Willie Sugarcapps
2/21/14
Southgate House Revival, 111 E 6th St, Newport, KY
8pm doors, 9pm show
$10 adv, $12 dos, Buy Tickets
Willie Sugarcapps make their debut performance in the Cincinnati area with a headline performance at Southgate House on Friday, February 21 (7pm). The band is touring in support of their self-titled debut album available now from Brooklyn record label, The Royal Potato Family.
The story of Willie Sugarcapps begins in lower Alabama where almost every weekend for the past two years folks have been coming together for a music gathering called The Frog Pond at Blue Moon Farm. One part house concert, one part Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble, The Frog Pond has hosted some of the country’s finest songwriters, pickers, bluesman and troubadours ranging from Mary Gauthier to Alvin Youngblood Hart, Malcolm Holcombe to Randall Bramblett, Sergio Webb to George Porter, Jr. It was here that frequent encounters between five reoccurring artists—Grayson Capps, Will Kimbrough, Corky Hughes and the duo Sugarcane Jane featuring Savana Lee andAnthony Crawford—led to the formation of Willie Sugarcapps.
At first it was simply songwriter-in-the-round and jam session-styled collaborations, but it quickly grew to become something more. There was an immediate chemistry between the five distinct musicians that inspired a repertoire of songs demanding to be documented. They recruited Capps’ longtime partner and Grammy Award-winning producer/engineer Trina Shoemaker to record them, which resulted in the self-titled, debut album. The collection presents ten impeccably crafted songs imbued by relaxed performances, angelic harmonies and country Zen sentiment. Band members often take turns singing lead as they switch up between fiddle, banjo, mandolin, lap steel, bass and even ukulele. Their collective musical experiences mingle together to create something magically original and spiritually honest. It’s a comfort to know that music in the hands of Willie Sugarcapps still happens for no other reason than purely the sake of music itself.
“Willie Sugarcapps is a homecoming for all of us,” explains Will Kimbrough. “It’s coming full circle back to the beginning of why we do this in the first place and the joy of what happens when you play and sing with people who are alike in spirit and mind.”
