David Wilcox, Luke LeBlanc
Doors 7PM / Show 8PM
Seated show
$25ADV / $30DOS
David Wilcox is a penetrating storyteller. The revered folk musician has an effortless talent for spinning lyrics that quietly cut deep, and crafting melodies that seamlessly ride the plot twists and turns. Wilcox handily exemplifies the power of lyrical and musical catharsis.
Pick any song from Wilcox’s new acoustic album, My Good Friends, and you will find yourself instantly immersed. Sometimes you’ll see yourself in the lyrics, other times you’ll marvel at the four-minute mini-movie. My Good Friends is a stripped-down, acoustic collection of ten songs, a fan-requested creative respite for Wilcox as he also continues to work on a full band album coming in 2024.
Of special note on the new recording is “Jolt,” with its jittery rhythm playing perfect backdrop to lyrics about today’s obsession with online fear mongering and internet disinformation. The title track is a folk-blues number about living a life filled with close calls and surviving them all. Then there’s a trio of story songs – “Dead Man’s Phone,” “This Is How It Ends,” and “Lost Man” – that are as cinematic as they are charismatic. Wilcox says those last three songs “create a whole movie in my imagination.”
In fact, the way Wilcox feels about every tune on My Good Friends proves this is indeed a fan- requested labor of love. “I am grateful for the community that sustains me – my good friends,” he says. “These are the kind of friends that get you through difficult times. The kind of friends that you go to for a fresh perspective when the future looks grim. These songs grew out of conversations with friends, and they hold ideas that I like to have around.”
Such dedication to honoring personal and heartfelt music has been the backbone of David Wilcox’s entire career. The Ohio native with the warm baritone found his artistic muse in North Carolina during the mid-1980s. In 1987, he released his debut album, The Nightshift Watchman, which led to winning the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival in 1988. That translated to a four-album stint with A&M Records starting with 1989’s How Did You Find Me Here, which sold 100,000 copies by word of mouth. Thirty-plus years and twenty-plus albums later, Wilcox won top honors in the 23rd annual USA Songwriting Competition in 2018 for his effervescent “We Make the Way by Walking” from his album, The View From the Edge. Wilcox has deservedly earned praise over the years in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, and Rolling Stone, to name a few. He also has a dedicated and vocal core of fans who regularly write to thank him for his work and the impact his songs have had on their lives.
Today, Wilcox is still earning his admirers with storytelling that cuts deep into the soul and observes the human condition from both the nerve center and the outside looking in. That kind of storytelling is certain to become a good friend.
Luke LeBlanc
Luke LeBlanc is a Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter who delivers dynamic and versatile original performances that feature a warm, organic merging of rootsy folk and pop. As noted by The Current, LeBlanc’s music is “so delicate, understated, and careful in its construction that you forget it’s taking apart how to live in such an unstable world while giving solace and a place for rest.”
Luke’s music has been featured on 89.3 the Current and has received critical acclaim from numerous music magazines, including Bluegrass Situation, Americana Highways, and Glide Magazine. His music has also been featured in numerous podcasts, including The Bob Cesca Show, 13th Floor MusicTalk with Marty Duda, Tales from the Corners with Robert J Nebel, and Strongwriter on the Radio with Dean Olsen.
LeBlanc taught himself how to play guitar at 11 years old and decided to write his own words and music soon after. At 13, he was the youngest to win the Zimmy’s (named after Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan) national Dylan influenced singer-songwriter competition in Hibbing, Minnesota. Born and raised in Minneapolis’ Northside, LeBlanc played South by Southwest in Texas in 2017 and found himself opening for Charlie Parr, Phil Solem of the Rembrandts, Joey Molland of Badfinger, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
His 2022 album, Fugue State, a follow up to 2021’s Only Human,garnered significant critical praise, including an invite by Minnesota Public Radio to perform in-studio for The Current’s Radio Heartland, a feature in Ed Helm’s bluegrass magazine, Bluegrass Situation, and an appearance on Duluth’s morning news.
His newest full length record, Places, is slated for release in October 2023.