Margo Price & Almighty American at Think Bank Down by the Riverside

89.3 The Current (88.7 in Rochester) will sponsor Outlaw Country Night – Sunday, August 5 (Week #5) at 7PM in Mayo Park, featuring Americana singer/songwriter Margo Price with Minnesota-based Americana artist Almighty American at the Think Bank Down by the Riverside FREE Outdoor Concert Series in Rochester, MN. Think Mutual Bank

MARGO PRICE (Headliner): Far from overnight, Price’s recent meteoric rise is the product of more than a decade of hard work and sacrifice. While she’d long been one of East Nashville’s best-kept-secrets, she burst onto the international scene with the 2016 release of her first solo album, ‘Midwest Farmer’s Daughter’. The record debuted in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart and graced Best-Of lists everywhere from Entertainment Weekly to NPR Music, who called it “the hard-won arrival of an artist who feels like she’s always been here.” Vulture described Price as “one of the most compelling country talents to come out of Nashville in recent memory,” while Pitchfork hailed the album as “a potential classic,” and Rolling Stone praised its “amazingly vivid songcraft.” Price solidified her next-big-thing status with stellar performances on Saturday Night Live, Colbert, Fallon, CBS This Morning, Seth Meyers, A Prairie Home Companion, and more, in addition to taking home Emerging Artist of the Year honors at the Americana Music Awards and winning The American Music Prize for the year’s best debut album. She shared stages and bills with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, and Chris Stapleton among others, and her compelling story—years of toil in the Nashville trenches, the loss of her family’s farm and the tragic death of her infant child, a brush with the law, selling her car and pawning her wedding ring to afford studio time, signing to Jack White’s Third Man Records as the label’s first country artist—was recounted in glowing profiles everywhere from the NY Times Magazine and the New Yorker to Morning Edition and Fader.

When it was time to record the follow-up, ‘All American Made’, Price and her band headed back to Memphis, TN, where they’d cut ‘Midwest Farmer’s Daughter’ on a shoestring budget. Instead of returning to Sun Studios, though, they moved down the street to the larger Sam Phillips Recording studio, which the legendary producer opened in 1960 when his own skyrocketing success necessitated more space.

Old school country may be the album’s most obvious touchstone, but Price and her band incorporate 60’s and 70’s R&B into many of the arrangements here, fusing two of Tennessee’s greatest musical exports. The funky “Do Right By Me” shimmies and grooves with Gospel legends The McCrary Sisters helping out on backing vocals, and the driving “A Little Pain” gets an assist from sweeping orchestration by Memphis legend Lester Snell (the man responsible for the string arrangements in “Shaft”).

Price could have taken her moment in the spotlight as an opportunity to homogenize and chase a slicker, more polished sound built for radio and arenas, but instead, she doubled down on the grit and the truth in her music. It’s honesty that brought her to this remarkable moment, and honesty that will continue to carry her into the future. http://margoprice.net/

ALMIGHTY AMERICAN (Opener):
With a deep appreciation for the songwriting greats of his father’s generation, drummer-turned-guitarist Michael Gay has set out to leave his own mark. Beginning as a bedroom songwriting project, Almighty American was conceived with the release of the ‘On the Edge’ EP (April 2015) produced and recorded by Nate Washburn (Author, The Earth and Everything in It, Comrades, Hannah Huston).

While ‘On the Edge’ brought about a full-band lineup and arrangements, Gay’s honest, accessible writing and clever lyrics easily captured the attention of listeners on their own in more intimate environments. Relishing the atmosphere of the acoustic set, Gay found himself more regularly playing solo sets under the Almighty American moniker. These solo shows birthed the idea for a series of stripped down acoustic EPs that reach the listener in a more focused way. Gay released the first of these – ‘Songs With Legs vol. 1’ (January 2017) to a sold out Warming House in Minneapolis.

With two EPs under his belt, Gay was eager to craft Almighty American’s first full length album. Before Songs with Legs vol. 1 was released, Gay approached Danny O’Brien (The Farewell Circuit, Fraea, DEM YUUT, M. French) to produce the record, utilizing some of his favorite local players (Andrew Schibilla, Beck Nebel, Joel Bowers). Together, the band set to work on what would become ‘Somewhere Ride’. The album was tracked at both Studio 65 (Chris Furst) in Ham Lake, MN and Hot Dad Labs (Danny O’Brien) in South Minneapolis over a period of several months. The result is a modern Americana album with timeless character. http://www.almightyamericanmusic.com/

The free series takes place over six Sundays in July and August (July 8 through August 12) in one of the most beautiful green spaces in the area, Mayo Park (behind the Mayo Civic Center and Rochester Art Center). This is an open-to-the-public City park, so lawn chairs, blankets, and coolers are welcome. On-site concessions are also available. More info at: riversideconcerts.com/