Love Canon and Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley

Love Canon

Love Canon brings their acoustic-roots sensibilities to the electronic-tinged pop hits of the 80’s and 90’s to create Cover Story, their 4th album, due out on Organic Records July 13, 2018. With Cover Story, Love Canon delivers a fresh set of classics, crossing genres to recount music of decades past from the likes of Peter Gabriel, Billy Joel, Depeche Mode, and Paul Simon. The self-produced album hosts a plethora of special guests including Jerry Douglas, Aoife O’Donovan, Keller Williams, Michael Cleveland, and Eric Krasno, among others.

The band’s diehard fans are music lovers first and are drawn to the charismatic and wide-ranging vocal stylings of lead singer and guitarist Jesse Harper matched with banjo master Adam Larrabee, mandolin pickin’ by Andy Thacker, Darrell Muller holding down the low-end on standup bass, and the slick sounds of resonator guitar king Jay Starling on the Beard MA-6. It’s acoustic rock! Acclaimed fiddler Alex Hargreaves [Turtle Island Quartet, Sarah Jarosz] does all of the fiddling on this record with the exception of two tracks, and he occasionally joins them on tour.

As seasoned virtuoso string players who have been touring the mid-Atlantic since 2010, Love Canon stays true to the approach, arrangements, and keen artistry of these nostalgic hits. Cover Story was engineered by Rob Evans at Dave Matthews Band's Haunted Hollow Studio in Love Canon’s hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia and mixed by Wayne Pooley, Bruce Hornsby’s Engineer/Producer. Cover Story is a follow up to the band’s previous efforts, Greatest Hits Volumes 1-3.

Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley

Take a 15-time IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Dobro Player of the Year and a Tennessee-born guitar prodigy who made his Grand Ole Opry debut at the age of 11, and you have Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, a powerhouse acoustic duo that has electrified the acoustic music scene.

On their new Compass Records album, World Full of Blues, they move beyond the acoustic-centric sound of their previous two releases (including the GRAMMY-nominated Before the Sun Goes Down) and juice things up with Hammond B3 and a horn section. Guests include blues great Taj Mahal, who provides his unmistakable mojo to the title track, and country music legend Vince Gill, who joins the duo on an inspired rendition of The Grateful Dead’s moonshiner song, “Brown-Eyed Women”.

White-hot picking and stone country vocals are still the driving force of the duo, but now with added grit and a nod to the rootsier side of Americana, all aided by the guiding hand of GRAMMY winning producer Brent Maher. Maher, known for his production and engineering of such diverse artists as The Judds, Faces, and Ike and Tina Turner, loved the duo’s demos and signed on to produce immediately upon hearing them.

The album was recorded live at Maher’s Nashville studio, The Blueroom, with minimal overdubs. Maher says, “For me, this record was all about living in the moment…letting spontaneity rule.” Despite the diversity in instrumentation and song selection—acoustic blues to jammed out roots rockers, “Hag” country to Duane and Dickey style twin leads reminiscent of The Allman Brothers—the end result is a sound unified in its approach to the broad scope of roots music. “Ultimately we’re the unifying factor,” says Ickes (rhymes with ‘bikes’.) “It’s obvious we’re into all these different styles, but there’s a commonality in the sound of our instruments that, blended with Trey’s voice, makes it one sound.”