FUNK/JAZZ LEGEND
GEORGE DUKE
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The Variety Playhouse is an intimate theatre and nightclub located in Atlanta's colorful Little 5 Points district. We present live concerts featuring top national acts representing Roots Rock, Indie, Jazz, Folk, World Music and more.
The Variety features flexible seating and standing arrangements and the best sound and light systems in Atlanta.

You Forgot It In Peoplewas a buzz among indie cohorts and plans for a stateside release on Arts & Crafts was slated for the following summer. A surprise, however, coincided those plans in spring 2003 when Broken Social Scene won a Juno for "Alternative Album of the Year" for You Forgot It In People. Additional contributions by select members of Stars, Metric, Do Make Say Think, Raising the Fawn, the Dears and others contribute to the ambitious sounds of Broken Social Scene.

In the last five years, no one has released more consistently excellent blues albums than Atlanta's Tinsley Ellis, and his latest project, Moment Of Truth, once again validates his status. Ellis produced the disc, penned nine of the 11 tunes, sings like a man possessed and wields a mean lead guitar from start to finish.

As one half of the most successful female folk duo of all time in the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray likes to let her personality shine on her solo releases. Her newest album, Didn’t It Feel Kinder, has a much more introspective feel to it. After getting rave reviews for the new record, Amy will show it off to her hometown crowd. Her first show at Variety since 2004.

A longtime luminary of the keyboard scene, Duke’s resume stretches from collaborations with Jean-Luc Ponty, Miles Davis, and Frank Zappa to his own successful solo career. Two of his iconic songs — the ’70s hits “Reach For It” and “Dukey Stick” — have long been staples in the funk pantheon, and Duke also created an important musical bridge to South America with his classic A Brazilian Love Affair. He has been a musical director for events such as the Nelson Mandela tribute concert at Wembley Stadium, London, in 1988, worked with R&B stars from Dianne Reeves and Jill Scott to Sheila E (who guests on his newest record), and contributed to music education via his involvement with the Thelonious Monk Institute.
Throughout his career, Duke has achieved success through dedicating himself to his craft and collaborating with some truly amazing fellow artists.

Atlanta based jam rock band The Grapes will reunite for the first time in years to play a special Thanksgiving show at The Variety Playhouse. The Grapes are no strangers to The Variety, for years they packed the house at legendary shows. Coming along for the fun will be Col. Bruce Hampton and also a set by Deep Blue Sun.

Atlanta based singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins is an acoustic troubadour whose lyrics read like overly precious journal entries.  Mullins is at his best when he plays to his strengths, which include an affinity for working-class characters and an eye for detail. Best of all is his sweet Georgia drawl, which pours like honey over a memorable chorus. With over 10 releases under his belt, Shawn is one of the most prolific performers ever from Atlanta.

2008 must be an interesting year to have an outsider's view on the US and its role in the world, and when Ray Davies sings "everywhere I go it looks and feels like America," it's hard to miss a bit of the bitterness in the observation. His second studio solo album in three years, Working Man's Cafe feels like exactly the album a 60-something rocker would craft--assured and direct yet searching and restless, a glimpse into the head of a man who's comfortable in his skin but still wonders how he fits into a world that seems to be turning faster and stranger as the years pass by. Davies has cultivated this contra position of bitter and sweet, of intertwining comfort and conflict throughout his years leading the Kinks, and now continues into what looks to be a fruitful solo career.

Don't miss this very special Christmas show from the Grammy nominated Verve artist Ledisi!
Wherever she goes, she wows and astounds. Singer/songwriter Ledisi (pronounced led-duh-see and adopted from the word that means "to bring forth" in the Yoruba language of Nigeria) is the epitome of the performer that - after she earns a standing ovation - people stare wide-eyed and mumbling, "Where has she been all this time?" The lady will tell you - in a voice of equal parts sweet, slightly weary yet triumphant - "Here...all the time." Three years in the making, the 16-track Lost and Found (for which Ledisi co-produced all of the songs with veterans Rex Rideout, Jamey Jaz and Mano Hanes, newcomer Lorenzo Johnson and longtime collaborator Sundra Manning) is the album destined to usher a deserving talent into some well-earned limelight. Overflowing with deeply touching songs of love and life, the CD cuts a swath through intimate snapshots of relationships that linger in the mind long after the last note has been sung.

Delbert McClinton is a legend among Texas roots music aficionados for his amazing longetivity but also for his ability to combine country, blues, soul and rock n’ roll as if there were no distinctions between and of them in the best time honored Texas tradition.

Gifted with one of the most recognizable voices in popular music, Richie Havens has a soulful singing style that remains as unique and ageless as when he first emerged from the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s. It’s a voice that has inspired and electrified audiences from the Woodstock Music & Arts Fair in 1969, to the Clinton Presidential Inauguration in 1993 - coming full circle with the 30th Woodstock Anniversary celebration, A Day In The Garden, in 1999. The latest leg of Richie Havens’ journey is entitled Nobody Left to Crown. A sense of timelessness rings through the album, as though the passing years have only strengthened the meaning of Richie Havens’ soulfilled folk rock.

Big Mike Geier and his Kingsized orchestra deliver high Vegas glitz right here in the ATL with this annual holiday show. The big band reworks holiday standards and classics alike, but in their own distinctive style, and of course backed by the gorgeous ladies of Dames A’Flame burlesque troop.

This special holiday show features a slew of pickers and grinners from the entire world of bluegrass and americana music. Connecting traditional songs of yesterday with their own original and inventive sounds of today, Larry Keel & Natural Bridge create astonishingly powerful acoustic music rich in heritage, heart and hot licks and Tony Rice is regarded in most circles as perhaps the greatest innovator in acoustic flatpicked guitar since Clarence White. Add in the members of Blueground Undergrass, Bobby Lee Rodgers and Ralph Roddenberry and you get one gigantic holiday hoedown.
                                 

Though Manchester Orchestra has only been a proper band for a year and a half, this young quintet (with an average age of 19) has crafted an album that sounds more aware and traveled than many of its more aged peers. Led by singer / songwriter / guitarist Andy Hull, Manchester Orchestra’s debut LP, I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child, is a statement cinematic in scope – a series of emotional vignettes that delicately unravel over the course of an elegantly conceived musical arc that recalls both murky southern mysticism and the id borne bombast of the Pacific Northwest.

Brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson soaked up the music of their father, Jim Dickinson, and absorbed the North Mississippi Blues legacy while playing and shaking it down at the juke joints with their blues ancestors. Luther (guitar and vocals) and Cody (drums and vocals) joined up with bassist Chris Chew to form the core of their own band, The North Mississippi Allstars. Through the filter of generations of Mississippi Blues men, the Allstars pioneered their own blues-infused rock and roll and continue to do so.

Emerging in 2004 with a woodsy blend of midtempo rock and reverb-laden vocals, Band Of Horses quickly gained an audience in their native Northwest before Everything All the Time made them indie rock darlings.  The Seattle-based label Sub-Pop signed the group in 2005 and reissued their self-released EP later that year, while Band Of Horses retreated to the studio to record their full-length debut. Everything All the Time emerged in March 2006 and was warmly received; The band went on tour both in the states and abroad to support their debut album, with most shows selling out. The group returned to the States and relocated to Mt. Pleasant, SC, to be closer to their families; soon after, Band Of Horses entered the studio with producer Phil Ek (who also helmed Everything All the Time) to record their sophomore album. Cease to Begin was released in October 2007 to much critical praise.

Rising out of the low country of Savannah, GA in 2001, Perpetual Groove has grown quickly into a formidable internationally touring organization. Now based in Athens, GA, the band continues to ride an unending wave of momentum buoyed by an enthusiastic fan base and international critical acclaim. Fans of Perpetual Groove (or PGroove, as the fans like to call them) are known to follow the band from state to state, night to night, to experience their euphoric live show that features an ever changing set-list. Perpetual Groove’s music has evolved into a genre-bending, highly original sound that touches upon jazz-rock, neo-psychedelia, R&B, trance electronica, progressive rock, and anthemic arena rock. Their large catalog of original music offers something for everyone, but the band is also known for their eclectic range of covers; including everything from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to Rage Against The Machine’s “Bulls On Parade”. The addition of an intense, retina burning, intelligent light show creates an atmosphere unlike any other, assuring fans they’ll get a highly polished, yet different show each night.

Athens, Georgia can cover bases most college towns can only hope to when it comes to a polished, eclectic mix of musicians and bands that thrive on each other’s energy in a place where bars and bands are as common as corner coffee joints. This is where Dubconcious has crafted something that has rarely been done successfully: a dub reggae collective that picks at the resounding characteristics of the genre and fashions them for 21st century.

The Machine, America's premier live Pink Floyd experience, extends Pink Floyd's legacy through a multi-dimensional approach, faithfully recreating it's timeless music, while also reinventing it with interpretive jams. The Machine has forged a reputation for excellence and an intimate connection with their growing audience. Their show is nothing less than a full out musical experience that's not to be missed.

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Keller Williams is literally a one-man jam band. His fascinating live shows feature him solo on-stage with a Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro looping unit, and he creates his backing loops in the moment, building and improvising as he goes on his custom-made ten-string guitar, and thanks to his equally as quirky, upbeat, and semi-surreal songs (which he frequently weaves into extended, half-improvised medleys) and his warm, friendly tenor singing voice, Williams is an utterly unique performer whose musical eccentricities don't keep him from being immediately accessible.

Using entire shows from the Grateful Dead's 30 years of extensive touring as a launching pad, Dark Star Orchestra recreates the original song for song performance set list for an entirely new generation of, as well as old school, Deadheads. Dark Star Orchestra presents its critically acclaimed live show at esteemed venues from coast to coast and internationally.

Dark Star Orchestra performs Grateful Dead classics in the same way that an orchestra interprets music of classical composers. The composer spirit is derived and channeled as the players capture the excitement and innovation of the original performances and compositions. Touring nationwide for nine years to the tune of nearly 1500 shows since forming, the band's determined commitment to "raising the Dead" has drawn national media attention.

The Black Lips are what you could call true visionaries of a skeptical age. Even from their very first 7" EP, you could tell they were doing their own thing on their own terms, and of course it didn't sit well, even with the dawning of the 21st century and all it promised. Wildly cross-eyed broken stars destined to waver in their importance in the cosmos, they know no boundaries and they take no pretense. Like a volatile and teetering amalgamation of the Swell Maps trying to cover the Swingin' Medallions, it's just not right for this world. Unless you long for the unhinged freedom that comes with music that challenges everything without becoming an unlistenable mess of sound. It's a dazzling catastrophe that needs to be absorbed before it vaporizes into thin air. The fun these guys have is hard to hide either live or on record. Seriously slurred swashbucklers living out the ultimate teenage dream, yet breaking through another layer of remarkable idiocy, transcribed through hallucinations, exasperation, and perfectly casual dick fumbling.

Steve Roslonek of SteveSongs has been writing and performing his award-winning music for kids and families for the past ten years. Steve blends participatory songs, clever stories and great melodies to create what the Boston Globe called "not just a musical journey but an entertaining, interactive and educational one." A rising star on the national kids' music scene, Steve has delighted audiences throughout the country, including at prestigious venues like Symphony Space in New York City, Wolftrap in Vienna VA, the Kennedy Center and the White House in Washington, D.C., and Fenway Park in Boston. Anyone who’s attended a SteveSongs concert appreciates Steve’s ability to connect with his audience – from the exuberant children flocking towards the stage, to the moms bouncing babies with the beat, to the parents and grandparents singing and grooving along. It’s no wonder he's been called a modern day Pied Piper!

Steve has taken on the exciting new role of "Mr. Steve," cohost of the PBS KIDS preschool destination that features the popular shows Curious George, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Dragon Tales, and Super Why. Steveperforms original interactive songs that reinforce the day’s curriculum theme. And Steve’s much awaited "Marvelous Musical Adventure" DVD was released by Rounder/PBS this past August.

MELISSA FERRICK
Sunday, December 7, 7:30pm, $17.50
Combining emotionally honest lyrics, a forceful vocal delivery and a musicianship described as disciplined fury, Melissa Ferrick returns with a new album Goodbye Youth that appeals to a wide ranging audience from folk to indie rockers.