Lauren Mitchell w/ Victoria Ginty & Ladyhawke – $10/13

8pm $10/13

Lauren Mitchell The year 2016 was one of large-scale and unexpected change for Tampa Bay area blues and soul vocalistLauren Mitchell. During a tumultuous time in both her personal and professional life, she was given the opportunity to rise from the challenges she was facing and make the album of her career with producer Tony Braunagel. Mitchell took the leap of faith because she is a true student of the blues, a music that’s all about finding a way to transform difficult experiences into something cathartic. The timing was perfect. She had an album to record. That album, “Desire,” is her most fully realized musical statement to date. Through a bold mix of her own original material, songs she hand-picked from the repertoires of her friends, and select covers of tunes first performed by Etta James, Bettye Lavette, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin and Betty Davis, Mitchell tells a blues story that’s been a lifetime in the making. It’s a stylistically varied set of 13 songs expertly recorded by drummer and Grammy-winning producer Tony Braunagel, whose work with Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal andRobert Cray have made him one of today’s most in-demand blues industry professionals. Recorded during a ten-day trip to Los Angeles, Braunagel brought out the best in Mitchell, highlighting every nuance in her powerful vocals and helping her craft an emotionally resonant album that’s destined to go down as one of the year’s highlights. Besides Braunagel, the band features guitarists Johnny Lee Schell and Josh Sklair, keyboardist Jim Pugh, bassist Reggie McBride, sax player Joe Sublett, trumpet player Darrell Leonard, and percussionist Lenny Castro. “The blues is a song of victory,” Mitchell says. “It’s a way to say, ‘I’m over it,’ and now I’m turning it into this beautiful thing that can help someone else heal. That’s what this record is for me.” http://laurenmitchellband.com

w/ Victoria Ginty & Ladyhawke Indie Blues and Roots artist Victoria Ginty is no stranger to tough competition, she was a successful recording artist with BMG Critique Records in Nashville before the contraction of the industry and subsequent folding of her label. Blues fans know that Florida is a hotbed of talent in the genre. The Suncoast Blues Society has sent some of the finest artists to the IBC’s year after year. Selwyn Birchwood was their most recent winner, and they’ve consistently produced semi-finalist. “I didn’t realize how rich the talent in Florida is until I started playing the venues up and down the coasts.” says Ginty. “We are frequently playing the week or day before, or after some of the best Blues artist in the country!”, and Victoria Ginty and Ladyhawke fit the bill! Andy Snipper of Music-News says “She has a terrific voice, loaded with sultry undertones and a sassy edge that sets the hairs on the back of my neck at attention and the band behind her cook like a New Orleans Gumbo jamboree. Seriously, this is Blues and soul of the highest order and her music is classic but not ‘retro’”. Victoria has just finished a new studio Album, “Unfinished Business”, released in May of 2018, of mostly original material. It debuted on the RMR Contemporary Blues Album Charts at #17. Ginty says, “I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a new project with so much original material, and I had great co-writers contributing as well, including Grammy nominated Mike Alan Ward and members of my band.  In Nashville I had some success as a songwriter, but this project has been a lifetime in the making”. You can get a copy at Amazon Music, CD Baby, and Apple iTunes. Victoria is currently working on a Fall/Winter 2018 tour in support of the new record with her band “Victoria Ginty and Ladyhawke”(guitarist Tim Costello, Mike Ivey on Bass, Nick Lauro drums, Wayne Cornelius sax, and hoping to be joined by Chuck Weirich on Trumpet and Rick Toledo on keys). “Unfinished Business” is the second project recorded with Ginty since forming her current band, “Victoria Ginty and Ladyhawke”. The first was a live album recorded at a performance at the Firehouse Cultural Center in Tampa Bay. The expanded  (7 piece) version of the band performed before a sold out crowd featuring Ginty on lead vocals, violin, and acoustic guitar, Tim Costello, vocals and lead guitar, Taylor John, vocals and keyboard, Mike Ivey, vocals and bass guitar, Bob Nesbitt, drums, Chuck Weirich, Trumpet, and Wayne Cornelius, Tenor Sax. “We love having the opportunity to bring out the big band” say Ginty, “Younger audience members often comment how great it is to see and hear ‘real music’ when we perform at venues that can afford our full band, and really this genre benefits from being presented the way it’s meant to be played, organically.” The new studio project also has many tracks featuring horns, Hammond, and percussion as well as pared down to vocals,bass, drums, and guitar. The record (11 tracks, 8 originals) is a story shared by so many of us, of life’s ups and downs, loves and love lost, songs written for adults but without explicit content. Victoria captures the moment, and hearts of the listener with complete charm and sultry vocals. With classical yet invigorated performance, each song is beautifully sweet and makes sadness oh so good…
Joseph Timmons, IndiePulse Music. http://www.victoriagintyandladyhawke.com/