News
Charlottesville Daily Progress
10/1/2006
Adrinne Young Blend Rural Elegance, Edge
By JEDD FERRIS / Daily Progress correspondent
On Wednesday night, Gravity Lounge gets a return from Adrienne Young and her band Little Sadie.
Since winning a songwriting contest at Merlfest in 2003, Young has quickly become one of the most promising Americana upstarts in acoustic music circles. The elegant earthy songstress grew up in rural Florida learning church songs, but her music lands between old-time bluegrass and Nashville sheen - a convergence that calls to mind the brilliance of Alison Krauss.
On her latest album, "The Art of Virtue," which was co-produced with Will Kimbrough, Young's all over the string world map, picking polished standards, reinventing field hollers and singing vintage country ballads.
She even offers an inspiring take on the Grateful Dead's touching renewal anthem "Brokedown Palace."
Her music is also grounded in a genuine humanitarianism. The album is loosely conceptualized after Ben Franklin's "13 Virtues," and Young has been an outspoken proponent of American family farms. Just last month she touted the cause while headlining a Nashville gig dubbed "Good Food for Good People."
She also recently was given an award from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries for her work in a state conservation campaign.
While Young is on tour in the South, fans are awaiting the release of her next album, which she recorded this past summer in Woodstock, N.Y., at the studio of the Band drummer Levon Helm.
On Thursday night Gravity will welcome another evening of new traditionalism with the return of the Wiyos. The New York City string trio visits another era of old-time by blending washboard swing, tin-pan alley and hill country blues from the 1920s and '30s.
In its dynamic live show the band, which includes Michael Farkas on vocals, harmonica, banjo and kazoo, Parish Ellis on guitar and Joseph DeJarnette on upright bass, who has shared the stage in previous projects with Ricky Skaggs and Del McCoury, resurrects a time before genre distinction - performing vaudevillian ragtime blues and hillbilly swing in front of two condenser microphones, bringing theatricality back to music with contemporary fervor.
The show at 7 p.m. will supported by Peter, Paul and Sandy.
By JEDD FERRIS / Daily Progress correspondent
On Wednesday night, Gravity Lounge gets a return from Adrienne Young and her band Little Sadie.
Since winning a songwriting contest at Merlfest in 2003, Young has quickly become one of the most promising Americana upstarts in acoustic music circles. The elegant earthy songstress grew up in rural Florida learning church songs, but her music lands between old-time bluegrass and Nashville sheen - a convergence that calls to mind the brilliance of Alison Krauss.
On her latest album, "The Art of Virtue," which was co-produced with Will Kimbrough, Young's all over the string world map, picking polished standards, reinventing field hollers and singing vintage country ballads.
She even offers an inspiring take on the Grateful Dead's touching renewal anthem "Brokedown Palace."
Her music is also grounded in a genuine humanitarianism. The album is loosely conceptualized after Ben Franklin's "13 Virtues," and Young has been an outspoken proponent of American family farms. Just last month she touted the cause while headlining a Nashville gig dubbed "Good Food for Good People."
She also recently was given an award from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries for her work in a state conservation campaign.
While Young is on tour in the South, fans are awaiting the release of her next album, which she recorded this past summer in Woodstock, N.Y., at the studio of the Band drummer Levon Helm.
On Thursday night Gravity will welcome another evening of new traditionalism with the return of the Wiyos. The New York City string trio visits another era of old-time by blending washboard swing, tin-pan alley and hill country blues from the 1920s and '30s.
In its dynamic live show the band, which includes Michael Farkas on vocals, harmonica, banjo and kazoo, Parish Ellis on guitar and Joseph DeJarnette on upright bass, who has shared the stage in previous projects with Ricky Skaggs and Del McCoury, resurrects a time before genre distinction - performing vaudevillian ragtime blues and hillbilly swing in front of two condenser microphones, bringing theatricality back to music with contemporary fervor.
The show at 7 p.m. will supported by Peter, Paul and Sandy.
