NYC Spotlight - Three Artists @ City Winery

A collaboration between City Winery, Newport Folk Presents® and the Americana Music Association highlights American Roots Music with a series of performances scheduled through April 2015 in Chicago, Napa, Nashville and NYC City Winery locations. State of The Union - A Celebration of American Roots Music will shine the spotlight on a diverse group of American music makers for one night per month in each city. We're excited about the NYC lineup, and take a quick look at the three artists taking the stage at 155 Varick Street this winter.

Alejandro Escovedo

Jan. 22nd, 23rd, & 24th

$35 - $50  (doors @ 6pm)

A Texas Son of Mexican immigrants, Alejandro Escovedo is an alt country rebel with a heart of punk who once told POTUS to shove off. With a career spanning thirty years and fourteen albums, Escovedo's sound is a realistic reflection of a hard working, hard living American Southwest.

Resonant with human tales of trouble and triumph, this NYC residency will feature three complete albums from the solo years - GRAVITY (1/22), THIRTEEN YEARS (1/23), and WITH THESE HANDS (1/24). A sample of Escovedo's music whips up images of a Tarantino showdown, sun setting in the background while a grimy, aching tune is a harbinger for death. We stumbled upon this iTunes Celebrity Playlist - where fan Robert Rodriguez (director- El Mariachi, Sin City, et al.), says of Castanets "This is one of my favorites. Whenever I play this to someone, they run out and buy all his records."

Jay Farrar

Feb. 11th

$25 - $30 (doors @ 6pm)

Born and raised in southern Illinois, Jay Farrar is a country boy with rockabilly roots who's come to play a crucial role in shaping alt country. Among the highlights of his thirty year career, Farrar is founding member of two of the genre's most critically-acclaimed acts, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt.

Farrar’s current solo career echoes these earlier efforts while blazing new ground. Thematically bouncing between everything from bare bones folk to full on psych rock, his music’s themes still ring true with the world of the Midwest that he calls home. Farrar’s latest, New Multitudes, is a collaborative release celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Folk legend Woody Guthrie. In sound and style this album calls to mind loves lost, dusty small town streets, and a working man struggling to be defined by his character, not by the dirt on his hands.

Mary Gauthier & David Wilcox

Mar. 29th

$25 - $32 (doors @ 6pm)

“Music is about all the different kinds of feelings we can have -- we can be scared, we can be angry, we can be hopeful, we can be sad. We can be all these things and have company in it. Music is sacred ground and it shouldn't be reduced to that kind of simplified demographic target-marketing” - David Wilcox

In those words David Wilcox manages to capture so much of what makes his music, and that of Mary Gauthier what it is. In the case of both singer-songwriters, their sounds have come to be defined by the live they've been given and the lives they've lived. For Wilcox, like so many of the artists given voice by this tour, his sound has come to be shaped most heavily by the ever-changing American landscape, by the small towns and by the people who color them.

In Gauthier's music, more so than others, it becomes clear that her words and sound have been shaped through personal hardship. For both Gauthier and Wilcox, one thing is certain: as much as they are singers and song writers, they are American storytellers, and a perfect paring for an evening to remember.

State of the Union: A Celebration of American Roots Music will kick off across the nation in January.

City Winery NYC - 155 Varick St.

• January - Alejandro Escovedo (1/22-24)
• February - Jay Farrar (2/11)
• March - Mary Gauthier & David Wilcox (3/29)

City Winery Chicago - 1200 W. Randolph St.

• January - Joe Henry (1/19)
• February - Shawn Colvin (2/18-19)
• March - Buckwheat Zydeco (3/4)

City Winery Napa - 1030 Main St.

• January - Willie Watson (1/20)
• February - Steep Canyon Rangers (2/28)
• April - North Mississippi Allstars (4/3)

City Winery Nashville - 609 Lafyette St.

• January - Jackie Greene (1/19)
• February - Booker T. Jones (2/24)
• March - Aaron Neville (3/8)

About the Americana Music Association

The Americana Music Association is a professional not-for-profit trade organization whose mission is to advocate for the authentic voice of American roots music around the world. The Association produces events throughout the year; including the Americana Music Festival & Conference, presented by Nissan, and the critically acclaimed Americana Honors & Awards program. For more information, please visit www.americanamusic.org.

About the Newport Folk Festival

Newport Folk Festival was founded in 1959 by famed festival producer George Wein and folk icon Pete Seeger. The Festival is renowned for introducing a number of legendary artists to the world. Since 1959, Newport Folk has been serving true musical omnivores, fans who crave innovation but appreciate tradition. The 56-year tradition continues to this day, as Newport has won Pollstar's Music Festival of the Year for the last two years. The Newport Folk Festival is a production of Newport Festivals Foundation, Inc., a 501 (C) (3) non-profit corporation, whose mission includes educating young people about folk and jazz music, and to present the Newport Folk Festival and Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island in perpetuity. To learn more, visit www.newportfestivalsfoundation.org.

About City Winery

City Winery, founded in 2008 by Michael Dorf, has four locations in New York, Chicago, Nashville, and Napa. The brand is a growing haven of fully functioning urban wineries that present world-class musical performances in an intimate listening room environment. Young and emerging local artists join international touring stars to play the City Winery stage for 320+ shows per year. With a modest capacity of 300 seats in the house, City Winery has created a compelling mix for their sophisticated clientele of active cultural patrons, bringing the wine country experience to the heart of large cities. This incomparable musical experience is enhanced through state of the art sound systems from Meyer Sound®. Among stainless steel fermenting tanks, French oak barrels and the aroma of fermenting grapes, cultural connoisseurs who are passionate about music, wine and culinary arts can savor top-notch artists in an urban setting with a wine country vibe. For a full schedule of City Winery's four-city programming, please visit www.citywinery.com.