October 6, 2017 – Claire Lynch has long been recognized as a creative force in acoustic music and at the forefront of women who have expanded the bluegrass genre. She has thrice earned the International Bluegrass Music Association’s “Female Vocalist of the Year” title, as well as three GRAMMY nominations. In 2012, Lynch was awarded the United States Artists Walker Fellowship ($50,000) representing innovative and influential artists – cutting-edge thinkers and traditional practitioners from the fields of architecture and design, traditional arts and crafts, dance, literature, music, theater and visual arts.
For decades, Lynch has delighted audiences and enjoyed reverent standing ovations for her shows at prestigious music festivals and theaters around the world. She hascrafted one of the most instantly identifiable sounds in acoustic music infusing classic bluegrass with contemporary folk, country, rock and swing to conjure up a beautiful authenticity – timeless and original.
As a songwriter of inventive and evocative Music Row hits, her songs have been recorded by Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless and others, and she has performed as a backing/harmony vocalist with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris — just to name a few.
While Emmylou Harris hails Lynch as having the “voice of an angel,” Dolly Parton, to whom Lynch has lent harmonies on several records, believes it’s her solo material that truly stands out. Says Parton, “She has one of the sweetest, purest and best lead voices in the music business today.” Named by DigitalJournal.com as one of the “10 best angelic voices of our time” alongside icons like Judy Collins, Sarah McLachlan and Alison Krauss, Lynch is a legend in her own right.
Her latest album, the GRAMMY-nominated North By South, is a collection of tracks paying homage to some of her favorite Canadian songwriters, interpreting songs from “greats above the Great Lakes” like Gordon Lightfoot and Ron Sexsmith and infusing them with her signature acoustic treatment. The result is elegant blend of foreign songs and domestic artistry.
Lynch will be backed by the members of her white-hot Claire Lynch Band featuring soulful, young gun Bryan McDowell (fiddle-mandolin, banjo), twenty-something virtuoso Jarrod Walker (mandolin-guitar) and A-Lister Mark Schatz (bass). She’ll be performing new songs from her recent albums on esteemed roots label Compass Records (called by Billboard Magazine, “one of the greatest independent labels of the last decade”) and favorites from her rich catalog of recordings with Rounder Records.
About the Venue:
“Set in the heart of West Asheville, Isis Theater was built in 1937 as a single screen movie house and screened its last film in 1957. The Isis Theater Family revamped the theater to what is now Kitchen 743 @Isis Music Hall – a place to catch an intimate dinner and a show, or a rock show with 450 other people. The goal is to bring back what Isis was originally, a place that brought people together and entertained the community.” More information: www.isisasheville.com.
Claire Lynch
Wednesday, October 18th, 8:30pm
Isis Restaurant & Music Hall
743 Haywood Road, Asheville, NC 28806
Tickets: www.isisasheville.com | $20