UPCOMING SHOWS
Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Natalie's Grandview
Dave Alvin, a Grammy Award winning songwriter, singer and self described barroom guitarist, is considered by many to be one of the pivotal pioneers of Americana.
A fourth generation Californian, Alvin grew up in the small town of Downey and got his musical education by listening to the late night border radio stations, watching his older cousins play guitar and banjo, collecting dusty, rare 78s and sneaking in underage to bars with his older brother, Phil, to see their legendary blues heroes perform live and to learn from them firsthand. Since forming the highly influential Roots Rock/R+B band, The Blasters, with his brother in 1979, and through his long, critically acclaimed solo career after he left the group in 1986, Dave Alvin has mixed his varied musical and literary influences into his own unique, updated version of traditional American music. Combining blues, folk, rockabilly, Bakersfield country, surf and garage rock and roll with lyrical inspiration from writers like Raymond Chandler and John Steinbeck, Alvin says his songs are like California…a big, messy, melting pot.
Alvin has recorded with such diverse artists as Bobby Rush, Tom Waits, John Mellancamp, Little Milton, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and The Knitters, while his songs have been recorded by performers like Los Lobos, Dwight Yoakam, James McMurtry, Buckwheat Zydeco, Joe Ely and Marshall Crenshaw as well as having been featured in various movies/TV shows including The Sopranos, Justified, Girls, Crybaby, Dusk To Dawn, The Wire and True Blood. Special projects include Alvin reunited with his brother Phil for two blues albums including the Grammy nominated Common Ground, an album with Texas Flatlander Jimmie Dale Gilmore, a reunion with The Flesh Eaters, and his most recent project, The Third Mind.
In the best of days, Dave can usually be found somewhere with his band, The Guilty Ones, on some interstate highway headed to his next gig.
Sarah Borges
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
Natalie's Grandview
One way or another, Sarah Borges connects with casual mastery. Whether it’s with the comrades she’s collaborated with over nearly 20 sparkling years of music-making, or the vivid portraits of people’s lives – and occasionally her own – she’s sketched in scores of emotionally resonant songs. But most of all, Borges has built a loyal following by connecting, through her own charismatic, down-to-earth spirit, with her audience – whether they’re longtime fans from back when she broke through with her terrific “Silver City” debut in 2004, or newcomers just now joining the party with her brand new 2022 album, “Together Alone”, her eighth. “Sarah’s a fearless writer and performer,” says producer Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel, “and she’s a very good musician.” As anyone familiar with Sarah’s songs and performances knows, genuinely soulful music that connects with us — and connects us to each other — can simultaneously steal, and heal, hearts. This connection is what has kept Sarah touring and making music for many years, and what keeps us coming back to see her do it.
Maia Sharp
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Natalie's Grandview
Maia Sharp returns with Mercy Rising, her boldest, most confessional offering to date. After living in the Los Angeles metro area for most of her life, Maia moved to Nashville at the beginning of 2019, partly to be in an unapologetically songwriter centric town and partly as a personal life reboot. She reflects, “In the last 2 years, just about everything that could have changed has changed and it feels now like those long walks outside of all of my comfort zones were heading toward this album.”
Maia has always managed to play all sides of the songwriting field. She has had her songs recorded by Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, Trisha Yearwood, Keb’ Mo’, Cher, Edwin McCain, Terri Clark, David Wilcox, Art Garfunkel, Lizz Wright, Paul Carrack, Lisa Loeb and more. She produced Edwin McCain’s album Mercy Bound (429 Records) and two songs for Art Garfunkel’s retrospective double album The Singer (Sony). And through it all, Maia has continued to record her own albums. She has eight solo releases (on Ark 21, Concord, KOCH, eOne, Blix Street and Crooked Crown respectively), a collaborative project with Art Garfunkel and Buddy Mondlock Everything Waits to be Noticed (EMI Manhattan) and a duo project called Roscoe & Etta with writing/production partner Anna Schulze. Each release has led to extensive touring throughout the US and UK and appearances on Mountain Stage, Acoustic Cafe, World Cafe, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CBS Early Morning and the Today Show to name a few. Maia is also an adjunct professor at NYU for the Summer Songwriter Workshop and she has been writing for Songwriting with Soldiers since 2017 where active duty service members, veterans and/or their family members are paired with professional songwriters to share their experience and turn it into a song.
Her new album, Mercy Rising, is out now to critical acclaim and features co-writes and guest appearances by Mindy Smith, Gabe Dixon, Noah Guthrie and P.J. Pacifico.
About Mercy Rising…
“What a Lovely Album. I hit play and it put me in a beautiful trance, that I couldn’t get out of.” — Keb’ Mo’
“I think I have my favorites then another slays me. Maia is a master in her absolute prime — out of the ballpark once again, but this one really ignites everything that is different and brilliant about her writing, singing, songwriting and production. I’m running out of superlatives! ” — Bonnie Raitt
“Backburner” is one clever lyric, but the beauty of the song is that it isn’t cloying or cutesy. The arrangement, which features Sharp’s guitars and synths along with other musicians, is steady and unswerving, like on the cruise-control mode in your car. From Sharp’s contemplative delivery to the tautness of the arrangement, “Backburner” conveys regret without ever sounding maudlin. To extend its metaphor, it stays on simmer and never overheats.” — ROLLING STONE
Eilen Jewell
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Natalie's Grandview
Hailed by American Songwriter as “one of America’s most intriguing, creative, and idiosyncratic voices,” Eilen Jewell rises from the ashes on her captivating new album, Get Behind The Wheel, picking up the pieces of her shattered world and finding new purpose and meaning after watching her marriage, her band, and what felt like her entire career fall apart in a series of spectacular, heartbreaking implosions. Co-produced by multi-instrumental wizard Will Kimbrough (Todd Snider, Hayes Carll), the collection pushes the acclaimed singer and songwriter’s trademark blend of vintage roots-noir into more psychedelic territory, with spacious, cinematic arrangements complementing her revelatory explorations of grief, loss, resilience, and redemption.
An Idaho native, Jewell built her career the old fashioned way, touring relentlessly with the kind of undeniable live show that converts the uninitiated into instant acolytes. Over the course of nine albums, she’s crisscrossed the globe countless times and shared bills with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Loretta Lynn, Mavis Staples, Wanda Jackson, George Jones, and Emmylou Harris. Rolling Stone lauded Jewell’s “clever writing," while NPR declared that she has a “sweet and clear voice with a killer instinct lurking beneath the shiny surface,” and The Washington Post mused that “if Neko Case, Madeleine Peyroux and Billie Holiday had a baby girl who grew up to front a rockabilly band, she’d probably sound a lot like Eilen Jewell.”
Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellert
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Natalie's Grandview
Kieran Kane’s seminal work in The O’Kanes and Kane Welch Kaplin, as well as co-founding the independent label Dead Reckoning Records, laid the foundation for the contemporary world of Americana music. A successful solo artist, collaborator, and songwriter (with songs recorded by Alan Jackson, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, and many more), Kieran is a musician’s musician: his playing is always understated, always groove-oriented, and always serving the song.
If Rayna Gellert seems a preternaturally gifted songwriter, it’s because she’s seen farther into the old songs than most. Growing up in a musical family, she turned to Appalachian old-time music at a young age, becoming a prodigious fiddler and leading a new revival of American stringband music through her work with the acclaimed roots band Uncle Earl. An in-demand collaborator, she has toured and recorded with artists such as Scott Miller, Abigail Washburn, Toubab Krewe, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Kieran and Rayna first met, fittingly, at San Francisco’s celebrated Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, which led to their cowriting songs for Kieran’s solo album Unguarded Moments(Dead Reckoning). They joined forces again for Rayna’s 2017 release, Workin’s Too Hard(StorySound Records), which they also co-produced. Their first duo album, The Ledges, was released in February of 2018 on Dead Reckoning Records, followed up quickly by 2019’sWhen the Sun Goes Down.
Now, in 2022, this “unlikely musical couple” have released The Flowers That Bloom in Spring, which finds the duo digging deeper into their exploration of minimalist writing and recording.
Fans of either artist will recognize the musical kindred-spiritedness in their restrained and roots-oriented approach to both songs and arrangements.