The McCrary Sisters perform gospel music that combines traditional and modern elements and draws on their love of Americana, blues, rock, and R&B. Their unbridled love of singing and desire to promote hope, love, and healing are at the heart of all of their work and performances (and dancing). Ann, Regina, Alfreda, and Deborah, daughters of the late Rev. Samuel McCrary, a founding member of the renowned gospel group The Fairfield Four, grew up in Nashville amidst music, artists, community, and faith. The daughters were brought up in harmony, singing in their father's church and at home. The sisters shared in their family legacy during their formative years by performing alongside performers like Bob Dylan, Elvis, Isaac Hayes, and Stevie Wonder. They also had many individual and collective successes. The McCrary Sisters, which they formally established in 2011, have since collaborated on songs or performed live with a number of well-known musicians, including Delbert McClinton, Black Keys, Martina McBride, Eric Church, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Jonny Lang, Robert Randolph, The Winans, Donnie McClurkin, Rosanne Cash, Carrie Underwood, Hank Williams Jr., Dr. John, Widespread Panic, Sheryl Crow, Maren Morris, Gregg Allman and many more.

At any given time, you’re likely to find Jim Lauderdale making music, whether he’s laying down a new track in the studio or working through a spontaneous melody at his home in Nashville. And if he’s not actively crafting new music, he’s certainly thinking about it. “It's a constant challenge to try to keep making better and better records, write better and better songs. I still always feel like I'm a developing artist,” he says. This may be a surprising sentiment from a man who’s won two Grammys, released 34 full-length albums, and taken home the Americana Music Association’s coveted Wagonmaster Award. But forthcoming album Game Changer is convincing evidence that the North Carolina native is only continuing to hone his craft. Operating under his own label, Sky Crunch Records, for the first time since 2016, Lauderdale recorded Game Changer at the renowned Blackbird Studios in Nashville, co-producing the release with Jay Weaver and pulling from songs he’d written over the last several years. “There's a mixture on this record of uplifting songs and, at the same time, songs of heartbreak and despair—because that's part of life as well,” he says. “In the country song world especially, that's always been part of it. That’s real life.” Lauderdale would know: He’s been a vital part of the country music ecosystem since 1991, when he released his debut album and began penning songs for an impressively long roster of country music greats. “When I was a teenager wanting to be a bluegrass banjo player, I never would have imagined that I would get to work with people like Ralph Stanley, Robert Hunter, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and John Oates ,” he muses. “Getting to work with them inspires me greatly to this day, and I know it always will.” ,” he muses. “Getting to work with them inspires me greatly to this day, and I know it always will.” From rollicking guitar riffs on “That Kind of Life (That Kind of Day)” to the slow, sweet harmonies of “I’ll Keep My Heart Open For You,” Game Changer shows off Lauderdale’s ingenuity as a singer, songwriter, and producer—while reestablishing him as one of Americana’s most steadfast champions. "Country music is constantly evolving, but I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for steel guitar and a Telecaster," he says. "I have done my job on this record if people who love classic country feel like they can put it on, or have it in their collection, and it would fit right in." Respecting the past doesn’t mean he’s not breaking new ground. “We’re All We’ve Got,” a co-write with Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris, offers a timely message about healing torn relationships at home and across the world. And “Friends Again,” a grinning number about rekindling a friendship, is fresh and forward-looking. At every turn, Lauderdale’s collaborative spirit and genuine love for the creative process reveal themselves in thoughtful, well-crafted songs sure to stand the test of time. "When everything works right, it's just magical to be able to hear them back," he says. "You feel, at least for those three-and-a-half minutes, like life makes sense.”

Miss Jackie Wilson has one of those voices that you will never forget. She began singing when she was three years old, encouraged by her mother's love of music. An amalgam of Ann Peebles, Aretha Franklin, Joss Stone, Chaka Khan, and a touch of Whitney Houston may be heard in her songs. Jackie will touch and inspire your soul when she sings, not just sing to it. Jackie was notably one of the Top 40 American Idol Contestants in Season 10. She impressed judges Steven Tyler, Randy Jackson, and Jennifer Lopez as well as audiences throughout the world. Jackie was the featured performer for four years at the Bourbon Street Blues & Boogie Bar in Nashville, Tennessee's famed Printer's Alley. She contributed to creating a fantastic Saturday night spectacle, one for which people traveled to Nashville specifically. Jackie has had the chance to perform for some renowned artists, including, to name a few, Al Green, Chaka Khan, Michael McDonald, Jonny Lang, and Bonnie Bramlett. Everyone concurs that she has a gift you don't want to miss! Hold on to your seat as Miss Jackie Wilson enters the stage; you're about to embark on a musical journey that will bring you back to the feelings music gave you years ago while also bringing something fresh, genuine, and completely unique to the stage.

  Sean McConnell has just one tattoo — his wife’s name. It represents a commitment, a sign that’s more than skin-deep. But on the cover of the Nashville singer-songwriter’s new album, SKIN, art and symbolism bloom like tattoo ink itself. An open palm beacons listeners, itself a symbol of his faith, while emblems of Earth and nature, faith and love serve as tangible and metaphorical guideposts along McConnell’s renewed musical journey.   “SKIN, to me, is kind of where I'm at on my journey with being comfortable in your skin, in your physical body. Divinity is in flesh and bone, not just in heaven somewhere, someday,” McConnell says. “Lyrically, the humanness of skin is obviously apparent, but I'm always attracted to this meeting of body and spirit, flesh and spirit.”   As McConnell crossed the threshold of 40 years old, he began to mine the depths of his identify as an artist, father, husband, and human. As such, many of the songs on the 11-track LP seek to find a sense of grounding in the chaos and change. The beauty of SKIN, however, is that McConnell manages to explore life’s paradoxes without needing to find answers. In fact, he hopes that the lyrics leave topics open ended for listeners to discover their own meanings.   The songs themselves, grounded in steady folk-rock practices and uplifted through purposeful piano lines and swelling strings, leave plenty of room for such external observation and internal introspection to shine. “Demolition Day,” which chugs at a steady, rocking pace, is a reckoning song that stands out from the rest of the record — “a ‘come to Jesus’ moment, as some say here in the South,” he says — that is as much about his understated sobriety as it is about other routines that need to be reassessed after 20 years in the music industry. Other songs, however, are as much for his loved ones, as himself. The sparse “Never Enough,” is an ode to his wife and soulmate Dr. Mary Susan McConnell. “The West Was Never Won,” the shortest, yet most affecting track on SKIN, encourages their daughter with disabilities, Abiella, to let her heart and her soul guide her through this life. It’s a flickering faith that also guides songs like “Divinity” and “New Sons and Daughters.”   After 10 solo records — as well as countless works as a sought-after collaborator with country stars like Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, and Martina McBride, indie rock acts like Bethany Cosentino (Best Coast) and Michigander, pop-rock groups like Plain White T’s, and on hit television shows like Nashville — McConnell has reached another of life’s plateaus. Such steadiness and consistency can be unnerving, though, especially as an artist still grasping for growth and greater truths. This contradiction, of seeing how far       one’s come, while recognizing that it’s only part of the journey, is exemplified on “Older Now,” as he sings, “But I’ve got a ways to go / And in 20 years or so / Oh, this man I’ve come to know / He will seem to me a child.”    Another element of SKIN, at once seemingly obvious and revelatory, is the process of collaboration and the development of community. McConnell recruited longtime friend, bassist, producer, and engineer Justin Tocket, as well as members of his live touring band — keyboardist and producer Ben Alleman, drummer Logan Todd, and guitarist/singer-songwriter Taylor McCall — to his own Silent Desert Studio four times over the course of a year to make the record.   “When I listen to it now, I just hear all of these musicians — and now best friends — who I've been playing with for 10 years,” McConnell says. It sounds like it's more of a band record, more the story of a collective than just me.”   Ultimately, SKIN serves as a reintroduction of McConnell, in and out of his music. It’s about, “discovering that the journey inward, underneath the skin, is truly more expansive, perilous, and enlightening than any journey outward.”