WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY NOV. 28TH THRU JAN. 3RD

PLEASE JOIN US WHEN WE REOPEN FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR OF MUSIC

WE WILL BE CLOSED FOR HOLIDAY NOV. 28TH THRU JAN. 3RD

PLEASE JOIN US WHEN WE REOPEN FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR OF MUSIC

RACHELLE COBA

With her expertise in string instruments, Rachelle’s take on the blues is unexpectedly honest and mesmerizing. She works her magic to create amazing musical arrangements with a torrential force that sweeps away every type of audience. Rachelle started out jamming with Buddy Guy as a teenager and since has played to cheering crowds all around the world by bringing her own high-powered brand of soul, country, uptown and funk blues styles to the stage. Her debut album, “Mother Blues,” epitomizes her talent as a solo guitarist, singer, producer, and writing powerhouse, and earned her a nomination for Blues Blast’s Magazine’s Best New Debut CD Award. Her second album coming summer of 2018 on American Showplace Music is getting rave reviews already. Rachelle is on her way to becoming one of the worlds premier blues women and with her band, she continues to grace the stage as one of the blues most original performers.

Since then, Rachelle toured extensively in Australia in 2013, 2016 and 2017, the United States Midwest and the Mississippi Delta and she has been a reoccurring special guest on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise.

“She played the hell out of the guitar” Matt “Guitar” Murphy

“Now I know many of you may not have had the pleasure of hearing this smoking guitar powerhouse and

singer… But I have to tell you this, you WILL be hearing more of this amazing artist. Her performance at the Blues

Blast Awards was stunning! Once she started her set, a hushed silence fell over the entire crowd. It was one of the highlights of all of the performances at the awards show.”

Bob Kieser, publisher,  Blues Blast Magazine

“Stretching across the landscape of American folk music is a highway paved by Guthrie and Dylan… now Virginia native Andrew McKnight takes his turn smoothing down the blacktop” – Performing Songwriter

Since permanently leaving his corporate environmental engineering career in 1996, award-winning folk and Americana artist Andrew McKnight’s musical journey has traced nearly a million miles of blue highways, and earned him a wealth of critical acclaim and enthusiastic fans for his captivating performances and seven recordings.

The singer, writer, guitarist and storyteller usually tours solo, but also performs frequently with founding Nitty Gritty Dirt Band member Les Thompson fronting their genre-bending quartet Beyond Borders. His music is heard on broadcast and internet radio around the world, and he’s been a featured guest on the NPR/PRI syndicated Art of the Song and River City Folk shows. He is an insightful essayist and poet, a gifted workshop leader, and a warm and thoughtful interview.

Taking his cue from the lyrics of his award-winning song “Good Things Matter“, Andrew often shares his talents both on the road and close to home near northwestern Virginia’s Blue Ridge to help “neighbors in need”. Whether aiding people living on the margins with food drives at concerts, singing for and about workers and communities displaced by mountaintop removal coal mining, or introducing children to music and creativity, he has seen the power of music to help others up close.

His empathy and curiosity span a wide range of subjects, from the vulnerability of an illegal immigrant woman (“These Shoes“) to imagining what words Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings might have written about their lives together (“Diary“). In addition to his passion for community causes, he is a longtime advocate for preserving American landscapes and heritage. Several of McKnight’s songs are rooted in Appalachian history and culture, including the haunting Civil War ballad “The Road to Appomattox“.

Those passions, and the thoughtful ways he expresses them, have drawn legions of fans who sustain his independent career. In the early 1990s Andrew grasped the power of the internet to grow and connect with a loyal listenership, and his career has blossomed largely through their “efangelism” instead of the traditional elements of the music business. Many friends and fans even host concerts in their homes for 30 to 50 listeners, venues he refers to as “safe houses on the folk underground railroad”.

While no stranger to elite stages like the Kennedy Center, the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival or the Katharine Hepburn Theater, McKnight’s music seems to spread most rapidly through many of the diverse causes that have embraced his music over the years. He’s been profiled in a Wine Compass video episode with his friends at Catoctin Creek Distilling Company, his song “Made by Hand” is in Low Coal, a documentary about conflicts over mountaintop mining in West Virginia’s Coal River Valley, and “Good Things Matter” was featured in a podcast of Bread for the World, a global faith-based organization working to end hunger.

Andrew has produced or performed on recordings by many different artists, been a contributing writer for Blue Ridge Country and Americana Rhythm magazines, and is a sought-after clinician for songwriting and music business workshops. He enjoys an artist endorsement with Fairbuilt Guitars and since 2002 with Elixir Strings.

Bring your axe. Very laid back – a great way to meet some of the Café’s performers & regulars in a very low-pressure environment. Novices & pros are welcome to come on down & join the jam. Try out new material or just participate in some sing-alongs.

NSAI South Florida Chapter Songwriter workshop

Bring an original song for critique on CD, or perform it live acoustically. Make sure to have 12 copies of your lyric sheet.

$5 for non-members/ FREE for members.

This workshop is affiliated with the Nashville Songwriters Association International. (nashvillesongwriters.com)

AFROGALACTIC BROTHERS

Reunited!! The Afrogalactic Brothers, Rey Rodriguez and Misty Grotto. Don’t miss a special night of there exotic blend of Funk,Blues,Rock,Country, etc..

RAIFORD STARKE http://www.raifordstarke.com/media.php

Some astute fans were asked which two artists they would combine to describe one Raiford Starke, and they said:

“John Prine meets Ted Nugent.”

“Merle Travis meets Link Ray.”

“Jimmy Page meets Jerry Reed.”

“Doc Watson meets Johnny Guitar Watson.”

Actually, Raiford Starke is nothing if not David Allan Coe meets Jimi Hendrix, an outlaw country folk singer steeped in southern rock and psychedelic blues guitar. He’s an American original.

Colin Kenny is proud of his real name, but got stuck with the gallows humor of “Raiford Starke” long ago, branded by prison walls without ever having walked through their gates. It’s a Florida brand, the duo of state pens in the name recognizable to locals and fans of Ol’ Sparky, but Raiford Starke’s only crime is indecent distortion.

Bring your axe. Very laid back – a great way to meet some of the Café’s performers & regulars in a very low-pressure environment. Novices & pros are welcome to come on down & join the jam. Try out new material or just participate in some sing-alongs.

MO MORGEN

MO MORGEN & Friends feat. percussionist Ezo Hernandez
“Local Legend” New Times “Best Jazz Duo” Sun-Post

Saxophonist/Vocalist/Keyboardist/presenter Mo Morgen
is always starting something- and now he’s starting to fill in
at our “next to last” Wednesday jazz nights on May 23.

Mo started the Jazzmania Society Loft in Manhattan,
then he came here in 1993 and started the MoJazz Cafe,
the music program at Cafe Del Mar, the music program
at Miami Shores Country Club Bar, the music programs
at Claire’s Farmers Markets, the music program at Veni Vidi Vici,
and most recently the MoJazz BackRoom at now-closed Panarea

His theme song is “This Could Be the Start of Something Big”
so come on out and help it kickstart !

THE HOWLIN’ BROTHERS

The Howlin’ Brothers are a Nashville based string band composed of Ian Craft, Dan Swan and Jared Green.  Anchored in a bed of old-time blues and bluegrass, their upbeat shows are heavy with original and traditional music, featuring the sounds of slide banjo, harmonica and old-time fiddle.  Sounding like what would happen if a bunch of Appalachian punk rockers formed a jug-band, The Howlin’ Brothers play with a ferocious energy that drags you in and finds you boogieing along in spite of yourself.

Evan Frankel-New York bred singer-songwriter, former vagabond, attorney, world traveler.

Bring your axe. Very laid back – a great way to meet some of the Café’s performers & regulars in a very low-pressure environment. Novices & pros are welcome to come on down & join the jam. Try out new material or just participate in some sing-alongs.

THE ROUGH & TUMBLE

Formerly from Nashville, The Rough & Tumble now find themselves living full time on the road, in a 16ft camper with an 85 lb puppy named Puddle. If you ask Mallory Graham or Scott Tyler how their lives ended up this way they’ll likely respond, “with careful planning, spreadsheets and shoddy cell phone service.”

On their new album, We Made Ourselves a Home When We Didn’t Know (February 2018), the Americana duo retrace their mileage back to their footsteps and explore the struggle between going home and being home already when there’s no other home and everywhere is home.

The R&T know how the tread wears down on the tires when you play 140 shows in year cross-country. They’re willing to stop, should the music run out of them and the road end, but until then, they are likely cross referencing a spreadsheet to play your town.

THE APPALUCIANS

The Appalucians play music from the mountains of Western North Carolina, featuring spirited songwriting, sublime harmonies, and a layered interplay between dobro, guitars, harmonica and banjo. The band is the musical union of two couples Jay Brown and Aditi Sethi and Angie Heimann and Cas Sochacki who met at their kids’ preschool, gradually realized their seemingly cosmic musical alignment, and decided they better start a band.Their debut album “Bright Hills,” recorded at Higher Ground Studio in Birmingham, AL, released in early summer 2018, has flavors of mountain folk, 70’s folk-rock and barroom twang.

The moniker “the Appalucians” belies the band’s playful relationship with words, pairing their often mountain-esque sound with the root word “lucia” (latin for “light.”)The Appalucians’ repetoire, comprised mainly of songs penned by Ohio-born Angie Heimann (guitar, vocals, banjo,) and Alabama native Jay Brown (guitar, vocals, harmonica) explores themes both dark and light, connecting to the peaks and valleys of the human experience. Brown’s other projects include rhythm/roots band Lazybirds, his solo work as a one-man-band, and Aditi and Jay, duet project with his wife Aditi Sethi. Heimann’s other projects include performing solo and fronting the California-born band the Blushin’ Roulettes, which has morphed into a duet project with her partner Cas Sochacki.

The life experiences of the band members have contributed largely to both the depth and the playfulness of their music’s running themes. India-born, Georgia raised Aditi Sethi (bass, vocals) works as an end-of-life care physician and doula. Jay Brown works as a music therapist in hospice. As songwriters, Jay Brown and Angie Heimann are often both drawn to themes of the passing of time in life and the great beyond. All members of the Appalucians have endured the deaths of dear friends and bandmates in their musical pasts, which informs the depth of their performance in songs like “Rhythm in the Wind,” “Hailbop” and “Summerlawn.”

The band’s sillier side is expressed in off-the-cuff witty stage banter, and  funny songs like “Don’t Bother Me,” a song for parents of young children, penned by Cas Sochacki- (dobro, occasional baritone vocals.) Sochacki also engineers Farmstead Studio, the birthplace of the side project “Old Mill Radio Hour” a comedy/music show which includes writing and music of members of the Appalucians/Lazybirds/Blushin’ Roulettes, and is scheduled to hit the folk festival circuit summer 2019.

The Appalucians toured California and Alaska in the summer of 2018  to celebrate the release of their debut album Bright Hills.

WAGNER, HAND & PFLUG

WAGNER, HAND & PFLUG
ARE Nancy Wagner (vocals, guitar, mandolin), Robert Hand (vocals, guitar, harmonica) and Jamie Pflug (vocals, stand-up bass, guitar, banjo, dulcimer). They play a mix of original songs and their own acoustic versions of classics from the 60s and 70s folk-rock tradition. Featuring their distinctive three-part harmonies, WHP plays music that makes you feel good and think well.

JOHN FULLBRIGHT

Bring your axe. Very laid back – a great way to meet some of the Café’s performers & regulars in a very low-pressure environment. Novices & pros are welcome to come on down & join the jam. Try out new material or just participate in some sing-alongs.

Arthur Cruz Jazz
Keyboard artist, singer and songwriter Arthur Cruz is an interpreter of jazz standards and his own original songs – melodic tunes with pensive lyrics that blend jazz, rock and pop influences from Cole Porter to the Beatles to Sting.

A hopeful romantic, with a distinctive voice and style of song, Arthur Cruz sings of longing to be your valentine, believing in fairy tales of love and holding on to each other through the dark night of the soul.

Along with Englishman Mike Wood on bass, and the energetic Elvis Taylor on drums, these three musicians produce a dynamic, syncopated sound.

The trio is often joined by accomplished jazz instrumentalists (Ted McDermott, Jack Siegel, Nestor Zurieta) and vocalists (Loye Hawkins, Von Henry) for an exciting evening of live, improvised music.

Sarah Jacob views songwriting as a catalyst to navigate through emotions and give them voice. Aided by her love for puns, double entendres and allusion, her songs transform the confusions and ambiguities of inner experience into a “language of the emotions.” Since 2012 Sarah, who composes on the piano, has teamed up with Darrell Arnold, baritone vocalist and guitarist, and Fred Napolitano, saxophonist, forming the Sarah Jacob Trio. The result–mixing hints of jazz, blues and folk into contemporary rock-ballads–is an original lyrical and musical blend. The trio combines a sense and sensibility that make for beautiful songs, offering a psychological expedition of the inner world.

Darrell Arnold

Darrell Arnold’s compositions are soulful folk-rock, with a twist of country blues.