On Thursday, February 15, right in the middle of Black History Month, we’ll welcome a quartet of musicians from the Nashville-founded collective Black Opry. The traveling showcase, known as the Black Opry Revue aims to put Black country, folk, roots and Americana artists on stages across the country. Country music has always been both versatile and diverse. Country, blues, folk, …
American-Roots Maestro Dom Flemons Follows the Roots of the Blues Through Northeast Florida
The rising tide of Black representation in (Mainstream) American roots music has resulted, to no inconsiderable extent, from the efforts of Dominique “Dom” Flemons and his colleagues in the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an exceptional band founded in Durham, North Carolina back in 2005. Flemons’ departure from the group in 2013 initiated what appears to have been the group’s final dissolution …
Rachel Angel, Daddy, Folk Is People to Headline this Year’s Queer Country Disco in Jacksonville
Queer Country Disco — the annual event celebrating the music of queer Americana and country artists — is back for another rodeo. Featuring performances by Asheville-by-way-of-Miami alt-country star Rachel Angel, Duval electro-pop artist Daddy and Jax Americana band Folk is People (with more acts to be announced soon), QCD 2023 will be held Saturday, August 12 at WJCT Studios. Founded …
On ‘Time In The Sun,’ Susto’s Justin Osborne Explores the Circle of Life
After nearly a decade of crafting introspective songs as Susto, Justin Osborne wrote his most personal record to date. On 2021’s Time in the Sun, the Charleston, South-Carolina-bred singer-songwriter and guitarist unpacks, at times, contradictory ideas of hope and despair. Time in the Sun was written during the early onset of what has become into an open-ended global pandemic. And …
Go | Best Live Music in Jax this Week
Corey Kilgannon album release, Copland's Rodeo and more
Each week the JME team looks long and hard at the concert calendar to identify the best live music in Jacksonville. Our weekly Go concert recommendations are updated every Monday morning and are always available on jaxmusic.org. For the comprehensive list of this week’s concerts, go to our live music calendar page. Americana Danny Attack – Thursday, January 5 Jack Rabbits | San Marco …
Randall Bramblett Talks About a Career Spent Pushing the Sonic Boundaries of Modern Roots
While barely in his twenties and fresh from dropping out of a college career studying religion and psychology, Randall Bramblett made his recording debut in 1970 with Goose Creek Symphony. Considering how esoteric and indefinable that particular drugs-meets-jug-band group were, it was an auspicious beginning for the young multi-instrumentalist whose career remains inventive and unpredictable. In the fifty years since, …
How Charley Crockett Makes New Music Sound Old (and Old Music Sound Brand New)
Charley Crockett knows his story seems far-fetched. “People always tell me, ‘Man, you didn’t ride trains — that’s not possible, no one does that anymore,’” he says, sitting at his tour bus’s small table. Crockett is clearly frustrated – the fact that he’s traded train cars for tour buses and street corners for venerable stages that he shares with even …
Allison Russell | Tiny Desk Concert
“I am grateful and I am proud for this circle of goddesses,” said Allison Russell during her joyful, rousing Tiny Desk set, reaching toward the six women surrounding her. Russell has cultivated this band’s harmoniousness in the year she’s been touring in support of her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child, which tells the singer’s life story, from her childhood escaping …
Fresh Rotation | 3 Songs We’re Listening to Now
Psych-Americana, shoegaze and exquisitely rare garage rock from Cambodia
Each and every week the JME team handpicks the juiciest new tunes from local, regional, national and international artists to add to the rotation on The Independent 89.9 HD4 (and to our tasty, tall-glass-of-a-listening-experience that is our monthly Fresh Squeeze playlist). Each song is chosen with intention. And so we often feel like they are worthy of a broader discussion (or at least …
Just Announced | Alt-country band American Aquarium at PV Concert Hall
Purveyors of anthemic alt-country, North Carolina-bred American Aquarium has announced a summer tour of the East Coast with a stop at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, returning to Northeast Florida for the first time since their November 2021 performance at Jack Rabbits. The brainchild of bandleader BJ Barham, the group’s latest iteration is touring 2020’s critically lauded, Shooter-Jennings-produced Lamentations. In 2021, …
The Wood Brothers let the improv dictate the terms on their most recent release
The Wood Brothers play the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall on December 1
If there is a current band willing and able to reference delta blues king Charley Patton and jazz polymath Ornette Coleman, it is the Wood Brothers. Since 2004, the roots-music trio of brothers Chris Wood (bass/vox), Oliver (guitar/vox) Wood and Jano Rix (multi-instruments/vox) have been forging an inventive blend of blues and folk through an open-minded jazz paradigm. They share …