On Saturday, May 11, 2019, the Bishop Gunn Crawfish Boil returns to Bluff Park in Natchez for its second southern celebration of Natchez, music and food. The event will feature a full roster of live music, an endless supply of crawfish by C&M Crawfish, delicious food and beverages and a family-friendly atmosphere along the Mississippi River. The BGCB line up includes Bishop Gunn, Tyler Childers, Black Stone Cherry, Southern Avenue and Magnolia Bayou. Tickets can be purchased here.
The BGCB ’19 coincides with the annual Natchez Festival of Music, a celebration of diverse musical events planned throughout the city during the month of May. “We see the BGCB as a perfect accompaniment to the musical events we have planned throughout the month” stated Jay Dean, artistic director of the festival, “in fact, it really rounds out the performances that are available during that weekend.”
About Bishop Gunn:
Bishop Gunn of Natchez, Mississippi, is rooted in the history and sounds of their home and the surrounding Delta, and features a blend of rock and roll, soul and blues. The band, consisting of Travis McCready (vocals), Drew Smithers (guitar), Ben Lewis (bass) and Burne Sharp (drums), released their debut full-length album Natchez in May 2018. They worked on the release with Grammy Award-winning producers Casey Wasner and Mark Neill at legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and FAME Studios, as well as The Purple House in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee where the band lives and creates in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Nashville. The album, named after the band’s hometown, entered the Billboard charts as the #4 Blues Album and also appeared as #8 on their Heatseekers South Central chart. Rolling Stone Country featured the band among their “Artists You Need to Know,” asserting “anyone can cite the Muscle Shoals sound as an influence, but few acts can actually pull off making music worthy of such a claim. Nashville band Bishop Gunn is one of those acts…the resulting music is the perfect blend of Nashville and the Shoals, and is the rare album that builds upon its influences rather than resorting to outright mimicry.”
Prior to the release of Natchez, the band was featured at SXSW, played support dates for Blackberry Smoke and was invited for a return appearance on Kid Rock’s 9th Annual “Chillin’ the Most Cruise.” They then spent the rest of 2018 touring in support of the album, including performances at The Peach Fest and The Big House Museum, as well as support dates for The Marcus King Band, Whiskey Myers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws, and Black Stone Cherry.
About Tyler Childers:
Like many great Southern storytellers, singer-songwriter Tyler Childers has fallen in love with a place. The people, landmarks and legendary moments from his childhood home of Lawrence County, Kentucky, populate the 10 songs in his formidable debut, Purgatory, an album that's simultaneously modern and as ancient as the Appalachian Mountains in which events unfold.
The album, co-produced by Grammy Award winners Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson, is a semiautobiographical sketch of Childers' growth from wayward youth to happily married man, told in the tradition of a Southern gothic novel with a classic noir antihero who may just be irredeemable. Purgatory is a chiaroscuro painting with darkness framing light in high relief. There's catharsis and redemption. Sin and temptation. Murder and deceit. Demons and angels. Moonshine and cocaine. So much moonshine and cocaine. All played out on the large, colorful canvas of Eastern Kentucky.
About Black Stone Cherry:
Family comes first—you can never forget who was there with you from the start. The Edmonton, Kentucky-based rock n' roll quartet Black Stone Cherry was raised on musical forefathers such as Cream, Led Zeppelin, Muddy Waters, and the Faces, among other 1970s staples, and, now, with its sixth album, Family Tree, BSC salutes its classic rock heritage and honors its legacy with a beast of a Southern rock n' roll album.
For 17 years, Black Stone Cherry has put forth a new vicious breed of Southern rock, injecting youthful vitality and a myriad of fresh new influences into the beloved American rock tradition. To date, the band has released five critically acclaimed albums, and one well-received blues EP. Black Stone Cherry has also rocked 12,000-cap arena shows, topped the UK charts, and shared the stage with a diverse roster of superstars, including Def Leppard, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bad Company, Motörhead, and ZZ Top.
About Southern Avenue:
Southern Avenue combines the talents of a prodigiously talented set of young musicians who bring their individual backgrounds to the table to create music that carries the Southern soul legacy into the 21st century, spanning the band members' wide-ranging musical interests while showcasing the powerful chemistry and electrifying live show that they've honed through extensive stage and studio experience. Since the release of their debut, Southern Avenue has played in over a dozen countries and wowed audiences at such festivals as Bonnaroo, Firefly, Electric Forest and Lockn’.
Guitar phenom Ori Naftaly originally built his reputation in his native Israel before joining forces with deeply expressive Memphis-bred singer Tierinii Jackson and her subtly powerful drummer sister Tikyra Jackson. The band's lineup is rounded out by versatile keyboardist Jeremy Powell, an early alumnus of Stax Records' renowned music academy.
The band’s self-titled debut was released in 2017, hitting #6 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums Chart, reaching #1 on the iTunes Blues Chart and prominently sitting in the Americana radio Top 30 for nearly six months. The success of the album created demand for the band in both the U.S. and throughout the world performing in high-profile festivals around the globe. Since that time the band has seemingly lived on the road with over 300 shows under their belts. Building their audience one show at a time, they have headlined countless rooms from coast to coast and have toured with artists including Buddy Guy, JJ Grey & Mofro, Umphrey's McGee, Los Lobos, North Mississippi Allstars and Karl Denson to name a few. "We love playing live," says Ori Naftaly, "It's that connection with our fans that makes the time away from home worth it. Fans become our family out on the road and we love experiencing music together with them each and every night."
About Magnolia Bayou:
Magnolia Bayou is a rock band, born on the bayous of South Mississippi. Their roots run deep through the rich soil of the Mississippi Delta all the way down to the muddy waters of Mexico. Because their upbringings stretch so far across the state, a vast array of influences are carried throughout their music, which is soaked with the sound and soul for their southern heritage. In the three short years since their formation, they have paid their dues up and down the Mississippi Blues Trail, touring extensively throughout the surrounding South and as far as the Midwest. Full of energy and soul, the band carries a dynamic show that captivates its audience and transports them back to the late 60’s and 70’s, a time when music was epic. They have shared the stage with many national and global touring acts such as Flow Tribe, Walter Wolfman Washington, Cody Johnson, The Banditos, The Cordovas, Ian Moore and Mississippi’s own Bishop Gunn. Magnolia Bayou spent the majority of 2017 recording their self-titled, debut album at Music Shed Studios in New Orleans, LA. Much of the voodoo and folklore of the surrounding area can be heard and felt throughout their LP. The music contains nuances of southern, psychedelic, funk and blues-based Rock N Roll. In May of 2018, the band released the album to a sold out crowd at Murky Waters Blues Club in their hometown of Gulfport, MS. The album has been met with an array of positive reverberation across their rapidly expanding and diverse fan base.
Comments