Gogue Center presents inaugural Alabama Artists Festival, April 29

The Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University presents the first-ever Alabama Artists Festival, a free, daylong outdoor concert featuring an eclectic mix of some of Alabama’s finest and most-celebrated musicians, Saturday, April 29 at the Bill and Carol Ham Amphitheatre. The festival will feature performances by Grammy Award winners Blind Boys of Alabama and John Paul White, pop phenom Elley Duhé and contemporary jazz great Eric Essix.

The Alabama Artists Festival marks the Blind Boys’ first Gogue Center appearance and is the quintet’s first concert in Auburn. White, Duhé and Essix have each performed at the Gogue Center before as headliners for the center’s GPAC LIVE: Alabama Artists Series, a showcase of musicians representing diverse genres and geographic areas of the state, in Fall 2020.

Amphitheatre gates open at 2 p.m., with performances scheduled throughout the day. Auburn University’s studentoperated radio station, WEGL (91.1 FM), will broadcast live from the festival in between sets. All amphitheatre seating for the festival is general admission. Patrons are welcome to bring blankets, soft seat cushions and folding chairs. For concessions, several local and regional food trucks will be on-site for the duration of the day.

Festival admission is free with registration. Patrons can register online at www.aub.ie/ al-artists-fest or by contacting the Gogue Center box office by telephone at 334.844. TIXS (8497) or via email at gpactickets@ auburn.edu. Patrons can also register inperson at the Gogue Center, located at 910

South College Street in Auburn, Alabama, Tuesday through Friday, 1–4 p.m.

Additional information on the Alabama Artists Festival and other 2022–23 season programming is available online at www.goguecenter.auburn.edu

Eric Essix

Mainstage performance scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Eric Essix played for years in quartet gospel groups and can trace his passion for contemporary jazz to his late teens, when he saw Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report perform. Since launching his own indie label, Essential Recordings, in 2002, Essix has scored numerous radio hits, starting with “Sweet Tea” from 2004’s “Somewhere in Alabama” and continuing with “Shuttlesworth Drive,” a musical tribute to the great civil rights pioneer Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. To date, Essix has released 28 albums, including his most recent, “STRiDE.” Essix was the headlining artist for the Gogue Center’s GPAC LIVE: Alabama Artists Series in December 2020.

Mainstage performance scheduled for 4 p.m. Born near Mobile, Alabama, Elley Duhé’s formative years were spent surrounded by working musicians in the New Orleans scene. By 14, she was writing her own songs, and after seizing every opportunity she could, Duhé came to the attention of RCA. In 2016, she dropped her debut single, “Millennium,” precipitating a long run of smash singles and her EP, “Dragon Mentality.” She has racked up millions of streams, played Coachella and Lollapalooza, recorded with the likes of

Gryffin and Zedd, and formed an unbreakable bond with her legions of fans. Duhé was the headlining artist for the Gogue Center’s GPAC LIVE: Alabama Artists Series in November 2020.

Mainstage performance scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Now living in Florence, Alabama, not far from Muscle Shoals, John Paul White cultivated his career in Nashville for two decades, first as a songwriter for a major publisher, then as half of The Civil Wars—a groundbreaking duo that won four Grammy Awards before disbanding in 2014. White has since released two more solo albums, “Beulah” (2016) and “The Hurting Kind” (2019), and is the co-owner of Single Lock Records, a Florence-based record label he co-founded with Will Trapp and the Alabama Shakes’ Ben Tanner. White was the headlining artist for the Gogue Center’s GPAC LIVE: Alabama Artists Series in October 2020.

Mainstage performance scheduled for 7 p.m. The Blind Boys of Alabama are without a doubt a pillar of American music. A group of blind, African American singers, they helped to define 20th-century gospel traditions as well as create a new gospel sound for the 21st. Beginning their epic career in the midst of the Jim Crow era, the Blind Boys are the recipients of five Grammy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, have performed at the White House for three different presidents and collaborated with an array of music legends including Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, Allen Toussaint and Peter Gabriel.