Old Crow Medicine Show + Mipso & Amythyst Kiah

Old Crow Medicine Show started busking on street corners in 1998 New York state and up through Canada, winning audiences along the way with their boundless energy and spirit. They eventually found themselves in Boone, North Carolina where they caught the attention of folk icon Doc Watson while playing in front of a pharmacy. He invited the band to play at his festival, MerleFest, helping to launch their career. Shortly thereafter the band was hired to entertain crowds between shows at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN.

It’s been over nineteen years since these humble beginnings. The band has gone on to receive the honor of being inducted as members of the Grand Ole Opry, and have won two Grammy Awards: “Best Folk Album” for Remedy (2014) and “Best Long Form Music Video” for Big Easy Express (2013). Additionally, their classic single, “Wagon Wheel”, received the RIAA’s Platinum certification in 2013 for selling over 1,000,000 copies.

The four young renegade traditionalists that comprise the band Mipso are doing their part to carry forward the living musical traditions North Carolina and beyond. The bands evolving musical style blends classic four-part harmonies and traditional Appalachian country and folk sounds with jazz and pop to create a new musical texture and terrain that enriches and expands upon the traditional vocabularies of old time and bluegrass music. The result is the intoxicating blend of Americana filling their sophomore album Old Time Reverie. The 2015 album was named among the “Best Records of the Year” by The Guardian, for the band’s “aptitude for stunning harmonies” and “lush and moving songs that feel as fresh as a warm spring rain.”

Amythyst Kiah is a Southern Gothic, alt-country blues singer/songwriter based out of Johnson City, TN. Not only are her influences eclectic, but they span across decades. She draws heavily on Old Time music (Mississippi Sheiks, Son House, Jimmie Rodgers, Olla Belle Reed, Carter Family) and is inspired by vocal stylings of R&B and Country music from the ’50s-’70s (Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn). She also draws heavily from contemporary artists that have similar powerful vocal integrity (Adele, Florence and the Machine, Megan Jean and the KFB, Janelle Monae, Thom Yorke, Tori Amos, Bonnie Raitt). She has opened for such acts as Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott, The Duhks, and has played the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival 2012. She has also performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, DC and traveled Scotland and the UK performing at a number of major festivals including the Southern Fried Festival, the Cambridge Folk Festival, Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and SummerTyne Americana Festival.