Headliners anticipate reunion at Dancing Rabbit Music Fest | Local News

Performing in McAlester at the Dancing Rabbit Audio Pageant will be like a reunion for some of the headlining artists at the party.

Oklahoma’s personal Travis Linville and fellow artist Joe Pug are doing together with John Moreland, an additional Oklahoman, at the Dancing Rabbit Audio Competition on Saturday, May perhaps 7, in Downtown McAlester. Audio on the main stage for the cost-free live performance collection is established to start off around 6 p.m., organizers stated. The headliners will abide by a sequence of youth performers who will play from 2 until about 6 p.m. inside a tent at the web page.

Linville said he’s wanting ahead to viewing the other musicians.

“I have been on tour with Joe Pug and with John Moreland, too,” Linville claimed. “I’m fired up to see my friends.”

It’s not only his fellow musicians who Linville’s looking ahead to looking at in McAlester.

“I have a ton of pals in Southeastern Oklahoma,” reported Linville, who grew up in Chickasha. He figures many of them will be attending the Dancing Rabbit Songs Pageant, in which he and the other headliners will conduct on an out of doors phase alongside Choctaw Avenue in between Third Road and Fifth Street.

Pug, speaking to the Information-Capital from his house in Maryland, spoke of how he is anxious to see his longtime mates, Linville and Moreland.

“I toured yrs ago, with Hayes Carll,” Pug said, recalling how Linville played direct guitar for Carll through that tour. “That is when I obtained to know Travis,” he mentioned. There are not a lot of singer-songwriters who engage in lead guitar as effectively as Linville, he extra.

“I am looking forward to seeing Travis and seeing John,” Pug mentioned. The prospect to share the phase with fellow musicians who are also pals, is one of the items Pug likes about out of doors festivals.

“Exactly where else am I heading to run into these fellas? And in McAlester, Oklahoma, of all areas,” mentioned Pug.

This year’s inaugural session of the Dancing Rabbit Music Pageant will have up to 7 food items vehicles, with beverages and beverages available from other distributors and corporations in the space, which includes Spaceship Earth Coffee and Prairie Artisan Ales. The pageant is established to commence Saturday, soon immediately after completion of the Armed Forces Working day Parade, which starts at 10 a.m.

Subsequent the parade, a U.S. Army rock band consisting of customers of the 77th Armed forces Band, are set to complete in a tent at the pageant site. They will be followed by a series of youth performers who will participate in in the tent from 2 until finally about 6 p.m., right before the headliners acquire the phase.

Pug has played on some of the most famous festival stages at any time, which includes the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island and the Cambridge Folk Pageant in England.

A person writer reported he continues in the archetype of song in the tradition of John Prine and Bob Dylan. Pug would not make that comparison himself, but he’ll take the compliment.

“As considerably as I’m concerned, individuals are the most significant shoes to fill,” he explained. He says he is not on that stage, but in that custom. His song, “One particular of A lot of,” from his  album, “The Terrific Despiser,” is a lover favorite. Yet another beloved, “Crescent Bridge,” is from his 2021 album, “The Diving Solar.” In among those two albums, he launched “The Flood in Color” in 2019.

Pug works by using a fingerpicking model, he calls Travis-finding, dependent on the type of Oklahoma’s Merle Travis, in which the thumb plays the baseline, although finding a melodic accompaniment with his fingers on the better strings.

Speaking of melody, numerous of Pug’s tunes take a melodic convert. He credits that to grunge music, saying several of the music Kurt Cobain wrote for Nirvana had been more melodic than the relaxed listener may possibly detect.

Meanwhile, Linville’s just back again in Oklahoma, following carrying out previous week as a guitarist with Hayes Carll at the Stagecoach New music Pageant, held April 29 through May 1 in Indio, California and attended by a lot more than 80,000 people. A multi-instrumentalist, Linville still  backs up other musicians when not performing as a headliner himself.

Linville performs on all sorts of stages, such as concert stages, bars and nightclubs. He’s even carried out gigs in people’s backyards whilst on tour. Is there just about anything special he likes about accomplishing at festivals?

“Most people can appear,” Linville stated. “It feels a lot more neighborhood-driven.”

Although Linville often performs solo, he is bringing his comprehensive band to McAlester, which features Ryan Jones on piano, Andrew Bones on drums, and Johnny Carlton on bass. Linville will conduct guide guitar responsibilities himself.

He released his most latest album in 2021, producing the lead-off one “I’m Continue to In this article” with Nashville songwriter Natalie Hemby, of The Highwomen. “I am Nevertheless Right here” was manufactured by one more Oklahoman, JD McPherson.

“Natalie and I have a good deal of mutual mates,” Linville said, “I experienced a likelihood to meet up with her and we wrote tunes as we had been composing the album. It ended up staying the title keep track of.”

A person of Linville’s most important musical inspirations came in 1999 when enjoying as a guide guitarist in state singer Claude Gray’s band at one particular of Willie Nelson’s picnics. Gray’s hits included “Loved ones Bible” — a track Willie had penned early his occupation. He offered the track outright in Houston in 1960 for $50 ahead of he moved to Nashville and found greater accomplishment.

When Gray began singing the tune at Willie’s picnic, a young Linville was surprised when Willie waked out, joining Gray and the rest of the band onstage.

It need to have been inspiring for a youthful musician to out of the blue findi himself backing up Willie Nelson.

“I was 21 many years previous,” Linville mentioned. “For that to take place at that time, it was actually overwhelming. It built me want to make my first album.”

Because that to start with album, Linville has launched an acclaimed overall body of operate. Other albums involve “Up Forward,” “Living in the Entrance Space,” “See You About,” “Sunlight or Moon,” “Appears of the Avenue” and “Out on the Wire.” Some of his most popular songs include things like “Blue Sky Certain,” “Needs” and “Last Phone.”

Pug, in the meantime, strategies to perform cuts from his very first album, “Messenger” as perfectly as his most current ones. He will probable throw in a deal with or so, perhaps one by John Prine, he claimed — even though he designs to hold out and see how the spirit moves him for the duration of his McAlester overall performance.

He reported this will be his 1st time in McAlester and he’s very substantially seeking forward to executing at the Dancing Rabbit Competition.

As for Linville, what can all those attending the Dancing Rabbit Audio Pageant assume throughout his Saturday night efficiency?

“They can count on a great time,” stated Linville.

 Contact James Beaty at [email protected].