Three-time Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams headlines the 63rd Annual Jimmie Rodgers Music Festival May 7.  

Submitted photo

 

Three-time Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams headlines the 63rd Annual Jimmie Rodgers Music Festival May 7.   

 

 

From staff reports

 

An eclectic array of music artists highlight the 63rd Annual Jimmie Rodgers Music Festival, which rolls into Meridian May 6 and 7.   

Tapped to headline the festival is three-time Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams, who is touring in support of her new album “The Ghosts of Highway 20,” which features some of the most expansive and experimental arrangements she has ever recorded, according to her website.

“Williams’ live performances are filled with passion and intimacy as she connects

with her audiences on a very personal level allowing insight into the soul of her

artistry,” the website states.

Also scheduled to perform are Billy Joe Shaver, Blackberry Smoke, The Lone Bellow, Elizabeth Cook, Keller Williams, The Bros. Landreth, James McMurtry, Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, the Cedric Burnside Project and the 2016 Jimmie Rodgers Talent Competition Winners.

The festival, which attracts regional and international visitors, celebrates the influence Jimmie Rodgers had on all types of music genres.

According to a press release, last year’s festival brought exciting changes, such as a new festival location, an amazing talent lineup, and a partnership with Jackson-based music promoter ardenland.  This year brings even more changes with a new logo, a new website (www.jimmierodgers.com), captivating talent, a musical play and a renewed focus on The Jimmie Rodgers Talent Competition to attract more diverse participation, the release states.

“We’re doing the talent show differently than we have in the past,” said Arden Barnett, the festival’s promoter. “Any person in the country, or the the world, can join the contest. It’s not just limited to local and regional people.”

Barnett said artists may can sign up at the website and upload a video, with the winners being asked to play at the festival.

The first Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Festival was held in Meridian on May 26, 1953. Organized by Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow, along with the support of Rodgers’ family and local citizens, it was as a day to honor the memory of Jimmie Rodgers on the 20th anniversary of his death.

Tickets are on sale at www.jimmierodgers.com, by phone at 877-987-6487, and at Citizens National Bank’s Meridian office or Meridian Underground Music. For more information, visit the official website at www.jimmierodgers.com or www.facebook.com/Jimmie-Rodgers-Festival-and-Museum.

 

Jimmie Rodgers Music

Festival 2016

Billy Joe Shaver is a Texas country music singer and songwriter. Shaver’s 1973 album “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” is a classic in the outlaw country genre. According to his website, “Shaver is truly one of the most respected living figures in American music.” Bob Dylan, who rarely covers other writers, has often played Shaver songs in concert, and Johnny Cash called him “my favorite songwriter.”

Blackberry Smoke, from Atlanta, is described as an American Southern rock/country rock band. The lineup consists of Charlie Starr, Richard Turner, Brit Turner, Paul Jackson and Brandon Still. They have performed throughout the United States both as headliner and as the supporting act for artists such as Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Keller Williams combines elements of bluegrass, folk, alternative rock, reggae, electronica/dance, jazz, funk, and other assorted genres. He is often described as a ‘one-man jam-band’ due to his frequent use of live phrase looping with multiple instruments.

A mainstay on the festival circuit, and a favorite in all of his various incarnations, Williams is one of the most diverse performers in the jam scene, keeping his schedule full with dates all around the country and releasing albums almost annually.

The Bros. Landreth are a Canadian alternative country and folk music group first formed in 2013 by brothers Joey and David Landreth, the sons of Winnipeg musician Wally Landreth. Both brothers share vocal duties, while Joey plays guitar and David plays bass.

Anchored by the bluesy wail of electric guitars, the swell of B3 organ, and the harmonized swoon of two voices that were born to mesh. At first listen, you might call it Americana. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll hear the nuances that separate The Bros. Landreth — whose members didn’t grow up in the American south, but rather the isolated prairie city of Winnipeg, Manitoba — from their folksy friends in the Lower 48.

The Lone Bellow is the Southern-born, Brooklyn-based indie-folk trio of Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin.Long before they combined their voices, the three members were singing on their own. Elmquist had been writing and recording as a solo artist for more than a decade, with three albums under his own name. Pipkin and her husband were living in China, hosting open mic nights and playing at local clubs. Williams began writing songs after his wife was thrown from a horse; he spent days in the hospital at her bedside, bracing for the worst news. The journal he kept during this period would eventually become his first batch of songs as a solo artist. Happily, his wife made a full recovery.

When Pipkin’s brother asked her and Williams at his wedding, they discovered their voices fit together beautifully, but starting a band together seemed impossible when they lived on opposite sides of the world. A couple of years later, they met Elmquist and began working together. Soon the trio was playing all over the city, opening for the Civil Wars, Dwight Yokam, Brandi Carlile and the Avett Brothers. Their self-titled debut, released in January 2013, established them as one of the boldest new acts in the Americana movement.  

Cedric Burnside, renowned as one of the best drummers in the world & grandson of the legendary R.L Burnside, has collaborated with his younger brother, Cody Burnside, and guitar and bass player,Trenton Ayers, to create The Cedric Burnside Project.

The Cedric Burnside Project will introduce a new & original genre of music by infusing Mississippi Hill Country Blues, Funk, R&B and soul that will keep your foot stomping all night long.

Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys is a western swing/country boogie musical band from California. The band is composed of Robert Williams, alias Big Sandy, Ashley Kingman, Ricky McCann and Kevin Stewart. They began as rockabilly revivalists in the late 1980s, then dug deeper into the music which rockabilly came from: western swing and particularly the country boogie style of the late 1940s and early 1950s, which served as a link of sorts between the western swing and rockabilly eras and was particularly associated with California country music in that era.

Over the last three decades,the band have kept up a constant cycle of traveling back and forth across the lower 48, then hopping across the pond to Europe and beyond. They bring with them a brand of American music that has earned them an induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, several national television appearances, guest spots on The Grand Ole Opry, and a slew of adoring fans.

Elizabeth Cook, the youngest of 11 half-brothers and sisters, grew up in rural Florida where her musician parents met while playing in local country bars, according to cmt.com. Known for her clear, beautiful voice and strong songwriting ability, Elizabeth is a relentless performer, touring worldwide, including more than 200 performances at The Grand Ole Opry.

James McMurtry is folk-rock singer, songwriter, guitarist and bandleader from Austin, Texas. He’s touring behind his latest album “Complicated Game.” The album delivers McMurtry’s trademark story songs time and again (“Copper Canteen,” “Deaver’s Crossing”), but the record brings a new (and certainly no less energetic) sonic approach.