Danny Schmidt & Carrie Elkin

DANNY SCHMIDT

Named to the Chicago Tribune's 50 Most Significant Songwriters in the Last 50 Years, Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt has been rapidly ascending from underground cult hero to being widely recognized as an artist of generational significance. With lyrical depth drawing comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, and Dave Carter, Danny is considered a preeminent writer, an artist whose earthy poetry manages to somehow conjure magic from the mundane, leading Sing Out Magazine to tag him "Perhaps the best new songwriter we've heard in the last 15 years."

Performing solo almost exclusively, armed with just his voice, his words, and his acoustic guitar, Danny's an authentic timeless troubadour, one man sharing his truth in the form of songs, unadorned and intimate. The uderstated effect can be startlingly powerful. As songwriter Jeffrey Foucault put it: "Everything about the man is gentle, except for his capacity for insight, which is crushing."

After garnering unanimous critical praise for his self-released Parables & Primes album in 2005, Danny's follow up release, Little Grey Sheep in 2007 began an unbroken streak of albums that have charted at #1 on the Folk Radio Charts, internationally. After also winning the prestigeous Kerrville New Folk award in 2007, Danny won the notice of venerable Americana roots label, Red House Records, who began releasing his albums in 2009, starting with the critically acclaimed album, Instead The Forest Rose To Sing, thus exposing a much broader audience to Danny's music, alongside such notable artists as Greg Brown, Eliza Gilkyson, Jorma Kaukonen, and John Gorka.

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CARRIE ELKIN

With her Red House Records debut release, Call It My Garden, Carrie Elkin has emerged as one of the defining new voices in the world of Texas singer-songwriters, being celebrated by Texas Music Magazine as one of their artists of the year. She's an artist full of contrast and contradiction. With a voice that's somehow both gritty and pristine, the Austin Chronicle calls it "an earthy combination of strength and compassion . . . reminiscent of the winsome beauty created by a young Nanci Griffith" while Bob Harris of the BBC throws in comparisons to Patty Griffin and Iris DeMent, and calls her voice "spellbinding from the opening track." 

That contrast is reflected in her writing, as well, which is at once devastatingly intimate and embracingly universal. It's this ability to make greater connection from the minutia of life that makes Elkin's songwriting so compelling. Or, as Flying Shoes UK puts it, her songwriting creates "the sense of vivid connection to her vision of the world." 

The voice, the stories, the images, the grace and infectious enthusiasm, it's a complete package. But it's the power of her live performances that really have been creating an incredible buzz around this young artist. Maverick Magazine said it best, after a recent festival performance: "I have never seen a performer so in love with the act of singing. That's the gospel truth, and from what I've subsequently learned, I'm not the only one to believe or state that. Onstage Elkin was simply a force of nature." A force of nature. On stage, Elkin can turn a delicate trickle of a note into a tidal wave of ten emotions at once. Like life at it's most alive. Don't miss this opportunity to see this exciting artist in concert, and in full force.