Songwriters in the Round

Tickets: $10
Doors open at 7:00pm
Performance at 7:30pm

About the musicians:

Will Sexton
Will is a respected artist, songwriter, and producer with a list of acclaimed solo albums to his name. Keeping his old ties deep in the heart of Texas, Will now calls Memphis home with his wife, singer-songwriter Amy LaVere. Will and Amy have been touring and playing together for a couple of years and have a full schedule playing in the U.S. and Europe in the coming months. Their new CD, Hallelujah, I’m A Dreamer is spare and tight, showcasing Will and Amy’s fine playing styles and beautiful harmonies.

Marcella Simien
As Willie Mitchell’s son, the Memphis legend Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell puts it, “[Simien is] one of the most soulful artists I’ve heard since the glory days of Memphis soul music. Her sound and stage presence are constant reminders that soul music is still alive and well.”

In 2015, Bill Bentley (L.A. Weekly, Warner Bros. Records, Vanguard Records) reviewed Marcella and Her Lovers debut EP release on themortonreport.com. Bentley said “Marcella Simien heard it all as a youngster, no doubt, and once she double-downed with the Memphis sound, she found a totally striking new attack on Southern soul.”

Delta Joe
“Joe Sander’s heart is shaped like Mississippi. Through it runs a Big Blue River spawning tributaries and capillaries like snakes, gentle but dangerous — above which hands kudzu, wisteria, and other strange vegetation unnameable except by some half-mad, half-genius horticulturist. His tunes are rare Delta Thundersong birds (endangered and exotic) rising from the mud Byhalian and Greenwooded, strong meat for most of us who lift our beaks for the plastic manna in squared cellophane. Some of his brilliance pops up unnoticed – queer mushrooms grafted amongst our quotidian grapes, teaching our souls to say ‘more’ while our understanding reels backward. Joe offers no gratuitous sanctuary. Listening, one must braid one’s own thread into rope and knead one’s own bread into baked buckets – then dip into th eliving water of Joe’s Big Blue River.” Grace and Peace – John Kilzer

Delta Joe Sanders has been a regular in the Memphis music scene for the past 30 years. From the church house to the out house, he plays every venue from the Whiskey A-Go-Go on the Sunset Strip to the Sugar Ditch Social Club in Tunica County. Delta Joe has kept country blues alive. A consummate story teller, Joe sometimes uses common Blues themes to spin his yarns. Songs of lost love, liquor, and bad behavior fill his repertoire. Some are romantic odes colored with southern imagery often with a skewed nostalgic sentiment —“I never did like this beautiful old place.” Some make bold statements of pious, prophetic poignancy,” I am gonna quit drinking after the Super Bowl.”