Bradford Lee Folk & The Bluegrass Playboys headline Atlanta's RLC Bluegrass Thursday with .44 Smokeless (ft. RLC favorites Rev. Hylton, Jenna Mobley, Robert Green & Dave Pritchard) and Whoa Nelly Bluegrass Band opening the show! Pre-show open jam at 6pm, then Whoa Nelly kicks things off at 8pm.
$12 Adv – $15 Door
Doors @ 6 PM (pre-show open jam)
Southern native Bradford Lee Folk works hard and plays hard. By day he's out on a John Deere tractor, tilling the land for a living as a long-time farmer. By night he's back home, tearing it up on stage with his Bluegrass Playboys, playing the rough-edged blend of bluegrass tradition and true country grit that's his stock-in-trade. After years heading up the seminal young bluegrass band Open Road and then running a rural honky-tonk in Colorado, Bradford Folk came back to Nashville determined to make his own music his own way.
On his new album Somewhere Far Away, with burning fiddles and hard-picked banjo behind him, his new music flows out of the Bluegrass and Americana bedrock of Music City, but bubbles with the intensity of modern life. Songs reference East Nashville street violence in one breath and soul-searching isolation in the next. These are the kind of songs whose thoughtful, literate lyrics pull you into the story. Plus there's an instant charisma to Bradford Lee Folk's voice, something there that makes you sit up and listen.
At the Pickathon Festival last year, Folk got two standing ovations from a simple interview! Now he's channeling that intensity into granite-hard bluegrass roots, beholden to no tradition but the long-held American tradition of making music with deep knowledge of its own roots and great hope for a fresh future.
Bradford Lee Folk Official Site
Bradford Lee Folk on Facebook
.44 Smokeless is a string band out of Atlanta. Four musicians who are involved in many other projects but just wanted to play some tunes they learned from their parents and grandparents. Playing mostly old bluegrass and murder ballads, they also play some originals from singer/songwriter and guitarist Reverend Hylton. Behind the bass is Robert Green who you will hear singing harmonies along side fiddle player Jenna Mobley. Dave Pritchard brings it all together laying down the banjo. You can check them out when they are not immersing their talents elsewhere in the Atlanta music scene.
Whoa Nelly is a bluegrass band from Atlanta, GA. We play traditional and contemporary bluegrass music — covers and originals. We're all acoustic!
Members: Leonard Wortzel--Banjo (spoken word vocals) Paul Snyder--Guitar (vocals) John Hulsey--Upright, Acoustic Bass (vocals) Eddie Kessler--Mandolin (Vocals) Jim Landt--Dobro, and occasionally Guitar (vocals) Sometimes we're lucky to have fiddlers sit in too, like: Rurik Nunan of Smokey's Farmland Band Leah Calvert of the Dappled Grays Bruce Lebovitz Joe Buckner sometimes joins us with his Mandolin. Mark Jones of DejaBlue Grass often helps us out on banjo or bass too! Jim "Duck" Adkins, David Ellis, and Brad Laird of Cedar Hill have also aided us many times with their musical talents.