Mempho Music Festival delivers a national music festival with a local touch.

October 18, 2022
Slide & Banjo

Memphis is a city that just oozes soul. It drips from the pores of its residents and seeps out of the cracks in the sidewalks. There are few cities across the country with as rich a musical history as Memphis and the surrounding Mid-South area. From Elvis to BB King, the Bluff City’s global influence on musicians everywhere is undeniable.

Continue Reading

Black Keys, Panic, Wilco, and Isbell to headline Mempho 2022

April 13, 2022
Slide & Banjo

Mempho Music Festival returned to the post-COVID festival world with a bang in 2021, moving from Shelby Farms to the more intimate setting of the Memphis Botanic Garden. 2022 builds on that momentum from September 30 through October 2, featuring The Black Keys, Wilco, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, and two nights of Widespread Panic.

Continue Reading

Back to semi-normal with Jason Isbell at The Caverns

October 23, 2020
Slide & Banjo

Jason Isbell, The Caverns, 10/11/2020. |. Photo: Erika Goldring

I spent my 43rd birthday at a Jason Isbell concert, which – on its face – isn’t noteworthy. After all, I’ve spent plenty of birthdays, New Years Eves, and anniversaries at concerts. But those were when the world was normal. In 2020, we’re all in the middle of public health scare that has decimated the live entertainment world.

Continue Reading

Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile share top billing in KC.

August 8, 2019
Slide & Banjo

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit / Brandi Carlile / The War and Treaty
Providence Medical Center Amphitheater
Bonner Springs, KS
August 1, 2019
Words/photos by Josh Mintz

Not much can derail a concert like lightning. Bands can play through rain. They can play through wind. But lightning is a showstopper. The forecast for the August 1 Jason Isbell/Brandi Carlile show in Bonner Springs, Kansas looked foreboding in advance, with thunderstorms projected for the entire day. As it got closer to showtime the predicted weather cleared up by the hour, and when first band on the bill, The War and Treaty, took the stage, nary a drop of rain was falling from the sky. 

Continue Reading

Warren Haynes hosts Jason Isbell, Lukas Nelson, and Jonathan Wilson at Newport Folk Festival.

July 27, 2019
Slide & Banjo

If anyone’s wondering why you go to festivals, well…this is it. Yesterday (July 26, 2019) at Newport Folk Festival Warren Haynes played a solo acoustic set, and at the end brought out Jason Isbell, Jonathan Wilson, and Lukas Nelson for Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s “Find the Cost of Freedom” that segued into Newport legend Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.”

Continue Reading