Concerts

Southern Rail welcomes spring with their exuberant blend of upbeat bluegrass and happy mayhem at the Bellingham COA Senior Center. All are welcome. Bring the kids! Tickets will be available at the door. This promises to be another packed house, featuring lush harmonies, irrepressible good humor, and sparkling banjo, guitar, mandolin and bass. Southern Rail will be celebrating the recent induction of guitarist Jim Muller and bassist Sharon Horovitch into the RIBA Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

On March 29th, Dale Ann Bradley will be performing a very special Sunday 7:00 PM evening concert at ātac: downtown arts + music center in Framingham.   Raised in the coal fields of Appalachia, Dale Ann Bradley has been a Grammy nominee as well as recipient of IBMA's Female Vocalist of the Year Award. In 2019 she and her band-mates in Sister Sadie were awarded IBMA's "Vocal Group of the Year" for their critically-acclaimed album Sister Sadie II.   

Although their sound is rooted in traditional bluegrass, Mile Twelve surveys a broader landscape on their newest album, City on a Hill. All five band members bring their own influences and observations into the music, resulting in a project that feels contemporary, thoughtfully crafted, and relevant. “Original bluegrass music, written and played by young people, is very much alive,” says band member Evan Murphy. “I hope people take away that songwriting and arranging really matter. It’s about the material and playing it in a way that feels honest. This album isn’t political in the sense that we’re beating people over the head with anything, we just tried to tell stories that feel authentic.”The album title alludes to the idealized imagery of a shining city on a hill – a historical phrase that has often been applied to Boston, where the band got its start. Murphy adds, “We realized that many of the characters in these songs were in crisis, had been failed in some way, or were failing themselves. It’s an unintentional theme but it came out in the songwriting.” The Mile Twelve lineup offers five of the most promising young musicians in bluegrass: David Benedict (mandolin), Catherine “BB” Bowness (banjo), Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fiddle), Evan Murphy (guitar, lead vocals), and Nate Sabat (bass, lead vocals). All are credited as songwriters because everyone in the band helped shape the material throughout the writing and arranging process. Murphy and Sabat initiated most of the lyrical ideas for City on a Hill while Benedict wrote the instrumental track, “Rialto.” “We all inspire each other and recognize that everyone has different strengths,” Murphy says. “What makes this band so collaborative is that everyone in the band can do something at … Read More »