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Arts & Entertainment

Amy Black with special guests, Girls Guns and Glory - Live at Eddie's Attic!

Doors open at 6:30 pm. Tickets will be $12 at the door.

AMY BLACK is a Boston based singer/songwriter with storytelling and Southern tradition in her blood. She burst onto the Boston scene a few short years ago and in record time, she and her band have become one of the most sought after new acts in New England, sharing the stage with Chris Isaak, The Courtyard Hounds, Rodney Crowell and Joe Ely and playing to packed houses across the region. Black also recently made her mark down south as a featured artist on the live radio show “Music City Roots” hosted by Jim Lauderdale and as a headliner at The Basement inNashville and Eddie’s Attic in Georgia at at the Americana Music Association’s annual event.

Black’s background is as refreshingly honest as her music. “My parents are from the Muscle Shoals are of Alabama,” Amy explains. “But my dad is a preacher so we moved around a lot when I was a kid. I grew up in Missouri and Alabama and at 16, my parents moved the family to Boston. Talk about culture shock!”

Several times a year Amy would return to her family’s Alabama hometown where her granddad, Thomas Reuben Jones, remained a core influence. “Man, did I love listening to him tell stories,” she remembers. “He grew up red-dirt poor in Waterloo, Alabama and put himself through college. He worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority for decades and then started his own business. His stories were so rich with detail and he loved telling them. He was a bit of a showman and I think he passed that on me.”

Amy sang publicly throughout her teens and fronted bands in college, but she did little with her music for nearly a decade. Her love for singing, however, would not be quelled. “About five years ago,” she says, “I told myself ‘it’s now or never.’”

Black and her band started performing fresh takes on classic covers by her influences, including Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris and her original influence, Bonnie Raitt. All she planned to do was sing, but Black quickly discovered she had songwriting skills of her own and began to add originals to her live show. In April of 2011, she released her sophomore album One Time, made up primarily of those originals.

The album’s sound – crafted by producer Lorne Entress, best known for Lori McKenna’s Bittertown, is fueled by a rich mix of folk, blues, classic country and gritty soul that embodies Amy’s distinctive and powerful vocals. Critics recognize that this newcomer’s voice is one not to take lightly. According to a recent No Depression review, “Black sings in a folk-styled country voice that suggests bits of Patty Loveless, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Judy Collins, edged by the blues of Bonnie Raitt and a hint of Jennifer Nettle’s sass.”

With One Time, Amy’s powerful voice and presence are now matched by the commanding range of her own writing.Through it all, the tracks glow with a mix of traditional acoustic instrumentation along with tasteful accents of electric guitar. The all-star cast of musicians includes the guitar playing of New England favorites, Tim Gearan, Lyle Brewer and Mark Erelli with Roger Williams on dobro, Jesse Williams on bass and Nashville’s legendary Stuart Duncan on fiddle and mandolin.

Amy’s gift of conjuring flesh and blood characters and emotions leaves an indelible mark. “Real American Roots music is born from adversity,” she says. “Loving, lying, drinking, dying and going to heaven – not necessarily in that order.”

The characters in “Molly” and “Whiskey And Wine” ache with bittersweet yearning in a world of pleasure and pain. “All My Love” simmers with seduction, while “Meet Me On The Dance Floor” is a flirty delight. “Stay” swings and “Run Johnny”, one of six songs featuring Nashville’s legendary fiddler Stuart Duncan, crackles with the bluesy menace of classic Bonnie Raitt. The album’s three covers, including a fiery take on Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough” and the gospel burner “Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold My Body Down)”, are testaments to Amy’s unquestionable feel for classic material. And in the album’s potent title track, the plaintive lyric ”Time for you to make a break/And show what you’re good for” could describe Black’s own current bold career move.

“I’m connecting and empathizing with every character I’m writing about. Life isn’t always what people hope it’s going to be, and that’s everyone’s reality on some level.” For Amy Black, that reality is captured on One Time. And truly, her time is now.



Girls Guns and Glory is the brainchild of Lonesome Day recording artist Ward Hayden. Hayden formed GGG in the Winter of 2005 and within 2 weeks of the groups formation they entered Noise in the Attic Studios to begin a prolific period of recording. Releasing 3 critically acclaimed full-length albums in as many years (Fireworks & Alcohol – 2006; Pretty Little Wrecking Ball – 2007; Inverted Valentine – 2008). Hayden’s original compositions conjure the palpable ache of a crushed heart; they touch on themes of love lost and hope found, and their words alone could be published in anthologies of poetry. Hayden recalls that once he got on stage with GGG, he found he had never felt more comfortable doing anything else. Performing quickly became an addiction, and it is due in part to his efforts on and off stage that GGG is now an internationally touring band, named Independent Artist of the Year at the French Country Music Awards, and two-time winner of both the Roots Act of Year (Boston Phoenix Awards) and Americana Act of the Year (Boston Music Awards). GGG is also the only band of its genre to ever take home the top honors of Act of the Year (Boston Music Awards) and to win the legendary WBCN Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble.

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