When it comes to songwriting, less is more, and simplicity is strength. Just ask Paul Thorn, who’s spent three decades turning soulful grooves and small syllables into songs that pack a big wallop. Maybe he learned the power of minimalism from his years as a pro boxer; maybe it just comes naturally. But whether he’s targeting heads, hearts, hips or the occasional funny bone, he somehow manages to condense large nuggets of wisdom into tight little mantras, the kind embroiderers stitched onto pillows before internet memes existed.

Thorn’s new album, Life is Just A Vapor, contains some beauties: “Life is a vapor, let’s live it while we can”; “tough times don’t last, but tough people do” (from “Tough Times Don’t Last”); “any mountain up ahead is just a hill” (from “Old Melodies”). They’re words of advice, comfort, support, encouragement, often meant to uplift, especially in times of struggle.

“I like for people to be touched by music and get something from it, something that they can take with them throughout the day,” Thorn says. “Every song on this album, there’s a message in it of some sort about how to live life.”

American Blues Scene writer Don Wilcock calls Thorn “an everyman (who) addresses things we all think about, but few can articulate with the kind of candor, humor and folksy truth that immediately endear him to almost everyone lucky enough to hear his music.”

Whether he’s expressing love in “I Knew,” warning an ex’s new conquest about the dangers ahead in “She Will,” extolling the value of holding off on sex in “Wait” or listing the ingredients for making a marriage work in “Courage My Love” (“a half-acre on your daddy’s land / and a little luck / a load of white gravel in our driveway / so we don’t get stuck in a rut /a 3-horsepower lawnmower and courage my love”), Thorn delivers his messages with consummate skill — and pinpoint precision. One minute, he’ll unwind an outrageous tale full of wild characters (often accompanied by his own cartoonish illustrations); the next, he’ll tug at heartstrings with confessions of love, loss or failed dreams, balancing wit and pathos with an ease only the best storytellers can pull off. One of Thorn’s favorites was his friend and mentor John Prine, who inspired the title tune.

We’ll discuss that one in a bit, but first, we should mention that in “Wait,” a commentary about dating in the Tinder era, the fella who buys his dates dinner with a two-for-$20 coupon is someone Thorn actually knows. “Geraldine and Ricky” is based on real people, too — well, a real person and her hickory-headed dummy. Whether written solo, with longtime manager/collaborator/album producer Billy Maddox or with Chuck Cannon, Scotty Brassfield or Denny Carr, nearly all of these songs are inspired by or reference actual events or people; Geraldine was a traveling evangelist who couldn’t connect with children until she tried ventriloquism. When she spread the lord’s word through Ricky, kids were mesmerized — including 5-year-old Thorn, who requested, and got, a ventriloquist doll for Christmas.

“I would get up and tell jokes at church, and I’d take it to school and tell jokes at school,” he says, with that Tupelo, Miss.-formed accent and instantly charming, matter-of-fact delivery he has. “I had my mind up that when I grew up, I was going to be a ventriloquist.” (His singing career actually began at 3 — in church, of course; Thorn’s dad was a Pentecostal minister.)

Over a snaky rhythm enhanced by guest guitarist Luther Dickinson, Thorn fictitiously paints Geraldine as “a toxic opportunist looking for anything that will better her situation.” When she lands a dying old sugar daddy, she dumps Ricky. But karma catches up to Geraldine, while Ricky, thankfully, gets rescued.

But Life is Just a Vapor is not all homilies and humor. “I’m Just Waiting,” a catchy, funky tune featuring blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa, deftly examines relationship insecurity. In “Chicken Wing,” over a cool melody on which guitarists Michael Graham and Bill Hinds (on slide) merge T. Rex with Southern rock, a former pimp and scam artist admits: “I’m in the winter of my life / I love my dog, I like my wife / I wash the dishes, I sweep the floor / I keep a 12-gauge behind the door.”

For the record, the song is not about the uncle Thorn introduced on Pimps and Preachers, one of a dozen albums he’s released on his own Perpetual Obscurity Records since founding the label in 2000. (Thorn made his recording debut on A&M Records in 1997, after ex-Police manager Miles Copeland III heard him and had him open for then-client Sting, one of A&M’s top talents.) And just to be clear, Thorn’s definition of pimp includes “anybody that manipulates people and doesn’t give them nothing in return.”

“I’m around pimps every day, especially in the music business,” he adds. “A pimp is a larger word than just somebody on the corner with a gold chain. ‘Chicken Wing’ is an overview of a bunch of pimps that I have known in my life and I melded their stories together. … all that song is about is different seasons of life.”

Speaking of seasons of life, two of the album’s most poignant songs contemplate the passage of time. “Old Melodies,” the kind of song a retro-country-loving couple might dance to after renewing their wedding vows, suggests challenges are easier to face with a partner by your side.

“It’s about being together through life, and that’s where I’m at,” Thorn says. “I’m 60 years old, and the stuff I’m writing about and singing about is for people that get what being 60 years old is.” Then he reveals the song’s sobering origin, which adds a different perspective.

“We had a family problem a long time ago, a relative that ran off the tracks with drugs and everything,” he explains. “When my dad was dealing with the pain of the heartache that somebody he loved was in a dark hole, he was just standing there, crying. And he said, “Man, ‘Amazing Grace’ used to be my favorite song, but now it’s ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Boy, that just hit me right between the eyes. They’re both great songs, but ‘Amazing Grace’ is more like a praise song. ‘We Shall Overcome’ is, ‘We got something we gotta deal with, and we’re gonna deal with it, and we’re gonna get past it.’ I thought that was a beautiful thing he said.”

Thorn, a brilliant gospel stylist, could sing the heck out of either of those songs. If you haven’t heard his version of the O’Jays’ hit, “Love Train,” from Don’t Let the Devil Ride, his 2018 album of gospel covers, you haven’t experienced the song the way it truly should be heard.

On this album, he’s backed occasionally by Tupelo gospel group New Testament, or Muscle Shoals session singers Cindy Richardson and Marie Lewey (aka the Shoal Sisters) — who sing on “Life is Just a Vapor,” a phrase adapted from scripture.

It’s safe to say no one but Thorn would start a song with the lines, “Me and John Prine was eating ice cream / at the Double Tree Inn Suite 1019.” And no one but Thorn would follow them with, “Don’t tell Fiona she won’t understand / Life is a vapor. Let’s live it while we can.”

Of his late friend, Thorn says, “He’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and one of the nicest people, too. I can’t even count the times I’ve opened up for him, which was a great opportunity for me.”

As he will do for countless audiences, Thorn narrates the story behind those lyrics: “One night after I opened up for him,” he recounts, “John invited me and a few other friends to come to his hotel room and have some ice cream after the show. So I went, and it was a big thrill. Then the next morning I went on Facebook and I wrote about my encounter, and I said to the world what a moment it was for me to get to hang with John and have this ice cream and everything.

“Right when I posted it, his manager called my manager and said, ‘Take that post down immediately. John is a severe diabetic, and his wife Fiona is going to kill him for eating ice cream.’”

In total straight-man mode, Thorn nonchalantly adds, “Yeah, I got him in trouble for eating ice cream.”

And that’s how the finest troubadours do it: Set ‘em up with humor, then hit ’em in the feels with lines like, “Every day’s a gift, breathe in and hold it. / Every day’s a gift, it’s gone before you know it.”

Gorgeous, moving words. Simple, straight-forward and, if you’ve lost a loved one, or a hero like Prine, very likely tear-inducing.

“I’m just trying to put out a good body of work that will be remembered like John’s music,” Thorn admits. “I’m trying to carry on his tradition, to keep it alive.”

Prine, the heavyweight champ at spinning humor and heartbreak into gold, would have loved this song, and this album. Maybe the lyrics he inspired will motivate someone to grab some thread and start stitching.

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda, I’ll do it someday, / Turns into time just slippin’ away. / The hour glass is runnin’ out of sand, / Life is a vapor. Let’s live it while we can.”

Even among the pantheon of music’s finest artists, Del McCoury stands alone. From the nascent sound of bluegrass that charmed hardscrabble hillbilly honkytonks, rural schoolhouse stages, and the crowning glory of the Grand Ole Opry to the present-day culture-buzz of viral videos and digital streams, Del is the living link. On primetime and late-night television talk shows, there is Del. From headlining sold-out concerts to music festivals of all genres, including one carrying his namesake, there is Del. Where audiences number in the tens of thousands, and admirers as diverse as country-rock icon Steve Earle and jamband royalty Phish count as a few among hundreds, there is Del.

Emerging from humble beginnings in York County, PA nearly eighty years ago, Del was not the likeliest of candidates for legendary status. As a teen, he was captivated by the banjo playing of one of its masters, Earl Scruggs, and decided he’d be a banjo picker, too. The Baltimore/Washington, D.C. bar scene of the early 1960s was lively and rough. Del caught a break. More than a break, really. It was an opportunity of a lifetime; joining Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in early 1963. Considered the Father of Bluegrass, Monroe transformed McCoury, moving him from the banjo to guitar, anointing him lead singer, and providing him with a priceless trove of bluegrass tutelage direct from the source.

Countless hours of recording sessions and miles of tireless touring dotted the decades. Del carried on, and carried with him the hallowed traditions of the form and its dedicated following. The passing years became certificates of authenticity. So, in the sea of grunge and R&B that dominated the music scene of the mid-1990s, it was special, perhaps even startling, to see: There was Del.

Now helming the Del McCoury Band, with sons Ronnie and Rob, the ensemble did and continues to represent in a larger, growing musical community a peerless torchbearer for the entire sweep and scope of bluegrass history. Those many years, not to mention a good-natured
willingness to stay alert to the latest sounds and opportunities around him, earned McCoury a whole new generation of fans, including some in unlikely places.

“I’m just doing what’s natural,” says Del. “When young musicians ask me what they should do I always tell them, ‘You do whatever’s inside of you. Do what you do best.’”

No surprise that contemporary, bluegrass-bred stars sang his praises; marquee names like Vince Gill and Alison Krauss (who first met Del at a bluegrass festival when she subbed for his missing fiddler). Yet, here too was rocker Earle recording and touring with the group. Here was Phish jamming onstage with the boys. Here was the band on TV, or headlining rock clubs and college campuses; the can’t-miss appearances at country and jazz festivals. There was Del.

“We don’t have a setlist,” says Del. “We try and work in the new songs, but a lot of times it’s just requests from the audience. It’s more interesting for the band, for me, and for the audience because nobody knows what’s coming next.”

Almost unimaginable, McCoury’s sixth decade in a half-century of bluegrass bliss brings new triumphs, new collaborations, and new music. With but a single change in membership in twenty seven years The Del McCoury Band shows unprecedented stability as well as garnering the respect and admiration of the industry for its unmistakable work: ten IBMA Entertainer of the Year trophies (most recently in 2024); in 2003, Del’s awarded membership in the cast of the legendary Grand Ole Opry; the band’s first Best Bluegrass Album Grammy award, in ’05, followed by a second Grammy win in 2014, (not to mention double-digit nominations).

“I know (having the same band) helped with my success. It keeps your sound constant,” says Del. “We really enjoy what we’re doing.”

The group traveled with the groundbreaking post-O Brother “Down From The Mountain” tour, and performed with Gill, recording on his Grammy-winning These Days, as well as country sensation Dierks Bentley. In addition to becoming something of a regular at the wildly popular Bonnaroo Music Festival, they’ve also curated and expanded Del’s annual namesake festival. One of the premier string-band events in the country, the multi-day, multi-stage DelFest showcases the new lions of the genre such as Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Greensky Bluegrass, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Old Crow Medicine Show, and legends like Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and Bobby Osborne, plus a diversity of artists like Phish frontman Trey Anastasio and blues-rock veterans Gov’t Mule to Americana darlings The Wood Brothers and Rhiannon Giddens.

“DelFest is a great accomplishment,” says Del. “I never thought it would be as successful as it is.”

And, when Sony Music came calling, post-Hurricane Katrina, proposing a collaboration with New Orleans’ revered Preservation Hall Jazz Band, there was Del. If there was ever a collection of recordings confirming McCoury’s wide-ranging impact and spirit of musical comradery, it would be American Legacies. A wonderfully fulfilling cross-section of traditional bluegrass and the Dixieland pomp of New Orleans, the album typified the Del McCoury Band’s evolution from bluegrass vanguard to an American treasure.

“All music is related. Bill Monroe went to New Orleans and listened to jazz players. Earl Scruggs- some of the tunes he recorded were from New Orleans,” says Del. “It all fits together if you’re willing to be open-minded.”

And like any genuine treasure, the gifts keep coming. On their latest release, Songs of Love and Life, A glorious 15-song collection, the album follows 2021’s celebrated, Grammy-nominated release, Almost Proud, and once again features Del touching down on a diverse set of tracks–vintage and contemporary–as he and his crackerjack band nod to icons Kenny Rogers, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley, as well as welcome next-generation talent, Molly Tuttle, to the party. Across his six decades of making classic albums, Del knows what he’s looking for in a song. “I like a challenge. I’ve always liked a challenge,” says Del. “I like to learn different things. Doing the same things is boring to me.”

One listen and it’s clear as crystal. There is Del.

Solas is lighting up stages across the globe as they celebrate three decades of pushing boundaries and honoring traditions in Irish music. Hailed by The Boston Globe as “the finest Celtic ensemble this country has ever produced,” and by The Wall Street Journal as “an Irish traditional band bearing all the marks of greatness,” Solas continues to captivate audiences with their spellbinding musicianship and genre-defying creativity.

Formed in New York City in 1995, Solas quickly rose to prominence as a revolutionary force in Irish-American music. The very first iteration of Solas brought together a lineup of extraordinary talent including multi-instrumentalist Séamus Egan, fiddler Winifred Horan, vocalist Karan Casey, guitarist John Doyle, and accordionist John Williams. Together, they redefined the Celtic sound for a new generation, weaving traditional Irish tunes with elements of folk, bluegrass, Americana, and contemporary songwriting.

Now, with twelve critically acclaimed albums and a reputation for dynamic, emotionally charged live performances, Solas has set new standards for musicianship, repertoire, and intensity. Their debut album Solas (1996) established a bold new voice in traditional music, and each subsequent release has showcased the band’s remarkable ability to tell stories that resonate across time and cultures.

Among their most ambitious works is the 2013 concept album Shamrock City, a deeply personal project inspired by Egan’s great-great-uncle, who immigrated from Ireland to the mining town of Butte, Montana in the early 1900s. The album is a powerful meditation on immigrant identity, labor struggles, and lost dreams, and it solidified Solas’ reputation as not only virtuosic musicians but evocative storytellers.

Their 2016 release, All These Years, marked the band’s 20th anniversary and featured contributions from every past and present member. It was both a celebration of their journey and a showcase of their creative evolution.

While Solas has seen various lineup changes over the years, the spirit of innovation and reverence for Irish tradition has remained constant. Through every chapter, founding members Séamus Egan and Winifred Horan have steered the band with passion and vision. In 2025, they are joined by original accordionist John Williams and welcome two celebrated contemporary artists to the stage: renowned Irish singer and flutist Nuala Kennedy and guitarist Alan Murray.

This powerhouse ensemble brings the magic of Solas to life in a performance that promises to be both a homecoming and a new beginning. Audiences can expect an unforgettable musical journey filled with driving rhythms, soaring melodies, and heartfelt vocals that pay tribute to Irish roots while embracing new creative frontiers.

Solas’ music has always existed at the intersection of tradition and transformation. Whether interpreting a centuries-old ballad or unveiling an original composition, the band approaches each piece with curiosity, skill, and deep emotional resonance. Their ability to evolve without losing their essence has made them a cornerstone of the Celtic music scene and an inspiration to countless artists.

As they mark their 30th anniversary as a band, Solas invites longtime fans and new listeners alike to join the celebration. For tour dates and more, visit solastheband.com.

You know “Christmas Time’s A Coming” when 15-time GRAMMY winner and Country Music Hall of Fame member Ricky Skaggs and his ace backing band Kentucky Thunder play all your favorite Christmas songs in their refreshing acoustic style. This heartwarming show features a reason to listen to the season of songs both old and new as Skaggs and his band perform their own perfect blend of tight harmony. Come celebrate this special time of year with friends and family, while listening to first class vocalists and musicians, singing and playing their finest for Christmastime.

The show includes the joyful bluegrass tune “Christmas Time’s A Coming” along with a beautiful rendition of “New Star Shining,” a hit song for Ricky Skaggs and James Taylor. Beloved classic songs “Silent Night,” “Deck the Halls,” and “Let it Snow” are fully represented, along with many other special Christmas melodies. Included in this seasonal show are sing-a-longs, rounding out this exclusive assortment of holiday jewels. Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Christmas holiday show is sure to please during this most wonderful time of the year.

9/12/2025 Update: The start time of this concert is being moved up to 7:30 PM from the originally announced 8 PM per artist request. All tickets for the original time will remain valid.

On the heels of two Grammy-winning albums in succession, with her band Golden Highway—2022’s Crooked Tree and 2023’s City of Gold—plus a nomination for Best New Artist, Molly Tuttle returns with a solo album that’s her most dazzling to date: So Long Little Miss Sunshine.

Recorded in Nashville with producer Jay Joyce (Orville Peck, Miranda Lambert, Lainey Wilson, Eric Church, Cage the Elephant), the fifth full album from the California-born, Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and virtuoso guitarist features twelve new songs—eleven originals and one highly unexpected cover of Icona Pop and Charli xcx’s “I Love It.”

Tuttle’s career, which began at age fifteen, has charted a course between honoring bluegrass and stretching its boundaries. On this album—a hybrid of pop, country, rock, and flat-picking, plus one murder ballad—she goes to a whole new place. Her stunning guitar work is more up-front on this album than ever before. (One of the most decorated female guitarist alive, Tuttle was the first woman to win the prestigious International Bluegrass Music Award’s Guitar Player of the Year in 2017, at age twenty-four, and won again the following year, with nominations nearly every year since; she has also won Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year award.) So Long Little Miss Sunshine also features Tuttle playing banjo, something she’s never done on one of her albums before.

“I like to be a bit of a chameleon with my music,” she says. “Keep people guessing and keep it full of surprises.”

Tuttle has been slowly building this collection of songs over the last five years, while also writing and releasing two hugely successful albums and a six-song EP (last year’s Into the Wild) and playing more than 100 shows each year with Golden Highway. Along the way she’d send songs to Joyce, who she first started talking to about collaborating on the album a few years ago.

“I’ve been wanting to make this record for such a long time. Part of me was scared to do such a big departure, and that went into the album title So Long Little Miss Sunshine. It’s like, ‘You know what? I’m just not going to care what people think. I’m going to do what I want.’”

The album was recorded with a group of musicians that includes drummer/percussionists Jay Bellerose and Fred Eltringham, bassist Byron House, and Joyce on multiple instruments. Ketch Secor (Old Crow Medicine Show) also plays banjo, fiddle, and harmonica, as well as singing harmony.

Tuttle also conceived the artwork for So Long Little Miss Sunshine, which features multiple Mollys, each wearing a different wig except for one with nothing on her head at all. (“I probably own as many wigs as I own guitars,” she says.) Tuttle has been bald since she was three years old due to the autoimmune condition alopecia areata; she acts as a spokesperson for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.

“I love raising awareness,” she says. “I talk about it onstage a lot and broaden it to include anyone who’s ever had something that makes them stick out and look or feel different from others. Playing my song ‘Crooked Tree’ live is very meaningful to me, because it’s a moment where sometimes I’ll take off my wig and talk about my struggles with self-acceptance.”

One album track, “Old Me (New Wig),” is “about leaving all these things behind that don’t serve you anymore,” she says. “Parts of yourself that really aren’t in your best interest, like low self-esteem, anxieties, and not feeling confident. Learning to own these different aspects of my personality but not letting them control me is another theme of the record that inspired the album title and the cover art. Those are all things I’ve struggled with through the years—just feeling like an impostor, like I wasn’t good enough. I like singing this song because there are days when I still have to tell myself to leave that stuff behind.’”

Most of the So Long Little Miss Sunshine songs were co-written with Secor, who is also Tuttle’s partner. “We spend so much time together, we live together, and anytime I have a song idea, or he has one, it’s just so easy to transition from whatever we’re doing into writing a song.”

Although they were written in different times and circumstances, Tuttle found to her surprise that the songs were all tied together by interwoven themes. The opening track, “Everything Burns”—a dark, intense, big-guitar song—was written in 2020, during the chaos and division of the start of the Covid pandemic. It might as easily refer to the current chaos and division in America since Election Day 2024, though. In fact, they recorded it the day after the election.

There are several songs about traveling—sometimes down the open road, like “Highway Knows” and “Oasis”—but also back in time, as on “Easy” and “Golden State of Mind.”

The record also tells “a kind of coming-of-age story,” Tuttle says. “‘Golden State of Mind’ is one of the songs I feel is a through-line to that. It makes me think about people I’ve been close to in the past that I’ve drifted away from, and about growing up and figuring out who you are.”

That theme is in turn picked up in the beautiful ballad “No Regrets,” one of the last songs Tuttle wrote for the album. “It’s about looking back on your life and thinking, ‘Well, maybe I could have done things differently, but if I hadn’t made certain mistakes or gone down certain roads, then I wouldn’t be here.’ And I really like where I am now!”

So Long Little Miss Sunshine closes, as her last two albums did, with an autobiographical song, “Story of My So-Called Life.” “This is me looking back on my life, from growing up to going to school in Boston to moving to Nashville to where I am now—taking stock of all these pivotal moments throughout my life that made me who I am. I feel like after I’ve said so much in all the other songs, it’s just kind of nice to end it on a note of, ‘Here’s how this all came to be,’” she says.

Earlier this year, Tuttle played guitar and sang on Ringo Starr’s new country album, Look Up. She also played with him and a host of other stellar musical guests at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and Grand Ole Opry as part of his televised Ringo & Friends shows. She was inspired by his fearlessness in following his passion for country music. “It is cool to see someone like that who has done everything you could imagine doing in a music career and he’s still just so psyched and still has a list of things that he wants to accomplish,” Tuttle says.

Looking back on her own career, Tuttle admits that she also has pursued what interests her: “It has never been a cookie-cutter thing where I’m just going down a straight road. I always had this crooked path.”

Hailing from both the Appalachian and Piedmont regions of North Carolina, the Rangers have long held traditional bluegrass paramount, while possessing an exceptional ability to bring it down the mountain, and to incorporate accessible influence from all walks of the region. With the band’s last few albums, they have gained recognition from well beyond the world of bluegrass, earning a reputation as some of the most influential songwriters in Americana today.

Newcomer to this ship, Aaron Burdett, brings a soul-stirring element to the Rangers’ mastery of mountain music. Burdett is an award-winning singer-songwriter, and a student of folk tradition. He provides a fresh, emotional context to the songbook, which “can reach out and touch your heart or slap you in the face,” to use the praise of drummer and multi-instrumentalist, Mike Ashworth.

Steep Canyon Rangers is made up of Graham Sharp on banjo and vocals, Mike Guggino on mandolin/mandola and vocals, Aaron Burdett on guitar and vocals, Nicky Sanders on fiddle and vocals, Mike Ashworth on drums and vocals, and Barrett Smith on bass, guitar, and vocals.

Over the band’s esteemed career, the three-time Grammy nominees have released 14 studio albums, three collaborative albums with actor and banjoist Steve Martin, been inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame, and appeared on some of music’s biggest stages. In 2013, Nobody Knows You won the GRAMMY Award for Best Bluegrass Album, while 2012’s Rare Bird and 2020’s North Carolina Songbook garnered nominations in the same category.

The Eagles Project returns to Memorial Hall for a special acoustic performance of favorites from the catalogues of the Eagles and their solo projects. This special holiday-flavored performance will include the Eagles Project Strings.

It all began with an idea and a love of great music shared by talented musicians. Wanting a creative project to both enjoy and perform for fans became our mission and now we want to share it with you. All of our members have had success in the music industry and performed all over the country. Yet coming together to perform the music of the Eagles, Henley, Frey and Walsh and James Gang has created an explosive dynamic project. One that has been delighting and exciting fans of this music like never before. The Eagles Project presents the music as it should be, true to the originals. Come see for yourself, your ears will thank you!