The Sugar Maple Music Festival is pleased to welcome the Tri-State BlueGrass Fest, Friday April 20th at The Big Secret at City Hall in Platteville.

Don’t miss this chance to see The Fever River String Band, The High Street Revelers, The Driftless Sisters, Miles Over Mountains, WheelHouse and Them Coulee Boys and support the first ever Tri-State BlueGrass fest.

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door; available here.

The Sugar Maple Concert Series welcomes April Verch, Tuesday April 3, 2018 at 7:00 pm to the North Street Cabaret.

While Verch is perhaps best known for playing traditional fiddle styles from her native Ottawa Valley, Canada, her performances extend into old-time American and Appalachian styles and beyond, for a well-rounded tour-de-force of North Americana sounds. Verch tours with world-class musicians as a trio, featuring acoustic guitar, mandolin, bass and clawhammer banjo in addition to Verch’s vocals, fiddle and foot percussion.

One might suspect a performer with as many talents as Verch would pause to take a breath, or need to somewhat compartmentalize her skills during a live performance. But on stage, Verch is almost superhuman, flawlessly intertwining and overlapping different performative elements. She stepdances while fiddling. She sings while stepdancing. Sometimes she sings, steps and fiddles all at once, with apparent ease and precision. Verch is – as they say – a triple threat in performance, her live show a beautiful companion to her music: versatile, robust, and masterfully executed.

Chicago native son Al Scorch brings his roots-punk string band, Al Scorch & The Country Soul Ensemble back to Madison for a 2018 two-fer: an appearance at the High Noon Saloon on March 29, 2018, and a featured spot at this year’s Sugar Maple Music Festival on Friday, August 3.  Scorch’s live performances are legendary for their energy and drive, as he and his band seamlessly combine bluegrass, punk, folk and roots into a tasty, substantial musical hot dish.

After his early days with his brother in an Irish folk-rock band, Scorch first emerged  as a solo artist and songwriter, leaving his indelible stamp on the Windy City music scene.  His subsequent formation of the Country Soul Ensemble and a series of albums, including his latest, Circle Round The Signs, produced by Bloodshot Records, have fueled Scorch’s growing recognition across the US, Canada and abroad as a perceptive and exciting force in American string music.

Al’s acknowledged musical influences encompass everything from Beethoven to Dolly Parton, from Woody Guthrie to the Minutemen.  Just when you’re catching up with one of his lightning-fast banjo riffs and well-aimed lyrics about social justice, he’ll slow it down to a silky, soulful croon about lost love, or a ballad that elegantly morphs from despair to hope.  With his huge voice and natural charisma, and the virtuoso talents of his Country Soul Ensemble, every Al Scorch show becomes an event that audiences don’t soon forget.

–written by Brad Wolbert

Award-winning Cincinnati favorites The Tillers return to the Sugar Maple Festival in 2018, bringing Southern Wisconsin another hard-driving dose of punk- and bluegrass-infused traditional American music.  Their first ten years as a band have taken them all over North America and Europe, as well as a feature appearance on Tom Brokaw’s documentary on US Highway 50, and have yielded five albums of increasingly innovative takes on familiar string band music that range from high-energy rockers to tender harmonic ballads.

The band’s latest album, The Tillers (2018), is fresh out of the studio.  Check out this track and video.

The Tillers keep adding new songs and sonic ideas to their repertoire, but at the end of the day their wheelhouse is the classic American folk song, with a melody older than their grandparents, but with a thump and twang all their own.

–written by Brad Wolbert

Preparations for the fifteenth annual Sugar Maple Music Festival are in full swing and the lineup is sure to be one for the record books. In addition to the main event in August, music lovers should mark their calendars for three events being organized as part of the Sugar Maple Concert Series. The prelude will draw in some legendary groups including the Claire Lynch Band, April Verch Band, and Freddy & Francine. Tickets are available for all three shows now via Brown Paper Tickets (search for Sugar Maple Presents.) A portion of the proceeds will help produce the annual festival, which is organized by the nonprofit Four Lakes Traditional Music Collective and staged entirely by volunteers.

Claire Lynch Band, whose accolades include three Grammy nominations, six International Bluegrass Music Association awards, and the prestigious United States Artists Walker Fellowship, will be at the Bos Meadery on March 22 at 7:30 p.m.. “Lynch is the perfect mix of that famed trio Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton. She’s got the interpretive skills of Ronstadt, the clear and pure voice of Harris and the bluegrass soul of Parton … but she deserves all the accolades we can toss her way.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tickets here!

The second concert will feature April Verch Band taking the stage at the North St. Cabaret on April 3 at 7:00 p.m.. April is an award winning fiddler, singer, and step dancer who has performed around the world, including festival, theatre and performing arts center appearances. “It’s about joining together to celebrate everyday life, through music.  We’re all in this together.” Verch said. Tickets here!

Bringing it home on April 19 at 8:00 p.m., Freddy & Francine will play at the North St. Cabaret. An Americana-Soul duo comprised of Bianca Caruso and Lee Ferris,  with voices reminiscent of Aretha Franklin and Van Morrison, their songs blend Soul, R&B, Folk, and Americana with a modern, yet timeless appeal to all ages. Tickets here!