Suwannee Springfest Additions Include Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Del McCoury & David Grisman, Hot Rize, Jeff Austin, The Duhks, Pgrass

Suwannee Springfest Additions Include Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt,
Del McCoury & David Grisman, Hot Rize, Jeff Austin, The Duhks, Pgrass

Suwannee Springfest March 19-22, 2015
at The Spirit of Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, FL

Suwannee Springfest 2015 Lineup Additions:
Lucinda Williams
John Hiatt
Del McCoury & David Grisman
Hot Rize with Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers
Jeff Austin
The Duhks
Pgrass
Virginia Dare Devils
Whetherman
Flagship Romance
The Applebutter Express
Big Cosmo
Canary in the Coalmine
Acoustic Ensemble

In addition to the already announced line-up of:
The Wood Brothers, Shovels and Rope, Keller Williams and The Travelin’ McCourys, The Infamous Stringdusters, Blind Boys of Alabama, Donna The Buffalo, Larry Keel Experience

www.suwanneespringfest.com

Live Oak, FL — On March 19-22, 2015, the 19th annual Suwannee Springfest kicks off the spring festival season at The Spirit Of Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, FL. A gem of a festival with beautiful early spring weather in a stunning natural setting, Suwannee Springfest is thrilled to announce a few additions to the already stellar lineup. Additions include Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Del McCoury & David Grisman, Hot Rize with Red Knuckles and The Trailblazers, Jeff Austin, The Duhks, Pgrass, Virginia Dare Devils, Whetherman, Flagship Romance, The Applebutter Express, Big Cosmo, Canary in the Coalmine, and Acoustic Ensemble.

Bands that have already been announced to perform are The Wood Brothers, Shovels and Rope, Keller Williams and The Travelin’ McCourys, The Infamous Stringdusters, Blind Boys of Alabama, Donna The Buffalo, Larry Keel Experience, Cabinet, Jim Lauderdale, Verlon Thompson, The Seth Walker Band, Fruition, Town Mountain, Joe Craven, amongst others.

Festivalgoers experience four days of superb music in the midst of a friendly, family-style environment with good times including music from usual festival favorites, as well as lots of talented new faces in Bluegrass & Newgrass, Acoustic Blues, Roots Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Cajun/Zydeco, New & Traditional Folk and other forms of American Roots music.

Along with the camping, there are nearly 12 miles of trails suitable for hiking, biking, horseback riding and nature exploring. For RV hook ups, cabin rentals and golf cart rentals, please call SOSMP at (386)364-1683. SOSMP is located between Jacksonville, Florida & Tallahassee, Florida about 30 minutes south of the Georgia State line, about 45 minutes north of Gainesville and is host to  a variety of events including Wannee, Magnolia Fest, Bear Creek Music and Arts Festival, Hulaween, and Aura Music Festival amongst others. Please visit the park’s web site at www.musicliveshere.com or call them at 386-364-1683 for information.

Get your tickets in advance for Suwannee Springfest and save for $160 until February 28th; $175 from March 1st through March 18th; and $200 at the gate. Individual day tickets are also available. Student / Military Ticket $150 Advance. Tickets are inclusive of all taxes and fees, and include 4 days of primitive camping and music Thursday – Sunday nights. Kids under 12 are invited to join for free. Attendees can also upgrade for a VIP Experience which includes a four-day ticket with primitive camping, dinners Thursday – Saturday evenings, a VIP Laminate, a swag bag with the festival poster, a cap, and other goodies for $300 through February 15th ($350 from 2/16 on and at gates. If you purchase a VIP Ticket you will be entered into a drawing for a pair of upgraded All Access Passes. Please visit SuwanneeSpringfest.com for ticketing and other information.

Suwannee Springfest Final 2015 Lineup
Lucinda Williams
John Hiatt
Del McCoury & David Grisman
The Wood Brothers
Shovels and Rope
Hot Rize with Red Knuckles and The Trailblazers
Keller Williams and The Travelin’ McCourys
The Infamous Stringdusters
Jeff Austin
Blind Boys of Alabama
Donna The Buffalo
Larry Keel Experience
Cabinet
Jim Lauderdale
The Duhks
Verlon Thompson
The Seth Walker Band
Fruition
Town Mountain
Joe Craven
Dread Clampitt
Pgrass
Shinyribs
Jon Stickley Trio
The Shook Twins
Taylor Martin’s Acoustic Band
Ralph Roddenbery Band
Grandpa’s Cough Medicine
Virginia Dare Devils
Whetherman
Flagship Romance
The Applebutter Express
Sloppy Joe
Nikki Talley
Big Cosmo
Canary in the Coalmine
Grits & Soul
Quartermoon
The Josh Daniel/Mark Schimick Project
Steve Pruett’s Back from the Brink
Oak Hay
Short Straw Pickers
Sarah Mac Band
Acoustic Ensemble

Further information can be found at suwanneespringfest.com.
Also visit us at facebook.com/suwanneespringfest, twitter.com/SuwanneeSpring and instagram.com/SuwanneeSpringfest.

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Seth Walker Tours With Upcoming Album, Sky Still Blue, Due Out June 10th Through Royal Potato Family

Seth Walker. Photo by Zack Smith.

  Seth Walker Tours With Upcoming Album: Sky Still Blue
Due Out June 10th Through Royal Potato Family

Revered roots music troubadour Seth Walker recently took up residency in New Orleans. Upon relocating to the Big Easy, the North Carolina-native completed his rounds of the Holy Trinity of southern American music cities. His journey began in Austin where he fast became a staple of the Texas blues scene. He’d later shuffle off to Nashville where he’d absorb the cosmopolitan twang of its storytelling tradition. Clearly, however, it is the influence of his current NOLA home with its funky melting-pot swagger that inspired the gospel-soaked fervor and gritty guitar burn at the core of his latest album, Sky Still Blue, due June out 10, 2014 from The Royal Potato Family.

Abetted by producer Oliver Wood (The Wood Brothers), Walker revels in the devil-on-my-trail grit and longing blue notes that make this latest collection of 11 songs resonate so convincingly. Yet, as Walker’s fans have come to expect, there’s always a sweet melody, a turn of phrase wrapped in a wink-and-a-smile or an undeniable hook close at hand.

“All the moves I’ve made have been so that I can be around new influences centered around music,” Walker says. “I’ve always loved New Orleans, and it definitely brought back a bit of the rough edge that got a little spit-shined on the albums that I did in Nashville. This one’s got some gristle on it, some push and pull, some funky stuff, and some of that Caribbean influence that New Orleans has.”

The seed for Sky Still Blue was planted with five songs co-written with Oliver Wood while Walker was on tour with the Wood Brothers. The rough-hewn lover’s lament “Easy Come, Easy Go;” the intimate, inspirational ballad “Grab Ahold;” the shuffling seize-the-day anthem “Tomorrow;” the organ-soaked blues moan “High Wire;” and the hopeful, intimate closing track “Way Too Far” – in their diversity and directness, these tunes served as a template for the album as a whole, fleshed out by the pair’s continued collaboration in the studio.

“Oliver and I both come from a similar place stylistically, which obviously helps when you’re trying to communicate,” Walker says. “I love the fact that his songwriting is not so calculated, and it really worked with where I wanted to go. As a producer he was the perfect combination of having his ears and his heart on the songs while letting things go organically. He didn’t produce with an iron fist; he was just one of us.”

Sky Still Blue was recorded at Southern Ground Studios, the Wood Brothers’ home base in Nashville, and fellow Brothers Chris Wood (also of Medeski Martin & Wood) and Jano Rix made crucial contributions, joining Walker’s longtime band-mates, bassist Steve Mackey and drummer Derrek Phillips. “It was essentially the six of us musically roping this thing,” Walker says. “We all worked real well together, and the next thing you knew, we had a record.”

While that camaraderie is evident in the songs’ taut grooves and relaxed atmosphere, Walker’s dexterous guitar work seizes the attention with its soulful lines and serrated edge. His commanding fretwork captures the album’s mood of forlorn optimism, encapsulated in its deceptively upbeat title. Sky Still Blue is drawn from the melancholy lyrics of “High Wire”: “If it pours down on you and the sky is still blue / It might be me crying from my high wire.” As Walker admits, “It is optimistic phrase – but it’s kind of a lonesome image.”

Walker didn’t have much opportunity to be lonesome as a child growing up on a two-family commune in rural North Carolina. His parents were both classical musicians, and his first axe was the cello, not the guitar. The tastes of the commune’s other residents ran more to Texas country music, so his youth was filled with the sounds of Mozart and Beethoven coexisting with Jerry Jeff Walker and Willie Nelson.

Walker discovered the guitar in college and never looked back. “I was just eaten up with it, man,” he says, his enthusiasm still evident. “I was just crazy for it. I immediately gravitated to the blues, but as I played I started to lean towards the uptown side, the jazzier side, and I think that probably has something to do with my classical training.”

His uncle Landon Walker was a jazz bassist and blues DJ on Jacksonville, Florida radio station WJCT, and would mail tapes to his nephew on a regular basis. “It covered the whole gamut of blues,” Walker recalls, “from the Piedmont stuff – Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Willie McTell and Blind Blake – to the Chicago stuff – Muddy Waters and Robert Nighthawk – and a lot of Texas stuff – Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins. But the guys in my dorm room were listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, so that blues-rock sound definitely got my attention. It seemed a lot more interesting than going to school, so there went my education.”

Walker set out for Jacksonville with dreams of stardom (“I ended up playing in a Grateful Dead cover band,” he says ruefully), but before long realized that he needed to relocate to a more music-rich hub. He landed in Austin in 1995 and has remained in legendarily musical metropolises ever since.

The albums he’s made since then have consistently vaulted him into the Top 20 of the Americana charts and gleaned praise from NPR, American Songwriter, No Depression and Blues Revue, among others. He’s toured the world as a headliner as well as opening for The Mavericks, The Wood Brothers, Raul Malo, Paul Thorn and Ruthie Foster, among others. It’s all of these experiences and more that leave their well-traveled traces throughout these 11 songs at hand. Steeped in a rich musical heritage, Sky Still Blue is a masterful work conveyed by means of Walker’s expressive, soul-burnished voice, agile guitar artistry and impeccable southern songwriting, all of which have garnered him a reputation as one of the most acclaimed modern roots artists in the country over the last decade.

Seth Walker on Tour
5/04 Sun – New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jack’s *w/ Eric Lindell
5/09 Fri – Midland, TX – Basin Burger House
5/10 Sat – La Grange, TX – The Bugle Boy
5/14 Wed – Kansas City, MO – Knucklehead’s *w/ Bobby Bare Jr.
5/15 Thu – Tulsa, OK – Tulsa Mayfest *w/ Paul Thorn
5/16 Fri – Dallas, TX – The Kessler *w/ Joan Osborne
5/17 Sat – Austin, TX – Strange Brew *record release show
5/27 Tue – Des Moines, IA – Flying Mango
5/28 Wed – Evanston, IL – Space
5/30 Fri – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
5/31 Sat – Columbus, OH – Natalie’s
6/01 Sun – Indianapolis, IN – The Jazz Kitchen
6/12 Thu – San Antonio, TX – Sam’s Burger Joint
6/13 Fri – The Woodlands, TX – Dosey Doe
6/14 Sat – Fredericksburg, TX – Luckenbach Texas Concert Series
6/21 Sat- Tallahassee, FL – Bradfordville Blues Club
6/ 24 Tue – Charlotte, NC – Evening Muse
6/25 Wed – Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle
6/26 Thu – Greensboro, NC – Blind Tiger
6/27 Fri – Chattanooga, TN – Nightfall Concert Series
6/28 Sat – Decatur, GA – Eddie’s Attic
6/29 Sun – Montgomery, AL – Capitol Oyster Bar

For more information and to stay up-to-date on news from Seth Walker, please visit www.sethwalker.com.

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