he Honey Dewdrops with special guest My New Favorites to perform September 13
WHEN: SATURDAY September 13, 2014 @ 8 pm (Doors open at 7 pm)
WHERE: Renaissance Arts Center Theatre 1200 E. Center St. Kingsport TN
COST: ONLY $15
Book Now: www.EngageKingsport.com
KINGSPORT – The Honey Dewdrops are the Virginia-based roots duet of Laura Wortman and Kagey Parrish. With a blend of new Americana and traditional folk music, they create inspired songs that are rooted in the experience and lives of people. Their sound is transcendent; they write all their own songs and yet no one could ever peg them as just another singer-songwriter couple, not when theyve embedded a sparse Appalachian clarity on every track that is accessible to listeners everywhere. The songs they write shine with energy and emotion through intimate performances with a handful of acoustic instruments and tightly layered harmonies.
On stage, The Honey Dewdrops focus on dynamically blending the sounds of instruments and voices by singing and playing into a single microphone. There is a high lonesome quality to the way their voices blend that is familiar, yet the mixture is unique.
Their music covers the ground between hand crafted folk songs, Appalachian fiddle tunes, and a cappella spirituals.
In their own way, the duo fills up a room with sound and feeling that lingers long after the show is over. For their third album, Silver Lining, The Honey Dewdrops set up shop on an old farm in Catawba, Virginia, atop a hill that looks east to Roanoke, and invited their best friends over to help tune guitars, craft
songs, cook savory meals, keep the creativity flowing, make hot tea, and uncork the wine. The result is a remarkably intimate recording that sounds so much larger than the two people at the center of the music. Beautiful harmonies flow together effortlessly, as quick as a second thought, and the acoustic instruments drift along the back roads of the music, between hills clouded with wood smoke.
Its music made in the barthills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, beholden not to ancient traditions, but to the spirit of the hills, to the handmade, community music that came before.
During the past four years of touring full-time and playing for audiences across America, The Honey Dewdrops down-to-earth, real-life approach to music has touched audiences broadly and brought them to high profile stages such as A Prairie Home Companion and gained them Folk Radio notoriety with two #1 albums.
Opening act: My New Favorites! A favorite in Kingsport, My New Favorites will open the show, they are the union of five musicians with radically different musical backgrounds. Two of them are classically trained. Two cant read a note of music. Individually, they play old time, bluegrass, rock, gospel, jazz and classical. Together they are a fusion of all those styles. Speaking of fusion, check out how piano, organ and clawhammer banjo happily coexist on their track Got To Have That Giving On Your Mind or the rock and roll accordion solo on Go or check out the four part harmonies in Meet Me in the Water and Long White Robe.
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Playing in My New Favorites means bringing our own musical influences to the group, AND (this is important) being willing to learn from and be influenced by one another.
The result is great music. But its a style that doesnt readily fit into any particular genre. My New Favorites is billed as an Americana band. Thats the closest thing to a non-label label that we could come up with. But as one elderly concert attendee asked us one night before we started a show: Americana? You people play Americana? Why dont you just play music?‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ Right on.‚ Right on, Mr. Concert-goer, whoever you were and wherever you are. Right on that there doesnt have to be a label, a category, or a genre. Music just IS.
We write about 90% of the music we play. That just seems to work best for us. The songs have become our voice. And we use our voices to share them.‚ Everyone in the band has performed for years, but we all hooked up as My New Favorites in 2011. Since then, things have been‚ busy. Weve played festivals, concerts and clubs all around the southern mountains as well as several Kingsport performances!