Ron Pope
Troubadour
∙
Los Angeles
Saturday, February 26 at 8 pm PST
Serves Food
Concert Venue
Saturday, February 26 at 8 pm PST
Serves Food
Concert Venue
Entry Options
Details
Description
Ron Pope
website facebook instagram youtube
Inthe months following the release of his critically acclaimed album “BoneStructure,” Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Ron Pope,felt lost. A hometown tornado and a pandemic will do that to a person.Unfortunately for Pope, tangled amongst the rubble was an album release andmonths of touring that abruptly came to a halt. For an album that he pennedwhile reflecting on his own mortality, it seemed almost apropos.
Whilehis career was put on pause, he effectively became a stay-at-home dad. Slowly,his priorities shifted as he realized that not only could this time be lookedat as a gift, but it could be used as an opportunity to reimagine what his lifecould look like in the future. Why sit in the same formulaic cycle? Why seekvalidation from places that didn’t care to give it?
Inasking these questions of himself, he realized that the community his musiccreated was also seeking answers to similar questions. Weekly online showsallowed free conversations and inspired creativity. Pulling from unreleasedsongs and reimagined fan favorites, Pope decided to embark on a year ofconnecting and leaning into the community that has supported him all along.
Itwas time to let go of preconceived notions about what was expected of him. Itwas time to take a step back and focus on what really mattered. It wastime to rebuild.
Aftercompletely scrapping early recording sessions for his album Bone Structure(March 6, 2020), Pope set out on a new path, crafting incredibly candid songsdirected squarely at his newborn daughter. Some songs speak to her directly andmuse on the experience of fatherhood, while others reflect on a personalexperience that has a lesson or a moral. Pope's 2017 release, "Work,"drew comparisons to Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, while also refusing to puthim squarely into one category. Uncompromising and relentless, Pope has evolvedinto one of the top grossing independent acts in the business while garnering alegion of devoted fans the world over. Taking the industry-road-less-traveledand holding fiercely to his independence has proven fruitful for Pope; to date,he has sold out shows on three continents and in more than 20 countries, soldover 2 million digital tracks, has nearly half a billion streams on Spotify,880 million plays on Pandora, 150 million views on Youtube, and has generallycrushed every metric used to measure what is possible for most independentartists. ron pope
Popeis currently in the studio recording his next album, which is set to bereleased in the spring of 2022.
Emily Scott Robinson
website instagram
Coloradosongwriter Emily Scott Robinson beckons to those who are lost, lonely, orlearning the hard way with American Siren,her first album for Oh Boy Records. With hints of bluegrass, country, and folk,the eloquent collection shares her gift for storytelling through her pristinesoprano and the perspective of her unconventional path into music.
“Ithink that the thread running through the album is those things that call tous, and how we can't resist that call,” she says. “It’s about the siren songsthat come up through our lives.”
Thoughnot fully autobiographical, AmericanSiren gracefully blends imagined characters with meaningful people she’sencountered on her journey. Showcasing her ability as a storyteller, “IfTrouble Comes a Lookin’” invents a scene where a vulnerable priest and anunhappy wife meet in an Arkansas hotel bar. “Hometown Hero” is an emotionaltribute to her cousin, a veteran lost to suicide. “Lost Woman’s Prayer” stemsfrom the words of a sage friend she met while traveling abroad, while “EveryDay in Faith” is a personal testament to seeing things through.
As thealbum’s lead track, “Old Gods” carries the siren concept to its fullestpotential with beautiful three-part female harmony; she originally wrote it fora community production of Macbeth.Meanwhile, “Things You Learn the Hard Way” was completed after asking forrelevant scenarios from her social media followers. Yet there’s a part of herown life in every song, too. That’s especially true in “Cheap Seats,” about adistracted waitress who’s bound (someday) to realize her dreams. Robinson wroteit after seeing John Prine and Bonnie Raitt sing together at the RymanAuditorium in Nashville in 2019.
“Ifyou make music that you love that tells the truth, or that tells a story,everything emanates from what you have inside,” she says. “I knew at the corethat I love writing, I love telling stories and I love performing. I knew if Ijust kept doing that, even when I didn't always know what the next step was,that it would continue to grow and that the people who were meant to be a partof that would find me.”
Robinsongrew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and turned toward guitar at age 13,after a summer camp counselor closed out the nights by playing songs by JoniMitchell, Cat Stevens, and Dar Williams every night. She taught herself to playin the early 2000s by printing guitar tabs from the internet and singing to CDsby Indigo Girls and James Taylor. But she didn’t pursue songwriting until afterseeing Nanci Griffith perform in Greensboro in 2007.
“Iwent home and I wrote a really sad, beautiful country song,” Robinsonremembers. “I was like, ‘Wow, that was easy.’ And then I kept trying to writethrough college and I realized, ‘This is not actually that easy.’”
Graduatingfrom Furman University with degrees in history and Spanish, Robinson took a jobas a social worker and translator in 2011. “I moved to Telluride when I was 24to work as a victim's advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexualassault,” she says. “I fell in love with Telluride. That's really where mydream started to be born of doing music.”
In2013, she found kindred spirits at Planet Bluegrass’ The Song School, asongwriting retreat in Lyons, Colorado, where other participants encouraged hertalent, and just as importantly, showed her that being a touring musician couldbe a viable financial option. Before temporarily moving away from Telluride,Robinson went into town and sat on the empty stage where the city’s annualbluegrass festival is staged, promising herself that she’d be singing on itsomeday.
Bolsteredby the positive response of her 2016 debut album, Magnolia Queen, Robinson and her husband packed everything into anRV and hit the road, with Robinson booking her own shows along the way. Thatsame year, her songwriting landed her among the Kerrville New Folk Winners atthe esteemed Texas festival. The winners embarked on an eight-city tour ofTexas that fall, introducing Robinson to an audience that remains invested inher career.
“Thatwas my first time touring,” she says. “It was so much more fun than I thoughtit would be. I'm a homebody and I was anxious about it because I hadn't doneit. I thought it would run me ragged. What I didn't account for was how muchenergy I would get from it and how great it would feel to get in touring shapeand be singing every night and have my stories be super on-point and loving theexperience of finding an audience.”
Robinsonreceived significant acclaim for her 2019 album, Traveling Mercies. And her long-held dream came true later thatyear when she sang on the Telluride Bluegrass Festival stage as the winner ofthe Telluride Troubadour Contest. A poignant standalone single in 2020, titled“The Time for Flowers,” prompted a private Instagram message from Oh BoyRecords’ Jody Whelan, letting her know how meaningful the song was to hisfamily. They struck up a fast friendship, then decided to partner for a releaseof American Siren.
“It isbigger and riskier and more expansive than my last collection,” Robinson says.“It feels like I wrote some songs that I'm going to grow into as I continue toperform them. I actually cried after I finished every one of them. I was sorelieved that I was able to write them. I carved out a little more of my ownexperiences into these songs. They're excavating some deeper stuff than I'vetouched on before. I think they will have a healing quality for people wholisten.”
Forher fans and for herself, this revealing collection proves that heeding thecall to make music was the right decision. "Ever since this dream wasborn, I don't think it's ever left my mind," Robinson says. "I'veworked toward it every day, even when I felt like I was stumbling in the dark.Now I can look back and see how beautifully it all knits together."