Who’s Playing: River Park Concert
October 5, 2018
Happiness is Free in 27278! That’s the theme for this year’s River Park Concert. The annual event is a free day of music and festivities in downtown Hillsborough. This year, the headliner is the acclaimed roots/folk band The Wood Brothers. Also appearing will be The Walker Family Band, Seth Walker, and The Shoaldiggers. The show will take place on Saturday, October 27 at River Park. Read on to get a rundown of all the music.
The Wood Brothers
Two brothers, both successful touring musicians, decide to form a band. Ten year’s later, they’re still touring, making albums, and having a great time. Former King Johnson guitarist Oliver Wood and his bassist brother Chris Wood of Medeski, Martin & Wood adapt the blues, folk and other roots‐music sounds they loved as kids into their own evocative sound and twining their voices in the sort of high‐lonesome harmony blend for which sibling singers are often renowned. Their tenth album One Drop of Truth was released earlier this year.
Seth Walker
Over the past 10 years, Seth Walker has become recognized as one of the most revered modern roots artists in the United States; a three-dimensional talent comprised by a gift for combining melody and lyric alongside a rich, Gospel-drenched, Southern-inflected voice with a true blue knack for getting around on the guitar.
“Walker’s brilliantly nuanced vocals are as natural, clear, sharp, and as effortlessly elegant as his guitar playing in these songs, and it all fits together into a warm, unadorned little album that reveals itself more and more with each listen.” – Allmusic
The Walker Family Band
For over ten years The Walker Family Band has delighted audiences throughout the Southeast with a distinctive take on traditional styles. They perform Irish dance music and American old-time music with a forward reaching attitude. True to Irish and American tradition, the band shares their experience and knowledge by conducting multi-instrumental workshops and hosting an annual summer camp that is attended by youngsters and families from coast to coast. They will start the day off at the River Park Concert with a young musicians workshop before their set.
Click the links to hear some samples
The Shoaldiggers
The Shoaldiggers produce a sonic wave of danceable, down & dirty rockin’ Americana – fun-loving sounds brought to you by a troupe of nine out of Hillsborough NC. Starting out in 2013 as “Coleslaw,” the group has continually been called “Hillsborough’s town band.” As both their size and their original sound has grown, they’ve closed the Coleslaw chapter and begun a new story as The Shoaldiggers. The group is veteran upright bass player Daryl White, who joins back porch pickers Chris Knotts and Stephen Beck to play a fun, grassy style of upbeat music. Banjo man Gary Larson joined in 2016 along with Hillsborough icon Jim Adams on percussion and harmonica. Brother and sister Ben and Allison Zirkel contribute great horn lines from their trumpet and sax, and Meighan Carmichael supports vocals and percussion. The crew uses rolling rhythms and sometimes raw harmonies to deliver a hometown message of hard work and hard play. If you ask a Shoaldiggers fan what their genre is, the answer is, “Fun!”