The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
The jazz-blues-and-swing combo that touched off a whole new craze for classic American dance music in the 1990s is back in town! Big Bad Voodoo Daddy took its name from […]
Opener: Oh He Dead
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
Love You Anyway, the new album from Devon Gilfillian, is an intoxicating, genre-blasting game changer spanning soul, hip-hop, R&B, and rock, all under the banner of Black joy. With an incisive eye and unassuming swagger, Gilfillian re-imagines modern soul music by redefining its possibilities.
Produced by Jeremy Lutito (Joy Oladokun, NEEDTOBREATHE), Love You Anyway, (Fantasy) confronts as well as comforts. Chronicling Gilfillian’s journey as a Black artist living in America, it’s as much about fighting for what you believe in: equity and representation, as it is about love – finding it, making it, and channeling it into every facet of our lives.
A captivating, can’t-miss live performer, the Philadelphia-born, Nashville based singer-songwriter regularly commands club, theater, and festival stages around the world. Now, on Love You Anyway, Gilfillian conjures the raw, sexy emotions of his predecessors and the next-level grooves of his contemporaries, taking soul music into an exciting and restorative new future.
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
Bettye LaVette moved from Muskegon to Detroit when she was six, and she’s one of the Motor City’s unsung musical treasures—the queen of old-school Detroit R&B. She’s been compared with Aretha Franklin, but she says her inspiration came mostly from the blues and R&B rather than from gospel. Her early records like “You’re a Man of Words—I’m a Woman of Action,” are soul classics that are just now being rediscovered. In recent years Bettye has been better than ever, winning the W.C. Handy Comeback Album of the Year award for her emotionally torrid “A Woman Like Me,” and she has become a major creative force in her seventh decade, reinterpreting music from various genres in her own style of classic soul. Bettye’s 60-plus-year career rolls on with a new album, “LaVette.”
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
Soaring vocals meet dextrous, layered guitar and intimate storytelling that can evoke the poetic lyricism of Passenger in one song before sliding into the wrenching neo-soul of Leon Bridges in another. Thunderstorm Artis was born and raised in a large musical family on the North Shore of Oahu, and it’s easy to find the laid-back vibe of island life effortlessly blended with the real-life experiences that inspire his music. As a Season 18 finalist on The Voice, Thunderstorm wowed audiences with both his original compositions, including quiet acoustic track “Sedona,” and loving reinterpretations of songs by artists like The Beatles and Louis Armstrong, with John Legend describing his tone as “magical” and Billboard praising his “earnest, uplifting presence.” Thunderstorm Artis has played alongside modern icons Jack Johnson and Booker T., and he has toured extensively with his brother, Ron Artis II. He’s also a longtime featured artist at Wanderlust Festivals throughout North America.
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
“Singer/songwriter Leon Timbo,” writes Thom Jurek of Allmusic.com, “has a unique, rootsy sound that incorporates equal measures of vintage soul, gospel, folk, R&B, funk, dance music, and even modern blues in a style referred to by his producer as ‘transparent soul.’” He numbers Bill Withers, James Taylor, Donny Hathaway, and Andrae Crouch among his influences, and he sometimes sings gospel music. He got his start performing at the Potter’s House Church in Dallas, where one night R&B star Tyrese was in the audience and asked Timbo to open his show at the House of Blues. Leon Timbo brings a songwriter streak to R&B that has been a bit neglected lately, and he comes to Michigan with a new album, “Lovers & Fools, Vol. 2.”
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
Some label him as acoustic soul, others as indie folk, but what all can agree on is the undeniable gifting that’s displayed once Al Bettis hits the stage. His style is soothing yet polished ,which makes it hard to believe he began singing and writing music at age 30. “I felt a call to begin to write music but I was confused because I’d never done that before. When I said, ‘I can’t play an instrument, Lord,’ He said, ‘Get a guitar…’ and here we are today!” Al says. Originating from Detroit, Al Bettis has opened for such artists as Valerie June (at The Ark), Dwele, and Leon Timbo. He has also been featured at the acclaimed Ford Arts, Beats and Eats, Detroit River Days, Radio One, the Michigan State Fair, and the Meridian Winter Blast, to name a few. He cites artists like Ed Sheeran, Leon Timbo, Passenger, City and Colour, and Jason Mraz among his list of musical influences.
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
Vocalist, songwriter, and producer Kyler Wilkins from Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been performing as Ki5 (rhymes with high-five), using nothing but a loop station and a simple effects unit since 2017. His vibrant composition style—influenced by his time in a cappella groups—explores the human voice meshed with beatboxing and delivers familiar genres such as R&B, pop, and soul. Cellist and vocalist Jordan Hamilton is a mix of mastery and maverick musicality; hip-hop influenced, rhythmically layered, melodically robust. He makes avant garde folk-soul music, a key to navigating space, time, and change gracefully. John Sinkevics of Local Spins describes his music this way; “Plucking, sawing, pounding and caressing the cello to extract sometimes other-worldly sounds; melding live looping with classical music interludes, hip hop, and jazz.” Tonight these highly innovative Michigan musicians join forces in a duo show.
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
Laith Al-Saadi began singing at age four and began playing guitar at 13. At 15 he formed his first blues band, Blue Vinyl. In short order they opened for blues greats like Buddy Guy (to whose work his playing has been compared), Luther Allison, Son Seals, and Taj Mahal and toured the Netherlands. At the University of Michigan, Laith was a member of the Johnny Trudell Orchestra and freelanced with Detroit greats like Thornetta Davis, Jocelyn B, The Reefermen. Laith is a real road warrior who generally can be found playing at least five nights a week around Michigan and beyond, and Michigan’s secret got out when he made the finals of television’s “The Voice.” If you haven’t checked out this monster Michigan talent yet, you really should!
With Special Guest: Paul Cebar
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
It’s as if the blues met modern poetry and got infused with Zen calm. Chris Smither takes the blues in a direction all his own, offering stoic, existential ruminations sung in a weathered blues moan and set to quietly virtuosic guitar.
Paul Cebar cut his teeth musically in the coffeehouse folk scene of the mid-’70s in Milwaukee. Taking cues from the dance bands of western Louisiana (and his native Midwest,), the streets (and 45’s) of New Orleans, touring African and Caribbean combos and the soul, funk & blues of his youth coupled with early, teeth-cutting experience in the verbal hotbeds of the coffeehouse scene, Cebar is a masterful synthesist of rhythmic culture
The Ark 316 S. Main Ann Arbor, MI 48104 United States
An intimate solo performance
Laith Al-Saadi began singing at age four and began playing guitar at 13. At 15 he formed his first blues band, Blue Vinyl. In short order they opened for blues greats like Buddy Guy (to whose work his playing has been compared), Luther Allison, Son Seals, and Taj Mahal and toured the Netherlands. At the University of Michigan, Laith was a member of the Johnny Trudell Orchestra and freelanced with Detroit greats like Thornetta Davis, Jocelyn B, The Reefermen. Laith is a real road warrior who generally can be found playing at least five nights a week around Michigan and beyond, and Michigan’s secret got out when he made the finals of television’s “The Voice.” If you haven’t checked out this monster Michigan talent yet, you really should! Tonight Laith performs a rare solo show.
