Tickets now on sale for Amplify Decatur Music Festival featuring St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Patty Griffin, James McMurtry, and The Suffers
April 29 event also includes Town Mountain, Jackson County Line, and The Sundogs
Tickets are now on sale for the 2023 Amplify Decatur Music Festival taking place Saturday, April 29 on the downtown Decatur Square. The line-up includes St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Patty Griffin, James McMurtry, and The Suffers. Fans can purchase tickets at Eventbrite.com.
The Saturday festival will also feature Town Mountain, Jackson County Line, and The Sundogs. Tickets are $75 for general admission, $195 for VIP, and $275 for premium VIP.
Amplify Decatur will also feature a series of events in and around the downtown Decatur Square on Friday, April 28 (including Tumbling Dice—The Ultimate Tribute to The Rolling Stones), and an “Amplify Vs.” show at Waller’s Coffee Shop on the evening of Sunday, April 30. Additional artists for these events will be announced in the coming weeks.
Amplify Decatur is presented by Lenz and produced in partnership with Eddie’s Attic. Proceeds will be directed to Decatur Cooperative Ministry (DCM), Decatur Education Foundation (DEF), and Giving Kitchen to aid their vital missions. The 2022 festival weekend featured Ben Harper, Old Crow Medicine Show, Son Volt, and The War & Treaty, and raised $50,000 for DCM.
“We’re excited to bring great music back to the downtown square and strengthen our community,” said Drew Robinson, president of the Amplify My Community board. “Amplify continues to be impressed and humbled by unwavering support from the Decatur community and sponsors – especially Lenz. It’s enabled us to procure an incredibly talented, musically diverse line-up while celebrating and fundraising for DCM, DEF, and Giving Kitchen.”
The 2023 Amplify Decatur Music Festival featuring St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Patty Griffin, James McMurtry, The Suffers, Town Mountain, Jackson County Line, and The Sundogs: 2-11 p.m. April 29. $75-$275. Decatur Square, corner of Church Street and E. Ponce De Leon Avenue, Decatur, Ga. AmplifyDecatur.org.
Amplify My Community was founded in 2010 and is based in Decatur, Georgia. Its mission is to leverage the universal love of music to fight poverty at the local level. To date, Amplify has produced more than 100 concerts, and raised and donated more than $550,000 in unrestricted gifts to locally oriented anti-homelessness and poverty-focused organizations — including more than $335,000 in Decatur. Amplify has held concert series in Atlanta, Athens, Decatur, Suwanee, and Duluth, Georgia; Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Charlottesville, Virginia, and featured acts such as Indigo Girls, Lucinda Williams, Ben Harper, Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples, Blind Boys of Alabama, Old Crow Medicine Show, Rodney Crowell, John Paul White, Son Volt, Justin Townes Earle, Bruce Hornsby, Milk Carton Kids, Ricky Skaggs, Julien Baker, Drivin’ N Cryin’, Junior Brown, Amanda Shires, Bobby Bare, Jr., Lucero, Colin Meloy, The Mavericks, Shawn Mullins, The Lone Bellow, The Jayhawks, Jay Farrar, and Harold Holloway & Co.
Decatur Cooperative Ministry’s mission is to help families facing homelessness settle into safe, stable homes and build healthy lives filled with peace, hope, and opportunity. Founded in 1969, Decatur Cooperative Ministry (DCM) offers transitional housing, shelter, homelessness prevention, rapid re-housing, and permanent supportive housing programs. DMC’s programs span the entire spectrum of currently recognized homelessness interventions. To accomplish this, DCM partners with 35 congregations from 14 denominations as well as private foundations, universities and schools, government agencies, community groups, and local businesses.
Decatur Education Foundation works together with the City Schools of Decatur, Decatur Housing Authority, and City of Decatur to bolster community efforts and ensure that ALL students have the resources, opportunities, and experiences in order to foster their growth and ensure their academic success.
Giving Kitchen provides emergency assistance for food service workers through financial support and a network of community resources.
About the artists:
St. Paul & The Broken Bones
A fever dream in sonic form, St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ new album “The Alien Coast” represents the most adventurous and original output yet from an ever-evolving musical powerhouse. In a profound shift for the Alabama-bred eight-piece—Paul Janeway (vocals), Jesse Phillips (bass), Browan Lollar (guitar), Kevin Leon (drums), Al Gamble (keyboards), Allen Branstetter (trumpet), Chad Fisher (trombone), and Amari Ansari (saxophone)—the band’s fourth full length and first for ATO Records strays far from the time-bending soul of past work like their 2014 debut, arriving at a convergence of rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, psychedelia, and funk. At times explosive, elegant, and unhinged, that sound makes for a majestic backdrop to St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ visceral exploration of the strangest dimensions of the human psyche.
Produced by Matt Ross-Spang, “The Alien Coast” is the first album St. Paul & The Broken Bones have recorded in their hometown of Birmingham. In creating the ultra-vivid dreamscape threaded throughout “The Alien Coast,” the band’s chief lyricist drew inspiration from such disparate sources as Greek mythology, dystopian sci-fi, 17th century Italian sculpture, and colonial-period history books.
Patty Griffin
Patty Griffin is among the most consequential singer-songwriters of her generation, a quintessentially American artist whose wide-ranging canon incisively explores the intimate moments and universal emotions that bind us together. Over the course of two decades, the two-time GRAMMY® Award winner – and seven-time nominee – has crafted a remarkable body of work in progress that prompted the New York Times to hail her for “[writing] cameo-carved songs that create complete emotional portraits of specific people…[her] songs have independent lives that continue in your head when the music ends.”
Born in Maine but long based in Austin, Texas, Griffin made an immediate impact with her 1996 debut, “Living With Ghosts,” and its 1998 follow-up, “Flaming Red,” both now considered seminal works of modern folk and Americana. Since then, Griffin’s diverse body of work spans such classic LPs as 2002’s GRAMMY® Award-nominated “1000 Kisses,” later ranked #15 on Paste’s “The 50 Best Albums of the Decade (2000-2009),” to 2007’s “Children Running Through,” honored by the Americana Music Association with two Americana Honors & Awards: Artist of the Year and Album of the Year. To date, Griffin has received seven total nominations from the Americana Music Association, affirming her as one of the far-reaching genre’s leading proponents.
James McMurtry
According to Stephen King, “The simple fact is that James McMurtry may be
the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation…”
In McMurtry’s latest effort, “The Horses and the Hounds,” the acclaimed songwriter backs personal narratives with effortless elegance (“Canola Fields”) and endless energy (“If It Don’t Bleed”). His 10th studio album spotlights a seasoned tunesmith in peak form as he turns toward reflection (“Vaquero”) and revelation (closer “Blackberry Winter”). Familiar foundations guide the journey. “There’s a definite Los Angeles vibe to this record,” McMurtry says. “The ghost of Warren Zevon seems to be stomping around among the guitar tracks. Don’t know how he got in there. He never signed on for work for hire.”
McMurtry tours year-round and consistently throws down unparalleled powerhouse performances, reflected in the release of two live discs: the universally lauded ”Live in Aught-Three” on Compadre Records, and 2009’s “Live in Europe,” which captured the McMurtry band’s first European tour and extraordinary live set.
The Suffers
“How do we heal from this?” Kam Franklin asks on The Suffers’ explosive new album, “It Starts With Love.” “How do we heal?” It’s a loaded question without any clear answers, a painful reckoning with the open wounds of racial violence and trauma that continue to plague this nation as we lurch forward from one tragedy to the next, swearing things will change each time only to watch the same scenes play out over and over again. “They keep breaking us like we can’t feel,” Franklin continues. “We’ve all been shouting out since Emmett Till.”
“There’s a lot of anxiety that comes with being Black in America,” says Franklin, “with not feeling safe if you put on a hoodie or even just look at somebody the wrong way. I wrote that song with my friend John Michael in New Orleans, and it was a really therapeutic thing for both of us to speak our truth like that.”
The truth, it seems, has set The Suffers free. Racism, misogyny, and the ugly underbelly of the music industry are all in the band’s crosshairs on “It Starts With Love,” but so are growth and evolution and self-acceptance. Written in the midst of a tumultuous stretch that saw the Gulf Coast soul powerhouse reinvent themselves personally and professionally, the record is a fierce, defiant ode to resilience and commitment to the passion and drive that brought them together in the first place. The writing here is bold and self-assured, with fearless lyrics and addictive melodies. The performances are blistering to match, fueled by buoyant rhythms, muscular horns, and Franklin’s hair-raising vocals.
Town Mountain
Raw, soulful, and with plenty of swagger, Town Mountain has earned raves for their hard-driving sound, their in-house songwriting, and the honky tonk edge that permeates their exhilarating live performances, whether in a packed club or at a sold-out festival. The hearty base of Town Mountain’s music is the first and second generation of bluegrass spiced with country, old school rock ‘n’ roll, and boogie-woogie. It’s what else goes into the mix that brings it all to life both on stage and on record and reflects the group’s wide-ranging influences – from the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia and the ethereal lyrics of Robert Hunter to the honest, vintage country of Willie, Waylon, and Merle.
Jackson County Line
Formed in 2006, Jackson County Line has certainly traversed many treacherous and crooked roads to arrive at the distinctive brand of Americana they perform on stages today. Ear sticky songwriting laced with cello, hypnotically placed ambiance, tangible hooks, and toe-tapping power grooves have garnered a growing fan base for the Atlanta five-piece.
Fans of Jason Isbell, Lucinda Williams, and Wilco will love this band!
The Sundogs
The Sundogs, formed in the 2000s by brothers Will and Lee Haraway, grew up on the music of Tom Petty. They harmonized along with Petty’s “Full Moon Fever” in Lee’s bedroom after lights out, with Lee rocking the chords on an electric blue Memphis guitar that he got for his confirmation.
Years later, as accomplished rockers in Atlanta, Georgia, there was always a Tom Petty cover in The Sundogs’ sets and always a mention in the pre-show articles of Tom as an influence. So it was natural that in 2011 they launched The Sundogs Present: The Tom Petty Show, playing every song an audience could possibly want to hear. This includes all the hits and a rotation of b-sides, played and sung with reckless abandon, passion, and fire.
Interviews available upon request.
FOR GENERAL INQUIRIES, CONTACT Info@amplifymycommunity.org
For press/media inquires, contact Jon Waterhouse
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT VOLUNTEERING, CONTACT VOLUNTEER@POVERTYISREAL.US
JOIN US.
Amplify gives every dollar raised at our concerts to community organizations fighting poverty.