Tracy Grammer, Wes Collins

media release:  Looking forward to the return of two wonderful songwriters: Tracy, who last played here in 2018,  and Wes who came last year for a great evening with Ordinary Elephant and Rachael Kilgour.  Wes will open the show.  

Called “a musician and singer of dazzling versatility” (No Depression), TRACY GRAMMER is among contemporary folk music’s most beloved artists. Renowned for her pure voice, deft guitar and violin work, and incantatory storytelling, Grammer has recorded and performed with Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter, headlined several of the nation’s top folk festivals, including  Falcon Ridge, and enjoyed 12 consecutive years as one of folk radio’s 50 top-played artists, both solo and with the late Dave Carter.

“One of the finest singers and musicians anywhere in folkdom.” – Boston Globe

​”A brilliant artist” – Joan Baez

“One of the most enduring, irreplaceable voices in American folk music.” – Anti-Heroin Chic

Grammer’s eleventh release, LOW TIDE, is the first of her albums to showcase her original songs. LOW TIDE was the ninth most-played album on folk radio in 2018 and was voted a Top 10 Album of the Year by Fish Records UK and Folk Alley.  The buzz on LOW TIDE:

    “Potent songcraft that reflects the tender and stubborn heart that got her here, and a way with words and images that … marks the beginning of a new path to glory. A bold and beautiful collection.” -coverlaydown.com

    “This is the voice of a songwriter who has made her peace with the past and who is ready — and

    ​more than willing — to move forward.” – Folk Alley

    “A bold new sound, attitude and personal viewpoint…. engaging songs beautifully sung and arranged.” – Music Matters Review

WES COLLINS will start the show. At age 44, Wes and his wife Anita made a pact to become writers: she started writing fiction and Wes penned his first song. A few years later, they were both multi-award-winners in their fields. Collins more than makes up for lost time with songs so dense with ideas that a first listen only scratches the surface. Come for a haunting melody and some intricate fingerpicking and stay for the wit and deep literary intelligence. There is always more to find in a Wes Collins song.

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.

    “His skill with the guitar makes the most of his imaginative arrangements and nuanced control of cadence and phrasing, underscoring the subtlety and bite of his lyrics. He credits many other singer/songwriters in his musical tent as inspiration, including Neil Finn, Gillian Welch, Bruce Cockburn, and Patty Griffin, but Collins is well on his way to establishing his own voice as one we should value.”— North Carolina Arts Council

over the instruments she plays.” – Joan Baez