The Davis Live Music Collective is proud to present Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer with special guest Frank Fairfield in concert at Veterans’ Memorial Theatre, Saturday, March 16th.
$16 advanced tickets are available at Armadillo Music or davislivemusic.com, or you can purchase tickets at the event for $20. Doors will open at 7pm with music starting at 8pm. Veterans’ Memorial Theatre is at 203 E 14th Street in Davis. Parking is free.
Anaïs Mitchell began writing and performing at the age of seventeen, attracting the attention of Ani DiFranco who signed Mitchell to her label. In 2006 she wrote the folk opera Hadestown, staged to critical acclaim in London. A 2010 recording of Hadestown features DiFranco and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who helped propel Mitchell on her current upward trajectory by inviting her to open the North American leg of Bon Iver’s Autumn 2012 tour, including two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall. Bon Iver regularly performs Mitchell’s song ‘Coming Down’ from Young Man in America, an album that has earned praise in 2012 on NPR’s Top Ten Folk & Americana Albums, and winning MOJO’s # 1 Folk Album.
Jefferson Hamer began his career with Colorado roots rockers Great American Taxi.
He and Mitchell share a love of English folk music, and planned to record some of their favorites together. What began as a side project evolved into their new album Child Ballads, the pair’s take on a collection of traditional English ballads. Driven by two guitars and close harmonies that calls to mind Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris, their versions have been re-imagined to reflect their own sensibility and respect for tradition.
“We kept thinking back to those records we loved so much,” says Mitchell, “and finally decided that what the songs wanted was to be presented as simply as possible; melody, harmony, acoustic instruments, live taping—the stories really out front.”
Mitchell has a way of tackling big themes with the intimacy most artists use to describe their inner lives. It doesn’t matter whether the stories she tells are her own or someone else’s. “The emotions are my own,” says Mitchell.
Originally from Fresno, Frank Fairfield is making a name for himself performing traditional songs and originals from his encyclopedic knowledge of American folk music. A word-of-mouth sensation who channels the spirit of another era in his spellbinding live shows, Frank found a fan in Fleet Foxes who picked him to open their 2008 US tour.