The House Must Win began in 2005 with Mick Flannery's debut album, Evening Train. Flannery was a 20-year-old student at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa in Cork City when a college project led him to write songs around fictional characters. "Lacking life experience, and struggling for lyrical content, I decided to write songs to a story," he says. More than a decade in development, the stage adaptation pairs the original songs, some with subtle lyric changes, with just as many new ones. Music Supervisor Liam Robinson (Hadestown) arranged all of them. "It's not merely a song," Flannery says, "but also a cog in a machine." In January 2026, ahead of the musical's premiere, Flannery recorded the full album at Monique Studios in Cork with longtime collaborator Christian Best, and Robinson produced. The record moves between dark, swampy bar-room numbers, stomping anthems and delicate ballads. It features a band of Ireland's finest musicians: Matthew Berrill, Killian Browne, Niamh Varian-Barry, Dan Bodwell and Dominic Mullan. The guest vocalists are Grammy winner Anaïs Mitchell, Jeffrey Martin, Jenn Grant, Lisa Hannigan, Susan O'Neill, Marybeth O'Mahony, Yvonne Daly and cast member Tabitha Smyth. Flannery's brothers Brian, David and Eamonn make their recording debut on "Take It on the Chin." The story follows two brothers, Frank and Luther, who are both in love with Grace. She chose the younger, wilder brother but finds herself drawn to the older, steadier one as he plans his escape from their small town. Grace's father, Ray, pushes her toward a marriage that would raise the family's social standing. The brothers are haunted by their absent father, and each is capable of bringing his ghost back to life. Across 20 songs of Flannery's signature storytelling, the album completes a world he has spent two decades building. It's an evergreen record that confirms his place as a master of his craft.

Lawrence Rothman, who was born in St. Louis, MO, is a singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, CA. After a series of 4 EP’s Rothman’s debut album “The Book of Law” was released on October 13, 2017 via Downtown Records/Interscope. The album was produced by Lawrence Rothman and Justin Raisen (Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira), and featured contributions from Angel Olsen, Kim Gordon, Marissa Nadler, Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses, Nick Zinner, Charli XCX, Kristin Kontrol, among others. Rothman’s sophomore album “Good Morning, America” is to be released June 25, 2021. Guests include Lucinda Williams, Amanda Shires, Marissa Nader, Girlpool, Katie Pruitt, Caroline Rose, Mary Lattimore, and members of Thundercats Band. The album was produced by Rothman and recorded in Missouri, Tennesse and California during the summer of 2020. As a producer and songwriter, Lawrence has worked with Amanda Shires, Margo Price, Charli XCX, Vince Gill, Angel Olsen, Kali Uchis, Girl in Red, Alison Mosshart, Soccer Mommy, SASAMI, Marissa Nadler, Kim Gordon, Courtney Love, Cherry Glazzer, MNDR, Bleached and more. In 2010, Lawrence scored the feature film The Runaways, a biopic on the Joan Jett fronted female rock band The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. In 2017, Lawrence scored the News Emmy nominated New York Times “Great Performers” short film series starring Nicole Kidman, Timothy Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Jake Gyllenhaal and Daniel Kaluuya. In 2018, Lawrence scored a short film on the life of occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger for Gucci and Systems Magazine. Additionally, Lawrence has scored various short films for Mercedes, BMW, Levi’s, Alexander McQueen, TATE Modern, Barbican Centre, GUCCI and MAC Cosmetics. In 2020 Lawrence produced, wrote and music supervised the acclaimed “The Turning” soundtrack for Dreamworks Pictures. The female led soundtrack featured 12 original songs by various artist including Mitski, Alice Glass, Courtney Love, Kim Gordon, MUNA, Pale Waves and Cherry Glazzer. An avid writer Lawrence’s first novel “Postmortem Bliss” released in 2007 was turned into a short film for Turner Classics and directed by Floria Sigismondi. The book was based on their life growing up in the 90’s in the suburban midwest struggling with gender identity and addiction in a small conservative town. Rothman identified as gender fluid at young age. A collection of poetry titled “Not A Son” (and other spews) was released on Sept 18, 2021 on Apocrypha Press.

Every great song is essentially a secret told to a stranger. And when the truth is clear, the stranger recognizes themselves in it. Mary Bragg describes the title Secrets to Strangers as a "zoomed-out representation" of her latest release, a collection of deeply personal stories offered to the outside world. "All these spaces are invitations to share a truth for the sake of connecting your own experience to another human being's," Bragg says. Across twelve songs, she approaches memory, longing, and self-acceptance with grace and lyrical finesse. Recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, a legendary room that captured landmark records by Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and countless others, one gets the sense, as more of Bragg's songs go to tape, that what is taking place will be a major career breakthrough. The hooky "Kid Flamingo," the bossa-tinged "I Like It Here," a poetic embrace of life's messiness: all come to life with co-producers Ben Tanner and John Paul White, stretching Americana to include indie rock, pop, early '80s radio vibes, and southern soul. "It's geographically neutral," Bragg says. "I like that it's not trying to satisfy the bounds of one genre." A dream team of players including Chad Gamble (Jason Isbell's 400 Unit), bassist Zac Cockrell (Alabama Shakes), and guitarist/keyboardist Jay Gonzalez (Drive-By Truckers) helped build the album alongside collaborators Maia Sharp, Mindy Smith, and John Paul White. Bragg has quietly become one of Americana's most admired artists. Praised by World Café for her "refined, sumptuously melancholy take on Southern storytelling," Bragg has opened for the Indigo Girls, The Secret Sisters, Caroline Spence & more. Known for her generosity as a collaborator, she has become a central figure in a community of artists who continue to lift each other up.

Mindy Smith is a Long Island-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter whose unmistakable voice and emotionally direct songwriting have made her one of Americana music’s most beloved artists. With a clear and honest passion for Americana, folk, pop, jazz, rock, blues, and roots music, Smith has built a career defined by songs that are intimate, timeless, and deeply vulnerable. Smith first reached an international audience in 2003 with her haunting rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” for the star-studded tribute album Just Because I ’m a Woman, later performing the song with Parton on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Her acclaimed debut album, One Moment More, followed on Vanguard Records and introduced signature songs including “Come to Jesus,” which became her biggest commercial hit, earning rare cross-format airplay at country, AAA, and adult contemporary radio, while reaching No. 32 on Billboard’s Adult Top 40 chart. Its reach spoke to the song’s emotional pull far beyond any single genre. An Americana Music Association award winner and Dove-nominated songwriter, Smith has sold more than 750,000 albums and singles and amassed more than 175 million streams to date. Her songs have been recorded by Alison Krauss, Lee Ann Womack, Faith Hill, Amy Grant, and more. She has performed with or toured alongside Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, John Prine, Nickel Creek, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She has also appeared more than 20 times on the Grand Ole Opry and performed at major festivals including Newport Folk Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, MerleFest, Cambridge Folk Festival, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, and South by Southwest. Smith’s original songs have also reached millions through film, television, and advertising, with music featured in a Super Bowl campaign for Michael Hill, the major motion picture Our Idiot Brother, and television favorites including Grey’s Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries, Switched at Birth, Six Feet Under, Smallville, Summerland, Nashville, and many more. She also wrote and recorded the theme song for the national PBS series Shelter Me as a gift to the cause, reflecting her deep personal connection to animal rescue and advocacy. In recent years, Smith crossed into the country mainstream as the featured vocalist on Kenny Chesney’s charting single “Better Boat,” while remaining rooted in the genre-blurring singer-songwriter sound that has defined her career. Chesney described her voice as bringing “calm” and “a sense that it’s all going to be all right,” adding, “it’s like an angel‘ …genreless.’” Her latest studio album, Quiet Town, brought one of Americana’s most treasured voices back into the spotlight, adding new depth to a catalog already filled with fan favorites. A Mindy Smith concert is an intimate, emotional, and often surprisingly funny evening. Audiences can expect the songs they love, selections from Quiet Town, stories from a remarkable career, and the kind of vocal performance that can make a room go completely still. A good rule of thumb: bring a tissue. You may need it for the sad songs, the beautiful ones, and the laughter in between.