Raul Malo

Whether battling valiantly from behind the enemy lines of his dive-bar-underground past or blowing the doors off sold-out theaters as he’s done with Drive-By Truckers for the last decade, Mike Cooley has proved his mettle time and time again. He’s rock & roll incarnate—Mick and Keith rolled into one impossibly cool, soul-howling, guitar rattlin’ ball of genuine unapologetic grit and swagger. At least that’s how it seems gazing up from the crowd at a packed DBT show. So how did this modern-day rock hero feel about temporarily ditching his band and rolling back the volume for the unaccompanied acoustic performances that would become his debut solo record, “The Fool on Every Corner?” “When you don’t do it normally, it’s terrifying,” Mike admits. “I try to relax, but I’ll probably never be able to sit down in a chair on stage as easily as I sit down on a toilet behind a closed door. That’s the goal—somewhere in between,” he deadpans. “I set the bar high.” Despite his bad nerves and tongue-in-cheek penchant for self-deprecation, Cooley shines, tossing aside his guitar pick and playing almost everything with his fingers. “Strip it, strip it, strip it down,” he says, alluding to the mantra that guided these performances. “What’s left is the song and nothing else.”

One December, not long after Over the Rhine began recording and touring, we were invited to perform some seasonal songs on a public radio station in Cincinnati. It was Christmastime […]

The Whiskey Charmers are a Detroit-based band led by Carrie Shepard and Lawrence Daversa. Fans have often compared their sound to riding through the desert with the top down, or the feeling of being in some lonesome smoky bar off the side of an abandoned highway, or music from a Spaghetti Western. William P. Davis (Former Deputy Director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville) says of the band, “I’ve heard a lot of good musicians. The Whiskey Charmers remind me of no one—and, to me, that is one of the best compliments an act can receive.” Many fans have become familiar with The Whiskey Charmers music through the video game Detroit: Become Human, a cinematic neo-noir thriller game that has sold more than five million copies worldwide. 

The Steel Wheels have long been at home in the creative space between tradition and innovation, informed by the familiar sounds of the Virginia mountains where the band was formed, but always moving forward with insightful lyrics and an evolving sound. Having gained the experience of thousands of shows, festivals and many miles on the road, the stubbornly independent band has formed deep bonds with each other and the audience that sustains them.

The son of a small-town farming community, Cody Diekhoff logged plenty of highway and stage time under the name Chicago Farmer before settling in the city in 2003. Profoundly inspired by fellow Midwesterner John Prine, he’s a working-class folk musician to his core. His small-town roots, tilled with city streets mentality, are turning heads North and South of I-80.