Summer Sounds at The Ann Arbor Art Fair

We are excited to once again partner with the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair to bring live music each evening of the art fairs to the Stage on Main at the corner of Main and William in the Palio lot. Stop by and join one of our favorite street parties of the year!

6:00 Phillip-Michael Scales

As a kid, Phillip-Michael Scales didn’t understand what it meant that his aunt’s close friend, the guitar player who called him “Nephew” and he called “Uncle B,” was B.B. King. Once Phillip-Michael began guitar lessons, the significance became so clear that he shied away from soloing and most things blues. Instead, he fell in love with songwriting when an English teacher told him “A great writer can make their reader identify with anyone.” When his Uncle B passed away, Scales began incorporating more of the blues into his music as a way to honor him. “These days I’m finding more of my story in the blues. A lot has led me here between politics, my identity, and the idea of Legacy.” The result is a sound he calls “Dive Bar Soul” which takes a bit of indie rock storytelling and couples it with the passion of the blues.

7:30 Joe and The Ruckus

The Ruckus is a collective with the goal of recontextualizing classic funk and soul music within our 21st century world. They formed during the pandemic and emerged from lock-down as changed people in search of new live music experiences from those typically seen pre-pandemic. The Ruckus rose to and surpassed that expectation, providing electrifying live concerts with repertoire ranging from the father of funk, James Brown, to the king of soul, Stevie Wonder, and beyond into more modern artists and have now expanded from their hometown to NYC, Chicago and Detroit.