Andy Friedman, Ray Bonneville, Honey Watts October 19, 2011

CMJ 2011: AN EVENING WITH
ANDY FRIEDMAN
RAY BONNEVILLE
HONEY WATTS

Artist and songwriter Andy Friedman tours in support of his forthcoming third studio album, Laserbeams And Dreams (April 2011), which was produced by guitarist David Goodrich, GRAMMY-nominated bassist and composer Stephan Crump, and Friedman. Friedman's reputation as a "dusty, paint-splattered Americana sage" (Rochester News & Democrat) germinated with the release of his 2009 release, Weary Things, garnering enthusiastic praise, a performance on NPR's coveted Mountain Stage, and a growing audience. The online cultural journal Slant hailed Friedman as "an arrival of one of the genre's smartest and deepest talents," while the Columbia Free Times announced Friedman as "one of the greatest Americana around today." His "hard-tack country originals" were described in The New Yorker as "the mark of a true artist," while NoDepression.com called his songs "unforgettable." Indie-icon Sufjan Stevens proclaimed, "I think the world of Andy Friedman. I've always wanted to be Andy Friedman." "Friedman can write a lyric, and he can deliver it," declared Stephen Wine. "He is not to be overlooked, that's for sure." Also a noted illustrator, Friedman's drawings of cultural luminaries appear regularly in magazines and newspapers around the globe, including The New Yorker, NY Times, Rolling Stone, and GQ.

Ray Bonneville is a Canadian born, Austin based singer, songwriter, guitarist and harmonica player, who is known for his "loose, darkly funky vibe" (All Music Guide). His Red House release Goin' By Feel was named one of the best CD's of 2008 by DownBeat Magazine and featured the Americana hit "I Am the Big Easy," which was #1 most played song on folk radio that year and won the Folk Alliance Award for Song of the Year. The tune was a powerful tribute to the resilience of New Orleans, where Ray lived for half a decade and picked up his take your time attitude toward music. Noted for having one of "the sexiest guitar styles around" (Acoustic Guitar), Ray is a unique player and has performed with such blues luminaries as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, and Robert Cray. He has quickly become a fixture in the Americana scene since moving to Texas, becoming one of the go-to session players for artists like Ray Wylie Hubbard, Mary Gauthier and Eliza Gilkyson.

Honey Watts is the new self-titled acoustic/ambient project from Liz Fullerton. The debut album sets Fullerton's songs into a musical fabric of muted tones and soft noises. Some songs are given a simple acoustic presentation, but the record is also by turns ambient or electric, or gently orchestrated, or even experimental. The overall sound defies pat comparisons -- early Coco Rosie without the harmonies? P.J. Harvey without the drum machines?-- but purely as a vocalist, she is most often compared to 1940s songbirds like Billie Holiday.

Official Website: http://www.songkick.com/concerts/9545693-andy-friedman-at-union-hall?utm_source=1126&utm_medium=partner