Benefit Concert
Brian Smalley and Frank Lindamood
$20 suggested donation (cash or check at the door) to benefit non-profits Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery & Alachua Conservation Trust
Limited seating: Advance reservations recommended
Email: sandhillstage@gmail.com or call 352-317-7307
More about the artists:
BRIAN SMALLEY
"Now you say, who is Brain Smalley? Simply stated he is one of the most talented Americana performers living in Florida today. Absolutely stunning guitarmanship and beautiful vocals. His energy is very contagious and his spirit lifts me like few other have ever done. Combine that with a writing style and content That ranges from hilarious to heart rending, he is a most complete performer package." - Paul J. Linser, President Gamble Rogers Folk Festival - Gamble Rogers Folk Festival
Brian Smalley lives in Florida. Where is Brian from? That’s a trickier question to answer. By the time he turned 18 his family had moved all across the country more than twenty times. So, it’s no surprise that wander-lust found its way into Brian’s soul, as well as into his music. His first guitar at age 9 became his best friend, and all that traveling opened up a whole world to explore and create in. Along the way many influences were caught in his musical-dragnet.
Brian has a special knack for putting together a musical set. Combining tasty covers from artists like Jerry Reed, John Prine, Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, John Hartford, Chet Atkins, Peter Rowan and Richard Thompson with crowd pleasing original pieces, he plays with mad skill and pure energy.
The songs Brian has written borrow from folksy flatpick guitar and new-grass as well as a touch of new-age acoustic music. He sings with a soulful, earthy voice, and his live performances tend to be just that: Lively!
For the past twenty years Brian has made music his sole occupation, and has six CDs under his belt: his latest "Key" is an acoustic novel set in the Florida Keys telling the fictional story of Painter Kellet & Compass Rose. This CD is similar but very different from his acoustic novel from 2013 "Chickens Pigs" which is an acoustic play based in Civil War era Florida and was recently named Best Florida Folk CD of 2013 by the Florida Times-Union. A great many of the songs are set in and inspired by Florida, a state of mind and a state of nature that he loves to write about and longs to see preserved. For Brian Smalley the wander-lust continues, and he is willing to travel anywhere to perform and hopefully inspire a little love and peace along the way.
FRANK LINDAMOOD www.franklindamood.com
Frank Lindamood is a storyteller whose bag of tricks includes a banjo and a steel guitar. His stories are songs delivered with a rich and mesmerizing voice, and are as deep and dark as the Sopchoppy woods of North Florida where he makes his home. His hometown newspaper, The Sopchoppy Examiner, describes him, “He’s a bare-knuckled guitar player, a master of early 20th century banjo style, and a lucid but gritty bender of notes on his metal bodied resonator.”
Listen to a few of Lindamood’s tunes, and it is obvious that he is more than a master songwriter and instrumentalist, but also an engaging reconteur of history, his subjects ranging from Beethoven, to the Bible, to the Civil War. Songs with titles like ‘The General’s Dream,’(Robert E. Lee) ‘ Heart of Stone,’ (John Henry), ‘Immortal Beloved’ (Beethoven), and Gethsemane, reveal his fascination with the players on history’s stages, and the emotions that drove them to action.
“I tend to write songs from the most basic human themes: Our struggles with fate, our conversations with God, our search for love, and our life-long battle for meaning beneath the shadow of inevitable loss and death,” he says. With a chuckle he adds, “And if that doesn't put a smile on your face and a bounce in your step, I also have songs about love affairs ending badly.”
For over half a century, Lindamood has been infatuated with what he calls “The Old Music,” and this is why, he explains, he has “forsaken modern industrial Pop Culture for the songs of the plantations, bawdy houses and clapboard country churches…. befriending through the songs sharecroppers, mountaineers, lonesome cowboys and good women gone bad.”
A regular performer at area festivals, Lindamood has played 30A Songwriter’s Festival, The Florida Folk Festival, and many more Florida music events. In 2013, he toured the West Coast with friend and writer/musician Michael Koppy.
