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Josh Ritter with John Fullbright with John Fullbright

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Norfolk

DETAILS

Fri, June 20, 2014
Norfolk, CT
Show: 8 PM

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GENRE

Americana / Pop

Josh Ritter

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Artist Bio

Ritter is a renowned singer, songwriter, musician, artist and best-selling author. One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, he has released eleven studio albums including 2019’s widely acclaimed, Fever Breaks, of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.”

In addition to his work as a musician, Ritter is also a national best-selling author, having released two novels to date: 2021’s The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All and 2011’s Bright’s Passage. Released to critical attention, Stephen King wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Bright’s Passage “shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime…This is the work of a gifted novelist.”

“Josh Ritter remains at the top of his game two decades into a highlight-strewn career. He’d be forgiven for loosening his grip, but his hand has never felt surer.”
NPR Music

"Harking back to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and maybe a little Mark Knopfler, Mr. Ritter has always been a slinger of serious ideas and high-flown imagery.”
The New York Times

“Mysterious, melancholy, melodic…and those are only the M’s.”
Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly

John Fullbright

Connect with this artist:

www.johnfullbrightmusic.com

"What's so bad about happy?" John Fullbright sings on the opening track of his new album, 'Songs.' It's a play on the writer's curse, the notion that new material can only come through heartbreak or depression, that great art is only born from suffering.

That plainspoken approach is part of what's fueled the young Oklahoman's remarkable rise. It was just two years ago that Fullbright released his debut studio album, 'From The Ground Up,' to a swarm of critical acclaim. The LA Times called the record "preternaturally self-assured," while NPR hailed him as one of the 10 Artists You Should Have Known in 2012, saying "it's not every day a new artist…earns comparisons to great songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Randy Newman, but Fullbright's music makes sense in such lofty company." The Wall Street Journal crowned him as giving one of the year's 10 best live performances, and the album also earned him the ASCAP Foundation's Harold Adamson Lyric Award. If there was any doubt that his debut announced the arrival of a songwriting force to be reckoned with, it was put to rest when 'From The Ground Up' was nominated for Best Americana Album at the GRAMMY Awards, which placed Fullbright alongside icons like Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, and Lucinda Williams.

"I never came into this with a whole lot of expectations," says Fullbright. "I just wanted to write really good songs, and with that outlook, everything else is a perk. The fact that we went to LA and played "Gawd Above" in front of a star-studded audience [at the GRAMMY pre-tel concert], never in my life would I have imagined that."

But for Fullbright, it hasn't been all the acclaim that means the most to him, but rather his entrance into a community of songwriters whose work he admires.

But just as important to Fullbright as writing is careful editing. "I can write a first verse and a chorus fairly easily, and it's important just to document it at the time and come back to it later," he explains. "That's the labor, when you really get your tools out and figure out how to craft something that's worthwhile."

Fullbright inhabits his songs' narrators completely, his old-soul voice fleshing out complex characters and subtle narratives with a gifted sense of understatement.

The songs also reflect how drastically Fullbright's life has changed since the release of 'From The Ground Up,' which launched him into a rigorous schedule of international touring. "Going Home" finds him appreciating the simple pleasure of heading back to Oklahoma, which he likens to The Odyssey. "When you're gone for so long, once you know you're headed in the right direction to your own bed and your own home, that's one of the greatest feelings you can have," he says. "I Didn't Know" is a song he premiered live at concert hosted by Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, a story he tells still somewhat incredulously, while "When You're Here" is a somber piano love song, and "The One That Lives Too Far" is a raw account of the strain that distance can put on a romantic relationship.

To be sure, 'Songs' has its moments of darkness, tracks born from pain and heartbreak, but for a craftsman like Fullbright, there are few greater joys than carving emotion into music, taking a stab at that lofty goal of immortality through song. It makes him—and his fans—happy, and there's nothing bad about that.