Frist Fridays Concert Series Kicks Off with Rodney Crowell Tonight, 5/25

Frist Fridays, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts' popular summer concert series, opens the 2012 four-concert season tonight, May 25 with singer-songwriter and Grammy winner, Rodney Crowell performing in the Turner Courtyard.   

This year the series takes place May through August from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on the final Friday of each month.  Patrons are invited to enjoy an evening of live music, light snacks and beverages, as well as the diverse exhibitions on view in the Frist Center's galleries.  Frist Fridays take place rain or shine.

Visitors are encouraged to bring lawn chairs to the events.

"We have added a fourth Frist Friday evening to our lineup this year," said Frist Center Executive Director and CEO Susan H. Edwards, Ph.D.  "Music plays a significant role so much that goes on at the Frist, and we are pleased this year to pair uniquely American musicians with self-taught American artists, the quilters of Gee's Bend, Thornton Dial and Bill Traylor.  We often describe the Frist as THE place in Nashville where music and art come together, and Frist Fridays is a tremendous example of that creative marriage."

2012 Frist Fridays Line Up

May 25, 2012 - Rodney Crowell

Rodney Crowell, a Grammy-winning songwriter, producer, and artist, brings poetry and earthy tautness to the soundtrack of people in the cracks, carving out lives that matter-if only to themselves and the people they know.  

Born in Houston, his songwriting led him, in 1972, to Nashville, where Emmylou Harris heard the young writer's songs.  Crowell soon became a potent alchemic property in the sound the queen of hippie country was conjuring.  It was only a matter of time until Crowell struck out on his own, producing Rosanne Cash's seminal Seven Year Ache, which marked a new wave in country-and producing hits for Bob Seger, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Waylon Jennings and Crystal Gayle, among others.  Crowell's own albums established a benchmark of what was possible in the ground between Ray Price, Hank Williams and the Rolling Stones-Johnny Cash and Elvis.  Diamonds & Dirt, considered the definitive album of the new traditionalist movement, was country's first album to yield five #1 songs.  His acclaimed autobiographical album, The Houston Kid, released in 2001, marked a milestone for Crowell as he broke free from the constraints of writing songs for commercial radio-shifting his focus instead to crafting and recording music that reflected a new chapter in his life and career.  

Crowell's memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, was published by Knopf in January of 2011. 

June 29, 2012 - Sam Bush with special guest Lera Lynn

Called the King of Telluride and the King of Newgrass, Bush has been honored by the Americana Music Association and the International Bluegrass Music Association.

Mandolin player, three-time national junior fiddle champion, Grammy-winning vocalist and co-founder of the seminal Newgrass Revival band, Bush has had a hand in altering the landscape of American music and influenced at least a couple of generations of instrumentalists in the meantime.  Newgrass Revival, with its amalgamation of bluegrass, jazz, rock, reggae and blues, continues to live large in the minds and hearts of fans of progressive bluegrass the world over.  Sam Bush has played with a staggering array of artists, including Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson, Garth Brooks, Bela Fleck, Charlie Haden and Lyle Lovett, Del McCoury and Edgar Meyer, to name only a few.

At Frist Friday, he will be joined by up-and-coming Americana singer and award-winning songwriter Lera Lynn who, in 2011, won the Christ Austin Songwriting Competition held at Merlefest.

July 27, 2012 - Band of Heathens

Since emerging as a new live band from Austin, the Band of Heathens has toured relentlessly with their live shows and built a devoted following that has landed them on some of the finest stages in music, including Bonnaroo, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Lollapalooza and the Austin City Limits television show and the Austin City Limits Festival.