2008 Solar Music Festival Schedule

2008 Solar Music Festival Artists

Friday June 27th, 2008

BoDeans
Web site :: MySpace

The BoDeans formed nearly three decades ago when Kurt Neumann and Sammy Llanas met in high school in Waukesha, Wisconsin. They initiated a unique singing and songwriting partnership built on give and take, whether in the trading of heartfelt lyrical ideas, an exchange of ringing guitar riffs or the blending of passionate vocal harmonies. The duo forged a signature sound, fronting what would become one of America's premier roots-rock bands. The first album, "Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams (the title came from a line in the Rolling Stones song "Shattered"), was released in 1986. BoDeans toured with U2, appeared on Robbie Robertson's debut solo album and were named "Best New Band" by Rolling Stone. Through the mid-'90s, BoDeans won critical praise and amassed a loyal cult following. The group cracked the Top 20 when the producers of the popular TV series "Party Of Five" chose the catchy "Closer To Free," from an earlier album, as the show's theme song. Now the new "Still," produced by T-Bone Burnett, who also produced their debut CD way back, focuses on BoDeans' bracing guitar rock and wistful pop sensibility. The music sounds as fresh as ever, and BoDeans show no signs of slowing down.

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Hal Ketchum
Web site :: MySpace

Hal Ketchum possessing what USA Today notes as "the most effervescent voice in country music," is an award-winning singer-songwriter and Grand Ole Opry member. Ketchum punched a quick ticket to fame with his first single, "Small Town Saturday Night," which shot to Number One on the country chart, and his gold debut album, "Past The Point Of Rescue," in 1991. Hal's music continued to find favor with both fans Ð selling more than 4 million CDs Ð and radio, where he has scored fifteen Top 10 hits, including five in the Top 5. His songs have been recorded by acts as diverse as Trisha Yearwood and Neil Diamond. The multi-faceted artist is proving that he can still dazzle his faithful fans as well as draw in many new ones, from performing at a concert of his music set to dance by the Nashville Ballet to continuing his lifelong interest in woodworking to exhibiting original paintings at the prestigious Amada Pe–a Gallery in Santa Fe.

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Sharon Gilchrist
MySpace

Sharon Gilchrist is a mandolinist, singer living in Santa Fe since 2001. Born in Southlake Texas, she began touring nationally at the age of nine with her brother, the guitarist Troy Gilchrist. She studied mandolin and music composition at Belmont University in Nashville. Sharon moved to Santa Fe and helped form the progressive bluegrass trio Mary & Mars and has also spent the last few years performing and recording with national touring acts Uncle Earl and The Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet. 2008 brings a new project with Sharon fronting and consists of multi-instrumentalist Ezra Bussman, bass player Noah Baumeister, fiddler Abe Streep, and guitarist Ben Wright.

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Bone Orchard
MySpace

Hailed by the Santa Fe Reporter as one of New Mexico's most exciting acts, Taos' own Bone Orchard layers haunting vocal harmony over a foundation of acoustic and electric guitars, banjo, mandolin, upright bass and unusual percussion to create "mountain gothic roots rock." Daniel Pretends Eagle and Carol Morgan-Eagle the heart of Bone Orchard, have created a uniquely American soundscape that draws from primitive Appalachian murder ballads as well as post-punk sensibilities.

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Saturday June 28th, 2008

Collective Soul
Web site :: MySpace

If a rock 'n' roll band is defined by remarkable songs - heavy guitar riffs, infectious melodies, tasteful pop-influenced arrangements - along with a mesmerizing and flashy live show, then Collective Soul defines rock 'n' roll. Led by principal songwriter Ed Roland (lead vocals/keyboards/guitars), the internationally acclaimed band from the small town of Stockbridge, Ga., has enjoyed a long and fruitful run, delivering consistent, catchy, hit records year after year. And the members' powerful live performances have only gotten better with time, which makes their Solar Fest debut on Saturday night a sure bet for a memorable concert experience. Collective released their first album, "Hints, Allegations, And Things Left Unsaid," in 1994. After the surprising success of the massive single "Shine" (an RIAA gold-certified smash), the band has released seven more albums, each selling millions of copies. Seven singles have reached #1 on various music charts, from the gently transcendent "Shine" to the arresting "Gel" to the power ballad classic "The World That I Know." In the current climate of rap and pop drivel, Collective Soul continues to build on its accomplished career as rock radio superstars. "Afterwords," the band's latest studio release, debuted in the upper reaches of the Billboard Comprehensive Albums chart with songs that continue to be featured everywhere from movie soundtracks to "American Idol"!

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The Coup
Web site :: MySpace

After a 16-year career that has defined the word "uncompromising," it's a pleasure to hear the Coup's brand of literate hip-hop humanism. A sympathetic voice among the political hip-hop pack, the Coup - a duo composed of emcee Boots Riley and DJ Pam the Funkstress - is the Bay Area's best-kept secret ready to break wide open. Riley's bio includes equal stints in activism and hip-hop Ð for him, talking policy is as commonplace as talking trash. With his powerful songwriting, he's the everyday activist, continually espousing a sense of inclusion and belonging and a grassroots "do it yourself" ethic for improving the welfare of individuals and communities, with less reliance on big government and the desire to have less interference from same in our daily lives. "Pick A Bigger Weapon," the Coup's latest album, captures the collisions between economics and everyday life, the political and the personal.

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Robert Mirabal
Web site

Making a special local appearance, two-time GRAMMY Award winner Robert Mirabal lives with his family at the foot of sacred Taos Mountain where he maintains a traditional life, keeping the centuries-old customs of the Taos Pueblo people. Described as a Native American "Renaissance man" - master flute player, musician, composer, painter, craftsman, poet, actor, screenwriter, horseman and farmer - Robert has traveled extensively and played his music all over the world. As a composer and a musician Robert has won many honors including two-time Native American Artist of the Year, three-time Songwriter of the Year, Best Male Artist of the Year, and a 2006 GRAMMY Award for Sacred Ground, Best Native American Album of the Year. Earlier in 2008, Robert won his second GRAMMY for Johnny Whitehorse Totemic Flute Chants.

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Pacifika
Web site :: MySpace

Pacifika is three partners: The multi-talented Silvana Kane, a Peruvian-born singer, re-formed pop sensation (West End Girls) and accomplished actress with a love of flamenco, electronica and textured percussion; Adam Popowitz, a Canadian-bred guitarist adept at new wave, classical and pop, and a skilled producer responsible for a catalogue that includes indie rock and Armenian folk music; and Toby Peter, a dub-wise bassist born in Canada and raised in Barbados, explorer of jazz, hip-hop, metal and Caribbean grooves. Together, the Vancouver-based trio is making a new kind of global pop, music that nods to its freewheeling international influences, while forging its own unique voice sure to please any world music or jazz aficionado.

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Taj Weekes & Adowa
Web site :: MySpace

With his wry trenchant lyrics, a haunting dusky quiver in his voice and the knock-down sound of his band Adowa, Taj Weekes has managed to weave a rare social consciousness with an unforgettable roots reggae groove. The St. Lucian-born artist grew up the youngest of ten children in a family where music was ever present. In 2005, the band's first album, "Hope & Doubt," won radio play and rave reviews and provided Taj with a touring platform. Weekes has now emerged with "Deidem" (meaning "All of Us"), a meditation on confronting the fragmentation of the world and the search to give everyone a voice in it, sure to expand his following from the islands to right here in Taos.

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Concepto Tambor
MySpace

Concepto Tambor can be described as an all drum and percussion troupe blending Afro-Latin grooves, a call-and-response singing and chanting style combined with a rock 'n' roll attitude. From that basis, Concepto Tambor, along with founder/maistro Christian Orellana's thoughtful Spanish and English lyrics, has expanded its approach to include guitar, bass and both male and female front-line singers for raw and energetic performance to ride to the top of the Albuquerque music scene.

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Sunday June 29th, 2008

Susan Tedeschi
Web site :: MySpace

Susan Tedeschi is part of the new generation of blues musicians looking for ways to keep the form exciting, vital and evolving. She freely crafts elements of classic R&B, blues and her own gospel and blues-flavored original songs into her sets. She's a young, sexy, sassy blues belter and a prodigiously talented guitarist with musical sensibilities that belie her years. Growing up in a Boston suburb, she began singing with local bands at the age of 13 and subsequently pursued her passion for music while studying at Berklee and performing around the local club scene.

After establishing herself as one of New England's top-drawing live acts Tedeschi achieved an impressive musical and commercial breakthrough with "Just Won't Burn" Ð her 1998 album became a massive grass-roots and festival success. Her next release, 2002's "Wait For Me," coincided with her marriage to guitarist Derek Trucks and the birth of the couple's son Charlie. Although she's widely respected for her fiery guitar work, "Hope And Desire" marks a substantial departure - her fourth album presents her in the role of deeply expressive interpretive vocal stylist. Tedeschi is excited about taking songs from "Hope And Desire" on the road with her live band.

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Steve Earle
Web site :: MySpace

With his1986 landmark debut album "Guitar Town," Steve Earle burst on the scene as a fully formed songwriting master, effortlessly synthesizing the finest parts of country-folk troubadours like Townes Van Zandt and the anthemic, working-class rock of Bruce Springsteen. Some heralded him as a savior of country music, but his outlaw persona became familiar territory. Earle fell on severely hard times Ð a hair-raising ride that included life-threatening drug addiction, many wives and divorce, jail time and persistent doubt from his peers that he had any music left in him. However, since he quit drugs in the mid-'90s, the Texan provocateur has not only survived but unleashed a torrent of creative energy.

Now in his "second, post-jail, musical career," the always outspoken Earle is a keen political activist, actor (most recently playing a recovering addict on "The Wire"), talk-show host, novelist and playwright. He performed at the first Taos Solar Music Festival in Kit Carson Park in 1999, and meanwhile his music just gets better and better. The protesting of his post-9/11 opus "Jerusalem" and 2004's feisty "The Revolution Starts...Now" found him politically charged, waving a raised middle finger at Bush & Co. with undisguised revulsion. If it wasn't evident from the title of his new record, "Washington Square Serenade," Earle's got a newly adopted stomping ground in New York City. Inspired by Greenwich Village's energy and his most recent wife, singer Allison Moorer, the album is unlike any he's previously recorded, a sweeter, more hopeful chapter in his career. The Grammy-winning musician with the leftist views has re-established the thoughtful balance between the personal, political and poetic feel that characterizes his finest work.

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Plena Libre
Web site

Founded in San Juan by bass player/composer Gary Nuñez, Plena Libre is well into a 15-year voyage that has seen the orchestra re-invent the sound of Puerto Rico's plena and bomba traditions. Plena is a traditional Afro-Rican rhythm and musical genre, and Plena Libre means free-form, or liberated, plena. Traditionally, plena was performed using three different-sized hand drums called panderos that were pitched low-to-high and played interlocking rhythms. Over time, the plena took on different forms - from the simple addition of the accordion or cuatro to full orchestral variations. Plena Libre's mission was to reinvent and update the genre, taking it from its present folkloric status - which relegated its performance to holidays and folk revivals - and turning it into a living and breathing, popular, evolving form. To the pandero ensemble Nunez added a lineup that includes bass, keyboards, timbales, congas, four trombones, miscellaneous percussion as well as some of the best plena singers (soneros) found in Puerto Rico. Plena Libre has aptly transcended their humble beginnings - evolving into a powerhouse force that is undoubtedly one of the elite heavy-weight live orchestras on the current Latin music scene.

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Allison Moorer
Web site :: MySpace

An Alabama-born, Nashville-groomed songwriter and singer, Allison Moorer is an impressive stylist with an elegant, powerful Southern-soul voice all her own, an instrument that's muscular yet distinctively melodious as well. An "Americana" staple, she has just recently worked with producer and Solar Fest alum Buddy Miller on her latest project, "Mockingbird," allowed Moorer a wide berth to explore a sweep of styles and emotions, from rock 'n' roll to the early barrelhouse and modern jazz-blues to country and folk and indie, all of which she handles effortlessly.

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Passafire
Web site :: MySpace

Combining roots reggae, progressive rock, and experimental dub, the Savannah, Georgia-based outfit Passafire has pushed boundaries within the reggae world and received an overwhelmingly positive response. Nick Kubley's (drums) pairs with his brother Will (bass) creating a textured rhythmic backdrop for Ted Bowne's soulful vocals and guitar and Adam Willis keys and synths. They attribute their success to a truly independent business model and a strong grassroots connection to their fan base.

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Don Richmond
Web site

Don Richmond's singing and songwriting have put a shine on the Colorado and New Mexico region for more than twenty years. He founded the very popular New Mexico-based acoustic band Hired Hands, long a dancing audience favorite. Though musician of many instruments and talents, also well known for his work as an engineer and producer in Howlin' Dog Recording, the recording studio he started in his home town of Alamosa, Colorado. We're lucky to have such an honored member of the local music community.

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