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Infinity Hall’s Backyard Music Series presents Kerri Powers, Atlas Gray & Black River Union with Atlas Gray

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Infinity Hall’s Backyard Music Series features the region’s finest artists, at a price you can afford!! For our second installment, we’ve selected up-and-comers Black River Union, Atlas Gray and Kerri Powers . If you haven’t seen these artists yet, here’s your chance to acquaint yourself with the best sounds around!! If you have seen them before, you’ve never seen all of three share one stage on one night. Either way, you don’t wanna miss this one, it’s a bargain in so many ways!!

Kerri Powers

Connect with this artist:

www.kerripowers.com

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Artist Bio

“Powers is something of an anomaly.  She’s like the music scene’s version of the protagonist in the film, “The Natural,” having spent the “prime of her career” out of the spotlight -- in her case, tending to her family -- only to return from absolutely nowhere to wow and amaze.  Where Robert Redford made all the fans sit up and cheer with mammoth home runs, Kerri Powers is going to make people listening to this album do the exact same thing with exceptional song writing and equally exceptional delivery.” -- Chip McCabe, Lonesome Noise

Kerri Powers was destined to be a musician from the start. While most kids her age spent their childhoods following frivolous pursuits, she spent hers reading, painting, writing stories, learning guitar and composing her first songs at the tender age of nine. By her own admission, she was a shy child, but her creative pursuits gave her an appreciation of the larger world around her. Those instincts seemed to have been bred naturally, given that there was undeniable talent embedded in her genes. Bing Crosby was a distant relative on her father’s side, while her mother’s relatives were said to be descended from author Herman Melville. Notably too, Powers’ paternal grandmother made her living by playing piano and providing musical accompaniment for silent films, making her a show business standby back in the day.

Not surprisingly then, Powers was encouraged to pursue her own creative ambitions while still in adolescence. Her mother, a talented visual artist in her own right, owned an extensive record collection, which gave Kerri her initial exposure to irrefutable icons like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and John Prine. “I would sit in a wicker rocking chair by the record player and sing along to the songs,” she recalls. “I remember hearing John Prine’s “Hello in There” for the first time and feeling that something magical was happening. It was a momentary yet memorable trip to a sad but hopeful place of lonely old faces.”

Powers started playing professionally in local coffeehouses throughout her native New England, and went on to release several well-received albums in the new millennium, culminating in Faith in the Shadows in 2009. Two of her songs were later featured on the Fox series “Rescue Me” starring Denis Leary. After taking time off to get married and raise her young son she returned to performing, counting among her credits the Boston Folk Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, and Telluride Bluegrass Festival, among other prestigious gatherings. She’s also toured Europe while opening for Canadian singer/songwriter Fred Eaglesmith in The Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

This flurry of activity recently culminated in a new self-titled album, her first effort in five years. With a track list that includes eight searing self-penned songs along with incisive covers of Janis Ian’s “Jesse,” and The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody,” it ranks as Powers’ most accomplished collection to date. “The recording was a last minute decision,” she recalls. “The idea was to cut a couple of tracks simply to see how it would go.

The results – a sound that’s homespun, sparse and understated -- provide another ideal showcase for Powers’ intimate and expressive song writing, as well as her adroit ability to interpret the works of others.

Fully reenergized and excited about rebooting her career, Powers is looking forward to a return to touring both here and overseas. Clearly, the creative spark that was ignited so early on is fully fuelled once again.

- Lee Zimmerman

Atlas Gray

Connect with this artist:

www.atlasgray.com

Rumor has it that Sir Tembo (headmaster of a school for wayward boys) took five of his most troubled enrollees on a safari to the Serengeti….a well meaning attempt to further their worldly awareness.

Soon after their arrival, and in the depths of late night darkness, the boys deceptively abandoned the tutorial voyage and scurried out of camp in pursuit of their own cultural expedition.  Haplessly, a few hours into the next morning’s light they were tragically abducted by native tribesman, caged in the center of a remote village and left with little to ponder less their eventual fate.

In no more than a week’s time, our captives frightfully witnessed a merciless midnight raid on the village by a band of rogue elephants.  Dubbed by the tribe’s elders as “The Grays” and their leader as “Atlas” (a bull beyond massive proportions) the pachydermic gang raged havoc and destruction beyond imaginable description.  The boys additionally discovered the attack was somewhat common and the tribe, obviously, had yet to devise the means to avert their repetitive tormentors.

Quick minded, the boys drew from the age old adage that “music calms the most savage of beasts” and devised an ingenious scheme that would hopefully provide a mutually beneficial resolve.  Incorporating hollowed logs and materials stripped from their penal stockade, they hastily fashioned crude percussive and string instruments, composed a repertoire of mesmerizing melodies with intertwined pulsating rhythms……and then sat in wait.

Upon the next assault, the boys immediately began to perform with unbridled passion and conviction.  Low and behold, the ingenious plan proved to be astonishingly effective….the bull became joyously hypnotized and the herd followed suit.  The plunder became a party and sublime harmony prevailed.

Above the most imaginable expectation, the elders were so gratefully impressed they not only released their captives, but also pulled bartered resources to provide the lads’ safe passage back to the US.

Well, you can easily imagine where the continuation of this fable leads us.  Being wayward, devilish and in lieu of desiring conservative careers, the boys (Alex, John, Adam, Andy and Stoltz) were surrealistically convinced.  Music was undeniably their salvation and taking this magical band to the street was nothing short of inevitable destiny.

So what to call the new adventure?

The unanimous decision….ATLAS GRAY.

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Black River Union

Connect with this artist:

www.blackriverunion.com

“Black River Union reminds me of some of my favorite bands from the dawn of alt-rock, when competent, smart rock musicians re-discovered that they didn't have to conform to the standards set to relegating them to one demographic and marketing to just a fraction of the listening population. Black River Union has taken this challenge by the reins, and in the memory of so many bands past and present, has combined alternative rock and pop sound with contemporary metal and hard rock, lightened with lilting piano lines and awesome vocal work.”   - ThirdHalfMusic.com

 

With each member coming from different backgrounds of playing - influenced by rock, pop, metal, and progressive - these four mesh their writing styles together to create a range that varies from simplistic rock to more progressive songs utilizing multiple tempos and odd time signatures.

 

Black River Union began recording their debut EP “Silver off the Vine” at Silver Bullet Studios in Burlington, CT in April of 2015. This afforded them the opportunity to work with the studio's owner and engineer Greg Thomas, not only an accomplished producer, but also currently a member of progressive metalcore band Misery Signals. The album was released independently in the fall of 2015. The band is already back in the studio working on a follow up single and have plans to record a second EP in the summer of 2016.

 

With the release of “Silver Off the Vine” behind them, their main focus now is to perform as often as they can to continue to gain a strong, loyal fan base. Black River Union is determined to prove themselves to be one of the best up and coming bands Connecticut has to offer.

 

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