Carrie Rodriguez

Carrie Rodriguez, a classically trained singer/songwriter whose
music includes equal parts organic folk and expansive atmosphere, will open Rendezvous in the Park’s annual summer concert series on Thursday night, July 16, 2009.  Pigeonhole Carrie Rodriguez at
your peril: she's done a lot of duets, she plays a mean fiddle, and she's recorded songs with a pleasing, folksy twang.

Rodriguez, a Brooklyn based fiddler not yet 30-years old, just released her second album, “She Aint Me,” which reached #2 on the Americana charts. In December 2008 Rodriguez was honored by the Roots Music Association as “Songwriter of the Year”– Folk Category.

A student of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Rodriquez learned to transform “violin” into “fiddle” with the influence of such artists as Casey Driessen, who “is now one of the greatest American fiddle players on the scene (plays with Bela Fleck, Tim O’Brien), and he was my roommate,” Rodriguez recalls. “He taught me one of the first fiddle tunes I ever learned.”

 “She Ain't Me marked her emergence as a solo artist, and it was one of the best records of the year for those looking for the combination of the traditional and the modern-day."
- Rick Massimo / The Providence Journal (12/18/08)

Website: http://www.carrierodriguez.com

OPENER:  Shades of Red from Seattle
Website: www.shadesofredmusic.com/index.asp

LOCAL WARMUP: J.T. Grauke

JJ Grey & Mofro 

Like Florida’s state flower, the orange blossom, musician JJ Grey’s songs are fascinating, beautiful, and complex. Both are products of the same ground: the rich, fertile and ancient soil of the Sunshine State. Born and raised just outside of Jacksonville, Florida, Grey comes from a long tradition of Southern musical storytellers and, like the best of the great Southern writers, he fills his songs with details that are at once vivid and personal, political and universal. His multi-textured music overflows with dynamic rhythms and thought-provoking lyrics. From raw funk to deep soul, blues and rock, JJ and his band Mofro deliver devastating live and recorded performances.

JJ Grey’s songs blend front porch realism with the best musical and literary traditions of the South. Whether it is a narrative passed down to him from his grandmother or the tribulations of a childhood friend, Grey’s ear for detail rings through in true storytelling fashion. His voice delivers with an unflinching strength that makes the personal universal and paints a vivid portrait of an exact time or place. Like his songs, Grey’s rich, soulful vocals are forceful and commanding, seemingly wise and experienced beyond his years.

Grey's songwriting influences are widespread. "I listen to people who tell the story," he says, naming Muddy Waters, Stevie Wonder, Tony Joe White, Jerry Reed, Otis Redding, Dr. John, Sly & The Family Stone, Van Morrison, Bill Withers and Dan Penn. What these writers and performers have in common is a love for simplicity and the ability to evoke complex emotions with a minimal number of words and notes. As a performer, Grey is influenced by the sexually charged blues of Howlin' Wolf, the country soul of George Jones, the hard funk of James Brown, and the smooth R&B of Donny Hathaway, as well as local personalities like street preachers and radio disc jockeys of his youth.

Website:  http://www.mofro.net/home.shtml

OPENER: Flowmotion from Seattle

Website: www.flowmotion.net

LOCAL WARMUPS: Soulstice and The Holiday Friends

Josh Ritter 

Rendezvous in Moscow is pleased to announce that Josh Ritter, a highly acclaimed Idaho musician, will return to his hometown to perform on Saturday evening, July 18, 2009, for the annual Rendezvous in the Park summer concert series! Ritter released his fourth full-length CD in 2007, entitled The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, which catches the Idaho musician in the midst of a radical transformation.  For Conquests Ritter radically revamped his working methods and his sound. Setting aside the guitar, he began writing on an upright piano some family friends had given him—an instrument, he admits, he didn’t actually know how to play. The result is an often raucous, occasionally dizzying affair, with pounding keyboards, strings, horns, and his new producer and long-time collaborator Sam Kassirer, leading the charge.

About the recording conditions in the Maine farmhouse where Conquests was made, Ritter enthuses, “You should have seen it up there. It was January and twenty below. We had horns in the attic, we had strings in the barn, we had a gaggle of people shooting targets with bb guns in the woods. It was a full house and everyone was there to throw themselves at the music. There was no holding back.”

The Boston Globe described Ritter’s previous set, The Animal Years (2006), as his “most intensely political, deeply personal, and darkly ambitious disc yet...” Paste Magazine named him one of the “100 Best Living Songwriters” and author Stephen King named it his #1 album of 2006 stating, “this is the most exuberant outburst of imagery since Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

Following an interview with Ritter, Chris Campell of JamBase opined of Conquests, “Every time I listen, I find something new - an outstanding line, a startling musical progression. One song proves impossible not to sing while walking down the street, while another causes me to pause and ponder something existential. I can't remember the last time I experienced a piece of art – be it music, literature or film - that elicited so much in me. I fully realize this may sound like hyperbole but after months of letting this record seep into me I can say with certainty that this feeling isn't going away anytime soon.” And Campbell says of Ritter, “His demeanor immediately put me at ease, and his sense of humor and appreciation for his fans only enhanced my appreciation for his art.”

Ritter is clearly having fun—and you will, too!

           Website:  http://www.joshritter.com/news.php

           OPENERS: Lady Drama from Seattle
            Website: www.ladydrama.com

            and

           Helio Sequence from Portland
            Website: www.myspace.com/theheliosequence

 The Rendezvous Chamber Orchestra

The Rendezvous Chamber Orchestra will feature Beethoven's Sixth Symphony ("Pastorale") and Bartok's Divertimento for Strings.  Concertmaster Philip Wharton has also written a new work to be premiered at the concert. Conductor Yaacov Bergman will be returning to lead the ensemble, which includes top professional musicians from the Northwest and beyond.