Taste Of Downtown American Music Show

Taste of Downtown (Springfield)
American Music Show lineup:

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit


Former member of the Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell explores the roots of his Florence, Alabama home recording his second solo release at the famed FAME recording studio in Muscle Shoals , AL. Soulful with country styling, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit inhabit the world of southern rock that blends every element of the American music catalogue into something rooted yet new.

Spin Magazine 4 Stars - Southern rock is a minefield of rebel flags, drinking songs, and dudes yelling "Free Bird!" With Drive-By Truckers, singer-guitarist Jason Isbell learned to embrace some of those clichés; on his gritty, vibrant second solo album, he begins to transcend them. "However Long" personalizes working-class disaffection into a defiant anthem; stormy rocker "Soldiers Get Strange" is almost certainly the best tune ever written about post-traumatic stress disorder; and multiple tales of warm, lonely barrooms and the warm, lonely relationships they breed uncover new truths while traversing well-trod emotional terrain.



The Lucky Stars



The Lucky Stars play raucous good time dance music that sets the mood for a rollicking Saturday night on the town, as well as their very own brand of heart-broken blues that can provide the perfect soundtrack for the inevitable Sunday morning hangover.
The characters behind this music, Sage Guyton and JW (Jeremy Wakefield) stumbled upon each other one whiskey-soaked night at The Cattle Call Saloon, a long forgotten Hollywood Honky Tonk. The Hillbilly band that Sage was playing with that night caught J.W.'s ear, especially since he'd recently started learning to play the steel guitar and was looking for a band to join up with. Several bottles later, the two were waxing philosophical about their mutual interest in 1940s and 1950s Western and Hillbilly artists such as Merle Travis, Tex Williams, and Bob Wills, and by the time last-call rolled around they had decided to band together in the hopes of creating original music that would help keep the spirit of the music they loved alive.
Many of their heroes, were among the mid and south westerners who moved to California during the 1930s and 1940s in order to pursue employment during the depression and war years, bringing their musical culture with them. As a result, the music that flourished in Los Angeles at that time was an inventive hybrid of Celtic fiddle music, Blues, Cowboy folk tunes and early Dixieland jazz--music that later became known as Western Swing. Fittingly, The Lucky Stars are based in Hollywood, the town in which this music reached the height of its popularity via the burgeoning film industry.
Described as "kick-ass" and "heart-warming " by young and old respectively, The Lucky Stars appeal to diverse audiences, and are equally comfortable performing for a room of WWII veterans at The Elk's Lodge or opening for an all-ages Melvins' show at the Whiskey A Go-Go (which is, incidentally, how they got their record deal). So, whether you feel like cutting a rug or crying into your beer, The Lucky Stars have just the right musical accompaniment to suit your mood!

JEFF the Brotherhood

Lo-fi rock in all of its glory. Praise be to rock!

“Right now it doesn’t get any better than rock team JEFF The Brotherhood. They’re very awesome and weird, and I think everybody here in a band should see them. Their sheer lack of professionalism combined with their seemingly unintentional disregard for by-the-book “rock rules,” combined with their right-on teenage humor makes them by far the most interesting live group in Nashville.” - Nashville Scene
”Depending on the song, Nashville’s Jeff the Brotherhood can recall either a metallic stoner-rock outfit or a melodic power-pop band. The group sounds confident and convincing in either guise.” -Time Out New York
"JEFF The Brotherhood are a duo comprised of singer/guitarist Jake Orrall and drummer Jamin Orrall (fake?), blew my mind with speedy riffs, frenetic drumming, and loose solos. JEFF take big ’70s rock and squeeze it into the basement, creating a kind of D.I.Y. stadium sound, one that fuses the divergent genres of punk- and blues-based rock ‘n’ roll." –Limewire

Otis Gibbs

A modern day folk troubadour with Midwestern roots. Billy Bragg’s a fan and Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill look on admiringly. What more do you need?

Otis Gibbs is an old-school troubadour out of Wanamaker, Ind., who sounds only too happy to pick up the mantle of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in championing the working stiff and blue-collar America in song. On "Grandpa Walked a Picketline," due Jan. 20, he sings of everyday folks, not always the desperate or destitute, but the overlooked and underappreciated.
"Calling out tonight to anyone who's tired of being down," he writes in "To Anyone," echoing Guthrie's famous line about hating a song that makes you feel no good, or born to lose.
"Caroline" follows a woman much like the matriarch in Dolly Parton's "To Daddy," who leaves her family behind when she lights out in search of fulfillment after a lifetime of neglect. Gibbs gets impressively Dylanesque in "Preacher Steve," about a charlatan who uses religion rather than snake oil to fleece his flock: "Preacher Steve could walk on water while the whole world's dying of thirst."
Gibbs brings his characters to life with a vocal growl that sounds just one pack of Camels shy of Tom Waits, and he's assisted ably by a team of roots-music veterans, including bassist Don Dixon, steel guitarist-Dobro ace Al Perkins, mandolinist Tim Easton and producer Chris Stamey.
There couldn't be a better time for a voice this insightfully compassionate. – Randy Lewis LA Times


Lucky Patterson and the Wolf Crick Boys

Hee-Haw lovin, white lightin’ drinkin’, juke joint jumpin’, Sunday mornin’ repentin’ outlaws from the sticks of Sangamon County