Ordinary Elephant, Rachael Kilgour, Wes Collins

media release: International Folk Music Awards 2017 Artist of the Year ORDINARY ELEPHANT captivates audiences with their emotionally powerful and vulnerable songs, letting the listener know that they are not alone in this world. The collaboration of husband and wife Pete and Crystal Damore, their connection, and their influences (such as Gillian Welch, Guy Clark, Anais Mitchell) all meet on stage.

Minnesota songwriter RACHAEL KILGOUR has been called “…a heartfelt slice of master crafted indie folk brimming with the battle-tested capacity to endure the worst in others” by Billboard, [her third album}Rabbit in the Road took an intimate and often painful look at the failed marriage and loss of family. Kilgour’s writing and delivery cut deep, with resolute simplicity. Ravelin Magazine observed “this sort of metonymic ability to evoke the whole of someone or the entirety of a feeling is typical of Kilgour’s poetic songwriting.”

WES COLLINS is a writer of dense songs.  Come for a haunting melody and some intricate fingerpicking and stay for the wit and deep literary intelligence. 

He is a winner of the prestigious Grassy Hills New Folk Competition and a North Carolina Arts Council Songwriting Fellowship, and has been featured as a finalist in The Telluride Troubadour Contest in Telluride, CO; The Songwriter’s Serenade Competition in Moravia, TX; and The Wildflower Performing Songwriter Contest in Dallas, TX.