Sunday, April 12th
Easter on Parade
Monument Avenue between Allen & Davis, Free admission, 1-5pm
Easter on Parade, the beloved Richmond tradition of "parading" down
scenic Monument Avenue continues this year! Join tens of thousands of
people as they converge upon the four-block site to celebrate the
arrival of spring. The two main highlights of the annual event are the
Pet Bonnet and People Bonnet Showcases on the Main Stage. For more
information visit
www.venturerichmond.com
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Friday Cheers 2009
25 Years of FREE Music!
May 8-June 26
6:00-9:30 p.m.
Brown's Island
Venture Richmond's FREE signature summer concert series, Friday Cheers,
presented by Coors Light and Yuengling, is back on Brown's Island for
its 25th season and promises to feature some of the nation's hottest
touring acts, along with some regional favorites.
The series kicks off Friday, May 8, and continues Fridays through June
26, 6:00-9:30 p.m. All events are on Brown's Island along downtown
Richmond's historic riverfront. Again this year Friday Cheers will
offer eight concerts and is focused on a variety of performers that may
only be in the Region once this summer. A special concert on Friday,
May 15, is the kick-off to Richmond's newest event: Dominion Riverrock.
Dominion Riverrock is produced by Venture Richmond and the Richmond
Sports Backers.
Presented by: Coors Light and Yuengling
Sponsored by: Mix 103.7, 96.5 The Planet, K95, Y101, Plan 9 Music, BlackFinn, Pepsi, James River
Cellars, Crowne Plaza and Style Weekly
Produced by: Venture Richmond
The 2009 Line-up:
May 8, Melvin Seals & JGB (w/ The Spaceheaters)
Melvin Seals, whose musical roots seep
deep into gospel soil, has always been seeking that point where music
merges with spirit, what he calls "church vibe." He found it with Jerry
Garcia over two decades ago, and he is finding it again in the new JGB.
"Jerry Garcia Band was my absolute favorite band in the world and I'm
honored to be able to carry on the torch and play homage to the heart
and feel and tones. I'm honored to be playing with Melvin Seals who
blew me away at every concert I went to. We're all honored to be
KEEPERS OF THE FLAME."
Melvin Seals has established a reputation as a recording artist,
producer and record company executive in the field of gospel music. He
first took up piano at the age of 8 and his first public performances
were playing gospel music in church; his first band, "Gideon &
Power," was a local San Fransicso group. He has gone on to
perform/record with Elvin Bishop, Charlie Daniels, Chuck Berry-and for
15 years with Jerry Garcia. He was the featured organist in such
broadway hits as "Evolution of the Blues" with John Hendricks, ACT's
production of "American More Or Less," the Joyce Carroll Thomas play "A
Song In the Sky," and the hit "Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope". Melvin
formed JGB one year after Jerry Garcia's death on August 8, 1995 and
was originally joined by Gloria Jones and Jackie Labranch, who had been
Garcia's background singers
May 15, Rusted Root (w/ Jesse Chong)
Kicking off Dominion Riverrock! (Richmond’s riverlife celebration, an
event partnership between Venture Richmond and Sports Backers)
This is a special tour for the
Pittsburgh, PA, based band. In the process of recording their first
studio album since 2002's Welcome To My Party, Rusted Root is giving
their faithful fans a chance to hear some of the new music they have
been working on.
Rusted Root has sold more than 3 million albums worldwide. Formed in
Pittsburgh by frontman Glabicki in the early ‘90s, Rusted Root's
polyrhythmic style quickly charmed fans of roots music and jam rock.
But clubgoers weren't the only ones left smitten by the sextet's
impressively diverse chops and soaring vocals. Veering into Eastern and
African directions, Rusted Root features three of the Pittsburgh-born
band's original band members; Michael Glabicki (lead vocals, guitar),
Liz Berlin (vocals, percussion), and Patrick Norman (bass, vocals,
percussion). Joining them on the road are Jason Miller (drums,
percussion) Colter Harper (vocals, guitar), Preach Freedom (percussion)
and Dirk Miller (guitar).
After debuting in 1992 with Cruel Sun, Rusted Root signed with Mercury
Records and bowed on the label with the 1994 platinum selling
breakthrough When I Woke, which featured the light and lovable "Send Me
On My Way," as well as several other rerecorded tracks from Cruel Sun.
Not long after, the band scored on tours with Toad the Wet Sprocket,
Santana, The Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, The Allman Brothers
Band, HORDE Festival and, perhaps most notably, the highly-coveted
support role on the landmark Jimmy Page/Robert Plant reunion tour.
Playing a brand of rock rooted in the Woodstock generation, but often
detouring into various types of world music, the hard-touring Rusted
Root returned in 1996 with Remember, which was followed by 1998's
Rusted Root. After some time off the band reemerged in 2002 with
Welcome To My Party. The band's sixth album, Rusted Root Live is the
second album on its Touchy Pegg label, following the re-release of
Cruel Sun in 2003, after a long tenure with Mercury/Island Def Jam.
Along the way, Rusted Root has also issued three EPs (Evil Ways, Live,
and Airplane), a home video (Rusted Root Live) and miscellaneous film
and TV soundtrack tracks (Twister, Mathilda, Home For the Holidays,
Party of Five, Homicide, Ice Age).
May 22, Zac Brown Band (w/ David Shultz & The Skyline)
Playing upwards of 200 dates a year,
with more than 3,000 shows in their career and selling more than 30,000
CDs independently, Zac Brown Band has only begun its ascent. The band's
aggressive touring has helped it develop a fanatical grassroots
following by winning over believers one person at a time. Driven by
awe-inspiring musicianship, skillful songwriting and a dynamic live
show that inspires word-of-mouth buzz, Zac Brown Band is already
embraced by audiences who sing along with every word.
The Foundation, released in November 2008 on Atlantic Records, debuted
at #17 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart and #3 on the Top Country Albums
Chart. The first single "Chicken Fried" peaked at #1 on the Billboard
Hot Country Chart and maintained that position for two weeks and also
debuted as the second most downloaded country single on iTunes.
"It's kind of crazy how we can go to a place where no one's heard of us
before and by the time we leave people are singing the songs,"
bandleader Zac Brown says. "We've got a great following." It's not an
easily pigeonholed crowd either; loyal country music fans, jam lovers
and seemingly everyone in between are enjoying the shows. The Zac Brown
Band has already landed support slots with artists such as Sugarland,
ZZ Top, Travis Tritt, Etta James, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers
Band, Willie Nelson and BB King.
Members of the band include bassist John Hopkins, fiddler Jimmy De
Martini and more recent additions of guitarist/organist Coy Bowles and
drummer Chris Fryar. In January 2009 multi-instrumentalist and
songwriter Clay Cook joined the band; perhaps best known for his
co-writes with Grammy-winner John Mayer, Cook rounds out the ZBB sound
on guitar, vocals, organ, mandolin and pedal steel.
May 29, The Lee Boys (w/ DJ Williams Projekt)
The Lee Boys are one of America's finest
African-American sacred steel ensembles. This family group consists of
three brothers, Alvin Lee (guitar), Derrick Lee and Keith Lee (vocals)
along with their three nephews, Roosevelt Collier (pedal steel guitar),
Alvin Cordy Jr. (7-string bass) and Earl Walker (drums). Each member
began making music at the ages of 7 and 8 in the House of God church
they attended in Perrine, FL. Here they underwent a rigorous course of
training in a variety of musical instruments, including lap and pedal
steel guitars. Born and raised in Miami, each of The Lee Boys grew up
in the church where their father and grandfather, Rev. Robert E. Lee,
was the pastor and a steel player himself.
"Sacred steel" is a type of music described as an inspired, unique form
of Gospel music with a hard-driving, blues-based beat. The musical
genre is rooted in Gospel, but infused with rhythm and blues, jazz,
rock, funk, hip-hop, country and ideas from other nations. Influenced
by the Hawaiian steel guitar fad of the 1930's, brothers Willie and
Troman Eason brought the electric lap steel guitar into the worship
services of the House of God church in Jacksonville, FL. The
Pentecostal congregation embraced the soulful sound, and over time this
unique sound became the hallmark of the church. The pedal steel guitar
was added to the mix and soon became the central instrument. The Lee
Boys are part of the fourth generation of musicians in this faith.
June 5, Jerry Douglas (w/ The Atkinsons)
Jerry Douglas is widely renowned as
perhaps the finest dobro player in contemporary acoustic music. His
main foundation is bluegrass, but Douglas is an eclectic whose tastes
run toward jazz, blues, folk, and straight-ahead country as well, and
he's equally capable of appealing to bluegrass aficionados or new agers
with a taste for instrumental roots music. What's more, his progressive
sensibility as a composer has earned him comparisons to like-minded
virtuosos Béla Fleck and David Grisman.
Douglas began playing the dobro at age eight with encouragement from
his father, who was also a bluegrass musician. By his teen years,
Douglas was already a member of his father's band, and his playing was
especially influenced by Josh Graves of Flatt & Scruggs' Foggy
Mountain Boys. Douglas was discovered at a festival by the Country
Gentlemen, who took him on tour with them for the rest of the summer
and later brought him into the recording studio. From there, Douglas
established himself as a hugely in-demand session musician; during the
latter half of the '70s, he worked with the likes of J.D. Crowe &
the New South, David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, Doyle Lawson, and Tony
Rice. Additionally, Douglas released his debut album, Fluxology, on
Rounder in 1979; he followed it three years later with Fluxedo, which
like its predecessor stuck relatively close to traditional (albeit
sometimes jazzy) bluegrass.
During the early '80s, Douglas continued his session career with even
greater success, adding Emmylou Harris, Béla Fleck, the Whites, and
Peter Rowan to his list of credits. He returned to his solo career with
1986's Under the Wire on Sugar Hill, which reflected his interest in
the progressive new-acoustic (or "newgrass") movement. He subsequently
signed with MCA, where he issued Changing Channels (1987) and the
smoother, strongly jazz-influenced Plant Early (1989). More session
work for increasingly prominent artists brought him into the '90s, with
names like Alison Krauss, Del McCoury, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood,
Randy Travis, Clint Black, Patty Loveless, Suzy Bogguss, Reba McEntire,
Kathy Mattea, and Dolly Parton on his resumé. In 1992, he returned to
Sugar Hill for the more traditional bluegrass outing Slide Rule, which
many critics ranked among his finest recordings. The following year
brought the all-instrumental Skip, Hop & Wobble, a trio recording
with Russ Barenberg and Edgar Meyer. In 1994, Douglas contributed to
the Grammy-winning compilation Great Dobro Sessions, and cut a duo
album with Peter Rowan, Yonder, in 1996. 1998's Restless on the Farm,
true to its title, was a return to Douglas' freewheeling eclecticism,
which continued on 2002's Lookout for Hope. Best Kept Secret arrived in
September of 2005.
June 12, Old School Freight Train (w/ NO BS! Brass Band)
Old School Freight Train, from
Charlottesville combines thought provoking lyrics with captivating
melodies, soulful vocals, virtuosic instrumentals and imaginative
arrangements. Blending folk, jazz, soul, pop, bluegrass, latin and
celtic, OSFT offers a unique musical experience leading the BOSTON
GLOBE to call them "the Next Big Thing" and the CHICAGO TRIBUNE claims
is "accessible but uncompromising in creativity." DAVID GRISMAN says,
"After forty years of recording acoustic music, it's not very often
that a new band catches, and keeps, my attention. Old School Freight
Train has done that and more."
"Shades of Jack Johnson, Ben Harper... even a kiss of Van Morrison...
Old School Freight Train is off on a timeless new track blending roots
and rock to create a sound that's all their own." - Tim Dickinson,
National Affairs Correspondent, Rolling Stone
June 19, Lucero, (w/ Farm Vegas)
Lucero is a Punk/Country music infused
Rock & Roll band that is based in Memphis, Tennessee. Their punk
rock roots flavor their now "country-ish" music, while their southern
roots give them the twang that they have come to be known by. The band
played for the first time in Spring of 1998. Since 2001 they have
played between 150 and 200 shows a year across the United States and
Canada. They have released six full length albums to date (Fall 2006),
the latest entitled Rebels, Rogues, & Sworn Brothers. The members
of Lucero are Roy Berry (drums), John C. Stubblefield (bass), Brian
Venable (guitar), and Ben Nichols (guitar and vocals), with Rick Steff
(piano, organ, accordian). Ben Nichols previous band was Red 40 in
which he played alongside Colin Brooks and Steve Kooms.
June 26, Toubab Krewe, (w/ Crucial Elements)
Blending American and West African
influences into a sound all its own, Toubab Krewe has set "a new
standard for fusions of rock 'n' roll and West African music" (Afropop
Worlwide).
Since forming in 2005, the magnetic instrumental quintet has won a
diverse and devoted following at performances everywhere from Bonnaroo
to the legendary Festival of the Desert in Essakane, Mali, known as the
most remote festival in the world. They developed their unique sound
over the course of numerous extended trips to Mali, Guinea, and Ivory
Coast, where they immersed themselves in the local culture and studied
and performed with luminaries.
But the group has its roots in Asheville, NC, where many of its members
were childhood friends and long-term musical collaborators. And it was
there, at home in the Appalachians, where the band chose to record
their sophomore album, Live at the Orange Peel. The new album captures
their outstanding 2008 New Year's run at the Orange Peel in their
hometown.
All of the songs are previously unreleased and continue to mix American
rock 'n' roll with the West African musical traditions the band fell in
love with on their travels. Along the way, they explore the worlds of
surf and zydeco, fusing it all together into what the Village Voice
describes as "a futuristic, psychedelic, neo-griot frenzy" and Honest
Tune hails as "one of the most innovative voices in music today."
Visit www.venturerichmond.com for more information and an event map, or call 804.788.6466.
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3.30.2009 
