21|22 Season: Davina and the Vagabonds Performance Program

DAVINA AND THE VAGABONDS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2021 UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER

2021|2022 SEASON

DAVINA AND THE VAGABONDS Sponsored by BLUE WATER BAY | EAD CORPORATION

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AVINA SOWERS AND THE VAGABONDS have created a stir on the national music scene with their high-energy live shows, level A musicianship, sharp-dressed professionalism, and Sowers’ commanding stage presence. With influences ranging from Fats Domino and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Aretha Franklin and Tom Waits, the band is converting audiences one show at a time, from Vancouver to Miami and across Europe. In 2011 Davina released her first full length, all original album, Black Cloud. It was named one of the 10 best releases of the year by the Minneapolis Star & Tribune and awarded 4 stars from Downbeat Magazine.

Their next release in 2014, Sunshine, hit number 13 in the Billboard Blues Chart and led them to landing a performance on the hit BBC2 show, Later with Jools Holland.

DATV’s shows are filled with New Orleans charm, Memphis soul swagger, dark theatrical moments that evoke Kurt Weill, and tender gospel passages. Davina’s voice and stage presence defy category in a different way. Davina has been compared to Etta James, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, and Betty Boop, but comparisons don’t suffice: Sowers is a true original.

Bringing you 100 years of American music and Davina’s originals, which lend themselves to the American Songbook, the band brings edgy nostalgia to older generations and fresh new music to younger ears. This rollicking quintet is held together by Sowers’ keyboard playing, with acoustic bass, drums, and a spicy trumpet and trombone horn section. The group’s focused, clean sound and emphasis on acoustic instruments is novel to both blues and jazz worlds, and sets the show closer to New Orleans than to Chicago. This has set the Vagabonds apart at festivals in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Sighisoara, Romania; Sierre, Switzerland; Kemi, Finland; the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and 2013 Monterey Jazz Festival (in 2014 was asked back to play their main stage in 2014, Vache de Blues in France, and North Sea Jazz Festival. Catch this one-of-a-kind live show while they are in town!

COMING SEPTEMBER 30, 2021!

ROYAL WOOD Sponsored by EAD CORPORATION

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ife has a way of knocking on our door on the days we least expect it. For singer songwriter Royal Wood, life knocked pretty damn hard. For in the same year that he lost his father to illness, he also fell in love and got married.

“I read once that you can’t get wet from the word water. That it isn’t the word that allows for the knowing to take place, but rather the experience itself that removes the veil. Life showed me first hand that I had never felt true grief before, nor did I understand love either until now. It’s been a year of true paradigm shifts.”

As an artist, Royal channeled these polar opposite emotions into his new album, Ever After The Farewell. Recorded in London, UK, with Jamie Scott (known for his work with renowned artists like Rag’n Bone Man, Michael Kiwanuka, Niall Horan, and Ed Sheeran), Royal’s album is not only deeply inspired by both loss and love, but is an ode to the classic styles of both Tin Pan Alley and Laurel Canyon.

“Jamie and I worked on the album over the course of three writing trips to the UK. The very first thing Jamie and I worked on was Something About You. It began with me playing the basic chord progression, and then Jamie started riffing on the idea that it should be about a girl you see and instantly fall for, and the lyrics should be based on the silly dialog you say to yourself in your head. We wrote the song in about 30 minutes from end to end. To me, it ended up being a call out to the Universe because one week later I met my wife for the first time and fell instantly in love.”

To capture the rawest possible sound, most of the songs on the album were recorded the day they were written, with Royal playing the majority of the instruments. As fate would have it, Royal recorded the album on the Beatles EMI console that made Abbey Road possible.

“Every day I walked into the studio in London with the ghosts of my musical heroes sitting beside me,” said Royal. “All of my life I wanted to make music with the Beatles, and now I feel like I have,” he joked.

“All artists have their influences and sometimes I think we channel them more than others. For me, Lennon and McCartney were definitely with me when I wrote Hardest Thing Of All.” When asked about the album title and artwork, Royal said “I called the album ‘Ever After The Farewell’ because I wanted the title to encompass the polar opposite emotions I felt in my life while creating the music. I said farewell to my father, but I started the journey of ever after with my wife. We used the man and woman’s hands on the cover because they represent both my hand taking my wife’s hand in marriage, and my father’s leaving my mother’s.”

TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT PERFORMINGARTS.UFL.EDU OR

BY CALLING THE PHILLIPS CENTER BOX OFFICE — 352.392.2787.

FALL 2021 EVENTS

MERZ TRIO

ROYAL WOOD THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 | 7:00 & 9:00 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY EAD CORPORATION

LIFELINE QUARTET WITH MICHELLE MAYNE-GRAVES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 | 7:00 & 9:00 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY EAD CORPORATION | KET ENTERPRISES

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO. 9 DR. RAYMOND CHOBAZ, CONDUCTOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7 | 7:30 P.M. | PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY RUSSELL & BRENDA ROBINSON

THE INDEPENDENT FLORIDA ALLIGATOR | UF HEALTH

JOEY DEFRANCESCO

MERZ TRIO SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17 | 2:00 & 7:30 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY EAD CORPORATION | SFI

JOEY DEFRANCESCO TRIO THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28 | 7:00 & 9:00 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY EAD CORPORATION | RUSSELL & BRENDA ROBINSON

DAYMÉ AROCENA TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 | 7:00 & 9:00 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER

STRINGS FOR PEACE

SPONSORED BY AUDACY | EAD CORPORATION

STRINGS FOR PEACE AMJAD ALI KHAN, SHARON ISBIN, AMAAN ALI BANGASH, AYAAN ALI BANGASH TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16 | 7:30 P.M. | PHILLIPS CENTER

BRITTNEY SPENCER FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 | 7:00 & 9:00 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY AUDACY | EAD CORPORATION | KET ENTERPRISES

TODD BARRY SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20 | 7:00 & 9:00 P.M. UPSTAGE AT THE PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY EAD CORPORATION | LIMEROCK ROAD NEIGHBORHOOD GRILL

JANE LYNCH, TIM DAVIS & KATE FLANNERY

SWAMP HEAD BREWERY

JANE LYNCH: A SWINGIN’ LITTLE CHRISTMAS! MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29 | 7:30 P.M. | PHILLIPS CENTER SPONSORED BY LINDA & CLAYTON KALLMAN | KEITH WATSON EVENTS

DATES, TIMES, AND VENUES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

ORDER ONLINE OR CALL THE PHILLIPS CENTER BOX OFFICE —

PERFORMINGARTS.UFL.EDU | 352.392.ARTS