BMMF are delighted to announce that John Smith (U.K), Ian Noe (U.S.A), Early James (U.S.A), Mary Coughlan (IRE), Dani Larkin (IRE), Tony McManus (SCOT), The Burning Hell (CAN), Inn Echo (CAN) and Blue Moon Marquee (CAN) join the Blue Mountains Music Festival March 2023 line-up.
Born in Essex and raised on the Devon seaside, John Smith is renowned for his intimate songwriting, his honey-on-gravel voice and pioneering guitar playing. Smith has spent the last fifteen years touring internationally and has amassed over 40 million streams on Spotify. As a session musician he has played guitar with artists as diverse as Joan Baez, David Gray, Joe Henry, Lianne La Havas and Tom Jones. “Smith’s voice is a rare and deeply soulful combination of granite and velvet” — The Sunday Times
Ian Noe is embarking on his first Australian tour. With a voice that has been likened to the late, great John Prine, and songs that present an unadorned account of Eastern Kentucky life, a place that Noe calls home. Described by The Guardian as “A gritty, compelling talent.” Noe will be performing songs from his just released second album, River Fools & Mountain Saints.
Hailing from Alabama, Early James is a singer-songwriter who conjures the ghosts of great southern gothic writers like Eudora Welty and William Faulkner, while at the same time channelling the haunted spirits of Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt. James will be bringing his timeless amalgam of forsaken blues, wistful folk and Tin Pan Alley crooning to The Blue Mountains Music Festival. Performing songs from his latest album, Strange Time To Be Alive, we can’t wait!
Mary Coughlan is Ireland’s greatest jazz and blues singer. Born in Shantalla, Galway city, Coughlan’s music is both uncompromising, and deeply personal. With musical roots in jazz and blues; yet pop, rock, folk and chanson influences also appear in her work. Now, beginning the next chapter in an already distinguished career, Coughlan is exploring a little-known side of the music of Peggy Lee.
Dani Larkin is a singer-songwriter and folk musician from the Armagh-Monaghan border. Larkin’s sound is inspired by the Irish traditional melodies she was raised with, and her songs are reminiscent of Celtic folk tales. Her debut album Notes For A Maiden Warrior was released in June 2021 to critical acclaim with Larkin being described by the Irish Times as a “rising star on the Irish contemporary and alt folk scene.”ie
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora, along with still further-ranging flavours, such as jazz and east European music. McManus is increasingly acknowledged as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music with other guitar genres.
Blue Moon Marquee are A.W. Cardinal (vocals/guitar) and Jasmine Colette a.k.a Badlands Jass (vocals/bass/drums) a duo from Alberta, Canada. Cardinal’s distinctive soulful vocals barrel like a raging bull, while his guitar crackles, complimenting Colette’s honey-dipped vocal tone, upright bass and custom foot drum. Blue Moon Marquee perform original compositions that are influenced by anything that swings, jumps or grooves and have played for rapturous audiences at jazz clubs, Lindy Hop dance halls, prisons, motorcycle joints and prestigious music festivals.
The Burning Hell are an experience in musical revelry and the ongoing musical project of songwriter Mathias Kom and multi-instrumentalists Ariel Sharratt and Jake Nicoll, often including additional comrades and collaborators. Their densely populated genre-shifting songs are packed with an abundance of literary, historical, cultural, and pop-cultural forebears, heroes and villains, subjects and objects, stories and hooks. Booked to play BMMF in 2020, we are delighted to welcome The Burning Hell in 2023.
Canadian three-piece Inn Echo weave hundreds of years of traditional tunes with contemporary originals and arrangements that both soar and make you catch your breath simultaneously. Innovative and creatively-crafted, the soundscape laid down by this three-piece instrumental group is both wildly dynamic and delightfully distinctive. Inn Echo are Prince Edward Island’s greatest Celtic fusion export.
More artists to be announced in the coming weeks.