THE KNICKERBOCKER MUSIC CENTER
35 Railroad Avenue, Westerly, RI 02891 (Misquamicut) | (401) 315-5070
Open Today: Open
The club thrived as one of the leading entertainment centers in southern New England, hosting regional and national bands with an emphasis on the blues. Some of the greats that played on the Knickerbocker stage included, Big Joe Turner, Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Johnny Nicholas, Leon Russell, Eric Burdon and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1967, Roomful of Blues was born in Westerly, when guitarist Duke Robillard and pianist Al Copley started a band that played tough, no-holds barred Chicago blues. Making the Knickerbocker Café their home club, it did not take long before they started exploring swinging, jumping blues and added a horn section. Roomful would pack the house every Sunday and still plays their great brand of blues today.
Fast forward and the Café has become the Knickerbocker Music Center, a non-profit organization formed in partnership with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra & Music School. The mission of the Knickerbocker Music Center is to preserve, cultivate and grow the “Knick’s” unique brand of blues, as well as expanding access to music of all genres, by transforming the Knick into both an exciting performance venue and an exceptional center for music education.
Mandolin Orange
9pm
Friday, August 17, 2018 at 9:00pm
The Knickerbocker Music Center. 35 Railroad Avenue, Westerly, RI 02891
Live Music
Mandolin Orange
Presented by Westerly Sound
Chrissy Stewart to open
Mandolin Orange's music is “laced with bluegrass, country and folk...often wistful and contemplative without being somber, and always firmly grounded in the South" (WNYC). The Chapel Hill, NC duo has built a noteworthy catalog of recordings and performances since their founding in 2009. Their live shows are filled with vibrant chemistry, effortless instrumentation, and breezy, fluid harmonies that continue to win over local and far away fans. Recent performances include Telluride Bluegrass, Newport Folk Festival, Bonnaroo and Pickathon, with support performances at Red Rocks Amphitheater and the Ryman Auditorium.
Hailed by No Depression as “one of the most talented acts making music today,” Mandolin Orange’s most recent album Blindfaller debuted #3 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Album Chart, was featured on NPR’s Heavy Rotation and made Rolling Stone’s “40 Best Country Albums of 2016.”
"The musical tapestry of Blindfaller is delicately woven with lush threads of acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, violin and pedal steel, all ever-present without ever overplaying. However, it's the vocal interplay of Frantz and Marlin that is the band's most distinctive calling card" (Rolling Stone).
Lean in to Mandolin Orange’s album, “Blindfaller,” and it’s bound to happen. You’ll suddenly pick up on the power and devastation lurking in its quietude, the doom hiding beneath its unvarnished beauty. You’ll hear the way it magnifies the intimacy at the heart of the North Carolina duo’s music, as if they created their own musical language as they recorded it.
Released September 2016 on Yep Roc Records, “Blindfaller” builds on the acclaim of Mandolin Orange’s breakthrough debut on the label, 2013’s “This Side of Jordan,” and its follow-up, last year’s “Such Jubilee.” Since then they’ve steadily picked up speed and fans they’ve earned from long stretches on the road, including appearances at Newport Folk Festival, Austin City Limits Fest and Telluride Bluegrass. It’s been an auspicious journey for a pair who casually met at a bluegrass jam session in 2009.
“When we finished ‘Such Jubilee,’ I started writing these songs with a different goal in mind. I thought about how I would write songs for somebody else to record,” Marlin explains. “I ended up with a bunch of songs like that, but we chose ones that I still felt personally connected to.”
Holed up at the Rubber Room studio in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with a full band this time around, they laid down the tracks in a week between touring. They’ve always been keen on the notion that drawn-out recording sessions don’t necessarily yield better results. A good song, and just one good take, will always shine through any studio sorcery.
The passage of time, and the regret that often accompanies it, courses through these songs. “When did all the good times turn to hard lines on my face/ And lead me so far from my place right by your side?” Marlin ruminates on “My Blinded Heart.”
In fact, there’s heartache by the numbers on “Blindfaller.” If you didn’t know better, you’d swear “Picking Up Pieces” is a tearjerker George Jones or Willie Nelson sang back in the early 1970s. It’s a Mandolin Orange original, of course, and also a poignant reminder of the economy and grace with which Marlin imbues his songs – say what’s important and scrap the rest. But there’s also room for detours. Straight out of a honky tonk, “Hard Travelin’” lets the band shift into overdrive. A freewheeling ode to life on the road, it had been kicking around for a while but never fit on previous releases.
As for the album title, it’s meant to evoke a sense of wonder, of contemplation. A “faller” is someone who fells trees, and in this case that person is blind to his/her own actions and those of the world. The spectral cover photo, by Scott McCormick, is open to interpretation, too: Either those trees are engulfed in flames or sunlight is pouring through them. It’s up to you.
“We wanted different vibes and different intuitions on these tracks,” Marlin says, “and I feel like we really captured that.”
Show: 9p | Doors: 8p | All Ages
Tickets: $25 advance / $30 door ($2 Service Charge Included With Online Tickets. All sales are final, no ticket refunds or exchanges.)
