LONNIE HOLLEY w/ MOURNING [A] BLKSTAR
LONNIE HOLLEY w/ MOURNING [A] BLKSTAR
THURS JAN 11 ⩥ Lonnie Holley w/ Mourning [A] BLKstar ⩥ in Amherst ⩥ at the Drake“EVERY PERFORMANCE IS A SPONTANEOUS CREATION”
The peerless, iconoclastic artist Lonnie Holley makes his Western Mass debut this January with Mourning [A] BLKstar, a veritable musical army by his side. Join us in welcoming him for a set of soulful, mystic improvisations at the outset of the year.
Lonnie was recently listed by the Guardian as one of the thirty artists you should see live before you die. His sets are “spontaneous creations.” His manager confessed to me that he hates to miss a show, because each one is completely unique.
Folk, jazz, gospel, blues — Holley’s music contains hints of Stevie Wonder, Sun Ra, Lou Reed, Alice Coltrane, Gil Scott-Heron, Miles Davis — but there is no obvious influence. He is a well-known visual artist in addition to his music, from which he seems to apply a similar methodology: the soldering together of disparate things into misfit, recompiled beauty.
Holley is accompanied by the Afrofuturist collective Mourning [A] BLKstar out of Cleveland, Ohio — a band I’ve been hoping to get out to Secret Planet as well. They’re a multi-generational gender and genre non-conforming collective of Black culture, foraging new pathways towards heart music by melding soul, blues, electronics, avant-poetics with futuristic beats.
So consider this one a twofer. M[A]B will play a short opening set before welcoming Lonnie on stage for a second set.
“Holley has an almost shamanistic quality, as if he possessed all the wisdom of the universe”
THUMBS UP FOR MOTHER UNIVERSE
Cosmic bluesman Lonnie Holley is a child of the most difficult times and experiences. To name a few: He was born the seventh of twenty-seven children in Jim Crow Alabama — and at the age of four, traded for a bottle of whisky. As a child fleeing from foster parents, he was hit by a car and declared brain-dead on arrival at the hospital. At age eleven, Lonnie was sent to the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children (functionally a slave plantation, featured in the award-winning 2023 podcast “Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children), suffering the worst abuses your mind can imagine.
To come out the other end of such experiences with anything but a hopeless, broken heart already seems miraculous. And here is Lonnie Holley — who in the course of a productive artistic lifetime of sculpture, painting, film making, and performing (since 2012), who has somehow emerged, through a process of relentless exorcism, determination and hope — as a figure of near-infinite optimism and love.
His recent (sixth) album, “Oh Me Oh My”, is a deeply meditative excavation of history that I’d recommend listening to before the show. Produced by Jacknife Lee and featuring such luminaries as Michael Stipe, Sharon van Etten, Moor Mother, Jeff Parker, and Bon Iver, it’s a calm and intimate masterpiece and an exorcism of our country’s troubled history.
MOSTLY SIT-DOWN in amherst
We’re excited to start the year with our first show at the newly appointed Drake in Amherst. The room is intimate. Their staff is amazing. The well-appointed space has a sweet bar and cozy couches (if you arrive early).
This will be a seated show with limited premiere seating for sale. (If you’re a Secret Planet member, you can add $10 to your token for a premium seat.)
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