48th Ann Arbor Folk Festival
Saturday, January 25th
at Hill Auditorium
Tickets
Member and Student Pre-Sale: October 21-25
Public Sale: Nov 1
Born and raised on the Midwestern plains, Willi Carlisle is a product of the punk-to-folk music pipeline that’s long fueled frustrated young men looking to resist. After falling for the rich ballads and tunes of the Ozarks, where he now lives, he began examining the full spectrum of American musical history. This insatiable stylistic diversity is obvious in his wildly raucous live performances, where songs range from sardonic trucker-ballads like “Vanlife” to the heartbreaking queer waltz “Life on the Fence,” to an existential talkin’ blues about a panic attack in Walmart’s aisle five. With guitar, fiddle, button-box, banjo, harmonicas, rhythm-bones, and Willi’s booming baritone, this is bona-fide populist folk music in the tradition of cowboys, frontier fiddlers, and tall-tale tellers. With a quick wit and big sing-alongs, these folk songs bring us a step closer to breaking down our divides.
Produced by the GRAMMY Award-nominated Darrell Scott, Carlisle’s latest album Critterland considers where we come from and where we are going. The album is a wild romp through the backwaters of his mind and America, lingering in the odd corners of human nature to visit obscure oddballs, dark secrets, and complicated truths about the beauty and pain of life and love.