Jonathan Byrd and The Pickup Cowboys are musical gunslingers, vaudevillian hucksters, and old-fashioned tent revivalists. Between heartbreaking ballads and heart-lifting sing-alongs, the Cowboys entertain and get audiences involved in the show, even when they’re stuck at home due to the pandemic. Jonathan’s perfected the art of the live stream with his weekly Shake Sugaree Americana Residency live from The Kraken in Chapel Hill, his hometown. He performed solo in our own Studio A for JAMinc’s In Your Ear concert series in December of 2010.

Byrd is a preacher’s son, a Gulf War veteran and an award-winning songwriter, known for literary, outsider songs that have become campfire favorites. The Chicago Tribune called Byrd “one of the top 50 songwriters of the past 50 years.”

Joined on drums by Austin McCall (Kaira Ba, Violet Bell), and musical renaissance man Johnny Waken on Strat, mandolin and crosscut saw, Byrd shares the often-missed, always poignant tales of the small people that make the world such a big place.

To get to know him a little better, read more about Jonathan Byrd »