Join us as eTown goes on the road to the historic Ogden Theatre in Denver, Colorado to catch a show featuring two musical guests from the American South whose music reflects their experience living there. Hiss Golden Messenger is an Americana band from North Carolina led by M.C. Taylor and Adeem The Artist is a non-binary country music artist from Knoxville, Tennessee.
That’s all this week on eTown!
Both Hiss Golden Messenger and Adeem the Artist are currently on tour! See Hiss Golden Messenger’s upcoming dates here and Adeem the Artist’s here.
Hiss Golden Messenger
Describing the Durham-based Hiss Golden Messenger is like trying to grasp a forgotten word: It’s always on the tip of your tongue, but hard to speak. Songwriter and bandleader M.C. Taylor’s music is at once familiar, yet impossible to categorize: Elements from the American songbook—the steady, churning acoustic guitar and mandolin, the gospel emotion, the eerie steel guitar tracings, the bobbing and weaving organ and electric piano—provide the bedrock for Taylor’s existential ruminations about parenthood, joy, hope, and loneliness—our delicate, tightrope balance of dark and light—that offer fully engaged contemporary commentary on the present. And then there’s an indescribable spirit and movement: Hiss Golden Messenger’s music grooves. There’s nothing else quite like it.
Adeem the Artist
Adeem Maria (they/them/theirs) is a seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar Artist. They began toiling at their instrument in 2002 when their family relocated to Syracuse, NY and used songwriting as a vehicle to process the ensuing culture shock, their faith, and later their journey through apostasy.
Blending a homegrown affection for Country Music with the emotional ballyhoo of alternative folk in the early aughts, they have created a unique brand of Americana that pays homage to John Prine and John Darnielle (of The Mountain Goats) in equal parts.
On Cast-Iron Pansexual, they received praise from Rolling Stone & American Songwriter for their work exploring identity across coalescing subcultures. Traveling to Carolina to get their Tarot read while straddling the duality of being a “blue collar boy” who is a “complicated dame,” Adeem excavates unwonted stories of the forgotten south.
After touring with American Aquarium and opening for acts like Will Hoge, Emily Wolfe, & Jaime Wyatt, they launched the “Redneck Fundraiser,” to finance their new album. In a matter of a few weeks, they raised over $15,000 to work with an all-star cast of musicians on their upcoming record for a release in late 2022.
Photo by: Shawn Poynter