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August 1 & 2
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“The group highlights the haunting underbelly of the sounds of traditional Americana and early country music… Glass Mountain’s music stuns in its ability to capture the past with elegance and triumph.” -Chicago Tribune
Sugar Maple Music Festival is proud to announce that Glass Mountain is in our 2017 lineup! Glass Mountain is a Chicago-based band that brings old-time and early country music to life. The American folk trio includes Heather Malyuk, Sara Leginsky, and Ari Bolles. They are three dedicated singers and multi-instrumentalists who came together to create a mixture of mountain ballads and love songs that will touch a part of your soul.
Glass Mountain released their latest album Restless Mind, in 2106. The album highlights Glass Mountain’s devotion to their craft and the band’s ability to add their own creative touches to make music that sounds both traditional and new.
–written by Daniel Seifried
If you attended the January 12th show at the Barrymore Lobby, you already know that Molly Tuttle puts on a great show. Her lovely voice, impeccable and fiery guitar playing, and sensitive song writing make Molly Tuttle a star on the rise and we are thrilled the Molly Tuttle Band will perform at the Sugar Maple Music Festival on Saturday, August 5.
A virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and award winning songwriter with a distinctive voice,Molly Tuttle has turned the heads of even the most seasoned industry professionals. Since her performing debut at age 11, she’s appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, was featured on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine (the first woman ever to be featured on the cover), won first place in the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Competition at MerleFest, and recently graduated from the Berklee College of Music, which she attended on a Hazel Dickens Memorial Scholarship. Most recently, Molly was featured in Acoustic Guitar. Molly now makes her home in Nashville and has completed work on her debut solo album with producer Kai Welch, to be released in early 2017.
“His voice has the depth of some of the best blues musicians with a gravelly range that forces you to pay attention, if not to just wonder how the slender, fresh-faced Millsap is doing what you’re watching. He’s got the boyish charms and the wild and dirty sound that comes from a life of hard living. It’s absolutely astounding.” –TULSA WORLD
At only 23 years of age, Oklahoma native Parker Millsap is quickly making a name for himself with his captivating live performances, soulful sound, and character-driven narratives. He recently wrapped up a banner year in 2016, which included his network television debut on CONAN, an invitation to play with Elton John at the Apple Music Festival, an Austin City Limits taping and an Americana Music Association nomination for Album of the Year. Parker’s most recent release, The Very Last Day, has received praise from The New York Times, The Boston Globe, LA Times, Austin Chronicle and Rolling Stone to name a few.
Parker grew up in the tiny town of Purcell, OK (pop. 5,952) where he attended a Pentecostal church with his family three times a week for most of his youth. Though Parker doesn’t consider himself very religious these days, the experiences engraved upon him inform his songwriting. Blending that fire and brimstone preaching with rock, country, blues and Waits-ian imagery, he has created a sound uniquely his own.
Parker first picked up an acoustic guitar at nine, then plugged in and went electric after getting into Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, eventually starting a cover band, Fever in Blue, with classmate Michael Rose who still plays bass with him today. After graduating high school, he moved to Northern California, where he interned at Prairie Sun Recording, the studio where Tom Waits recorded Bone Machine and Mule Variations. Returning to Oklahoma, he put down the electric guitar and got into songwriting, releasing an indie album in 2012, Palisade, which he sold from the back of his van.
A trip to Nashville found Parker playing at the Tin Pan South songwriter’s festival, where his performance impressed Old Crow Medicine Show’s manager so much that he invited Parker to open a string of dates for the band, later leading to a slot on their New Year’s Eve gig at the Ryman Auditorium. Parker has also opened dates for Jason Isbell, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Lake Street Dive, Lucinda Williams and Shovels & Rope.
“I like to set goals for myself that are impossible to reach,” he explains. “That way, I always have something to aim for, a better song, different characters, new stories. I just want to pay the bills and feed my dog, and maybe buy a new guitar every now and then. That’s all I need. I don’t want to be Elvis Presley, but I wouldn’t complain if a million girls screamed for me, either. Just don’t tell my girlfriend that.” Parker Millsap is ready to share his Oklahoma roots with the rest of the country, and, hopefully, the world.
Kaia Kater will perform at 2017 Sugar Maple Music Festival on Friday August 4. Born of African-Caribbean descent in Québec, Kaia Kater grew up between two worlds: one her family’s deep ties to Canadian folk music in her Toronto home; the other the years she spent learning and studying Appalachian music in West Virginia.
Her acclaimed debut album Sorrow Bound (May 2015) touched on this divide, but her new album, Nine Pin (May 2016), delves even further, and casts an unflinching eye at the realities faced by people of color in North America every day. Her songs on the new album are fueled by her rich low tenor vocals, jazz-influenced instrumentation, and beautifully understated banjo, and they’ve got as much in common with Kendrick Lamar right now as they do with Pete Seeger.
“Kater is one of the most exciting roots musicians to come along in years.” – Matt Hendrickson, Garden & Gun
“Nine Pin is unlike anything you’ll hear this year.” – Rachel Cholst, No Depression
“…plaintive, mesmerizing…writes and performs with the skill of a folk-circuit veteran…” – Rolling Stone
