Tickets purchased for the Friday, April 3, 2020 will be refunded via PayPal. We hope to reschedule the event in the fall.
About Eric Brace, Peter Cooper & Thomm Jutz
Eric and Peter have recorded and toured together for a decade now, and their last two duo albums were recorded in Thomm’s studio, with Thomm in the role as recording engineer, producer, guitarist, and harmony singer. Whenever they could, they took Thomm on the road, a sideman extraordinaire whose sublime flat picking guitar style elevates anything Thomm weaves it into. But Eric and Peter knew that Thomm was also a world class songwriter, and they kept twisting his arm to take front-and-center during their shows and sing a few of his own compositions. It was only a matter of time before the duo-into-trio transformation became official with the release of Profiles in Courage, Frailty, and Discomfort, fourteen songs by all three members, tackling such weighty topics as moonwalks, steamboat captaining, dollar-slots, Johnny Cash’s gravesite, Jerry Lee Lewis’s birthplace, Willie Nelson’s notions of eternity, the downside of Parkersburg, West Virginia, and a Tennessee town flooded for the sake of electricity.
Eric, Peter, and Thomm each has something distinct and slightly skewed to say about the world, and when they bring their singular perspectives to the trio table, it’s a perfect example of a whole being much greater than the sum of its parts. And what parts they are!
Eric began his musical career in Washington D.C. where he was a journalist with The Washington Post. There, he launched his acclaimed roots-rock band Last Train Home in the late ‘90s, touring with the group extensively across the U.S. and Europe, releasing eight albums and one concert DVD. The band moved to Nashville in 2004, where Eric met Peter Cooper, an award-winning journalist who covered music for The Tennessean newspaper.
Eric and Peter were nominated for a Grammy for producing I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, their 2011 release on Red Beet Records that featured them, along with Patty Griffin, Bobby Bare, Jim Lauderdale, Duane Eddy, and Tom T. Hall himself, all reprising tunes from Hall’s classic kids record of 1974, Songs of Fox Hollow.
In the past ten years, Peter Cooper has been absurdly prolific, releasing four solo albums on Eric’s Red Beet Records label, four duo albums with Eric, one trio album with Thomm and Eric, all while producing two albums by Fayssoux Starling McLean, one by Jason Ringenberg, and that Grammy-nominated children’s album, I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow. He was the longtime music writer for Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper, and is currently a writer and producer for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
Thomm Jutz has a brand new album out in early 2020, To Live in Two Worlds, Vol. 1, on the respected bluegrass label Mountain Home (and yes, there’s already a volume 2, coming out in September, 2020). Lots of people have made acclaimed bluegrass albums, but none of them was born in the Black Forest of Germany, none except Thomm.
He made his way to Nashville in 2003, and became an indispensable sideman to acclaimed artists Nanci Griffith, Mary Gauthier, and Maura O’Connell. After building a recording studio he has become one of the most sought after producers of acoustic music in Music City, with production credits on albums by Nanci Griffith, Jason Ringenberg, Sid Griffin, Mac Wiseman, and many more.
Thomm is also one of the most successful songwriters in the bluegrass world, having charted five #1 bluegrass chart hits over the past year (as recorded by Shawn Camp, Irene Kelly, and Chris Jones & the Night Drivers), and has had ten more compositions in the bluegrass radio top twenty.
Together, Eric, Peter, and Thomm weave stories, songs, harmonies, and guitar playing into something very special. The lyrics are as thoughtful as those of their heroes, a list that includes John Prine, John Hartford, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, the Carter Family, and Townes Van Zandt. Add harmonies that bring to mind the Seldom Scene, Emmylou Harris, and the Everly Brothers, and sumptuous guitar arrangements, and you have a truly memorable evening of music.
They’ve once again combined their forces to create a singular new record, Riverland, fourteen interconnected tales of Mississippi, both the river and the state. Songs about its people, its water, its history, its past, its magic, its madness.
Riverland finds the boys once again working with frequent collaborators Mark Fain (bass) and Lynn Williams (drums), and features significant contributions from the Steeldrivers’ Tammy Rogers (fiddle), banjo players Justin Moses and Terry Baucom, and legendary mandolin player Mike Compton.