30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL ARTISTS TO JANUARY 18-21, 2019 LINEUP
JASON ISBELL, BRANDI CARLILE, ROSANNE CASH, FELIX CAVALIERE’S RASCALS AND LUCINDA WILLIAMS ARE SET TO HEADLINE THE 10TH ANNUAL 30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL ON FLORIDA’S SCENIC HIGHWAY 30A
OTHER CONFIRMED ARTISTS INCLUDE PATTY GRIFFIN, STEVE EARLE, LIVINGSTON TAYLOR, GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV, SUZY BOGGUSS, MARC BROUSSARD, AMANDA SHIRES, SHAWN MULLINS, JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE, JOHN FULLBRIGHT, THE SECRET SISTERS, THE WAR AND TREATY, AARON LEE TASJAN, ROBYN HITCHCOCK, RADNEY FOSTER and many more
EVENT TO FEATURE 175 SONGWRITERS AND OVER 225 PERFORMANCES AT MORE THAN 25 VENUES IN SOUTH WALTON COUNTY
The 10th annual 30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL – set for January 18-21, 2019 – has announced the initial HEADLINERS for the 2019 celebration of singers and songs. The festival, held in venues along scenic Highway 30A in Florida’s South Walton County, will feature main stage performances in presenting partner Grand Boulevard’s Town Center by esteemed artists including JASON ISBELL, BRANDI CARLILE, FELIX CAVALIERE’S RASCALS with his full band and horn section, ROSANNE CASH and LUCINDA WILLIAMS.
Performing throughout the weekend are renowned songwriters including PATTY GRIFFIN, STEVE EARLE, LIVINGSTON TAYLOR,GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV, SUZY BOGGUSS, JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE, AMANDA SHIRES, SHAWN MULLINS, JOHN FULLBRIGHT, MARC BROUSSARD, MATRACA BERG, THE SECRET SISTERS, THE WAR AND TREATY, AARON LEE TASJAN, ROBYN HITCHCOCK, JEFFREY STEELE, CHELY WRIGHT, and RADNEY FOSTER.
The 30A Songwriters Festival production team transforms amphitheaters, town halls, restaurants, theaters, bars and covered patios into unique music venues ranging in capacity from 75 to 500 seats indoors and 5,000 outdoors.
Additional confirmed performers include: STEVE POLTZ, BOB SCHNEIDER, AMYTHYST KIAH, DAVID RYAN HARRIS, KIM RICHEY, HAYES CARLL, LIZ LONGLEY, DRIVIN N CRYIN, EMERSON HART (TONIC), CHRIS STAMEY AND PETER HOLSAPPLE (THE DB’S), JOHN DRISKELL HOPKINS (ZAC BROWN BAND), GRETCHEN PETERS, THE SWIMMING POOL Q’S, BIRDS OF CHICAGO, GRIFFIN HOUSE, CHARLIE MARS, WILLIE SUGARCAPPS, LAUREN MORROW OF THE WHISKEY GENTRY, THE MULLIGAN BROTHERS, AMY LAVERE AND WILL SEXTON, ROBBY HECHT, TOMMY WOMACK, FAREWELL ANGELINA and many more. Additional artists will be added to the website and announced over the next few weeks as the lineup is completed.
Rosanne Cash: Rosanne Cash is on tour in support of her newest album She Remembers Everything, a poetic, lush and soulful collection of songs that reckon with a flawed and fragile world. She Remembers Everything follows Rosanne’s triple-Grammy winning 2014 album The River & the Thread and marks a return to more personal songwriting after a trio of albums that explored her southern roots and family heritage. In the wake of the latest tsunami of survivor stories, Cash has embraced women’s narratives in this powerful material. “There is a woman’s real life, complex experiences and layered understanding in these songs,” Rosanne says. “I could not have written them 10 years ago—not even close. Time is shorter, I have more to say.” She Remembers Everything was produced by collaborator John Leventhal, (who will perform with her at the 30A Songwriters Festival on Saturday at Grand Boulevard) and Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket, Mavis Staples, Neko Case).
One of the country’s pre-eminent singer/ songwriters, Cash has released 15 albums of extraordinary songs that have earned four Grammy Awards and 11 nominations, as well as 21 top 40 hits, including 11 No. 1 singles (including “Seven Year Ache,” “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me,” “Blue Moon With Heartache,” and “The Way We Make A Broken Heart”). Cash was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2015 and was awarded with the Spirit of Americana: Free Speech Award in 2018 and received an honorary doctorate degree from the Berklee College of Music. Cash is currently writing the lyrics for a musical adaptation of the film “Norma Rae” with John Leventhal.
Lucinda-Williams
Lucinda Williams: Three-time Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams has been carving her own path for more than three decades now. Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Williams had been imbued with a “culturally rich, economically poor” worldview. Several years of playing the hardscrabble clubs gave her a solid enough footing to record a self-titled album that would become a touchstone for the embryonic Americana movement – helping launch a thousand musical ships along the way. When it was reissued in 2014, Jim Farber of the New York Daily News wrote: “Listening again proves it to be that rarest of beasts: a perfect work. There’s not a chord, lyric, beat or inflection that doesn’t pull at the heart or make it soar.”
Williams won a Grammy Award for Mary Chapin Carpenter’s version of “Passionate Kisses.” Her albums are invariably hailed for their indelible impressionism — like 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which notched her first Grammy as a performer. All Music Guide describes Williams’ 2007 album West as “flawless…destined to become a classic.” The Los Angeles Times dubbed Blessed (2011) “a dynamic, human album, one that’s easy to fall in love with.” Those albums retained much of Williams’ trademark melancholy and southern Gothic starkness, but also exuded more rays of light and hope. This all lead to the release of back to back critically acclaimed double albums both co-produced by Greg Leisz – Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone in 2014 and The Ghosts of Highway 20 in 2016. In June of last year, Rolling Stone named Lucinda one of the top 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time. A beautiful remake of Sweet Old World was released later in the year.
Justin Townes Earle: Since launching his recording career a decade ago, Justin Townes Earle has established a reputation as a singular leading light in the Americana music community. With fearless, personally charged lyrical insight and infectious melodic craftsmanship, the young veteran singer-songwriter has built a rich, personally charged body of work. Earle’s fierce fidelity to his creative muse has been a consistent thread throughout his young life. Born in Nashville in 1982, he grew up as the son of country-rock iconoclast Steve Earle, who gave him his middle name in honor of the great Texas songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Justin quickly came into his own as a songwriter and performer, displaying a natural talent for deeply revealing lyrics that reflected his often-harsh life experiences, and a musical approach that effortlessly integrated elements of blues, folk and country. His 2007 debut EP Yuma set the stage for a steady stream of acclaimed albums: The Good Life (2008), Midnight at the Movies (2009), Harlem River Blues (2010), Nothing’s Going to Change the Way You Feel About Me Now (2012), Single Mothers (2014) and Absent Fathers (2015). In the process, he built a large and devoted fan base that continues to support his work. Justin is currently touring in support of his latest release Kids In The Street.
Marc Broussard: Marc Broussard is an artist with a unique gift of channeling the spirits of classic R&B, rock and soul into contemporary terms. This gift has been a matter of common knowledge since 2002, when Broussard released his debut album, Momentary Setback, which he recorded and released independently at age 20. It was no secret before then, going back to those lucky witnesses who heard him belt “Johnny B. Goode” onstage at age 5 while sitting in with his father’s band. Throughout his life, Broussard has been tapped as a talent to watch. Marc’s song “Home” was a radio success and that, together with the classic recording “Rock Steady” (co-written with 30A favorite David Ryan Harris), catapulted him onto the national touring stage. His music has been placed in many TV shows and movies. The timeless, soulful nature of Marc’s vocal lends well to film and TV, and will continue to do so for years to come.
Birds of Chicago: Led by JT Nero and Allison Russell, Birds of Chicago are known for their seamless combination of rock n roll meets “near perfect Americana” (No Depression). Their new album, Love in Wartime, is a rock and roll suite with impressive cinematic sweep. NPR praised, “Nero and Russell play folk-rock with impressionistic flourishes and gospel warmth, lent unexpected extravagance by Russell’s singing…” Co-produced by Nero and 30A Songwriters regular Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars), it evokes epic efforts of the 60’s and 70’s, with love as the undeniable through-line, and finds Nero and Russell continuing to create joyously urgent rock songs with deep lyricism, gut-punch singing and fevered musicality.
The 30A Songwriters Festival is, as always, a benefit for the non profit Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, which supports artists and non profit cultural events and businesses throughout the county. 100% of the net proceeds from the event are paid to the CAA to help fund its annual budget. For the 10th annual event, a portion of these net proceeds will be donated to the Hurricane Michael relief efforts organized on behalf of the many who have suffered devastating losses along the Florida panhandle to the east of 30A.
The 30A Songwriters Festival has once again teamed up with NPR’s Folk Alley on the syndicated Folk Alley Radio Show. The Sessions from the 30A Songwriters Festival are archived as well at folkalley.com. ASCAP returns as a sponsor with its popular showcase series at the Lake House in WaterColor. Featured ASCAP songwriters are Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Members CRAIG WISEMAN and ALLEN SHAMBLIN together with JAREN JOHNSON, JEREMY STOVER, RYAN GRIFFIN, SARAH ALLISON TURNER, CLARE DUNN, THE SISTERHOOD (ALYSSA BONAGURA and RUBY STEWART), DAVE BERG, TONY LANE, COREY CROWDER, and MATT DRAGSTREM.
“This will be our tenth annual 30A Songwriters Festival and we are delighted to welcome back some of our favorite performers from past years, including Jason Isbell, and introduce our audience for the first time to Grammy and Americana award nominee Brandi Carlile,” state Festival producers Russell Carter and Jennifer Steele. “We join with our ticket patrons, sponsors, the board of the Cultural Arts Alliance and RCAM to happily donate a portion of the net profit from the Festival to Hurricane Michael relief efforts in the Florida Panhandle.”
Festival Weekend Passes are currently available for $290. VIP tickets that include premium seating on the lawn at Grand Boulevard for the headline shows on Saturday and Sunday afternoons along with access to the VIP tent serving complementary food, beer, wine and cocktails are available for $700; For a full description of each ticket package, VIP transportation packages for groups of two up to 12, and details for the special night of music and free craft beers at festival sponsor and local based Grayton Beer Company Taproom, visit http://www.freshtix.com/events/2019-30a-songwriters-festival.
Please note Weekend and VIP Weekend passes can be purchased locally at the office of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County at 105 Hogtown Bayou Lane, Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459 (850) 622-5970, as well as Central Square Records at 89 Central Square 2nd Floor, Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459.
For more information on the 2019 30A Songwriters Festival, including live updates on confirmed artists, venues, and ticket purchase information, visit http://www.30asongwritersfestival.com.
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