Americana

A terrific double-bill with two of the finest country-edged singer-songwriters around, each of them drawing upon a wealth of life experiences and wielding a highly creative pen: Mary Gauthier and Ray Wylie Hubbard!

This summer, keep your cool inside at the newly air-conditioned Cedar!

Ticket options and info

• On sale date: noon Fri May 24
• Phone: 612-338-2674 ext 0 between 12 noon and 4pm ($2 fee per ticket)
• In person: From a Cedar volunteer in the front lobby during events (no fee; cash, check, credit card), Depth of Field (no fee; cash or check only), or Electric Fetus (approximately $2 fee)
• Online: Ticketweb (typically $2--$3 fee/ticket) (click on red Buy Tickets button at top of this page)
• The Cedar is an all ages venue
• Students with ID, seniors over 65, and children under

In early 2012, Grammy award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops released their studio album Leaving Eden produced by Buddy Miller. The album was recorded in Nashville and features Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, guitarist Hubby Jenkins, and the band’s newest touring member, New Orleans native Leyla McCalla on cello/vocals and banjo. The Chocolate Drops got their start in 2005, when every Thursday night they would travel to sit in the home of old- time fiddler Joe Thompson for a musical jam session. Joe was in his 80s, a black fiddler with a short bowing style that he inherited from generations of family musicians. With their 2010 debut, Genuine Negro Jig—which garnered a Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy—the Carolina Chocolate Drops proved that the old-time, fiddle and banjo-based music they’d so scrupulously researched and passionately performed could be a living, breathing, ever- evolving sound.

Martha Redbone's new collection The Garden Of Love sings of the earth, skies of blue & grey, hard birth & easy death. It sings a poem of prophecy whispered by the oldest tree in the farthest corner of the valley. It sings of leaving & returning & of the equanimity of Angels. Martha's voice itself is the very sound of the dreams of hills and rivers- Homebound & Restless; interpreting the hauntingly lovely words of William Blake with the power of a storm & the gentleness of a breeze. (Vernon Reid)

A collection of William Blake poems set to the music of Appalachia by singer-songwriter Martha Redbone, produced by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's John McEuen. 

Ticket options and info Read more »

A double bill featuring Boston-based roots band Kingsley Flood, described by the Boston Herald as "Rolling Thunder Revue with a punk rock sneer," who'll be going up first this evening, and locals Calamity and the Owl.

Ticket options and info

• On sale date: noon Fri May 3
• Phone: 612-338-2674 ext 0 between 12 noon and 4pm ($2 fee per ticket)
• In person: From a Cedar volunteer in the front lobby during events (no fee; cash, check, credit card), Depth of Field (no fee; cash or check only), or Electric Fetus (approximately $2 fee)
• Online: Ticketweb (typically $2--$3 fee/ticket) (click on red Buy Tickets button at top of this page)
• The Cedar is an all ages venue
• Students with ID, seniors over 65, and children under 12 may purchase tickets at a discount at the door.

Fragile, daydreaming harmonies. Swirling synths that spin and spin until they fall down dizzy. Steady-galloping drums that coolly pass you by. These Midwestern boys have wrapped them all up into rip-your-heart out ballads about getting older but not necessarily happier – songs that capture the old joy of classic records and do-nothing days, and the ache of knowing they’re mostly gone. Yes, there’s a good kind of sadness, and this is what it sounds like.  (Rolling Stone)

Lions & Lambs’ dark undertones promise an ironically bright future for the band. (Consequence Of Sound)

Words that in their everyday surrealism have no parallel in contemporary writing… Music that mines the deep veins of fatalism in the Appalachian voice. (Greil Marcus)

As songwriters it’s the eerie, ancestral voice of ‘Anonymous’ they ultimately resemble the most. (The Chicago Reader).

This is music that moves forward by turning the clock back—haunting, primal and strangely heroic. (The Times (UK))

Wrap up Record Store Day with a smash double bill at The Cedar featuring full sets from Joey Ryan & the Inks, and Farewell Milwaukee.

Joey and the crew are celebrating the release of their EP [pause], presenting a more layered, psychedelic and narrative focus to their music, and giving space to the joy released in music-making. Making this evening's show a total no-brainer, the first 150 fans through the door will get a free physical copy of the EP!

Since Farewell Milwaukee's last sold out appearance at the Cedar, they have swarmed stages around the country, ranging from the Lincoln Center to Target Field, and taken some time out from touring to work on their third album. Their return stop at the Cedar is long overdue! 

Ticket options and info Read more »

Musician, songwriter, bandleader, entertainer, innovator and preservationist Pokey LaFarge is on a mission, encouraging audiences worldwide to think differently about what it means to celebrate musical traditions. Taking as a springboard songs from the first half of last century, Pokey breathes new life into classic forms, aided and abetted by a newly expanded 6-piece line-up complete with horn section. Simply put, Pokey explains, “It’s not retro music. It’s American music that never died.”

 Ticket options and info

"Steeped in the honeyed hickory grit of Gram Parsons." (UNCUT)

"A quiet master class in emotional subtlety" (Metro)

British singer-songwriter Peter Bruntnell returns to The Cedar after a long absence, and touring behind his new album Retrospective (Blind Eye Records), pulling together a collection of melodic songs that stretch from alt country to psychedelia.  Somehow, Peter's songs have a habit of locking into the listener's emotions; frankly, there's no one else around quite like him.

Opening tonight will be local outlaw country band The Union Suits.

Free Peter Bruntnell CD at the door to the first 100 ticket purchasers to arrive!

Ticket options and info