The Music
2022 Artists
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Confirmed Sunday Performer
There are few artists whose names are synonymous with one instrument and how it's played in service to an entire genre.
Utter the phrase "young blues rock guitarist" within earshot of anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the modern musical vanguard and the first name they are most likely to respond with will be Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The Louisiana born axeman and songsmith has sold millions of albums while throwing singles into the Top 10, shining a light on the rich blues of the past and forging ahead with his own modern twist on a classic sound he has embodied since his teens.
In a 20-year recording career that began when he was just 16, Shepherd has established himself as an immensely popular recording artist, a consistently in-demand live act and an influential force in a worldwide resurgence of interest in the blues.
Jimmie Vaughan
Confirmed Saturday Performer
In true Texas fashion, four-time Grammy-winner Jimmie Vaughan has helped breathe new life into the music that has been his lifeline all these decades, becoming a hero to those who cherish America's real gift to musical history.
Jimmie Vaughan has been playing the blues he hears in his head and feels in his heart for over a half-century.
When he first heard songs like Phil Upchurch's "You Can't Sit Down," The Nightcaps' "Wine, Wine, Wine" and B.B. King's many hit songs in the early 1960s, he knew he had found his music. And ever since then, it's been a constant quest to play the blues, whether it was in early 1970s Austin bands like Storm and then the Fabulous Thunderbirds, or later with brother Stevie Ray Vaughan on their FAMILY STYLE album, and on his own releases throughout the 1990s and in 2001.
Then the solo albums stopped, until in 2010, Vaughan had an idea to start recording The Great American Blues Songbook. He assembled the kind of band most musicians can only dream about, and began recording his dream set list at Top Hat and Wire Studios in Austin. Never one to back down from a great idea, in 2011 Vaughan and band went back into the same studio and recorded a second collection of some of his favorite songs, zeroing in on that music's ability to light a fuse wherever it was heard.
In 2019, his newest release, BABY, PLEASE COME HOME brought him back into the spotlight with yet another Grammy nomination, and a Blues Foundation Award for Best Male Artist.
This year, he celebrates his life in the blues and on the road with THE JIMMIE VAUGHAN STORY, a special limited-edition box set and book including over 200 photos covering his life and the breadth of his remarkable career. And yet, Vaughan still feels like he is just getting started, devoted to making sure he is able to give back to the music that has given him so much. The blues is in Jimmie Vaughan's blood, has been there since the start, and will stay there forever.
Samantha Fish
Confirmed Sunday Performer
“That was my mission on this album: To really set these songs up so that they have a life of their own,” says Samantha Fish about Kill or Be Kind, her sixth solo album and her debut on Rounder Records. “Strong messages from the heart – that’s what I really set out for.” Indeed, what comes across immediately on hearing the album is the extraordinary level of songcraft on its eleven tracks, the way these songs are so smartly put together to deliver a potent emotional impact.
Anyone who has ever heard Fish’s previous albums knows that she has earned a place in the top rank of contemporary blues guitarists and that her voice can wring the soul out of a ballad and belt out a rocker with roof-shaking force. And, rest reassured, those virtues are fully in evidence on Kill or Be Kind. But each of the songs on the album does far more than simply provide a setting for Fish’s pyrotechnics. They tell captivating stories, set up by verses that deftly set the scene, choruses that lift with real feeling, and hooks that later rise up in your thoughts, even when you’re not aware that you’re thinking of music at all. It’s the kind of songwriting that emerges when raw talent is leavened by experience and aspiration, and when a committed artist genuinely has something to say. Those qualities make Kill or Be Kind a genuine artistic breakthrough for Fish.
Robert Randolph Band
Confirmed Saturday performer
Robert Randolph took a step outside when it was time to record his new album, Brighter Days, choosing to work with producer Dave Cobb. Cobb is best known for his work with new country stars like Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Brandi Carlile, and Jason Isbell. Looking beyond anyone’s expectations or his own preconceptions helped Randolph circle back to where it all began for him: church music.
The first three songs of Brighter Days are a full dive back to Randolph’s gospel roots, starting with lead track “Baptize Me”, a joyous romp of a song that makes a direct connection between religious and musical ecstasy and salvation.
“Dave Cobb is just a guy who likes to record good music and good songs,” says Randolph. “He wanted to do something that was fun but it also gives you a gospel feeling. He knows the history of our band, coming from church and giving that fun church feeling to people.
“We wrote ‘Baptize Me’ the first day in the studio. It’s really a love story, about an all-round love: for each other, for our audience, for our church background, for the music we love and for our fans. All of these songs kind of harken back to how we started, to being known as this musical family band that comes from the church and appeals to rock, blues, gospel and soul music audiences. We wanted that good gospel, blues, R&B feel, because that’s where we started and it’s good to not only remind people of that but to actively remember it ourselves.”
Randolph grew up playing sacred steel music – basically gospel played on pedal steel guitar – in the House of God church in Orange, New Jersey, and began taking his joyous, gospel-infused music out to clubs, backed by family members who shared not only backgrounds, but blood.
Sue Foley
Confirmed Saturday performer
Pinky’s Blues, is named after Sue Foley’s pink paisley Fender Telecaster electric guitar that has been such a major part of Foley’s life for all these years. Part of that is the total devotion Sue Foley has to the guitar, and in particular to the one she calls “Pinky” that has been with her for decades and continues to play on this album. Foley feels it’s almost a living extension of who she is and helps guide her through the rambunctiously deep renditions of everything she performs. Sue Foley is a multi award winning musician, and one of the finest blues and roots artists working today. Foley spent her early childhood in Canada, mesmerized by her father’s guitar and started her professional career at sixteen. By twenty-one, she was living in Austin, TX and recording for Antone’s. Foley has toured steadily with her band, toting her signature pink paisley Fender Telecaster—working and sharing the stage with greats such as B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan and Billy F Gibbons. Foley is the only female member of the famed “Jungle Show” which features Gibbons, Vaughan, B3 virtuoso Mike Flanigin and Chris ‘Whipper’ Layton (formerly of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble). Her latest album, Pinky’s Blues is a raw, electric guitar driven romp through the backroads of Texas, with Foley’s signature Telecaster, “Pinky” at the wheel. Pinky’s Blues is a guitar driven collection of 12 songs, both original and some of Sue’s favorite covers, that demonstrate not only that Sue is one of the world’s greatest Blues guitarists, but that the sheer joy of playing can be felt through the recording in an emotional thrill for the listener. Pinky’s Blues was the #1 album in The Roots Music Report’s Top Blues Rock Album Chart for the Year of 2021, the #1 album on the NACC Blues chart for over 4 weeks and debuted at #4 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. In 2020, she won “Traditional Blues Female” at the International Blues Music Awards in Memphis. She’s also a Juno Award winner, holds the record for the most Maple Blues Awards including “Best Guitar Player”, and has earned three Trophées de Blues de France.
Los Coast
Confirmed Saturday performer
On their eagerly awaited debut album Samsara, the visionary Austin, TX combo Los Coast delivers a fresh blast of punchy psychedelic-pop-soul that effortlessly incorporates a wide range of genres. The band's seamlessly soulful songcraft incorporates the band's distinctive grooves along with the inventive compositions and commanding vocals of principal members Trey Privott (lead vocals, guitar) and John Courtney (guitar, keyboards, vocals).
That same mix of energy and expertise is reflected on Samsara, which features such memorable, no-nonsense tunes as "Simplify," "Monsters," "Graves" and the frantic, tongue-twisting "(Everything But) The Kitchen Sink." The album delivers infectious hooks, ironic lyrical twists and explosive funk grooves in equal measure, providing an irresistible frame for Privott's soulful vocals and the band's explosive grooves.
You may have seen them touring with Gary Clark Jr. or heard their music on the Emmy Award Winning comedy "Ted Lasso" .
Carolyn Wonderland
Confirmed Saturday Performer
The depths of the Texas blues tradition with the wit of a poet. She hits the stage with an unmatched presence, a true legend in her time.
She’d grown up the child of a singer in a band and began playing her mother’s vintage Martin guitar when other girls were dressing dolls. She’d gone from being the teenage toast of her hometown Houston to sleeping in her van in Austin amid heaps of critical acclaim for excellent recordings.
Along with the guitar and the multitude of other instruments she learned to play – trumpet, accordion, piano, mandolin, lap steel – Wonderland’s ability to whistle remains most unusual. Whistling is a uniquely vocal art seldom invoked in modern music, yet it’s among the most spectacular talents the human voice possesses.
That vocal proficiency was well-established in the singer’s midteens, landing her gigs at Fitzgerald’s by age 15. She absorbed Houston influences like Little Screamin’ Kenny, Albert Collins, Lavelle White, Jerry Lightfoot, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, Little Joe Washington, “borrowed” a car to sneak out and jam ended up swapping songs with Townes Van Zandt at Houston’s Local’s on White Oak, got involved in the underground theater scene becoming the first “Photochick” in Jason Nodler’s “In the Under Thunderloo” and soaked up touring bands like the Paladins, Los Lobos, and the Mad Hatter of Texas music, Doug Sahm. Her music played in television series such as “Time of Your Life” and NBC’s “Homicide.” The Lone Star State was as credible a proving ground for blues in the 1980s and 90s as existed, especially in Austin with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Angela Strehli, Omar & the Howlers, and Lou Ann Barton all in their prime. By the following decade, Austin’s blues luster thinned, but Houston, always a bastion of soul and R&B, boasted the Imperial Monkeys with the effervescent Carolyn Wonderland as ruler of the jungle.
Ally Venable
Confirmed Sunday Performer
This is no time for faint hearts. The pandemic might have silenced the music scene, shuttered the live circuit and divided artists from their fans. But with Heart Of Fire, Texas’s favorite new gunslinger Ally Venable is coming off the ropes swinging. Defying dark times and rolling up the amps, this fourth release from the acclaimed singer-songwriter is a record to rattle your speakers and signpost better times ahead. “My vision was to really spread a positive message of love,” says Venable. “The world needs that right now.”
If Heart Of Fire finds Venable giving the globe some much-needed love, then the feeling is entirely mutual. Still in her early twenties, the guitarist’s breakneck two decades have moved as fast as her fingers, her path winding from childhood church choirs to the teenage influence of local heroes like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Miranda Lambert. Early releases No Glass Shoes (2016) and Puppet Show (2018) earned her international fans, Top 10 chart placings and ETX Awards, but it was 2019’s #2 Billboard-charting Texas Honey and house-rocking sets on that year’s Blues Caravan tour that sent her stratospheric. Now, with Venable’s fanbase snaking further around the block every time she blows into town, Texas roots icon and Texas Honey producer Mike Zito is in no doubt: “Ally is the future of blues and the crossover music of American roots-rock.”
King Solomon Hicks
Confirmed Sunday Performer
King Solomon Hicks grew up in Harlem "around a lot of great musicians." That certainly shows on HARLEM, an 11-song salute to those roots -- and how the 24-year-old guitarist and singer has turned them into his own fierce and distinctive style over the years.
The set, produced by multiple Grammy Award winner Kirk Yano (Miles Davis, Public Enemy, Mariah Carey), showcases Hicks as a writer, player and interpreter. Originals such as the roadhouse ready "421 South Main," the gospel shuffle of "Have Mercy on Me" and the aching instrumental "Riverside Drive" rub musical elbows with staples such as "Every Day I Sing the Blues" and "It's Alright," a Latin-tinged take on Blood, Sweat & Tears' "I Love You More Than You Will Ever Know," a funked-up romp through Gary Wright's "Love is Alive" and a searing rendition of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help me" that closes the album.
Hicks' playing and singing shine throughout HARLEM, blending reverent familiar with vigorous fresh, the work of an artist deeply rooted in blues birthed decades before him but equally invested in finding his own way of playing it. Yes, every day he sings the blues, but in a manner only Hicks himself can.
Ian Moore
Confirmed Sunday Performer
Ian Moore is a touring and recording artist with 14 releases to date. He has spent much of the last 30 years traveling the world through his music and has been fundamentally changed and formed as a result. The son of a Buddhist scholar father and a social worker mother, the stage has given him a unique perspective on the human condition. The lifelong pursuit of music, with it’s inevitable twists and turns has allowed—and forced—Ian to look deeply into the duality of art and life in order to find balance and harmony between the two. Ian is the President and co-founder of SMASH (Seattle Musicians Access to Sustainable Healthcare) and is a Grammy Governor. When not touring and recording, he seeks out nature and quiet. He is an avid outdoorsman and beekeeper, a lover of ethnic foods and cooking, and a relentless pursuer of knowledge and spirit. He lives on Vashon Island, WA with his wife and two teenage sons.
Robert Jon & the Wreck
Confirmed Saturday Performer
Reigning from southern California, Robert Jon & The Wreck take the southern rock sound from the east coast and make it their own. Since their inception in 2011, these five native Californians; Robert Jon Burrison (lead vocals, guitar), Andrew Espantman (drums, background vocals), Steve Maggiora (keyboards, background vocals), Henry Schneekluth (lead guitar, background vocals), Warren Murrel (bass) have been electrifying audiences all over the world with their soaring guitar leads, rich vocal harmonies, and memorable tunes. Fueled by this success, RJTW took the road again delivering fierce performances, emblazoned with commitment, and dripping in a rawness that’s impossible to fake. Simply put, it is difficult to ignore when these five musicians take the stage. Little wonder they have made an impact on audiences across the world, where they’ve played a run of sold-out shows and proudly shared bills with talent the likes of Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout, and Rival Sons. The Wreck found their flow with yearly tours, returning to California and prolifically releasing new music. 2021’s studio album Shine A Light On Me Brother gained worldwide acclaim. Their latest single releases “Waiting For Your Man” and “She’s A Fighter” are available now via blues-rock titan Joe Bonamassa’s KTBA Records. For more information visit at robertjonandthewreck.com. #GetWrecked
Dennis Johnson & the Mississippi Ramblers
Confirmed Sunday Performer
San Francisco native Dennis Johnson is one of the elite slide guitar players performing today. Dennis Johnson and his band are a high energy slide guitar ensemble. By weaving the infectious energy of Dennis’ slide guitar across a wide variety of musical styles, the band elevates Blues, Roots, Americana, New Orleans, Rock and Swing grooves to a high level. Their music takes audiences on an exhilarating musical roller coaster with vintage guitar tones, intricate rhythmic layers, and arrangements that pull in the dancer and listener alike. These musicians are true ramblers, touring across the West playing exciting shows while creating an undeniably unforgettable experience for their fans.
Jelly Bread
Confirmed Saturday Performer
Jelly Bread has risen from Reno/Lake Tahoe area favorites into a nationally- touring, powerhouse quintet that delivers a high-energy, chameleonic playlist all over the United States. Jelly Bread’s distinct style is identified by a blend of desert twang meeting the urban tones of funk and rock. Exceptional songwriting and storytelling interlaced with four part harmonies, intricate “in-the-pocket” drum and bass grooves, swampy lap steel guitar, dirt under the fingernails guitar licks, tasty talkbox, “take-’em-to-church” organ come together into a sound that is downright appetizing.
Eric Henry Andersen Band
Confirmed Sunday Performer
Eric Henry Andersen’s signature emotive tenor voice and award-winning songwriting has captured the hearts of audiences for over a decade. As co-lead singer/songwriter of pop/rock group, The Novelists, Andersen has toured all over the nation sharing festival bills with and opening for artists such as Train, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Glenn Philips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) and Daryl Stuermer (Genesis/Phil Collins Band). During 2021, his new project, the Eric Henry Andersen band, will be rockin’ venues across the west coast, as we all celebrate the return of live music.
Six Mile Station
Confirmed Saturday Performer
In true Americana form Six Mile Station blurs the lines between roots genres including; folk, country, blues, rock and roll, bluegrass, and punk. Hailing from Reno, NV the 5 piece band features two multi-instrumentalists switching between fiddle, mandolin, banjo, trumpet, trombone, and accordion. Soaring over a dedicated rhythm section, the diverse instrumentation builds a rich soundscape under the original songs written by frontman Spike McGuire.
Axe Battle Winner -
Jonny Yocum
The Biggest Little City’s Axe Battle will see 10 guitarists go head to head to determine the master of shred. The winner snags a spot for their band to perform Sunday Oct. 2 at Battle Axe & Tracks music festival.
Max Volume hosts the blowout brawl being held at NoVi inside the Eldorado Hotel Casino. The showdown offers competitors a chance to showcase their skills with The Battle Born Backup Band led by John Courage. The winner will be decided by a combination of celebrity judges, a state-of-the-art applause-o-meter, and who can bring the most fans.
Get your tickets to the Axe Battle here! (limited space but included with your VIP ticket)