Tim Grimm Family Band, hot off their European Tour play Brooklyn before they had home to Columbus, Indiana. Followed by a stand alone show back in her old home town by Internationally touring artist, Dayna Kurtz.
Tim Grimm is a bit of a Rennaisance man in the performing arts world. He has for the past 15 years, blended his love for songwriting, travel, and the storytelling of acting (theatre, film and television). His most recent recording, THE TURNING POINT, produced the #1 song on Folk radio in 2014-- KING OF THE FOLKSINGERS. It was a particularly gratifying honor, given the song is a tribute to Tim's friend and musical icon, Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Tim's history with Ramblin' Jack goes back 30 years-- beginning with a bicycle ride that led to The Newport Folk Festival…. Tim contributing liner notes to Jack's Grammy winning album, The South Coast (1995)… Jack's recording Buffalo Skinners with Tim on Tim's album, Coyote's Dream (2003)….and now, most recently KING OF THE FOLKSINGERS. After several years (1990s) working in Los Angeles (where he co-starred for 2 seasons on the NBC drama Reasonable Doubts, worked on Clear and Present Danger with Harrison Ford, and appeared in several films and tv projects), Tim returned home to Indiana. He grew up in the woods and small town settings of southern Indiana, son of schoolteachers and grandson of farmers, and his return home was a conscious choice to live a life of significance rather than one of “success’. He now lives with his wife on 80 acres close to where he grew up. Tim’s songs are full of the rural rumblings that have shaped his life—rich with descriptive details, and sung with warmth and intimacy—recognizing the inextinguishable national romance with the idea of the family farm and the vanishing landscape of rural America. He released the album, HEART LAND in 2000, and on the strength of that recording, was named 2000’s “BEST DISCOVERY in Roots/Americana Music” by The Chicago Sun-Times. His albums COYOTES DREAM and NAMES, led to his being named “2004 MALE ARTIST of The Year” by the Freeform American Roots DJs.He has released 9 solo albums since 2000 (including the newest- THE TURNING POINT), and 2 collaborations- AMBER WAVES (with Jason Wilber) and WILDERNESS PLOTS. In 2005, Grimm was asked to compose music and act in a production of THE GRAPES OF WRATH at Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage in New York. His song from the play--THE PEOPLES HIGHWAY, made it onto his next album, THE BACK FIELDS, which was subsequently named Americana Album of the Year by the Just Plain Folks Music Awards-- the world's largest independent music awards.In 2007, Grimm put together a concept cd with several of the Midwest’s finest songwriter’s— Krista Detor, Carrie Newcomer, Tom Roznowski, and Michael White. The recording, Wilderness Plots, was drawn from the short stories of noted author, Scott Russell Sanders, and explored the settling of the American Wilderness in the Ohio River Valley Region between The Revolutionary War and The Civil War. Two PBS programs have explored Wilderness Plots-- the first, a documentary on the story and song, and the second a full Wilderness Plots- In Concert (2012). Produced by WTIU in Bloomington, IN, both productions were nominated for EMMY AWARDS. Tim continued to write songs based on Sander's writings and released the album, WILDERNESS SONGS AND BAD MAN BALLADS in 2011. At about this same time, Grimm also released a tribute album with songs of Tom Paxton, entitled, THANK YOU, TOM PAXTON. For a list of all available albums (at this time) please visit:http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/TimGrimm
DAYNA KURTZ:
Over the past decade, the Brooklyn-based vocalist/writer/musician/producer has built a formidable body of recordings, won an international reputation as a riveting live performer, amassed an extensive file of rapturous critical raves, (3rd Coast Music in Austin, TX writes, “Kurtz is the kind of artist who teaches us ink- stained wretches to be miserly with superlatives, so we’ll still have a stock of them when she comes around.”) and earned an equally devoted audience of fans around the world. She’s achieved these distinctions on her own terms, releasing five albums and a live DVD on her own Kismet label, touring around the world on her own dime, and building a remarkably loyal fan base one person at a time. Armed with an uncanny ability to stun audiences into submission, this musical free spirit has consistently refused to be pinned down by a single style or genre, building an inspired body of work that draws strength from a bottomless wellspring of American jazz, pop, blues, folk and country. The cinematic poetry of her songwriting is matched by the power of her voice, a rich, distinctly resonant instrument that’s capable of immense emotional depth. Kurtz’s iconoclastic approach is underlined by her decision to simultaneously release American Standard and Secret Canon, Vol. 1. Individually, each disc offers ample evidence of Kurtz’s abundant talent. Together, they make a deeply compelling case for her status as a deeply adventurous, one-of-a-kind artist. “These two records, ” she explains, “cover the two dominant strands of blues-based DNA that wind through my musical body. One of those strands is American roots music from the traditions of rock ‘n’ roll and country, and the other is my lifelong love of smoky mid-century chanteuse records from the R&B and jazz bins.” American Standard is a typically expansive Kurtz set, from the plaintive intimacy of “Invocation” to the rockabilly-inflected swing of “Good in ’62” to the languid Mississippi grind of “Billboards for Jesus.” She recorded half of the album with her longtime drummer/co-producer Randy Crafton and her live band at Crafton’s analog studio Kaleidoscope Sound in New Jersey, before she and Crafton traveled to Memphis’ fabled Ardent Studios. At Ardent, they cut several tracks with Sun Records rockabilly legend Sonny Burgess and his band, the Legendary Pacers, whose members are all in their 70s and 80s and whose last personnel change occurred in 1961. From there, they moved to New Orleans, where they recorded the ebullient “Election Day” with local brass band the Nightcrawlers (recently featured in HBO’s Treme). Along with several bracing Kurtz originals, American Standard spotlights the artist’s uncanny skill as an interpreter of other songwriters’ compositions. She turns Elliott Smith’s “Don’t Go Down” into a howling, desperate blues plea, while bringing a haunting warmth to Paul Westerberg’s “Here Comes a Regular,” on which Kurtz plays lap steel and French/Israeli chanteuse Keren Ann provides backing vocals. She also breathes new fire into the ’50s rockabilly nugget “Lou Lou Knows,” and tackles Sonny Burgess’ “Hangin’ Round My Baby” with an organic passion that’s reciprocated by Burgess and the Pacers. “I’ve always been a bit of a genre outlaw. which I guess makes it a little rough to market me,” Kurtz states. “But I’m in love with music, not with genres. If it’s a great song, it’s a great song. The songs I wrote for American Standard, and the songs that I covered for it, were deeply influenced by my recent obsession with collecting ‘lost’ songs by forgotten singers on regional labels.” Secret Canon, Vol. 1, recorded live to tape in New Jersey and New Orleans, spotlights Kurtz’s sublime interpretive abilities, with the artist putting her stamp on such obscure gems as “Do I Love You,” a startlingly intimate ballad by seminal Texas/L.A. blues-jazz figure Floyd Dixon; “Sweet Lotus Blossom,” a 1930s-vintage ode to addiction; “If Yesterday Could Only Be Tomorrow” and “Come In Out of the Rain,” both originally recorded by a pre-pop stardom Nat “King” Cole with his jazz-blues combo the King Cole Trio; and the memorably titled “Don’t Fuck Around with Love,” originally a tongue-in-cheek doo wop novelty in 1962 by Boston vocal group the Blenders. “I love finding Great Lost Songs and Great Lost Singers, and I’m drawn to artists and songs that fall through the cracks,” Kurtz notes. “My favorite period for that is the mid-late ’50s and early ’60s, because the lines between genres hadn’t really been drawn yet. There were so many wonderful storefront record labels during that period, and so many regional artists and writers released so many brilliant songs that were only heard by a handful of people. And they’re still out there, for those who are willing to dig.” Most of Secret Canon, Vol. 1 was recorded with Kurtz’s longstanding live band, i.e. co-producer Crafton on drums, Dave Richards on upright bass and Peter Vitalone on piano and organ. Kurtz recorded the album’s lone original, the Brill Building-inspired “Not the Only Fool In Town,” in New Orleans with George Porter Jr., legendary bassist of the seminal funk combo The Meters, and Crescent City piano master David Torkanowsky. “When I was putting together Secret Canon, I was listening to Sam Cooke’s Nightbeat an awful lot, and in many ways that was my model for this album,” she continues. “We started by recording nine songs in one marathon session, from about four in the afternoon until three in the morning. We’d talk through the changes, the endings, the feel. Then we’d roll tape, do one or two takes of each song, and then move on to the next one. When I listened to them the next day, they were all keepers. We did two more sessions like that, then one in New Orleans and then another one back in New Jersey. Dayna Kurtz now makes her home in New Orleans, where she was awarded Off Beat singer songwriter of the year, plus six other nominations 2016.
$10