Teddy Robb
TEDDY ROBB Saturday June 4, 2022 8pm show, 7pm doors $15.00 all seats reserved Perfecting his craft in Rocky Mountain ski lodges and Nashville’s Honky Tonks, Teddy Robb has a laid-back voice that grabs you like the Colorado winter air and wraps you up in a blanket with someone you love next to a warm fire. A native of Akron, Ohio, Teddy grew up loving the outdoors. He fished, hiked, and played football through college in Ohio, however, his passion turned to music the moment he heard George Strait’s “Troubadour.” That was it, the decision was made. He called his parents, packed his bags and hit the road. Teddy spent time in Colorado playing music to support his snowboarding habit before making the final move to Nashville. He was signed to Monument Records in 2018. Teddy’s debut single, “Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You,” written by multi-GRAMMY Award-winning songwriters Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, along with chart-topping songwriter and Old Dominion bandmember, Trevor Rosen, has over 50 million worldwide streams to date and shipped to country radio last year. Teddy performed the song to a national audience on NBC’s TODAY Show and his music has been written about in the pages of Rolling Stone, Billboard and more. In April 2020 Teddy released his self-titled, debut EP. The five song project includes “Really Shouldn’t Drink Around You,” as well as previously released tracks “Lead Me On” and “Tell Me How,” which have collectively been streamed over 80 million times. New tracks on the EP include “Me On You” and “Good Love & Good Whisky.” The project was produced by Shane McAnally, Ben Fowler, and Matt McGinn
Bluffett- The Tribute to Jimmy Buffett Show – Fundraiser Benefit for United Way of Portage County
United Way to Celebrate 50 Anniversary in Delayed Event Since the COVID pandemic threw a wet blanket over the original plans, United Way of Portage County will soon – finally – get to celebrate its 50th Anniversary. The agency passed that milestone in December 2020…but shutdowns and restrictions resulting from the pandemic put the brakes on any festivities. With that crisis in the rear-view mirrors, United Way is joining with Kent Stage for a special concert celebration. On Saturday, June 11, the show features “Bluffet,” a Jimmy Buffet tribute band that brings eight performers to the stage along with special props and Conga lines. Joining Bluffet for the night are local favorites Blue Taxi Duo. The concert happens at 7:00PM June 11…and special ticket packages are available. Proceeds benefit United Way of Portage County. For more information, go online to the Kent Stage: www. https://kentstage.org/event/bluffett-the-tribute-to-jimmy-buffett-show-fundraiser-benefit-for-united-way-of-portage-county. BLUFFETT featuring The Son Of A Sailor Band is a 100%-live-on-stage Tribute to the legendary Jimmy Buffett & The Coral Reefer Band! This show will have the conga-lines moving with an amazing EIGHT PERFORMERS ON STAGE! Complete with beach-type props and costuming, you will believe this IS the real deal!! The amazing look and vocals of Larry Pearson will have you convinced you have been transported to “Margaritaville”! HEAR ALL YOUR FAVORITE HITS LIKE:”Volcano” “Son Of A Sailor” “Margaritavile” “Cheeseburger In Paradise” “Come Monday” “Pencil Thin Moustache” – “Sea Cruise” “Havana Dreaming” “Boat Drinks” “He Went To Paris” “Captain And The Kid” “Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude” “A Pirate Looks At 40” “Fins” and Many more!
An Evening with Jordan Rudess
Voted “Best Keyboardist of All Time” (Music Radar Magazine), Jordan Rudess is best known as the keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire for platinum-selling Grammy- nominated prog rock band, Dream Theater. He trained at the world-renowned Juilliard School of Music, where he first studied as a child prodigy at age nine. As a teen, he defected to synthesizers in a classic act of rock ’n’ roll rebellion. In 1994, Keyboard readers voted him “best new talent,” and since then has become the universally acknowledged heir to the shredding throne of such prog-rock royalty as Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman. He is renowned for his unique fusion of classical technique and influences with rock sensibilities.
The Wallflowers
The WallflowersFor the past 30 years, the Jakob Dylan-led act has stood as one of rock’s most dynamic and purposeful bands – a unit dedicated to and continually honing a sound that meshes timeless songwriting and storytelling with a hard-hitting and decidedly modern musical attack. That signature style has been present through the decades, baked into the grooves of smash hits like 1996’s Bringing Down the Horse as well as more recent and exploratory fare like 2012’s Glad All Over. Even so, in recent years, Dylan – the Wallflowers’ founding singer, songwriter and guitarist – has repeatedly stepped outside of his band, first with a pair of more acoustic and rootsy records, 2008’s Seeing Things and 2010’s Women + Country, and then with the 2018 film Echo in the Canyon and the accompanying soundtrack, which saw him collaborate with a host of artists classic and contemporary, from Neil Young and Eric Clapton to Beck and Fiona Apple. But while it’s been nine long years since we’ve heard from the group with whom he first made his mark, the Wallflowers are silent no more. And Dylan always knew they’d return. “The Wallflowers is much of my life’s work,” he says simply. That life’s work continues with Exit Wounds, the brand-new Wallflowers studio offering. The collection marks the first new Wallflowers material since Glad All Over. And while the wait has been long, the much-anticipated record finds the band’s signature sound – lean, potent and eminently entrancing – intact, even as Dylan surrounds himself with a fresh cast of musicians. Which, the front man is quick to point out, is not all that unusual. “The Wallflowers has always been a vehicle for me to make great rock ‘n’ roll records,” he says. “And sometimes the lineup that makes the record transfers over into touring, and sometimes it doesn’t. But my intention is always to make the Wallflowers record I want to make, using the musicians I have beside me.” And to Dylan, a band, even one with a constantly shifting lineup, is a sacred thing. “I’ve always been a believer in collaboration,” he says, “and no matter who I’m playing with I’ve always tried to include them very heavily. Otherwise, why would they be around? Because I do think bands, whether it’s a long standing group or just five people who are working together for that one stretch of time, make better rock ‘n’ roll records than solo artists.” For Dylan, Exit Wounds is the next chapter in a career devoted to chasing – and capturing – that magic. “I came up in an era of great rock ‘n’ roll bands making great music, and it’s the way I always imagined I would do it one day,” he says.Marc Lee Shannon to open. Marc Lee Shannon is a Rustbelt songwriter from Ohio’s “North Coast,” one with years of midwest “fall down, get up, dust off, and do it again” determination. A champion of everyday heroes, his soulful, melodic music chronicles the struggles and redemption of the lost, the found, the deserted, and the delivered.A veteran studio and touring guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Shannon’s more than 30-year career has taken him from his hometown of Akron, Ohio to Los Angeles and back again. He left home at 19 to attend the Guitar Institute of Hollywood, after which he quickly found himself playing with many top country, rock, and soul artists.
BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
BeauSoleil avec Michael DoucetNEW DATE – Saturday August 27th! For the past 45 years, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet has been making some of the most potent and popular Cajun music on the planet. Born out of the rich Acadian ancestry of its members, and created and driven by bandleader Michael Doucet’s spellbinding fiddle playing and soulful vocals, BeauSoleil is notorious for bringing even the most staid audience to its feet. BeauSoleil’s distinctive sound derives from the distilled spirits of New Orleans jazz, blues rock, folk, swamp pop, Zydeco, country and bluegrass, captivating listeners from the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, to Carnegie Hall, then all the way across the pond to Richard Thompson’s Meltdown Festival in England. Their most recent album and the 25th in their 45-year career, was titled “From Bamako to Carencro,” alluding the cultural and migratory connection between Bamako, in Mali, West Africa, and Louisiana (symbolized in name by the Lafayette, LA suburb of Carencro), a connection that draws a sonic bloodline back to BeauSoleil’s roots. Since becoming the first Cajun band to win a GRAMMY with “L’amour Ou La Folie” (their Traditional Folk Album – 1998) and then a second Grammy in 2010, “Live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival”, BeauSoleil has garnered many accolades, including twelve GRAMMY nominations. They are regular guests on Garrison Keillor’s NPR show A Prairie Home Companion, where Keillor has dubbed them as “the best Cajun band in the world,” and their music is so integral to the Cajun culture that they have been featured on the New Orleans–based hit HBO program “Treme”. Critics unanimously agree that it is “bon temps, every time they play,” (New York Times). In addition to their show, Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet created their own Christmas performance, “14 Cajun Christmas”. A detour from the routine path of holiday musical fare, “14 Cajun Christmas” presents his beloved ensemble performing selections from their rich catalog alongside Bayou flavored versions of classic holiday tunes. Expect both the familiar and some surprises for a ”cool-yule” of an evening! Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!
Keillor and Company
RESCHEDULED DATE = JULY 28 @ 8PMKeillor & Company is an evening of stand-up, storytelling, audience song, and poetry starring Garrison Keillor and featuring pianist Dan Chouinard and vocalist Prudence Johnson. There are sung sonnets, limericks and musical jokes, and the thread that runs through it is the beauty of growing old. Despite the inconvenience, old age brings the contentment of LESS IS MORE. Your mistakes and big ambitions are behind you, nothing left to prove, and small things give you great pleasure because that’s what’s left. (“I was unhappy in college because it was a requirement for an intellectual, but then I went into show business and discovered that people won’t pay to be made unhappy, their kids will do it for free.) There is the News from Lake Wobegon, a town booming with new entrepreneurs, makers of artisanal firewood and gourmet meatloaf, breeders of composting worms, and dogs trained to do childcare. But some things endure, such as the formation of the Living Flag on Main Street, citizens in tight formation wearing red, white or blue caps, and Mr. Keillor among them, standing close to old neighbors, Myrtle Krebsbach (“Truckstop”) and Julie Christensen (“Bruno, The Fishing Dog”) and Clint Bunsen. And an a cappella sing-along with the audience singing from memory an odd medley of patriotic songs, pop standards, hymns, and ending with the national anthem. Dan Chouinard is a St. Paul-based honky-tonk pianist, concert soloist and accompanist, street accordionist, sing-along enabler, Italian and French teacher, and bicycling vagabond. He’s been writer and host of a number of live history with-music shows broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio and Twin Cities Public Television. He played on a dozen live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion plus a half dozen APHC cruises, and served as rehearsal pianist for Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, and Lindsay Lohan on the 2005 movie. He’s featured on a number of recordings with APHC regulars Peter Ostroushko (RIP), Prudence Johnson, and Maria Jette. Prudence Johnson’s long and happy career as a singer, writer, and teacher has landed her on the musical theater stage, in two feature films (A River Runs Through It, A Prairie Home Companion), on a national radio show (several long stints on A Prairie Home Companion), and on concert stages across North America and occasionally Europe. She has released more than a dozen recordings, including albums dedicated to the music of Hoagy Carmichael and Greg Brown, and a collection of international lullabies.
An Evening with Graham Nash.
BY POPULAR DEMAND Graham Nash Live at The Kent Stage SATURDAY, April 2nd at 8 P.M. Gold Circle $91, Reserved $71 About Graham Nash: Legendary artist Graham Nash is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – with Crosby, Stills, and Nash and with the Hollies. He was also inducted twice into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, as a solo artist and with CSN, and he is a GRAMMY Award winner. Towering above virtually everything that Graham Nash has accomplished in his long and multi-faceted career, stands the litany of songs that he has written and introduced to the soundtrack of the past half-century. His remarkable body of work, beginning with his contributions to the Hollies opus from 1964 to ’68, including “Stop Stop Stop,” “On A Carousel,” and “Carrie Anne,” continues all the way to This Path Tonight (2016), his most recent solo album. Fifteen of his songs are celebrated in the 2018 release, Over the Years…, a 2-disc collection of some of Nash’s best-known works from the past 50 years and more than a dozen unreleased demos and mixes. The original classic union of Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young) lasted but twenty months. Yet their songs are lightning rods embedded in our DNA, starting with Nash’s “Marrakesh Express,” “Pre-Road Downs” and “Lady Of the Island,” from the first Crosby, Stills & Nash LP (1969). On CSNY’s Déjà Vu (1970), Nash’s “Teach Your Children” and “Our House” beseeched us to hold love tightly, to fend off the madness that was on its way. Concert experience enhancementsGRAHAM NASH FRONT ROW PACKAGE:~ One reserved ticket in Front Row ~ Visit to preshow Sound Check with Graham Nash ~ One autographed tour poster ~ One commemorative Graham Nash laminate & ticket ~ Crowd free merchandise shoppingGRAHAM NASH SOUNDCHECK PACKAGE~ One reserved floor ticket within first 8 rows~ Visit to preshow Sound Check with Graham Nash ~ One autographed tour poster ~ One commemorative Graham Nash laminate & commemorative ticket Crowd free merchandise shoppingGRAHAM NASH PREMIUM PACKAGEOne reserved floor ticket within first 10 rowsOne Graham Nash tour itemOne commemorative Graham Nash ticketGUACAMOLE FUND ~ 100% of the Guacamole Fund tickets is paid to organizations that work in the areas of the environment and wildlife, social change, peace with justice, energy and a non nuclear future. .COVIDAt the present time, proof of vaccination or a negative test within 48 hours of the concert and masks required
An Evening with Marc Cohn
THSI SATURDAY – MAY 14th @ 8PMAN EVENING WITH MARC COHNDoors at 7, concert at 8Tickets are available at www.kentstage.orgAnd the door!THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE
Progject with Special Guests: Cuda-Schieferstein-Cuda
The newly formed ProGject will tour America venues this April. The band will be performing the classics and epics of Genesis, Yes, King Crimson and ELP, along with some Pink Floyd, Rush, Jethro Tull, Peter Gabriel, Gentle Giant and more. ProGject is:MICHAEL SADLER (SAGA) Lead VocalsJONATHAN MOVER (GTR, Alice Cooper, Joe Satriani, The Tubes) on Drums, Percussion, VocalsMIKE KENEALLY (Frank Zappa, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani) Guitar, VocalsRYO OKUMOTO (Spock’s Beard, Asia, Chris Squire) Keyboards MATT DORSEY (Sound of Contact, Beth Hart) Bass, Pedals, Guitar, Keys, VocalsLook for ProGject to perform a two-plus hour set of Prog classics and epics such as “Cinema Show,” “Firth of Fifth,” “Squonk,” “Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression–Pt. I & II,” “Siberian Khatru,” “Roundabout,” “Heart of the Sunrise,” “21st Century Schizoid Man,” “Lark’s Tongues In Aspic, Pt. I & II”, “Xanadu,” “La Villa Strangiato,” “Have A Cigar,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Solsbury Hill” and “Living In The Past,” to name only a few.ProGject–the brainchild of drummer Jonathan Mover–came to fruition out of his childhood dream of playing Prog. “Prog Rock is the reason I play drums,” Mover explains, “but by the time I turned pro, Prog in the classic sense was over. And, although I got to work with some Prog-associated artists, such as GTR (with Steve Hackett and Steve Howe), and Marillion, my career took a decidedly different, though incredibly fortunate path, working with artists such as Alice Cooper, Joe Satriani, Aretha Franklin, The Tubes, Shakira, and others. That being said, I never lost my desire to play the Prog I grew up listening to.”He adds: “The idea and inspiration came in 2019 from my getting a last-minute rescue call to play with the Genesis tribute band, The Musical Box. That not only relit that childhood fire and desire, but made me realize: if there’s an audience for Genesis, and an audience for Yes, and Pink Floyd, and ELP, and King Crimson…there’s an audience for all of them. So, why not play them all, since I love them all, and assemble a team of extraordinary musicians that feel the same as I do? And they, like me, wanted to play a variety of Prog from all our favorite bands, and therefore thought more of the concept of an ‘homage band’, instead of a tribute band.”Mover says that “the chemistry and dynamics of ProgJect are amazing” and “we’re all very excited and literally counting the days to hit the road. Not only because of the delays imposed by Covid (we were supposed to tour over a year ago), but also because we love playing this music so much and know how much prog fans love it too CUDA – SCHIEFERSTEIN – CUDACSC was formed in the summer of 2006 to perform original prog/jazz/fusion instrumental music. We wanted to integrate all of the great musical influences and blend them with our own original styles. The emphasis had to be on composition because that is the most important aspect of music. We recently added the very talented Matthew Schieferstein on drums. The CuDa brothers have opened for Stick Men, Brand X, Project Object, Allan Holdsworth, Adrian Belew, Ambrosia…
Aimee Mann with Special Guest: Jonathan Coulton
Aimee Mann started developing the new music in 2018 when she agreed to write songs for a stage adaptation of Girl, Interrupted, Susannah Kaysen’s memoir about her psychiatric hospitalization in the late 1960s. It was material that Mann understood well, having had her own struggles with mental illness. The resulting music comes together in Queens of The Summer Hotel.In many ways Queens of The Summer Hotel is the unintentional part two to Mann’s 2017’s Grammy-winning album Mental Illness, both exploring themes of self-harm, depression and suicide. However, Queens of The Summer Hotel was written more quickly than any of Mann’s previous records. The assignment to write songs for someone else’s project offered Mann a sense of liberation, freeing her to enter another person’s consciousness and story—and a brand-new set of musical structures—through the lens of Kaysen’s own alienation. Although several different characters narrate the songs, they’re not strictly tied to any narrative. But together, they form a portrait of one woman’s crisis of disassociation as seen through another woman’s eyes.After several albums with ’Til Tuesday, including their debut album Voices Carry, Mann began her solo career in 1993 with the album Whatever and made a name for herself through her independent success and the founding of her record label, SuperEgo Records. Along the way, Mann forged a powerful new sound driven by her distinctive singing style—stripped-down, folky, acoustic but also forceful and cerebral, exploring psychological themes with dark wit and an eye for the world’s ugliest power plays.In 2017, Mann released her acclaimed album Mental Illness, which won Best Folk Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. The New York Times proclaimed, “Mental Illness wallows in its troubles, and it’s an exquisite wallow,” while The Los Angeles Times declared “Every doomed syllable is sacred and every tragic rhyme fits, as though each song were a puzzle to which only Mann knows the solution.”In addition to her solo albums, she has appeared on many film soundtracks, most notably the score for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, with “Save Me” landing her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Song. Mann has also made numerous cameo appearances in films such as The Big Lebowski and TV shows like “Portlandia” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” in which she sang an indelible cover of The Cars’ song “Drive.” Other extracurricular activities include performing for President Obama and the First Lady at the White House and starting a Podcast with Ted Leo called “The Art of Process.” Jonathan Coulton Jonathan William Coulton – often called “JoCo” by fans, is an American folk/comedy singer-songwriter, known for his songs about geek culture and his use of the Internet to draw fans. Among his most popular songs are “Code Monkey”, “Re: Your Brains”, “Still Alive” and “Want You Gone” (the last three being featured in games developed by Valve: Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, and Portal 2 respectively). He was the house musician for NPR weekly puzzle quiz show Ask Me Another from 2012 until its end in 2021.His album Artificial Heart was the first to chart, eventually reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers and No. 125 in the Billboard 200.