Bob Mosolgo

Lord Huron formed in 2010 in Los Angeles, after founding member Ben Schneider moved from Michigan to France then to New York and on to LA. The name pays tribute to Lake Huron, a family vacation spot for Schneider. Initially a solo project, Schneider recorded many of the first songs during a trip back to Michigan.

Releasing his early work on EP, Schneider assembled a band to support the music and began touring. Appearances at festivals built the band’s reputation.

The bands’ first full album arrived in 2012, during a wave of interest in indie folk releases and this led to the breakout 2015 album Strange Trails.

After Lord Huron’s Strange Trails album made the top 25 in the US and Canada, the band began work on a followup released in 2018. Vide Noir climbed to #10 in the US.

With a decade of recording experience at their own Whispering Pines Studio. Ben Schneider says that it became the concept for last year’s fourth album Long Lost. “It’s a very haunted feel, it’s very stuck in a time warp. The decor is all the original stuff from the ’70s, and we had to replace a lot of the electronics and equipment, but it has this very haunted, trapped-in-time feel. So, we’ve invented characters that we imagine haunting it, or people who have passed through in the past, and writing from their perspective became the concept of the album.”

Interpol emerged from the New York post punk revival  of the early 2000s, releasing their first full length record in 2002 to critical acclaim. Turn on the Bright Lights has been hailed as a defining record for the post 9/11 indie scene in New York. Interpol played an early tour in the UK which included a John Peel BBC Session, and this was a big boost for the band. All three of the 2000s records placed in the top 10 in the UK and on the US alternative charts.

Daniel Kessler and Greg Drudy formed the band in 1997 when they met in a New York University class. Drudy left before the first full length album and Kessler recruited Sam Fogarino to replace him. Fogarino had nearly given up music and was working in a vintage clothing store.

After a decade of recording and heavy touring, Interpol tool an extended break in 2010 while the band members focused on their other projects. Returning in 2014, the band released another top 10 album with El Pintor.

Interpol has released an album every four years after their break ended in 2014. This summers’ The Other Side of Make-Believe is the most recent and like many of their peers was impacted by the COVID pandemic. The band altered their songwriting and recording process to make it work.

Reflecting on their 2002 first album, Paul Banks says “as far as ease of making it, we had years to write these songs. The longest writing period of any of your records is your debut. We formed in 1997, so it’s five years, and three-and-a-half/four of playing shows and trying out that material. So it went down smoothly in the studio, and then you have all the excitement of it being your first album. It was a good time in our lives.”

The Gladstones are just the latest musical incarnation for a group of long time Commonwealth artists who arrived here in the 60s and 70s. Charlie Pastorfield was a first year UVa student in 1968, having arrived on grounds from the Virgin Islands. Soon he was one of four unemployed musicians looking for a gig when they decided to form a band.

The Skip Castro Band blended, boogie, early R&B and rock ‘n’ roll, and spent the 10 years playing hundreds of dates a year all over the East Coast. The group opened for bands like the Beach Boys, the Kinks and James Brown.

The Gladstones draw their inspiration from the decades of performances they have all experienced. From their early days of sifting through record collections to pick just the right set list, to creating their own original music, Charlie Pastorfield, Bob Girard and the rest of the band have excelled at entertaining Commonwealth audiences for a very long time.

The Gladstones are the latest musical adventure for a group of veteran Commonwealth musicians who played seemingly everywhere in the mid Atlantic a few decades ago.

Leading the group is Bob Girard who led the Charlottesville band the Casuals featuring Johnny Sportcoat.. Girards’ career started in Charlottesville in the 70s with the Hawaiians, then most recently with Alligator.

An accident in Rome left Bob Girard with a badly mangled arm. While crossing the street he was hot by a motorcycle cop, then again by a bus. Under doctors orders Girard began playing guitar as therapy and that led to a round of songwriting.

Looking for an outlet for this new material, the Gladstones were born. They mix new material with classic rock that they all know so well from their decades of playing the bars and clubs of the Commonwealth.

Forming in 2012, Lord Nelson has spent a decade touring and recording. With their latest album Transmission, bandleader Kai Crowe-Getty believes the group has finally captured the essence of their live shows.

At one point Lord Nelson consisted of two pairs of brothers, bringing an interesting dynamic to the group. That configuration is no more. Kais’ brother Bram has moved on and Calloway Joes’ brother Henry no longer performs with the group.

Since the group hails from Nelson county, they are often described as a ‘southern rock’ band – a description that Kai rejects due to the stereotype it represents which he feels does not apply to the group.

Lord Nelson played in the first Dead Air, and Kai says that he never truly appreciated the work of the Grateful Dead. Now he has come to appreciate the work of a band whose members know each other so well.

The new record Transmission released in January. Lord Nelson recorded it in Nelson county. Kai says that he is pleased with the result and happy that it includes greater songwriting contributions from the band. With most of the songs well practiced on the road, there was less written directly for the record than they had done on the previous two albums.

This Commonwealth band started as a labor of love amongst four college friends in Charlottesville. Erin Lunsford came to UVa to study pre-med, but a family background in music kept her interested in performing. She met Nick Quillen in a UVa support group for emerging musicians. Adding two more friends, Erin & the Wildfire began playing around town while they were all still students.

Faced with a decision on how to proceed when graduation approached, three of the four agreed to continue the group and when they looked for a replacement for their fourth member, it became clear that the music scene in Richmond was a better fit for the group – so they moved on.

Expandedto five members in 2019 with the addition of keyboardists Stephen Roach, Erin & the Wildfire have adopted a different sound on their newest record Touchy Feely. Nearly a year and a half of virtual collaboration during the pandemic led to the new Matthew E. White produced album which draws heavily on 80s synth vibes.

Despite the growing popularity of Erin & the Wildfire, Erin Lunsford retains a solo presence. Growing up in a bluegrass family, Erin likes to keep a hand in Americana music, doing that through her solo shows, sometimes accompanying herself on banjo.

Over her more than five decades of performing, Emmylou Harris has won 14 Grammys and become a member of the Grand Ole Opry and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Moving during her youth as a child in a military family, Harris spent her high school years in the Commonwealth, graduating as the class valedictorian from Gar-Field High School.

Harris attended UNC Greensboro where she began studying folk music. That was followed by a brief period playing in Greenwich Village. Soon she was married with a child, then divorced and living back with her parents. Continuing to perform, former Byrds member Chris Hillman saw her and recommended her to Gram Parsons.

The pair were a perfect vocal match and Harris recorded with Parsons until his death in 1973. From there Harris formed her own group. The Hot Band backed her on Harris’s’ first major label record. Pieces of the Sky demonstrated many of the talents she would continue to bring forward throughout her career: Championing great songs and songwriter, using top level musicians and having a great voice.

In the 70s Emmylou Harris recorded multiple country number 1 songs. She attempted in the early 80s to record with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, but the first attempt was blocked by the artists’ record labels refusing to allow their vocals to be used on a Harris record. Emmylou re-recorded Mister Sandman using her own voice for all three parts and scored a top 10 hit.

By the late 80s the issues with Parton and Ronstadt were cleared and the trio recorded their album. Trio remains Emmylou Harris’s’ most successful album.

Over the decades Harris has continued to evolve her music to remain contemporary. From an early start in classic country influenced sounds, through contemporary country and folk to more recent collaborations with Mark Knopfler and Conor Oberst, Harris has remained a presence and a recognizable voice to a new generation of fans.