CD Release
Danny Knicely's Summer Concert with
Nate Leath, Aimee Curl & Bert Carlson
Sunday, August 29, 2010, 7:00 pm at the Old Stone School in Hillboro, Va.
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Tickets $15 advance, $19 at the door.

Danny Knicely presents a CD release concert with his newest project. Danny will be joined by Nate Leath on fiddle, Aimee Curl on vocals and bass and Bert Carlson on Guitar

Danny Knicely is a multi-instrumentalist and music producer from a Virginia family steeped in mountain music tradition. He has won many awards for his mandolin, guitar, and fiddle expertise. He has recorded and toured the U.S. and internationally with Magraw Gap, Corn Tornado, Purgatory Mountain, Furnace Mountain, and Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, and is musical director for the Mountain Music Project.

Aimee Curl is from Loudoun County, Virginia. In addition to playing bass, she has an unmistakable breathy sound and sultry vocal style that combine in a musician with incredible depth. She has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe with bands such as ThaMuseMeant and Furnace Mountain and has recorded with many artists worldwide.

Nate Leath won the fiddle contest at the prestigious Galax Fiddlers Convention in Galax, Virginia when he was just 11 years old. He started his professional recording career at age 15 when he moved to Rockville, Maryland, and began working on the first of many recordings for Patuxtent Records. A recent graduate of Berkley School of Music in Boston, Nate Has toured with many groups including “Old School Freight-train” and “The Boston Boys”, and is in great demand as a session musician.

Bert Carlson of Bath County, Virginia, has been a professional guitarist since 1976. Well versed in many styles, he has the amazing ability to jump from genre to genre and era to era within an instant. He is from the upper midwest, where he taught at Illinois State University and Lincoln College. He moved to Washington DC and has played at The Capitol and The Kennedy Center. Bert has played with artists ranging from Louie Bellson to Doc Watson and Wynton Marsalis, and has even played for Captain Kangaroo.

See video of the band on the Facebook event page.

Download the flyer for Danny's concert.

Tickets $15 advance, $19 at the door.

Red Molly
Friday, Sept. 17, 2010, 8:00 pm at The Lyceum
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Tickets $20 advance, $23 at the door.

On a July evening in 2004, at their campsite at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello harmonized for the very first time. As they sang their campmates off to sleep, they knew they had stumbled into something extraordinary. Audiences seem to agree. Since that summer night, Red Molly has consistently brought concert-goers to their feet with stunning three-part harmonies, crisp musicianship and a warm, engaging stage presence. Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and newest member Molly Venter have a lot of fun on stage, and it's contagious.

With their latest CD James (2010), Red Molly beautifully captures what their fans love about the band: dark and heart-wrenching one moment, soulful and uplifting the next. They deliver an eclectic, exciting mix of cover songs by well-known writers (Nanci Griffith, Steve Goodman, Bob Wills, Darrell Scott, etc.), originals, and songs by up-and-coming writers (Jonathan Byrd, Anthony da Costa). Songs like the album opener "The Last Call" showcase the trio's soaring harmonies while "Jezebel" and "Can't Let Go" remind us that these ladies can rock. James peaked at #4 on the Americana Top 40 and was Folk DJ’s #1 Album for two months in a row.

With the critical success of James, the band is now drawing invitations from renowned historic national events like Merlefest and is winning over audiences in 250-500 seat theaters around the country. Spurred onward by an ever-growing and devoted fanbase, and the desire to commit themselves to touring farther from home, Red Molly is at the start of a new and exciting musical chapter.

As Carolann steps down to spend more time with family and pursue solo opportunities, joining Laurie (bass, banjo) and Abbie (Dobro, guitar) is the newest "Molly", Austin-based singer/songwriter Molly Venter (guitar). Molly first caught Abbie's attention as a New Folk Finalist at the 2008 Kerrville Folk Festival. When Molly opened for Red Molly in Arlington later that month, the band was stunned by the beauty and power of her voice, which has drawn comparisons to Natalie Merchant and Patty Griffin. In the multiple opening slots that followed, Molly effortlessly turned listeners into fans, with her gorgeous singing, warm authenticity, and undeniable charm.

The Boston Globe says: "Everything Red Molly sings is delivered with tick-tight arrangements, crystalline vocals, and caramel harmonies. But what is most striking is the ardor they bring to everything they do, whether snuggling into the sweet parochialism of an old spiritual, or the gritty pathos of a Gillian Welch tune. They come on less like stars strutting for their minions than pals sharing their favorite songs. In the friendly world of the coffeehouse, that remains a star-making quality."

Visit Red Molly's web site.

Laurie MacAllister

Red Molly's Laurie MacAllister dreamed of being a singer when she was a little girl, singing songs by Dolly Parton, Sheena Easton, and Olivia Newton-John at the top of her lungs into a hairbrush. A subsequent decade-long case of stage fright prevented her from performing publicly. While studying Industrial Psychology in graduate school at NYU, the urge to sing was strong enough that she began going to open mics in New York City.

After a short-lived career in the field of management consulting, and landing her first gigs at the Grey Dog's Coffee in the West Village, Laurie decided to pursue singing seriously in 1998. She quit her job and became a singer/songwriter (and also a waitress). With the help of an extraordinary friend, Cheryl Prashker, she released an album of original songs called These Old Clothes in 1999. In 2000, she met Cliff Eberhardt and began singing backup for him at venues around the country, developing a passion for harmony singing, and began the process of overcoming her stage fright.

Cliff produced Laurie's next album, called The Things I Choose To Do, which was purchased and released by Barnes & Noble. In 2004, at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, Laurie formed Red Molly with Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello; just two short years later, due the growing success of the band, she was able to leave waitressing behind forever.

Playing about 100 shows a year as part of Red Molly for the last six years has been Laurie's dream come true. Laurie recently landed her first national television spot, singing the jingle in a 2010 Folgers Coffee commercial. Her plan for the future is to have a blast making music with Abbie and the new addition to Red Molly, Molly Venter.

You can see Laurie singing the Dan Bern song "Blank Tornado" and the Cliff Eberhardt song "Mempis" with Steve Kirkman in this video from the Peekskill Coffee House.

Abbie Gardner and her Dobro

With Red Molly, Abbie Gardner plays the dobro. To people not familiar with it, the name may sound a little goofy, and the instrument itself may look a little goofy, too.

The dobro looks like a regular guitar, but one with a bright, shiny hubcap stuck on it. The metal inset in the dobro is a resonator, which gives the instrument its other name of resonator guitar. It was invented in 1928 when Slovakians John and Emil Dopyera were trying to make a louder guitar. The name dobro can be a contraction of Dopyera Brothers. In Slovakian, the word also means "goodness."

While it is sometimes played like a regular guitar, the distinctive sound the dobro is known for comes when it is played in a horizontal position with a slide used on the neck.

After changing hands several times, in 1993 the name dobro ended up in the possession of Gibson Guitar, which now restricts the use of the name to their product. Many people, though, still refer to the any resonator guitar as a dobro.

Abbie Gardner studied classical flute growing up, but once she started playing dobro in 2004 she found her main instrument. She traveled to Lyons, Colorado, and Nashville, Tennessee, to study with Sally Van Meter and Rob Ickes. Left to her own devices, without many dobro influences near New York City, Abbie continues to develop her style by listening to other instrumentalists such as David Rawlings, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt.

Abbie's vocals are as strong as her dobro playing. In addition to singing traditional and contemporary songs in old-time and bluegrass styles with Red Molly, she is an accomplished jazz singer. Her first full-length recording,"My Craziest Dream" is an album of jazz standards featuring her father on piano. It earned her an entry in the 2009 Hal Leonard book "The Jazz Singers: The Ultimate Guide" and she continues to perform with her father whenever possible.

Abbie has "a strong throaty voice that's reminiscent of Wesla Whitfield's… she uses it to render evergreens from the 1920s and 1930s with a crew of guys who play like they were around when this music was the cat's pajamas" (Cadence Magazine, June 2004).

Her 2006 release "Honey on My Grave" was her first independently released CD of mostly original music spanning varied genres with "consistently strong Dobro, guitar, and vocal performances" (Chronogram, 2006). You can see her singing the title song from the CD with Red Molly in this video recorded at an IMT concert last year.

Molly Venter

This will be Red Molly's first show in the area with their newest member, Molly Venter.

Molly inherited her father's nomadic tendencies along with her mother's love of music and culture. After earning an undergraduate degree in International Relations, Molly lived in Idaho, California and Mexico before settling in Austin, Texas. She has enjoyed studying dance and movement, psychology, nutrition, comedy improv, and traditional Sufi singing and the harmonium. It is her great joy to weave her life experiences into song.

Molly has released four albums and toured extensively since 2004. She was a finalist in the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk contest (2008) and took second place at Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Songwriter Showcase (2008). Her debut album "Molly Venter" caught the attention of editors at Warner Brothers music and was featured in the ski film "Impact" as well as on all promotional Jeep CDs for 2005 and 2006.

After releasing her latest album "Love Me Like You Mean It", Molly left her teaching job and took to the road full time, crisscrossing the country for the next 18 months and living out of her car. The album was featured on Barnes & Noble listening stations around the country, and her songs "Happier Now" and "Shaky Ground" are currently in rotation on all in-store Apple computers.

Still, solo life on the road wore Molly down, and she was in the process of applying to teaching jobs in Austin in April 2010 when the Red Molly call came in. Having opened a dozen shows for Red Molly, Venter was thrilled! The newest "Molly" is currently "getting serious" about playing guitar, collaborating with her new bandmates, and generally enjoying life's adventures.

You can see Molly singing "Sweet Caroline" with Red Molly in this YouTube video.