We are excited to welcome Jimmy LaFave to our stage for the first time. Jimmy has one of America’s greatest voices and ranks right up there with Guthrie, Dylan and Morrison. He stands out like a “pint of Guinness in a bar full of Miller Lites,”* carrying on the working class poet legacy of Woody Guthrie. You should also grab the chance to see Kerri Powers live, our opening act, while she is still playing small venues. This New England born and based singer/songwriter’s latest CD, Faith in the Shadows, has received superb reviews.*Associated Press

Jimmy LaFave was born in Wills Point, Texas, a small town 30 miles east of Dallas. He began school down the road in Mesquite and by junior high was making music perched behind his Sears & Roebuck drum kit. It wasn’t long before his mother traded a drawer full of green stamps for his first guitar and the switch to singer-songwriter was in progress. His family later moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he finished high school. Although he has lived in Austin for nearly 20 years, many people think of him as being from Oklahoma, because of his strong musical ties to the state and what he often refers to as its “red dirt music.” It was in this landscape that he began to define his sound and soak up a combination of his experiences among authentic songwriters from the tradition of Woody Guthrie. He moved to Austin in 1986, where he continued to write songs and to develop his musical ideas. In 1988 he recorded his self-produced tape, Highway Angels . . . Full Moon Rain, which won the Austin Chronicle Reader’s Poll Tape of the Year Award. In 1992 Jimmy released a self-produced CD, Austin Skyline, which drew international attention to his songwriting and vocal talents, and led to a publishing agreement with Polygram Music. His second album, Highway Trance, was released in 1994 followed by his third CD, Buffalo Return to the Plains, in 1995.

LaFave kicked off 1999 with the release of Trail, which contains 31 tracks recorded in Texas and around the world. Including 12 Dylan songs, it answered the demand of fans for a “LaFave does Dylan” CD. In 2001, Jimmy released Texoma, a celebration of the Americana spirit with a heartfelt valentine to the heartland. Since then, Jimmy combined his solo dates with the Woody Guthrie tribute tour titled “The Ribbon of Highway — Endless Skyway,” featuring a rotating cast of Americana musicians that has included such notables as Eliza Gilkyson, Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, Tom Russell and Slaid Cleaves. The two-disc live album Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway is a collection of the tour’s live performances that features some of Jimmy’s interpretations of Woody Guthrie classics.

Encouraged by his friend, fellow Austin artist, Eliza Gilkyson, Jimmy LaFave signed with indie label Red House Records, and in 2005 released Blue Nightfall. This stunningly soulful album was LaFave’s first in four years and won him much critical attention. LaFave’s album Cimarron Manifesto finds Jimmy taking a more country road, with sweet and mournful songs about life and loss and special guest appearances by Carrie Rodriguez, Ruthie Foster and Kacy Crowley.

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Kerri Powers’ throaty voice complements the moody, intimate songs on her latest record, Faith in the Shadows. With these songs, it’s clear that she looks for beauty on the darker side of life. However, with lyrics that are often considered quirky and whimsical, the songs can also have a hopeful feel but are never bouncy. “I put myself right in the middle of each song and find the truth in them,” Kerri says. She brings that same intimacy and charm to her live performances. Kerri grew up listening to Neil Young, Gram Parsons, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams. She took guitar lessons alongside her father when she was 9 and gravitated to the edgier sound of blues and soul. You might put her in the company of Lucinda Williams, Margo Timmins, or Karen Dalton.

After years of touring with some success, she took a break to raise her son. “You do for your family,” Kerri says. “What I now realize though is that I couldn’t do for them without being able to write and perform my music. Luckily they understand.” She reunited with her long-time collaborator and producer Crit Harmon to record Faith in the Shadows. Two songs from the disc were featured in a steamy love scene on a 2009 TV episode of Denis Leary’s “Rescue Me.” Kerri was also a songwriting finalist at Kerrville as well as the 2009 Telluride Bluegrass Troubadour songwriting contest. She’s performed at major festivals such as the Philadelphia Folk Festival and the Strawberry Music Festival. Kerri has recently returned from a tour through the Netherlands, Belgium, and UK with Fred Eaglesmith.

• Jimmy LaFave is in the first rank of roots rockers to emerge from Austin, Texas. His songwriting shows equal passion for road-house rock and romantic balladry. Rolling Stone
• This is what Americana is supposed to be: real, rooted, and uncompromising. Acoustic Guitar
• A perfect balance between a vagabond’s restless spirit and a family man’s thirst for stability . . . the ballads shudder and ache while the rockers haul ass like there’s no tomorrow. Houston Press
• One of America’s greatest voices . . . he sings like one of those clear channel radio stations, cutting across the night and burrowing into parts of your heart you thought were utterly private. Dave Marsh
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• Taunton native Kerri Powers has long been known for the power and range of her voice — the type that could easily shatter glass. But her new album might make her better known as a songwriter. Faith in the Shadows . . . is a collection of songs aimed straight at the heart and drenched in a kind of easy-flowing style that evokes contemporaries like Lucinda Williams and Tom Waits, while also nodding to older favorites like Leonard Cohen and Patsy Cline. Jay Miller, Associated Press
• . . . Her neo-trad country rock had vision and bite. The original song “Tallulah Send a Car for Me” had a Lucinda Williams brilliance, while a cover of Ivory Joe Hunter’s “Since I Met You Baby” was stunning. Powers has a skilled acoustic-guitar touch . . . don’t miss her next time. Steve Morse, The Boston Globe
• [A] collection of songs that owe as much to Raymond Carver and Flannery O’Connor as they do any songwriting muse . . . presented in a voice part Lucinda Williams and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, that haunts and penetrates. Rick O’Connell, Country Standard Time