Bios for this year’s Double Decker Arts Festival Performers

The Double Decker Arts Festival will take place on April 23 and 24 in Oxford and will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with a great musical lineup that is sure to have something for everyone.

Saturday, April 24 lineup

The Revivalists

Chart-topping rock band The Revivalists had been grinding for 10 years when their now platinum-selling single “Wish I Knew You” took off, setting a record for most single-week spins ever at Alternative Radio and becoming a mainstream phenomenon spending 9 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. The band has performed on numerous television shows including Austin City Limits, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!, Ellen, TODAY. They were nominated for a Billboard Music Award, two iHeartRadio Music Awards and named Billboard’s Top New Rock Artist of 2017. Renowned for their live firepower, soulful alt-rock anthems, and their distinct mix of many of the classic styles of American music, the 8-piece ensemble of pedal steel guitar, unique two-drummer set-up, horns, and more is led by the incredible voice of frontman David Shaw.

The Revivalists are: David Shaw [lead vocals, guitar], Zack Feinberg [guitar], Andrew Campanelli [drums], George Gekas [bass], Ed Williams [pedal steel guitar], Rob Ingraham [saxophone], Michael Girardot [keyboard, trumpet], and PJ Howard [drums, percussion].

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue

Andrews got his name when he picked up his instrument at four (“My parents pushed me toward trombone because they didn’t need another trumpet player,” he laughs). By eight, he led his own band in parades, halls and even bars: “They’d have to lock the door so the police couldn’t come in.” Promoters would try to hand money to his older cousins, but they’d kindly redirect them to the boy. In his teens, Andrews played shows abroad with the Neville Brothers. Fresh out of high school (New Orleans Center for Creative Arts) he joined Lenny Kravitz’ band. In the last four years, Troy Andrews banked his fifth White House gig; backed Macklemore and Madonna at the Grammys; played on albums by She & Him, Zac Brown, Dierks Bentley, and Mark Ronson; opened tours for Daryl Hall & John Oates and Red Hot Chili Peppers; appeared in Foo Fighters’ Sonic Highways documentary series; voiced the iconic sound of the adult characters in The Peanuts Movie; inherited the esteemed annual fest closing set at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in the tradition of Crescent City greats like the Neville Brothers and Professor Longhair; and released Trombone Shorty, a children’s book about his life that was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 2016.

Mavis Staples

Hailed by NPR as “one of America’s defining voices of freedom and peace,” Staples is the kind of once-in-a-generation artist whose impact on music and culture would be difficult to overstate. She’s both a Blues and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer; a civil rights icon; a GRAMMY Award-winner; a chart-topping soul/gospel/R&B pioneer; a National Arts Awards Lifetime Achievement recipient; and a Kennedy Center honoree. She marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., performed at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, and sang in Barack Obama’s White House. She’s collaborated with everyone from Prince and Bob Dylan to Arcade Fire and Hozier, blown away countless festivalgoers from Newport Folk and Glastonbury to Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, performed with The Band at The Last Waltz, and graced the airwaves on Fallon, Colbert, Ellen, Austin City Limits, Jools Holland, the GRAMMYs, and more. At a time when most artists begin to wind down, Staples ramped things up, releasing a trio of critically acclaimed albums in her 70’s with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy that prompted Pitchfork to rave that “her voice has only gained texture and power over the years” and People to proclaim that she “provides the comfort of a higher power.” In between records with Tweedy, Staples teamed up with a slew of other younger artists—Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Nick Cave, Valerie June, tUnE-yArDs, and M. Ward among others—for ‘Livin’ On A High Note,’ an album The Boston Globe called “stunningly fresh and cutting edge” and which first introduced her to Harper.

Samantha Fish

Anyone who has ever heard Fish’s previous albums knows that she has earned a place in the top rank of contemporary blues guitarists and that her voice can wring the soul out of a ballad and belt out a rocker with roof-shaking force. And, rest reassured, those virtues are fully in evidence on “Kill or Be Kind.” But each of the songs on the album does far more than simply provides a setting for Fish’s pyrotechnics.

They tell captivating stories, set up by verses that deftly set the scene, choruses that lift with real feeling, and hooks that later rise up in your thoughts, even when you’re not aware that you’re thinking of music at all. It’s the kind of songwriting that emerges when raw talent is leavened by experience and aspiration, and when a committed artist genuinely has something to say. Those qualities make “Kill or Be Kind” a genuine artistic breakthrough for Fish.

Having completed an album that she believes in so strongly – “This is me coming through, my personality,” she says – Fish is eager to bring it to the world. “I got the moon in the back of my mind, and I want to shoot for it!” she declares. “I want to reach over genre lines and get out to as many people as possible. This album is so broad – and it’s all me. So I’m just hoping it catches people and appeals to them.”

Maggie Rose

The third album from Maggie Rose, “Have a Seat” is the work of a phenomenally gifted artist showing the full extent of her power. After years of honing her chops and making her name as a force-of-nature vocalist, the Nashville-based singer/songwriter has dreamed up her own unbridled collision of rock-and-roll, soul, folk, funk, and R&B: a fittingly eclectic sound for a musician whose live experience includes opening for Heart and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, touring as direct support for Kelly Clarkson, and sharing the Cayamo Cruise bill with Emmylou Harris and Jason Isbell — all​ in 2019 alone.

Centered on the stunning vocal command she’s revealed in taking the stage at ​ The​ Grand Ole Opry over 80 times, Have a Seat​ ​finds Rose approaching her music with more confidence and clarity of vision than ever, ultimately sharing a selection of songs both timeless and urgent.

Buffalo Nichols

Since his earliest infatuations with guitar, Buffalo Nichols has asked himself the same question: How can I bring the blues of the past into the future? After cutting his teeth between a Baptist church and bars in Milwaukee, it was a globetrotting trip through West Africa and Europe during a creative down period that began to reveal the answer.

Born in Houston and raised in Milwaukee’s predominantly Black North end, the guitar was Nichols’ saving grace as a young man. The instrument captured his fascination and provided him with an outlet for self-expression and discovery in isolation.

Stints in college and in the workforce led him overseas, where the appreciation of African-American folkways lit a renewed spark in Nichols. It was the bustling of jazz in places like the working-class areas of Ukraine, or in Berlin cafes where expatriate Black Americans routinely treat fans to an enchanting evening of blues, that would lead to his a-ha moment. Nichols returned home to America, meditating on his own place in the music that holds the country’s truest values and rawest emotions between bar and measure. “Before this trip, it was hard for me to find that link between all these blues records I heard and people who are living right now. I figured out it’s not a huge commercial thing, but it still has value. So, I came home and started playing the blues more seriously, doing stuff with just me and my guitar,” Nichols says.

HAPPY LANDING

HAPPY LANDING is an alternative folk band from Oxford. The band members Matty Hendley, Jacob Christensen, Keegan Lyle, Wilson Moyer, and Andrew Gardner met in Oxford while attending the University of Mississippi.

Through various musical influences (alternative rock, bluegrass, pop-punk, and more) HAPPY LANDING has developed to become what they call the first-ever “Skate Folk” band, known for their crispy vocal harmonies, creative instrumental execution and energetic stage presence.

Friday, April 23 lineup

Brett Young

Young has captured the hearts of fans everywhere through his honest lyrics and West Coast-meets-Southern sound, aptly dubbed “Caliville” style. With an undeniable string of hits and two albums defined by a transcendent romantic spark, he has cemented his status as Country’s master over matters of the heart. The star broadened his emotional scope on WEEKENDS LOOK A LITTLE DIFFERENT THESE DAYS following his GOLD-certified sophomore effort TICKET TO L.A., which debuted atop the Billboard Country Albums chart. Young’s PLATINUM self-titled debut dominated the Top 20 on the Country Albums chart for 37 weeks and has contributed to 5.5 billion streams globally. He was named ASCAP’s 2018 Country Songwriter-Artist of the Year for his “melodic craftsmanship” (Billboard) and has also garnered nominations from ACM, Billboard, Teen Choice, CMT and CMA Awards. Racking seven consecutive No. 1 hits, Rolling Stone deemed Young “one of country’s most consistent radio stars.”

49 Winchester

Alt-country soul from the heart of Appalachia in Russell County, VA. 49 Winchester delivers the poetically straightforward songs of singer/guitarist Isaac Gibson in a soulful electric live show. Rock & roll with roots planted firmly in the traditions of mountain music.

The band made their start in the months after high school in late 2013 and have since made a name for themselves as warriors of the road, independently releasing three albums & playing hundreds of shows across the East and Pressing forward to new territories.

The Wilkins Sisters

The Wilkins Sisters are Tangela Longstreet, Joyce Jones, and Tawana Cunningham from Memphis.

They are the daughters and backup singers for their father, the late great Rev. John Wilkins.

The Wilkins Sisters were brought up singing in the church inspired by their mother (Betty Maxwell Wilkins) and father (Rev. John Wilkins) and mix gospel, blues and R&B to make music that is moving, soulful, and uplifting. As little girls, they used to open for their father at services, shows, and picnics. Growing up they had their own groups and singing projects as well, and Tangela, the leader of the trio has had her own band, Tan and The Violinettes, for over 25 years.

For more information on Double Decker Arts Festival visit www.doubledeckerartsfestival.com.

Staff report