Friday, October 4, 8 p.m.
The Redstone Room, 129 Main Street, Davenport IA
A quintet that, according to WSUM.org, “incorporates rock, bluegrass, jazz, and a little folk, creating nothing but an upbeat atmosphere,” the Chicago-based Old Shoe plays Davenport's Redstone Room on October 4 in a co-headlining bill with the Windy City's Ernie Hendrickson & the Citizens of Love, the ensemble that Glide magazine says “delivers elements of jazz, fusion, rock, soul, and reggae, and handles these styles with enough grace and confidence to make even first-time listeners believers.”
With the band's most recent release Country Home praised by GratefulWeb.com for its songs' ability to “paint a diverse landscape of American life,” Old Shoe is composed of guitarist Paul Priest, bass player Dan Huber, drummer Greg Fundis, keyboard/organ/mandolin player Joe Day, and guitarist Matt Robinson, the latter an alumnus of Augustana College. Following the release of its self-titled 2009 debut and 2011 album Let Yourself In, the jam band began touring throughout the Midwest, performing at high-profile festivals including Summer Camp and Wakarusa, and opening for the likes of Leftover Salmon, Keller Williams, and Greensky Bluegrass, and Grammy winner Bruce Hornsby. In 2011, the quintet also inaugurated its own summertime music festival Shoe Fest, an annual event that The News-Gazatte called “a beautiful celebration of bluegrass, roots rock, funk, jazz-fusion, reggae, and more.” Country Home, released at the end of 2017, continues in the band's exhilarating roots-rock vein, and as Robinson told Relix magazine, the album was created without much in the way of post-recording cleanup: “We grew up listening to these classic albums that were created with everyone in the same room, and we were after that old school rock 'n' roll magic.”
A singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Palos Park, Ernie Hendrickson formed his first band with his brother Neil while in high school, and earned a degree in classical guitar from Illinois State University. His solo debut Down the Road was released in 2007, while its follow-up Walking with Angels landed in the top 20 of Roots Music Report's Folk Album Chart, stayed there for six months, and enjoyed regular airplay on more than 100 stations including Nashville's WSM-AM, home of the Grand Ole Opry. Alongside his Citizens of Love bandmates that traditionally include drummer Devin Ulery and bass player Peter Muschong, Hendrickson – whose most recent prior album was 2013's Nashville-recorded One for the Dreamers – is currently touring in support of the ensemble's newest release Roll On, a work that underscores the praise once awarded him by the Rock River Times: “Surely a cutting-edge singer/songwriter of tomorrow, Ernie Hendrickson lives enough in the past to keep what Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and Kris Kristofferson have done alive and thriving for generations.”
Old Shoe and Ernie Hendrickson & the Citizens of Love play the Redstone Room at 8 p.m. on October 4, admission to the concert is $12-15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)326-1333 or visiting RiverMusicExperience.org.
