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King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Welsh new wave giants are back in the States on their EQUALS tour. This is the sound of The Alarm that has been heard around the world ever since their 1981 debut single, with 17 Top 50 UK singles, a host of successful albums and over 6 million sales worldwide, a career that has also seen founding member Mike Peters sing on stage with the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and U2.

City Winery hosts the Atlanta Summer Wine Festival featuring 50+ different wines, beers and ciders. On Saturday, August 11, 2018, select from two sessions: 12pm-4pm and 6pm-10pm. Enjoy the awesome venue with live music upstairs (line-up announced soon), and beats by DJ Qtip downstairs (both sessions).

Festival tickets* are $45 advance, $50 after Jan. 11, and $60 day of event. Your ticket price includes a souvenir acrylic wine glass, entertainment, and all wine, cider, and beer samples; food will cost extra.

*21 and up event, no kids, no babies, no pets. No outside food or beverage. Rain or shine event, no refunds. Free bottled water available. Beer and Wine will be cut off at 3:45pm for session 1, and 9:45 for session 2.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Southbound is Mac’s 16th album. It’s packed with a generous selection of 16 tracks. And it’s his first to feature his songs arranged for symphony orchestra. Recorded with the FestivalSouth orchestra conducted by Jay Dean and a rhythm section that includes Mac’s colleagues in Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, Southbound doesn’t just give Mac’s writing, instrumental skills and expressive vocals the attention they deserve. It also serves several worthy causes that speak personally to him: Extra Table, which brings food to the hungry in Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi’s music program.

The idea traces back to a performance by Mac at a fundraiser for another charity four or five years ago. The event was hosted by Robert St. John, Mississippi’s top chef for three consecutive years, Mississippi Restauranteur of the Year and a generous supporter of charities too.

“While we were stuck in a dressing room while they were doing their silent auction, Robert started telling me about Extra Table, which he founded in my home state for underprivileged kids, of which we have many,” Mac remembers. “Mississippi has always been one of the three poorest states in the union — usually the poorest. I said, ‘If there’s anything you ever need, let me know.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’m about to.’”

Mac laughs and continues. “He told me about a fundraiser they do every year down in Hattiesburg, where he lives. He said, ‘I’d love to hear some of your songs with orchestra.’ And I said, ‘Let’s talk.’”

The marriage of large ensembles and popular songs had always intrigued Mac. His father’s collection of big band jazz records planted that awareness. So did the countrypolitan classics he heard over the signals that trickled intermittently into the family radio back in Belmont, Mississippi. He also bought copies of the classical LPs that band directors at his school would sell when they were replaced each year. “Football and basketball were more important in the Southeast,” he explains, with a smile.

So Mac accepted St. John’s invitation and began contacting associates who could write orchestral arrangements, starting with Charles Rose of the Muscle Shoals Horns. Then he combed through his catalog for songs that would adapt well to the project. Plus a few that would be more of a challenge.

“When I wrote ‘It’s Easy’ [from Cuttin’ Corners, 1980] I was trying to write a classical piece,” he notes. “So that lent itself very well to orchestration. But then I thought it might make for a better show if we added some songs that maybe didn’t adapt so naturally — something like ‘Junk Cars’ [from Live and Learn, 1992]. That lets the orchestra be playful and brings variety to the show too.”

Mac shared his vision with each arranger as they worked out the string and horn parts. For certain songs, the guidepost was Randy Newman, with whom Mac had toured early in his career and whose orchestral settings he especially appreciated. He’d indicate details from his original recordings, perhaps a guitar or bass line, to transfer to other instruments, either suggesting harmonies to go with those parts or leaving them up to his collaborators.

When the charts were done, Mac premiered them live at a fundraising event with the FestivalSouth Orchestra, also directed and conducted by Jay Dean. After that performance and maybe half a dozen others that followed, he recalls, “Somebody said, ‘Hey, this is good! We should record this!’”

So they did. Consisting of students plus some faculty and alumni from the Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the FestivalSouth orchestra illuminates and complements the material brilliantly throughout Southbound. Its minimal presence on “All These Years” [Live and Learn] and “Miracle” [Knots, 1994] conveys each lyric’s sad intimacy. “On Account of You” [Down By the River, 2009] reflects Mac’s fondness for Randy Newman’s sound, though with a more positive message. The instrumentation swaggers playfully throughout “On the Line” [Nothin’ But the Truth, 1983], tootles like a French Quarter jam throughout “Blame It on New Orleans” and threads an exotic theme around the seductive dance beat of “Zanzibar” [AKA Nobody, 2015].

In its variety, craftsmanship and emotional depth, Southbound would be a jewel in any artist’s crown. But again, characteristically, Mac doesn’t see it that way. Above all, to this son of Mississippi, it’s a way to further enhance the lives of others through the channels that drew him originally to the project.

“One hundred percent of the artist and producer portions of Southbound go to the music program at the University of Southern Mississippi and to Extra Table,” he says. “For every dollar that Extra Table gets, Robert St. John buys and distributes two dollars worth of food directly to kids who need it most. Some of them only eat what they get from school; they don’t really get fed over the weekend.”

Acknowledging that Southbound reflects his concern for the needy in his home state, Mac adds, “I don’t believe it’s limited to Mississippi. These songs apply to the South in general and beyond as well in the same way that William Faulkner wrote about universal concerns by focusing on only one county in Mississippi. And I hope its impact will linger beyond my lifetime in the same sense that a good Christmas album never gets old.”

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith is one of the foremost photojournalists for Deep South blues and other forms of music. His work has earned him Photographer of the Year by the 11th Hour, and a permanent installation at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In this special exhibit, Smith’s collection of works, titled See That My Grave Is Kept Clean: A Look Into the Music and Landscape of the Deep South, features moments he captured with blues legends such as Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and T-Model Ford, as well as the fertile musical landscape of the Mississippi Delta. Also included will be pieces from his collection of Georgia rockers such as Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, and Memphis’ Lucero as well as country artists like as Marty Stuart, Porter Wagoner, and others. His collection of 35mm, medium-format, and large-format photography will be on display and available for purchase will be limited edition Silver Gelatin prints of negatives from his darkroom. In addition to the exhibit will be sets from Ben Nichols and opener Cedric Burnside.

The Unstoppable four-time Grammy® Award nominated singer, Candi Staton, is known for her iconic tracks “Young Hearts Run Free” and the multi-platinum, “You Got the Love,” but she’s not resting on her laurels. On her forthcoming 30th album, Unstoppable(Beracah/Thirty Tigers), due in the summer of 2018, she shows that a woman’s place is in the recording booth where she pontificates on the often sad state of the world, the bitter battle of the sexes and the hope that everything will soon get better.

The Alabama native got her start singing as a teenager, touring the world with The Jewel Gospel Trio (who shared stages with Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson in the 1950s) before launching her solo career in1968. Over the next five years, she cut a string of Top Ten southern soul hits such as Grammy® Award-nominated renditions of “Stand By Your Man” and “In the Ghetto.” Staton then became a disco diva with a run of hits such as 1976’s million-seller “Young Hearts Run Free,” “Victim” and “Nights On Broadway.”

Over the next two decades, Staton exclusively recorded gospel music and hosted “New Direction” (later renamed “Say Yes”) on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Network. One of those gospel songs, “You Got The Love,” was remixed and hit the Top Ten on the British Pop charts in 1991, 1997 and 2006. Since then, she’s recorded critically-acclaimed Americana albums such as His Hands (2006), Who’s Hurting Now? (2009) and Life Happens (2014).

UnStoppable is a Trippy Soul enterprise that finds the singer penning new declarations such as “Confidence,” “The Prize Is Not Worth The Pain” and “Revolution of Change,” amid cool covers of Patti Smith’s “People Have The Power”(1988) and Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind?” (1969). It’s just the latest excursion into Staton’s unstoppable parade of timeless songs.

As the daughter of legendary producer and arranger Don Costa, Nikka was born with music encoded in her DNA. Her youth was punctuated by world travel and performances before enormous crowds. By just about any measure, it was an extraordinary way to come of age as both a woman and a musician.

She told MTV.com in an interview in 2001: “I was really into Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, all the old Motown stuff and Stax. I would just sit around and rewind [the tapes] and try to sing the harmonies and learn each part. I would sit in front of my stereo for hours. I wanted to get that — whatever that was.” After a string of critically acclaimed and commercially successful LPs that began with her 2001 Virgin debut Everybody Got Their Something, Nikka, along with artists like Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone, became a bright star in the “nu-soul” firmament. She is renowned for her unique style — a seductive alchemy that recombines the tropes of American soul and funk music into something wholly her own.

In the years since her debut, Nikka has toured with Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Coldplay, and Beck, has recorded with superstar DJ and producer Mark Ronson, was nominated for an MTV Music Award, and had multiple hit singles in Europe. Known for the raw allure and energy of her kinetic live performances, Nikka’s voice and stage presence have been compared favorably to everyone from Janis Joplin to Chaka Khan to Sly Stone. Her latest record Nikka & Strings is rooted in this legacy and is most remarkable for how it marries the soulful dynamism of her previous work to her recent exploration of intimate performance. From her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compare 2 U,” to channeling Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” Nikka Costa demonstrates her ability to interpret a song made famous by another artist and make it inescapably her own. Watch closely with anticipation as Nikka embarks on the next leg of her charmed and fascinating journey.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Welsh new wave giants are back in the States on their EQUALS tour. This is the sound of The Alarm that has been heard around the world ever since their 1981 debut single, with 17 Top 50 UK singles, a host of successful albums and over 6 million sales worldwide, a career that has also seen founding member Mike Peters sing on stage with the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and U2.

City Winery hosts the Atlanta Summer Wine Festival featuring 50+ different wines, beers and ciders. On Saturday, August 11, 2018, select from two sessions: 12pm-4pm and 6pm-10pm. Enjoy the awesome venue with live music upstairs (line-up announced soon), and beats by DJ Qtip downstairs (both sessions).

Festival tickets* are $45 advance, $50 after Jan. 11, and $60 day of event. Your ticket price includes a souvenir acrylic wine glass, entertainment, and all wine, cider, and beer samples; food will cost extra.

*21 and up event, no kids, no babies, no pets. No outside food or beverage. Rain or shine event, no refunds. Free bottled water available. Beer and Wine will be cut off at 3:45pm for session 1, and 9:45 for session 2.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Southbound is Mac’s 16th album. It’s packed with a generous selection of 16 tracks. And it’s his first to feature his songs arranged for symphony orchestra. Recorded with the FestivalSouth orchestra conducted by Jay Dean and a rhythm section that includes Mac’s colleagues in Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, Southbound doesn’t just give Mac’s writing, instrumental skills and expressive vocals the attention they deserve. It also serves several worthy causes that speak personally to him: Extra Table, which brings food to the hungry in Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi’s music program.

The idea traces back to a performance by Mac at a fundraiser for another charity four or five years ago. The event was hosted by Robert St. John, Mississippi’s top chef for three consecutive years, Mississippi Restauranteur of the Year and a generous supporter of charities too.

“While we were stuck in a dressing room while they were doing their silent auction, Robert started telling me about Extra Table, which he founded in my home state for underprivileged kids, of which we have many,” Mac remembers. “Mississippi has always been one of the three poorest states in the union — usually the poorest. I said, ‘If there’s anything you ever need, let me know.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’m about to.’”

Mac laughs and continues. “He told me about a fundraiser they do every year down in Hattiesburg, where he lives. He said, ‘I’d love to hear some of your songs with orchestra.’ And I said, ‘Let’s talk.’”

The marriage of large ensembles and popular songs had always intrigued Mac. His father’s collection of big band jazz records planted that awareness. So did the countrypolitan classics he heard over the signals that trickled intermittently into the family radio back in Belmont, Mississippi. He also bought copies of the classical LPs that band directors at his school would sell when they were replaced each year. “Football and basketball were more important in the Southeast,” he explains, with a smile.

So Mac accepted St. John’s invitation and began contacting associates who could write orchestral arrangements, starting with Charles Rose of the Muscle Shoals Horns. Then he combed through his catalog for songs that would adapt well to the project. Plus a few that would be more of a challenge.

“When I wrote ‘It’s Easy’ [from Cuttin’ Corners, 1980] I was trying to write a classical piece,” he notes. “So that lent itself very well to orchestration. But then I thought it might make for a better show if we added some songs that maybe didn’t adapt so naturally — something like ‘Junk Cars’ [from Live and Learn, 1992]. That lets the orchestra be playful and brings variety to the show too.”

Mac shared his vision with each arranger as they worked out the string and horn parts. For certain songs, the guidepost was Randy Newman, with whom Mac had toured early in his career and whose orchestral settings he especially appreciated. He’d indicate details from his original recordings, perhaps a guitar or bass line, to transfer to other instruments, either suggesting harmonies to go with those parts or leaving them up to his collaborators.

When the charts were done, Mac premiered them live at a fundraising event with the FestivalSouth Orchestra, also directed and conducted by Jay Dean. After that performance and maybe half a dozen others that followed, he recalls, “Somebody said, ‘Hey, this is good! We should record this!’”

So they did. Consisting of students plus some faculty and alumni from the Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the FestivalSouth orchestra illuminates and complements the material brilliantly throughout Southbound. Its minimal presence on “All These Years” [Live and Learn] and “Miracle” [Knots, 1994] conveys each lyric’s sad intimacy. “On Account of You” [Down By the River, 2009] reflects Mac’s fondness for Randy Newman’s sound, though with a more positive message. The instrumentation swaggers playfully throughout “On the Line” [Nothin’ But the Truth, 1983], tootles like a French Quarter jam throughout “Blame It on New Orleans” and threads an exotic theme around the seductive dance beat of “Zanzibar” [AKA Nobody, 2015].

In its variety, craftsmanship and emotional depth, Southbound would be a jewel in any artist’s crown. But again, characteristically, Mac doesn’t see it that way. Above all, to this son of Mississippi, it’s a way to further enhance the lives of others through the channels that drew him originally to the project.

“One hundred percent of the artist and producer portions of Southbound go to the music program at the University of Southern Mississippi and to Extra Table,” he says. “For every dollar that Extra Table gets, Robert St. John buys and distributes two dollars worth of food directly to kids who need it most. Some of them only eat what they get from school; they don’t really get fed over the weekend.”

Acknowledging that Southbound reflects his concern for the needy in his home state, Mac adds, “I don’t believe it’s limited to Mississippi. These songs apply to the South in general and beyond as well in the same way that William Faulkner wrote about universal concerns by focusing on only one county in Mississippi. And I hope its impact will linger beyond my lifetime in the same sense that a good Christmas album never gets old.”

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith is one of the foremost photojournalists for Deep South blues and other forms of music. His work has earned him Photographer of the Year by the 11th Hour, and a permanent installation at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In this special exhibit, Smith’s collection of works, titled See That My Grave Is Kept Clean: A Look Into the Music and Landscape of the Deep South, features moments he captured with blues legends such as Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and T-Model Ford, as well as the fertile musical landscape of the Mississippi Delta. Also included will be pieces from his collection of Georgia rockers such as Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, and Memphis’ Lucero as well as country artists like as Marty Stuart, Porter Wagoner, and others. His collection of 35mm, medium-format, and large-format photography will be on display and available for purchase will be limited edition Silver Gelatin prints of negatives from his darkroom. In addition to the exhibit will be sets from Ben Nichols and opener Cedric Burnside.

The Unstoppable four-time Grammy® Award nominated singer, Candi Staton, is known for her iconic tracks “Young Hearts Run Free” and the multi-platinum, “You Got the Love,” but she’s not resting on her laurels. On her forthcoming 30th album, Unstoppable(Beracah/Thirty Tigers), due in the summer of 2018, she shows that a woman’s place is in the recording booth where she pontificates on the often sad state of the world, the bitter battle of the sexes and the hope that everything will soon get better.

The Alabama native got her start singing as a teenager, touring the world with The Jewel Gospel Trio (who shared stages with Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson in the 1950s) before launching her solo career in1968. Over the next five years, she cut a string of Top Ten southern soul hits such as Grammy® Award-nominated renditions of “Stand By Your Man” and “In the Ghetto.” Staton then became a disco diva with a run of hits such as 1976’s million-seller “Young Hearts Run Free,” “Victim” and “Nights On Broadway.”

Over the next two decades, Staton exclusively recorded gospel music and hosted “New Direction” (later renamed “Say Yes”) on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Network. One of those gospel songs, “You Got The Love,” was remixed and hit the Top Ten on the British Pop charts in 1991, 1997 and 2006. Since then, she’s recorded critically-acclaimed Americana albums such as His Hands (2006), Who’s Hurting Now? (2009) and Life Happens (2014).

UnStoppable is a Trippy Soul enterprise that finds the singer penning new declarations such as “Confidence,” “The Prize Is Not Worth The Pain” and “Revolution of Change,” amid cool covers of Patti Smith’s “People Have The Power”(1988) and Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind?” (1969). It’s just the latest excursion into Staton’s unstoppable parade of timeless songs.

As the daughter of legendary producer and arranger Don Costa, Nikka was born with music encoded in her DNA. Her youth was punctuated by world travel and performances before enormous crowds. By just about any measure, it was an extraordinary way to come of age as both a woman and a musician.

She told MTV.com in an interview in 2001: “I was really into Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, all the old Motown stuff and Stax. I would just sit around and rewind [the tapes] and try to sing the harmonies and learn each part. I would sit in front of my stereo for hours. I wanted to get that — whatever that was.” After a string of critically acclaimed and commercially successful LPs that began with her 2001 Virgin debut Everybody Got Their Something, Nikka, along with artists like Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone, became a bright star in the “nu-soul” firmament. She is renowned for her unique style — a seductive alchemy that recombines the tropes of American soul and funk music into something wholly her own.

In the years since her debut, Nikka has toured with Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Coldplay, and Beck, has recorded with superstar DJ and producer Mark Ronson, was nominated for an MTV Music Award, and had multiple hit singles in Europe. Known for the raw allure and energy of her kinetic live performances, Nikka’s voice and stage presence have been compared favorably to everyone from Janis Joplin to Chaka Khan to Sly Stone. Her latest record Nikka & Strings is rooted in this legacy and is most remarkable for how it marries the soulful dynamism of her previous work to her recent exploration of intimate performance. From her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compare 2 U,” to channeling Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” Nikka Costa demonstrates her ability to interpret a song made famous by another artist and make it inescapably her own. Watch closely with anticipation as Nikka embarks on the next leg of her charmed and fascinating journey.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Welsh new wave giants are back in the States on their EQUALS tour. This is the sound of The Alarm that has been heard around the world ever since their 1981 debut single, with 17 Top 50 UK singles, a host of successful albums and over 6 million sales worldwide, a career that has also seen founding member Mike Peters sing on stage with the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and U2.

City Winery hosts the Atlanta Summer Wine Festival featuring 50+ different wines, beers and ciders. On Saturday, August 11, 2018, select from two sessions: 12pm-4pm and 6pm-10pm. Enjoy the awesome venue with live music upstairs (line-up announced soon), and beats by DJ Qtip downstairs (both sessions).

Festival tickets* are $45 advance, $50 after Jan. 11, and $60 day of event. Your ticket price includes a souvenir acrylic wine glass, entertainment, and all wine, cider, and beer samples; food will cost extra.

*21 and up event, no kids, no babies, no pets. No outside food or beverage. Rain or shine event, no refunds. Free bottled water available. Beer and Wine will be cut off at 3:45pm for session 1, and 9:45 for session 2.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Southbound is Mac’s 16th album. It’s packed with a generous selection of 16 tracks. And it’s his first to feature his songs arranged for symphony orchestra. Recorded with the FestivalSouth orchestra conducted by Jay Dean and a rhythm section that includes Mac’s colleagues in Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, Southbound doesn’t just give Mac’s writing, instrumental skills and expressive vocals the attention they deserve. It also serves several worthy causes that speak personally to him: Extra Table, which brings food to the hungry in Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi’s music program.

The idea traces back to a performance by Mac at a fundraiser for another charity four or five years ago. The event was hosted by Robert St. John, Mississippi’s top chef for three consecutive years, Mississippi Restauranteur of the Year and a generous supporter of charities too.

“While we were stuck in a dressing room while they were doing their silent auction, Robert started telling me about Extra Table, which he founded in my home state for underprivileged kids, of which we have many,” Mac remembers. “Mississippi has always been one of the three poorest states in the union — usually the poorest. I said, ‘If there’s anything you ever need, let me know.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’m about to.’”

Mac laughs and continues. “He told me about a fundraiser they do every year down in Hattiesburg, where he lives. He said, ‘I’d love to hear some of your songs with orchestra.’ And I said, ‘Let’s talk.’”

The marriage of large ensembles and popular songs had always intrigued Mac. His father’s collection of big band jazz records planted that awareness. So did the countrypolitan classics he heard over the signals that trickled intermittently into the family radio back in Belmont, Mississippi. He also bought copies of the classical LPs that band directors at his school would sell when they were replaced each year. “Football and basketball were more important in the Southeast,” he explains, with a smile.

So Mac accepted St. John’s invitation and began contacting associates who could write orchestral arrangements, starting with Charles Rose of the Muscle Shoals Horns. Then he combed through his catalog for songs that would adapt well to the project. Plus a few that would be more of a challenge.

“When I wrote ‘It’s Easy’ [from Cuttin’ Corners, 1980] I was trying to write a classical piece,” he notes. “So that lent itself very well to orchestration. But then I thought it might make for a better show if we added some songs that maybe didn’t adapt so naturally — something like ‘Junk Cars’ [from Live and Learn, 1992]. That lets the orchestra be playful and brings variety to the show too.”

Mac shared his vision with each arranger as they worked out the string and horn parts. For certain songs, the guidepost was Randy Newman, with whom Mac had toured early in his career and whose orchestral settings he especially appreciated. He’d indicate details from his original recordings, perhaps a guitar or bass line, to transfer to other instruments, either suggesting harmonies to go with those parts or leaving them up to his collaborators.

When the charts were done, Mac premiered them live at a fundraising event with the FestivalSouth Orchestra, also directed and conducted by Jay Dean. After that performance and maybe half a dozen others that followed, he recalls, “Somebody said, ‘Hey, this is good! We should record this!’”

So they did. Consisting of students plus some faculty and alumni from the Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the FestivalSouth orchestra illuminates and complements the material brilliantly throughout Southbound. Its minimal presence on “All These Years” [Live and Learn] and “Miracle” [Knots, 1994] conveys each lyric’s sad intimacy. “On Account of You” [Down By the River, 2009] reflects Mac’s fondness for Randy Newman’s sound, though with a more positive message. The instrumentation swaggers playfully throughout “On the Line” [Nothin’ But the Truth, 1983], tootles like a French Quarter jam throughout “Blame It on New Orleans” and threads an exotic theme around the seductive dance beat of “Zanzibar” [AKA Nobody, 2015].

In its variety, craftsmanship and emotional depth, Southbound would be a jewel in any artist’s crown. But again, characteristically, Mac doesn’t see it that way. Above all, to this son of Mississippi, it’s a way to further enhance the lives of others through the channels that drew him originally to the project.

“One hundred percent of the artist and producer portions of Southbound go to the music program at the University of Southern Mississippi and to Extra Table,” he says. “For every dollar that Extra Table gets, Robert St. John buys and distributes two dollars worth of food directly to kids who need it most. Some of them only eat what they get from school; they don’t really get fed over the weekend.”

Acknowledging that Southbound reflects his concern for the needy in his home state, Mac adds, “I don’t believe it’s limited to Mississippi. These songs apply to the South in general and beyond as well in the same way that William Faulkner wrote about universal concerns by focusing on only one county in Mississippi. And I hope its impact will linger beyond my lifetime in the same sense that a good Christmas album never gets old.”

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith is one of the foremost photojournalists for Deep South blues and other forms of music. His work has earned him Photographer of the Year by the 11th Hour, and a permanent installation at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In this special exhibit, Smith’s collection of works, titled See That My Grave Is Kept Clean: A Look Into the Music and Landscape of the Deep South, features moments he captured with blues legends such as Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and T-Model Ford, as well as the fertile musical landscape of the Mississippi Delta. Also included will be pieces from his collection of Georgia rockers such as Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, and Memphis’ Lucero as well as country artists like as Marty Stuart, Porter Wagoner, and others. His collection of 35mm, medium-format, and large-format photography will be on display and available for purchase will be limited edition Silver Gelatin prints of negatives from his darkroom. In addition to the exhibit will be sets from Ben Nichols and opener Cedric Burnside.

The Unstoppable four-time Grammy® Award nominated singer, Candi Staton, is known for her iconic tracks “Young Hearts Run Free” and the multi-platinum, “You Got the Love,” but she’s not resting on her laurels. On her forthcoming 30th album, Unstoppable(Beracah/Thirty Tigers), due in the summer of 2018, she shows that a woman’s place is in the recording booth where she pontificates on the often sad state of the world, the bitter battle of the sexes and the hope that everything will soon get better.

The Alabama native got her start singing as a teenager, touring the world with The Jewel Gospel Trio (who shared stages with Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson in the 1950s) before launching her solo career in1968. Over the next five years, she cut a string of Top Ten southern soul hits such as Grammy® Award-nominated renditions of “Stand By Your Man” and “In the Ghetto.” Staton then became a disco diva with a run of hits such as 1976’s million-seller “Young Hearts Run Free,” “Victim” and “Nights On Broadway.”

Over the next two decades, Staton exclusively recorded gospel music and hosted “New Direction” (later renamed “Say Yes”) on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Network. One of those gospel songs, “You Got The Love,” was remixed and hit the Top Ten on the British Pop charts in 1991, 1997 and 2006. Since then, she’s recorded critically-acclaimed Americana albums such as His Hands (2006), Who’s Hurting Now? (2009) and Life Happens (2014).

UnStoppable is a Trippy Soul enterprise that finds the singer penning new declarations such as “Confidence,” “The Prize Is Not Worth The Pain” and “Revolution of Change,” amid cool covers of Patti Smith’s “People Have The Power”(1988) and Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind?” (1969). It’s just the latest excursion into Staton’s unstoppable parade of timeless songs.

As the daughter of legendary producer and arranger Don Costa, Nikka was born with music encoded in her DNA. Her youth was punctuated by world travel and performances before enormous crowds. By just about any measure, it was an extraordinary way to come of age as both a woman and a musician.

She told MTV.com in an interview in 2001: “I was really into Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, all the old Motown stuff and Stax. I would just sit around and rewind [the tapes] and try to sing the harmonies and learn each part. I would sit in front of my stereo for hours. I wanted to get that — whatever that was.” After a string of critically acclaimed and commercially successful LPs that began with her 2001 Virgin debut Everybody Got Their Something, Nikka, along with artists like Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone, became a bright star in the “nu-soul” firmament. She is renowned for her unique style — a seductive alchemy that recombines the tropes of American soul and funk music into something wholly her own.

In the years since her debut, Nikka has toured with Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Coldplay, and Beck, has recorded with superstar DJ and producer Mark Ronson, was nominated for an MTV Music Award, and had multiple hit singles in Europe. Known for the raw allure and energy of her kinetic live performances, Nikka’s voice and stage presence have been compared favorably to everyone from Janis Joplin to Chaka Khan to Sly Stone. Her latest record Nikka & Strings is rooted in this legacy and is most remarkable for how it marries the soulful dynamism of her previous work to her recent exploration of intimate performance. From her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compare 2 U,” to channeling Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” Nikka Costa demonstrates her ability to interpret a song made famous by another artist and make it inescapably her own. Watch closely with anticipation as Nikka embarks on the next leg of her charmed and fascinating journey.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Welsh new wave giants are back in the States on their EQUALS tour. This is the sound of The Alarm that has been heard around the world ever since their 1981 debut single, with 17 Top 50 UK singles, a host of successful albums and over 6 million sales worldwide, a career that has also seen founding member Mike Peters sing on stage with the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and U2.

City Winery hosts the Atlanta Summer Wine Festival featuring 50+ different wines, beers and ciders. On Saturday, August 11, 2018, select from two sessions: 12pm-4pm and 6pm-10pm. Enjoy the awesome venue with live music upstairs (line-up announced soon), and beats by DJ Qtip downstairs (both sessions).

Festival tickets* are $45 advance, $50 after Jan. 11, and $60 day of event. Your ticket price includes a souvenir acrylic wine glass, entertainment, and all wine, cider, and beer samples; food will cost extra.

*21 and up event, no kids, no babies, no pets. No outside food or beverage. Rain or shine event, no refunds. Free bottled water available. Beer and Wine will be cut off at 3:45pm for session 1, and 9:45 for session 2.

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Southbound is Mac’s 16th album. It’s packed with a generous selection of 16 tracks. And it’s his first to feature his songs arranged for symphony orchestra. Recorded with the FestivalSouth orchestra conducted by Jay Dean and a rhythm section that includes Mac’s colleagues in Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, Southbound doesn’t just give Mac’s writing, instrumental skills and expressive vocals the attention they deserve. It also serves several worthy causes that speak personally to him: Extra Table, which brings food to the hungry in Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi’s music program.

The idea traces back to a performance by Mac at a fundraiser for another charity four or five years ago. The event was hosted by Robert St. John, Mississippi’s top chef for three consecutive years, Mississippi Restauranteur of the Year and a generous supporter of charities too.

“While we were stuck in a dressing room while they were doing their silent auction, Robert started telling me about Extra Table, which he founded in my home state for underprivileged kids, of which we have many,” Mac remembers. “Mississippi has always been one of the three poorest states in the union — usually the poorest. I said, ‘If there’s anything you ever need, let me know.’ And he said, ‘Oh, I’m about to.’”

Mac laughs and continues. “He told me about a fundraiser they do every year down in Hattiesburg, where he lives. He said, ‘I’d love to hear some of your songs with orchestra.’ And I said, ‘Let’s talk.’”

The marriage of large ensembles and popular songs had always intrigued Mac. His father’s collection of big band jazz records planted that awareness. So did the countrypolitan classics he heard over the signals that trickled intermittently into the family radio back in Belmont, Mississippi. He also bought copies of the classical LPs that band directors at his school would sell when they were replaced each year. “Football and basketball were more important in the Southeast,” he explains, with a smile.

So Mac accepted St. John’s invitation and began contacting associates who could write orchestral arrangements, starting with Charles Rose of the Muscle Shoals Horns. Then he combed through his catalog for songs that would adapt well to the project. Plus a few that would be more of a challenge.

“When I wrote ‘It’s Easy’ [from Cuttin’ Corners, 1980] I was trying to write a classical piece,” he notes. “So that lent itself very well to orchestration. But then I thought it might make for a better show if we added some songs that maybe didn’t adapt so naturally — something like ‘Junk Cars’ [from Live and Learn, 1992]. That lets the orchestra be playful and brings variety to the show too.”

Mac shared his vision with each arranger as they worked out the string and horn parts. For certain songs, the guidepost was Randy Newman, with whom Mac had toured early in his career and whose orchestral settings he especially appreciated. He’d indicate details from his original recordings, perhaps a guitar or bass line, to transfer to other instruments, either suggesting harmonies to go with those parts or leaving them up to his collaborators.

When the charts were done, Mac premiered them live at a fundraising event with the FestivalSouth Orchestra, also directed and conducted by Jay Dean. After that performance and maybe half a dozen others that followed, he recalls, “Somebody said, ‘Hey, this is good! We should record this!’”

So they did. Consisting of students plus some faculty and alumni from the Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the FestivalSouth orchestra illuminates and complements the material brilliantly throughout Southbound. Its minimal presence on “All These Years” [Live and Learn] and “Miracle” [Knots, 1994] conveys each lyric’s sad intimacy. “On Account of You” [Down By the River, 2009] reflects Mac’s fondness for Randy Newman’s sound, though with a more positive message. The instrumentation swaggers playfully throughout “On the Line” [Nothin’ But the Truth, 1983], tootles like a French Quarter jam throughout “Blame It on New Orleans” and threads an exotic theme around the seductive dance beat of “Zanzibar” [AKA Nobody, 2015].

In its variety, craftsmanship and emotional depth, Southbound would be a jewel in any artist’s crown. But again, characteristically, Mac doesn’t see it that way. Above all, to this son of Mississippi, it’s a way to further enhance the lives of others through the channels that drew him originally to the project.

“One hundred percent of the artist and producer portions of Southbound go to the music program at the University of Southern Mississippi and to Extra Table,” he says. “For every dollar that Extra Table gets, Robert St. John buys and distributes two dollars worth of food directly to kids who need it most. Some of them only eat what they get from school; they don’t really get fed over the weekend.”

Acknowledging that Southbound reflects his concern for the needy in his home state, Mac adds, “I don’t believe it’s limited to Mississippi. These songs apply to the South in general and beyond as well in the same way that William Faulkner wrote about universal concerns by focusing on only one county in Mississippi. And I hope its impact will linger beyond my lifetime in the same sense that a good Christmas album never gets old.”

King of Pops hosts an hour-long speed trivia game at The Sheds each Wednesday night from April through October! Gather a team and test your knowledge for a chance at scoring sweet prizes and some guaranteed fun.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith is one of the foremost photojournalists for Deep South blues and other forms of music. His work has earned him Photographer of the Year by the 11th Hour, and a permanent installation at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In this special exhibit, Smith’s collection of works, titled See That My Grave Is Kept Clean: A Look Into the Music and Landscape of the Deep South, features moments he captured with blues legends such as Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and T-Model Ford, as well as the fertile musical landscape of the Mississippi Delta. Also included will be pieces from his collection of Georgia rockers such as Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, and Memphis’ Lucero as well as country artists like as Marty Stuart, Porter Wagoner, and others. His collection of 35mm, medium-format, and large-format photography will be on display and available for purchase will be limited edition Silver Gelatin prints of negatives from his darkroom. In addition to the exhibit will be sets from Ben Nichols and opener Cedric Burnside.

The Unstoppable four-time Grammy® Award nominated singer, Candi Staton, is known for her iconic tracks “Young Hearts Run Free” and the multi-platinum, “You Got the Love,” but she’s not resting on her laurels. On her forthcoming 30th album, Unstoppable(Beracah/Thirty Tigers), due in the summer of 2018, she shows that a woman’s place is in the recording booth where she pontificates on the often sad state of the world, the bitter battle of the sexes and the hope that everything will soon get better.

The Alabama native got her start singing as a teenager, touring the world with The Jewel Gospel Trio (who shared stages with Sam Cooke and Mahalia Jackson in the 1950s) before launching her solo career in1968. Over the next five years, she cut a string of Top Ten southern soul hits such as Grammy® Award-nominated renditions of “Stand By Your Man” and “In the Ghetto.” Staton then became a disco diva with a run of hits such as 1976’s million-seller “Young Hearts Run Free,” “Victim” and “Nights On Broadway.”

Over the next two decades, Staton exclusively recorded gospel music and hosted “New Direction” (later renamed “Say Yes”) on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) Network. One of those gospel songs, “You Got The Love,” was remixed and hit the Top Ten on the British Pop charts in 1991, 1997 and 2006. Since then, she’s recorded critically-acclaimed Americana albums such as His Hands (2006), Who’s Hurting Now? (2009) and Life Happens (2014).

UnStoppable is a Trippy Soul enterprise that finds the singer penning new declarations such as “Confidence,” “The Prize Is Not Worth The Pain” and “Revolution of Change,” amid cool covers of Patti Smith’s “People Have The Power”(1988) and Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind?” (1969). It’s just the latest excursion into Staton’s unstoppable parade of timeless songs.

As the daughter of legendary producer and arranger Don Costa, Nikka was born with music encoded in her DNA. Her youth was punctuated by world travel and performances before enormous crowds. By just about any measure, it was an extraordinary way to come of age as both a woman and a musician.

She told MTV.com in an interview in 2001: “I was really into Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin, all the old Motown stuff and Stax. I would just sit around and rewind [the tapes] and try to sing the harmonies and learn each part. I would sit in front of my stereo for hours. I wanted to get that — whatever that was.” After a string of critically acclaimed and commercially successful LPs that began with her 2001 Virgin debut Everybody Got Their Something, Nikka, along with artists like Amy Winehouse and Joss Stone, became a bright star in the “nu-soul” firmament. She is renowned for her unique style — a seductive alchemy that recombines the tropes of American soul and funk music into something wholly her own.

In the years since her debut, Nikka has toured with Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Coldplay, and Beck, has recorded with superstar DJ and producer Mark Ronson, was nominated for an MTV Music Award, and had multiple hit singles in Europe. Known for the raw allure and energy of her kinetic live performances, Nikka’s voice and stage presence have been compared favorably to everyone from Janis Joplin to Chaka Khan to Sly Stone. Her latest record Nikka & Strings is rooted in this legacy and is most remarkable for how it marries the soulful dynamism of her previous work to her recent exploration of intimate performance. From her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compare 2 U,” to channeling Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” Nikka Costa demonstrates her ability to interpret a song made famous by another artist and make it inescapably her own. Watch closely with anticipation as Nikka embarks on the next leg of her charmed and fascinating journey.