Ben Sollee

Kentucky musician and composer Ben Sollee, has been blurring boundaries with his musical style and career for nearly two decades – his latest album, Long Haul (2024) is no exception. Drawing on tonal influences from the American and global south, Sollee’s vocals and unique cello style thread through each track binding seemingly disparate chapters of his journey – the Long Haul.

After his last album in 2017, Sollee took a break from touring to grow his family and deepen community connections in Louisville, KY. Now a father of three, Sollee has leaned into his work as a composer; scoring films such as LAND from director Robin Wright, and Maggie Morre(s), a John Slattery film featuring Tina Fey and Jon Hamm. He also scored the podcast series Unreformed, which was recently nominated for a Peabody Award. Outside of music, Sollee helped launch the non-profit Canopy, which supports Kentucky businesses positively impacting their communities and planet.

Like so many, the COVID-19 pandemic years, which Sollee refers to as “the great pause,” brought loss and grief. The deaths of his mentor Jon Rieger, his father Bob Sollee, and his long-time musical partner Jordon Ellis presented him with opportunities for reflection and growth. This in turn, gives the new record a sense of buoyancy, a feeling of rising out of a depth, seven years coming.

The title track “Long Haul” tells the story of Sollee’s nearly two year struggle with long-COVID. The lyrics paint in broad strokes and are relatable to anyone who’s been forced – for whatever reason – to shift their relationship to their body. He sings, “I didn’t know how rich I was until this poverty,” lilting up to a high note letting us know he’s embraced and grown from the experience. “I realized I had a very exploitative relationship with my body and my creativity,” says Sollee. “I realized the most radical thing you can do is to care for yourself; not in some optimized, individualistic way, but as an aspect of nature and society” Serving as the album’s title, “Long Haul” takes on a universal meaning as a journey that we’re all on together.

While working on the record, Sollee lived by the mantra, “show our fingerprints,” referencing the guidance of NY Times tech reporter Kevin Roose in his book Futureproof. In this age of automation and generative technologies, Sollee chose to employ breathy woodwinds, choirs, tactile hand percussion, and his signature cello style, all of which shine through in the Dolby ATMOS Spatial Audio version of the album (a first for Sollee). Evoking the music of Paul Simon, there is a forward momentum to the songs that creates a sense of journey. And this traveling groove comes through on key songs like “Misty Miles” and “Under the Spell”, both of which explore the friction of being human in the rush of technology and consumerism. The refrain “When will enough be enough?” in Misty Miles is sung over the smooth, rhythmic cadence of bicycling, juxtaposing imagery of “crooked live oaks” with Charleston, South Carolina’s more artificial landscapes.

Both of these songs give an honest description of how Sollee relates to his work, accomplishments, family and community. “I’m constantly trying to let go of all of these ambitions and desires… just be present with my family, with nature…and to be present where I am in life.”

While many of the songs on Long Haul ask questions, the track “One More Day ” makes a plea. “It’s a love letter,” Sollee explains “My greatest hope for this song is that it can be shared in times of crisis, maybe when someone you know is toeing the line of that irreversible choice: ending their life.” In February of 2023, Sollee lost his long-time musical brother and close friend Jordon Ellis to suicide. The two had recorded and toured together since 2009. The idea for “One More Day” came to Sollee as he walked through the Louisville airport for the first time without his travel companion. In his words, “His spirit was everywhere. I realized, no matter where I went, the memory of him was going to be there… pretty much every airport and venue, I’ve walked through and played with him.” The lyrics, rich with descriptive imagery of their travels together, ride the song’s distinct percussive groove, “a strange groove” as Sollee describes it. It was inspired by free-range jams on and off stage with Ellis that explored Tejano, Soca, and Caribbean musical influences, full of buoyancy and joy.

Without Ellis as his percussive and collaborative keystone, Sollee found himself creatively adrift while writing the record. But over time, he viewed it as an opportunity for growth and to explore new collaborative relationships. This, and Sollee’s desire to bring hand-percussion to the album led him to multi-instrumentalist, Patrick Duke Graney.

Other creatives featured on the album include Grammy nominated Jason Clayborn and the Atmosphere Changers, Stuart Bogie who arranged and performed the winds and horns, bassist Alana Rocklin, of STS9, long-time friend Dan Dorff on keys and drums, and multi-instrumentalist Brandon Coleman. Kentucky-based artist Ceirra Evans painted the album cover. The image features a man sauntering along a winding path through Eyvind Earle-esque woods. It conveys a sense of wonder and flow, similar to the record, with the man distinctly in the middle of his journey – constantly arriving, but not yet finishing – on a long haul.

BEE TAYLOR

is a once-in-a-generation talent whose live shows have become legendary for those who have attended them. Now, her debut studio album will allow the world to witness that power. 

Onstage, Bee Taylor is equal parts lioness and songbird. Sometimes she stalks the space, a mesmerizing performer who is dancing, singing, playing instruments, and completely engaging with the audience that surges closer to the stage, eager to be near the fire that burns so bright there. On other songs she is commanding as she stands still at center stage, belting out a ballad that hushes the most raucous rooms.  Music-lovers leave her shows as newly converted evangelists, encouraging others to see her. That word of mouth has traveled and now many await the release of Twenty Seven, which drops November 15.

Some might doubt that such a ferocious live show can be captured accurately on a studio album but on Twenty Seven Taylor draws in the listener and won’t let go, with eleven concise, sexy, and powerful songs, all written by her, and delivered with sonic force by her energetic band and the producing skills of Grammy-nominated Duane Lundy, who has also worked with artists such as Sturgill Simpson, Ringo Starr, Jim James, and others.

Taylor says she leaned on Lundy to capture the sonic landscape she had in mind. “He is a master of texturing and subtle details,” she says. “All I asked from him is that it keep a kind of art nouveau femininity in its sound.” 

That feminine expression is important to Taylor, and it reverberates throughout the recording as we are carried through the songs by a series of narrators who deliver the full spectrum of a woman’s desires, joys, and sorrows, whether she’s expressing her deepest romantic hopes and fears on songs like “Ethereal Love”, “Hurt Me” and “Horse Runnin’”, the pining desire of “Down to the Floor” and the Tom Waits-inspired “Hens to Cackle”, or the crowd-pleasing euphemisms of “Peaches”, which has become one of the highlights of her live shows. There’s the deeply moving “Don’t Forget”, a plaintive and vulnerable plea for understanding, “Randy Newman”, which pulls a clever twist by revealing that the narrator is singing to her favorite singers instead of a romantic partner, and the unusual and intoxicating POV of opium on the final slow boil track, “Down in the Den”, which allows Taylor and the stand-out band to exhibit their diverse talents. 

Taylor describes the gathering of songs on Twenty Seven as “an odyssey of human emotions”.

The album never takes a break from its high energy mix of vocals and rich musical arrangements; it is one of those records that you can put on for dancing, a good cry, or a dinner party, managing to put all of Taylor’s immense talents on display. They’re present from the first second of the album, when we hear Taylor playing the opening notes on piano and launching into the title track, which turns the whole notion of the Twenty Seven Club on its head with a rousing mix of strings and horns along with her diverse vocal delivery, which can lurk among the lowest notes or take flight on the highest ones. 

The tireless passion throughout the album reveals a work ethic that was formed for Taylor from a young age. She grew up on a cattle farm in East Texas and bought her first guitar as a teenager by raising piglets that she took to sell at market. When she was thirteen she and her mother would spend their weekends traveling the dusty roads of Texas to play the Opry circuit. “I knew I loved it, but I wasn’t sure if it was what I was meant for,” she says, so she spent time in fervent mediation, crying and asking out loud if her purpose was to be a musician. “Since that time I have never doubted or questioned my purpose, and it has kept the lantern flame burning inside of me, even at times when the rest of life seemed very dark and foggy.”

Taylor says that listening to herself has been an important guiding voice throughout her career, and it’s one that was fostered as a child when her parents showed her how to care for animals. “They taught me how to be guardians for these beings—cows, pigs, goats, horses—who had no voice to tell you when they were hurt, or scared, or in need. You had to be patient and learn their language…and in a similar way I think songs are that for me. I don’t always know how to say I’m hurt, or confused, or afraid, but if I can out those things in a song, it feels like I have a voice that can now be heard.”

By doing so, Taylor has put our own spectrum of emotions on record and Twenty Seven delivers everything one would want in an album, from fun to introspection, songs you can’t help but to dance along to and deliveries that hit you in the gut. Twenty Seven should be played loudly or on earbuds so every artistic choice can be savored.

Taylor’s vocals, which can sometimes contain the same richness of Florence Welch or the delicate yet forceful beauty of Linda Ronstadt, are ultimately always her own, with Taylor inserting her own nuances in a way no one else can. 

Taylor says the rare fear of capturing the energy of their live shows so accurately on a studio album was accomplished largely due to the talents of her band. “Those guys have got my back, and because we’ve played together so much there is an unspoken flow that happens (for us),” she says. “I think I most love that they are all identifiable in their playing voice. Very grateful for that crew.” 

Her feelings about performing live can also be applied to the experience of listening to Twenty Seven: “I just want people to have an experience. I want them to be able to escape whatever they are dealing with, while giving them a space that might help them look at the feelings they’re experiencing. I want them to be free to be themselves. I want them to have feelings of discovery, curiosity, and childlike wonder. I want to give them everything, because they give so much to me. And hopefully they will leave inspired to help others they meet along the way.”

Food & Bar: Our full food and drink menu will be available before and during the show.