I am pleased to announce that The Wood Brothers and Tall Heights will be appearing at the Lowell Summer Music Series on Thursday, July 9! This should be a fabulous show – I have seen both bands and loved the shows!

“From early in their childhood in Boulder, Colorado, Chris and Oliver were steeped in American roots music. The brothers bonded over bluesmen like Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins, but their paths, musical and otherwise, would diverge. Oliver moved to Atlanta, where he played guitar in cover bands before earning a spot in Tinsley Ellis’s touring act. At Ellis’s behest, Oliver began to sing and then founded King Johnson, a hard-touring group that would release six albums of blues-inflected R&B, funk and country over the next 12 years. Chris, meanwhile, studied jazz bass at the New England Conservatory of Music, moved to New York City and, in the early ‘90s, formed Medeski Martin & Wood, which over the next two decades would become a cornerstone of contemporary jazz and abstract music.

The Wood Brothers (Official Photo)

“The experience of recording their latest album, The Muse, marked a deeper level of collaboration for The Wood Brothers, a new-found fraternal synchronicity. Within the first few bars, it’s clear the brothers are operating on a different plane than when we last heard them on 2011’s Smoke Ring Halo. The components are similar: the dialed-in vocal harmonies, Oliver’s gritty acoustic guitar, Chris’s virtuosic upright bass, the warrior poet lyrics. But here there’s a glue holding it all together. The cohesion comes from the brothers having spent the last two years on the road with new full-time member Jano Rix, a drummer and ace-in-the-hole multi-instrumentalist, whereas they relied on session musician-friends to fill out previous albums. Jano’s additional harmonies give credence to the old trope that while two family members often harmonize preternaturally, it takes a third, non-related singer for the sound to really shine. And then there’s Jano’s work on his patented percussion instrument, the “shuitar,” a shitty acoustic guitar rigged up with tuna cans and other noisemakers, which, in his hands, becomes a veritable drum kit.”

“Tall Heights’ Tim Harrington and Paul Wright got their start playing for spare change in Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace. In a few short years since, Tall Heights has headlined venues across the country and toured down to Austin, TX to showcase at South By Southwest Music Festival.

Tall Heights (Official Photo)

“For the duo’s debut full-length effort, Man of Stone (May 2013), Tall Heights sinks deeper into the vast world they’ve meticulously built for two. The title track and first single, Man of Stone, recalls a time when cavemen documented day-to-day existence on the walls of their stone-sheltered dwellings. “Emblems of cavemen they taught me / the importance of typing in bold,” contextualizes the rest of the record and challenges a careful listener to view each song as a vital documentation of what is both banal and extraordinary. The record exists in a fire-lit, shadowy space for their growing army of fans to inhabit. After two powerful EPs, there has been a growing cry for more from these young artists and Tall Heights delivers with an LP of grand vision and scale.”

Tickets for The Wood Brothers and Tall Heights show are priced at $35 in advance (fee-free!), $40 on the day of the show (if available) and children 12 and under are always free courtesy of Eastern Bank. There are also premium seats – beach chairs are provided by the Series – set in two rows directly in front of the stage for $110.  Tickets go on sale Wednesday, April 1 at 9 a.m., through Lowell Summer Music Series.

For those of you who are unaware of the  Series, or if you are aware of it but have never attended a show there, it is an outdoor (weather permitting) concert series held on National Park Service grounds in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Series is not-for-profit, which helps keep the ticket prices reasonable.

Surrounding Boarding House Park are old mill buildings, part of the Lowell National Historical Park, which you can tour if you arrive early enough. They provide an unusual setting for an evening of great music and ambiance.

The Series generally runs from late June to early September.

This Series is dear to my heart. I have been a season pass holder since 2007 and it is one of the highlights of the year (and of summer in particular) for me. Many lasting friendships have been made there. I expect this will be another excellent year!

I will post additional announcements for the Series as they are made.

Shows announced to date are:

June 19 (Friday) – Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang

June 20 (Saturday) – Ani DiFranco

July 9 (Thursday) – The Wood Brothers and Tall Heights

July 17 (Friday) – Chris Robinson Brotherhood

July 18 (Saturday) – Dave Mason’s Traffic Jam

July 31 (Friday) – The Official Blues Brothers Revue

August 7 (Friday) – Lyle Lovett and His Large Band

August 28 (Friday) – Lake Street Dive

August 29 (Saturday) – Melissa Etheridge