Country music icon Willie Nelson will team up with special guest Dawes for a not-to-be-missed concert at Rose Music Center in Huber Heights, OH on Tuesday, July 11th.
ABOUT WILLIE NELSON
With a six-decade career and 200 plus albums, this iconic Texan is the creative genius behind the historic recordings of Crazy, Red Headed Stranger, and Stardust. Willie Nelson has earned every conceivable award as a musician and amassed reputable credentials as an author, actor, and activist. He continues to thrive as a relevant and progressive musical and cultural force.
In recent years, he has delivered more than 10 new album releases, released a Top 10 New York Times’ bestsellers book, again headlined Farm Aid, an event he co-founded in 1985, received his 5th degree black belt in Gong Kwon Yu Sul, headlined the last three years of the on-going Luck Reunion food and music festival at his ranch in Luck, TX during SXSW, announced the launch of his cannabis company Willie’s Reserve, and graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
In 2015, Nelson added “It’s A Long Story: My Life,” the unvarnished and complete story of Willie, hit bookshelves and landed him on the New York Times’ bestsellers list; and a new studio album with Merle Haggard titled Django And Jimmie, which debuted at #1 on Billboard‘s Country album chart and #7 on Billboard‘s Top 200 album chart. In November 2015, the Library of Congress honored him with their Gershwin Prize for Popular Song for his contributions to popular music. He is the first country artist to receive the distinguished award. And 2016 began with the release of Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin, a collection of 11 newly recorded Gershwin classics. The album debuted at #1 on both the Top Current Jazz chart and the Top Traditional Jazz chart, as well as earned him a Grammy Award for the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. In September, came For the Good Times: A Tribute to Ray Price, an album of newly recorded interpretations of 12 Ray Price songs. While a month later, Nelson released Pretty Paper, his new novel inspired his classic holiday song of the same title about a legless man who sold wrapping paper in front of a Ft. Worth, TX department store.
In April 2017, Nelson releases God’s Problem Child, his latest studio album with 13 new songs. Nelson continues to record more new songs for upcoming projects as well as touring throughout North America year long.
ABOUT DAWES
After recording its last two albums, Stories Don’t End and All Your Favorite Bands, in Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, respectively, the Los Angeles band has returned to the city that has been both home and inspiration since its inception in 2009 to record its fifth album, We’re All Gonna Die, with longtime friend and Grammy nominated producer Blake Mills at the helm.
It was clear from the onset that home was much more than a physical place for Dawes. It was a state of mind. For the band-guitarist/singer Taylor Goldsmith, drummer Griffin Goldsmith (Taylor’s younger brother), bassist Wylie Gelber, and new keyboardist Lee Pardini, who took over from Tay Strathairn last fall-it also meant getting to a point where everyone felt they had found a sound that was uniquely their own, equivalent to an author finding their own voice.
“The dream has been not to have someone say, ‘You sound like Warren Zevon in this song or Bob Dylan with this song,’ but where someone hears a first few notes of a track, even before the words come in, and they know it’s Dawes,” says Taylor Goldsmith. “And they say, ‘That’s Wylie, that’s Griffin, that’s Taylor, that’s Lee. That’s the way they play together.'”
“I think we’ve finally done that on this record.” All of their records seemed to have been in service to getting to that point, each album willfully different, every one a point on a continuum. First, the acoustic-based folk-rock and close harmonies of North Hills that brought to mind nothing so much as the Band’s Music From Big Pink. The cosmic country-rock of Nothing Is Wrong, an album that conjured up visions of Gram Parson’s Nudie suits. The smart, wordy, Joan Didion-inspired Stories Don’t End, then the literate, post-breakup yowl of All Your Favorite Bands, with its crisp lyrics and Dire Straits guitars, masterfully capturing their live genius in a way none of their other albums had.
We’re All Gonna Die is dense with stories and brilliant, telling images that are more like movies than four-and-a-half-minute songs, all containing a moral, a proverb, advice or hope, like a scrap of paper tucked instead a Chinese fortune cookie, nudging listeners towards understanding, clarity, or at best, enlightenment.
Tickets for the Huber Heights show will go on sale to the public beginning 11:00am on Friday, April 21ST at www.Ticketmaster.com, www.Rosemusiccenter.com, and the Rose Music Center box office. Charge by phone at 1.800.745.3000.
