at a Cherry Street Coffee House near campus. “But it was really 10 people who were watching me and then 80 people who were partying.”

However, since those rocky first Seattle gigs, McCue has been on a creative tear, releasing four albums in the past two years, including his new “PANGAEA” LP due Friday, March 9, via Portland’s Fluff & Gravy Records. He plays a release show Friday in Washington Hall’s Lodge Room, a venue chosen in part because he’s still getting comfortable playing Seattle’s more raucous bar scene.

The more friends the self-described introvert made, the more he explored his new city, and with subsequent shows found pockets of the Seattle scene more his speed. Eventually, McCue hooked up with a loose collective of creative Seattle University students called Friends and Friends of Friends, which threw house shows and other “artsy events where people could be themselves.”

Visit him on the web here: https://www.facebook.com/jasonmccuemusic/.

Carlo Aonzo Trio

Carlo Aonzo is a worldwide known Italian mandolin performer. His recordings reflect his interests and skills relating to all different aspects of the mandolin repertoire: from the Paganini’s original works for mandolin (“Integrale per Amandorlino e Chitarra Francese”), to the Italian strings virtuosos of the turn of the century (“Serenata” with Beppe Gambetta and “Traversata” with the American Mandolin guru David Grisman).

A native of Savona, Italy, he grew up immersed in music, since his home itself hosted the music school of the “Circolo Mandolinistico G. Verdi”. Graduating with honors from the conservatory in Padua (1993), he has played for several prestigious institutions like the Philharmonic Orchestra of La Scala in Milan (Italy), the Nashville Chamber Orchestra (USA), the McGill Chamber Orchestra in Montreal (Canada), the Philharmonia of San Petersburg (Russia), the Minsk Chamber Soloist (Belarus), Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (Germany).

Among his several awards are the first prize at the Concorso Internazionale “Pitzianti” in Venice (1993) including the “Vivaldi” special mention, and first prize at the Walnut Valley National Mandolin Contest in Winfield Kansas (1997).

Carlo’s deep interest in outreach activities focused on his instrument is witnessed by his countless collaborations with mandolin orchestras around the world, namely New York, Seattle, Portland, Providence, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Denver, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Montreal, Milan, Genoa, Lugano, Kochi, Nagoya, Osaka, Sendai, Wuppertal, Berlin, London, San Petersburg.

He is often invited as musical director and visiting faculty by the most important international mandolin institutions namely CMSA (Classical Mandolin Society of America), FAME (Federation of Australasian Mandolin Ensemble), EGMA (European Guitar and Mandolin Association) and called to judge in international music contests: Saigon Guitar Festival (Vietnam), Osaka Mandolin Competition (Japan), Yasuo-Kuwahara Competition Schweinfurt (Germany), Concorso Internazionale per Mandolino Solo in Modena (Italy).

He teaches seminars and workshops worldwide; since 2000 he has been leading the annual Manhattan Mandolin Workshop in New York (since 2017 in Milwaukee) and in 2006 he founded the International Italian Mandolin Accademia that he is still successfully directing and constantly expanding with new activities and camps (www.accademiamandolino.com).

In 2001 with his “Orchestra a Pizzico Ligure” he performed in Vatican city for the Pope Johannes Paul II. He later formed the plucked string instrument International Accademia’s Orchestra with which he toured USA for the releasing of the album “Mandolin Images” in 2011.

In duo with classical guitar, Carlo produced the albums “Paganini” (René Izquierdo) and “Kaze” (Katsumi Nagaoka).

In 2016 with the Carlo Aonzo Trio he released the album “A Mandolin Journey” on the international mandolin repertoire. With the baroque Ensemble “Il Falcone”, he recorded the complete Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons concertos for the first time ever performed on the mandolin.

For Mel Bay he has published the concert video “Carlo Aonzo: Classical Mandolin Virtuoso” and the book & cd collection “Northern Italian & Ticino Region Folk Songs for Mandolin”; while for Hal Leonard he has released the “Bach Two-Parts Inventions” and the “Classical Mandolin Solos”.

As a researcher, he has been working on the history of his instrument and collaborated with the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Furthermore he has given presentations on the iconography of the mandolin, in renowned institutions, including Dartmouth College, St. John’s University in New York, Boston University, New England Conservatory, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, Vanderbilt College of Nashville, Vancouver Italian Cultural Centre, Berio Library in Genoa and National Instrument Museum in Rome.

He often appears in national Radio and TV programs and in December 2018 he performed at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Christy Hays

“Like Lucinda Williams in a Carhartt jacket, Christy Hays works rugged metaphors into emotionally charged country folk.” (Austin Chronicle). Christy Hays’ music has folk and country tinges, thoughtfully penned stories and a full band sound that is both driving alt country and moody folk rock. Christy Hays has released two full length albums and two EP’s since 2009.

Christy Hays’ two recent EPs, O’ Montana and Caliche, reflect both the singer/songwriter’s complicated, dual nature and the sounds of the many places she’s called home. O’ Montana is a gorgeous folk and country-flavored solo collection and a natural progression from Hays’ 2012 album Drought. Caliche, on the other hand, is a band effort that indulges Hays’ occasional desire to plug-in and rock out. The result is an Americana rock and roll record with an occasional psychedelic flourish. Hays’ band, also called Caliche, came together after she met and formed a years-long partnership with the talented Lauren Gurgiolo of the Octopus Project (and a former guitarist with Okkervil River). Bassist Geena Spigarelli and drummer Andrew Gerfers bolster Caliche’s sound. Despite the difference in approach and musical styles, both EPs capture Hays’ distinctive artistic voice. Her songs resonate with a vulnerable rawness that exposes her emotional baggage and scar tissue, but never veer into self-pity. There is a sense of underlying optimism in her music and resiliency in her voice. Hays’ greatest source of inspiration is nature and wide-open spaces, themes often developed in her songs.

The nomadic Hays, who arrived in Austin after an extended stint in Nashville, often tours her former stomping grounds of Alaska, where she lived for nearly five years doing a variety of odd jobs, including a couple summers working as a river guide and living in a cabin with no electricity or running water. A native of the small central Illinois town of Tuscola, Hays can also escape the faster pace of Austin and find a quiet space to write in Butte, Montana. She recently purchased a house that wasn’t actually for sale when she stumbled across it and bonded with its owner, a nationally-acclaimed writer. He negotiated a generous deal with Hays when she shared her vision of the house as an artists’ retreat. Hays has graced stages throughout the U.S. and toured internationally. She’s been an official performer at SXSW, and she’s worked with the likes of Bruce Robison and Hayes Carll.

Hays has also collaborated with some of the top talent in Austin, including The Carper Family, Jonathan Terrell, Ali Holder, Brennen Leigh, and members of Wood and Wire. Hays grew up listening to ‘60s and ‘70s rock and country and ‘90s alternative, before being turned onto singer-songwriters like Patty Griffin, Kasey Chambers, and Kathleen Edwards. But from the beginning, she was inspired by her musician father Steve Hays, whose first guitar (“a lovely, vintage Gibson”) she still plays today. Fans of artists like Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Joe Pug, the Old 97’s and Neil Young will find much to love in the music of Christy Hays. (The above written courtesy of Travis Truitt for ChristyHays.com.)

The talented singer/songwriter has quickly made Southwest Montana her home away from home, performing at countless venues in her relatively short tenure under the Big Sky. In anticipation of a handful of more upcoming local shows, The Rolling Zone was able to get Christy on the phone during her trek north from her Texas base. Despite a quick loss of cell service, the itinerant musician shared some stories of life always on the road and how fully committing herself to the craft has shaped her future.

Visit her on the web at ChristyHays.com.

A Night with John Floridis and Tom Catmull

Over two and a half decades ago, two musicians from very different parts of the country arrived in Missoula, Montana around the same general time. Tom Catmull, a transplanted Texan from Klein and John Floridis, rolling in off of interstate 90 via a long drive from Cleveland, Ohio. Two guitarist, singer songwriters with very different musical backgrounds yet connected by a passion for “the song.”

Over those same two and a half decades, both musicians have consistently traveled similar paths in Montana with plenty of variety between their journeys to keep things fresh. Tom with several hugely popular bands including The Clerics, Radio Static and Last Resort and John with The Big Ensemble, his award winning John Floridis Trio and many other musical collaborations.

Both were consistently among the top vote getters in the Missoula Independent “Best Musician” poll with Floridis winning the poll in the late 90’s and Catmull taking home top honors several times in a row in the most recent years. Both have been featured on Montana PBS’s 11th and Grant, Live From The Divide on Bozeman’s KGLT, and Tom has been a frequent guest on Montana Public Radio’s Musician’s Spotlight, a program that John hosts.

Over those same two and a half decades both Tom and John have appeared with each other on shared bills many times as solo artists including the yearly Montana Songwriter Showcase events with fellow songwriters Jenn Adams, Susan Gibson, Amy Martin, Zoe Wood, Ashly Holland and Russ Nasset. John even got in some lead guitar duties for the Clerics at one point, and Tom sat in with an early incarnation of Floridis’ Trio. Their respective groups have shared bills over the years as well.

Festivals, concert halls, brewery tap rooms, house concerts, bars, coffee houses, pubs…. Rarely could you find a venue one had played that the other hadn’t played as well, and not too infrequently played together. But with all of that history, they had never played a listening room, just the two of them, in their hometown.

On Sunday, March 24th at 7:00 p.m. MDT these two well known Missoula musicians will present an intimate evening of shared songs for the first time ever in the town that has been the venue for most of their respective musical journeys. Songs they have written for the more than a dozen recordings between them, new songs and maybe some surprises as well. $20 Suggested Donation.

Two similar paths for two Missoula music veterans converge for a first time in a warm, intimate setting in the heart of their adopted city’s backyard.

Wood Belly

Bluegrass has become a mainstay in Colorado. The music of the mountains speaks to us and we can feel it in our souls. When a band like Wood Belly comes along to channel it, the sky is the limit. Led by a pair of prolific songwriters, their songs are carefully and collectively crafted to ring out with honesty and passion.

Woodbelly is composed of Chris Weist, Craig Patterson, Chris Zink, Aaron McCloskey, and Taylor Shuck.

Wood Belly blends traditional bluegrass with modern songwriting and whether you’re spinning your partner around or hanging on every word, the result is the same. You’re left smiling and wanting more. 2018 has been an exciting year as the group released their debut album, “Solid Ground” and won the prestigious Telluride Bluegrass Festival band competition.

Wood Belly was born when Chris Weist (Mandolin) met Craig Patterson (Guitar) and Chris Zink (Dobro) at the Rockygrass Festival in 2015. Within a year, they had teamed up with Aaron McCloskey (Banjo) and Taylor Shuck (Bass) and the music immediately fell into place. Since then the band has played at an ever-expanding list of great venues including the Mishawaka amphitheater, the Fox Theater (Boulder), and Cervantes (Denver). Their festival resume includes the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Rapidgrass, the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown, the Keystone Bluegrass and Beer Festival, The Wyoming State Bluegrass and BBQ festival, Snowygrass, Grapes and Grass, and more.

Claud Burbon


Medieval & Spanish blues
Guitar & Songs

Ready for a unique and talented take on a wide range of musical traditions? Claude Bourbon is known throughout Europe and America for amazing guitar performances that take blues, Spanish, and Middle Eastern stylings into uncharted territories.

Claude’s inimitable style incorporates all five digits on each hand dancing independently but in unison, plucking, picking and strumming at such speed and precision that his fingers often seem to melt into a blur. Thousands of people in the UK, Europe and USA have enjoyed listening to this virtuoso and for the majority of his audience it is an experience that compels them to return again and again to hear and watch him play, as his fingers lightly dance over the strings of his guitar and create a unique sound that is ’Claude’.

It is very hard to describe the almost endless amalgam of different influences in Claude’s playing, all melting into each other, as he moves from classical openings, across a whole continent of cultural roots, from the Balearic’s to the Balkans, and then across to the Mississippi Delta, and shoehorned into all that is music that would not have been out of place in the courts of Emperors and Kings.

Claude Bourbon weaved his songs through the audience as if on a journey through life taking in different flavours of Europe and beyond. His Spanish medieval blues evolved into Gypsy, Eastern European, with a splash of Paco de Lucia, Delta Blues and more. Holding audience attention under a musical spell.
It’s not easy to begin to describe the breadth or mastery of the music you will hear if you are fortunate to catch one of Claude’s gigs, it is a sort of sensory experience like no other. A top master of his craft and never appearing to be rushed, he has impeccable timing and makes things that one can only marvel at seem simple.

Now based in the UK, some of this guitarists’ influences allow us a fascinating insight into this remarkable musician; Paco De Lucia: Deep Purple’s Richie Blackmore; Joaquin Rodrigo; JJ Cale; JS Bach….

Claude has played countless venues, including Glastonbury Festival, Isle of Wight Festival, Colne Great British & Blues Festival, Rock O’Z Arene, Avenches, Switzerland, among others. He has shared the stage in Europe and the USA with countless musicians, Calvin Russel, Charlie Morgan (Elton John, Gary Moore), Jan Akkerman (Focus), Steve Grossman (Miles Davis), Herbie Armstrong ( Van Morisson), Jose barrense Dias and many more.

Experience an evening of exploration in the unique ambiance of the Thumb!

“ Claude Bourbon is a unique figure today… his playing is almost indescribable“ – The Hook, Charlottesville, USA

“Never heard anyone get that much beautiful sound out of a J-45”, Bob, Tucson, AZ

“A breathtaking acoustic fusion of blues, jazz, folk, classical and Spanish guitar from a stunning guitar virtuoso…”Altadena News, USA”

“…This accomplished artist offers tender, compelling performance through highly developed precision. His sound instantly creates ambience – from haunting Spanish moods to lyrical, romantic jazz, Claude Bourbon provides both a rich evening of music for lovers, and a real treat for music lovers…”, BBC, UK

“…His fingerpicking is exquisite and if I closed my eyes I could clearly hear two guitars playing. Just when I recongnised a theme he moved on with a mesmerising cascade of notes which kept on flowing. He added a driving bass, for a version of “She knows how to stretch it”. By the time he sang the first verse he had ‘stretched it’ from Spain to the Caucuses, and from the concert hall to the bar room. His forte is obviously his wonderful guitar work, but he does occasionally burst into song and what you then get is something between Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, combined with a French accent! C’est magnifique.” Dave Baily

Claude’s official website : www.claudebourbon.org

Growling Old Men, John Lowell and Ben Winship with Sundog

The Growling Old Men don’t consider themselves old, nor do they growl very much. What they do is play acoustic music on mandolin, guitar, octave mandolin and vocals. Playing an eclectic mix of music including bluegrass, Americana, folk, swing, and original songs, these guys have made fans of their music everywhere they go.

Bluegrass  — Folk — Americana


The sundogs are a Missoula duo featuring Laurie Banks on fiddle and bass, and Fred Lerch on acoustic guitar…you’ll hear a mix of Americana and folk-grass….originals mixed with covers of artists such as Mandolin Orange, Sarah Jarosz, Stringdusters, John Hiatt, and even Missoula’s own Little Smokies.