Ravinia 2019, Issue 1, Week 1

7:30 PM SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2019 PAVILION THE TREE OF FORGIVENESS TOUR TYLER CHILDERS † –Intermission– JOHN PRINE † Ravinia debut TYLER CHILDERS Like many great Southern storytellers, sing- er-songwriter Tyler Childers has fallen in love with a place. The people, landmarks, and legend- ary moments from his childhood home of Law- rence County, KY, populate the 10 songs of his 2017 debut album, Purgatory , a collection that’s simultaneously modern and as ancient as the Appalachian Mountains in which events unfold. Co-produced by Grammy Award winners Stur- gill Simpson and David Ferguson, the album is a semiautobiographical sketch of Childers’s growth from wayward youth to happily married man, told in the tradition of a Southern gothic novel with a classic noir antihero who may just be irredeemable. Purgatory is a “chiaroscuro” with darkness framing light in high relief: there’s catharsis and redemption, sin and temptation, murder and deceit, demons and angels, moonshine and cocaine—so much moonshine and cocaine—all played out on the large, colorful canvas of eastern Kentucky. In the years after self-releasing Bottles and Bibles in 2011, Childers had been searching for a certain sound for his debut album while honing his craft, and was finding it elusive when his friend, drummer Miles Miller, introduced him to Simpson, a fellow Kentucky native. Childers sent Simpson a group of his songs, then went to visit him in Nashville, where they assembled a band of multi-instru- mentalists Stuart Duncan, Michael J. Henderson, and Russ Pahl with bassist Michael Bub and Miller on drums, helping Childers find an authentic voice in the current wave of Americana artists. He has since released a pair of live EPs taken from performances on the Lexington-based Red Barn Radio program. Tyler Childers is making his Ravinia debut. JOHN PRINE In 1970, John Prine was playing at the Chicago folk club The Fifth Peg when the young jour- nalist Roger Ebert dropped in for a set. At the time, Prine was a 23-year-old mailman who had been singing his original songs every Thurs- day night for about two months. Ebert wrote a glowing review for the Chicago Sun-Times , essentially launching Prine’s music career. Kris Kristofferson became one of his earliest advo- cates; their friendship has lasted decades, and they have toured together extensively over the years. In turn, Prine regularly invites a new generation of songwriters, such as Jason Isbell, Margo Price, and Tyler Childers, along on his own tours. Though he recalls the first three songs he performed on any stage—“Sam Stone,” “Hello In There,” and “Paradise”—falling flat in front of audiences, those tracks from his 1971 eponymous debut album nonetheless wowed critics and fellow artists, with the Everly Broth- ers picking up “Paradise” and both Bette Midler and Joan Baez offering renditions of “Hello In There.” Today they’re as classic as “In Spite of Ourselves,” “Lake Marie,” “Fish and Whistle,” and so many other Prine signatures. His songs have also been recorded by iconic singers and contemporary country stars alike, from the likes of Johnny Cash (“Sam Stone”) and Bonnie Raitt (“Angel fromMontgomery”) to Zac Brown Band (“All the Best”), Miranda Lambert (“That’s the Way the World Goes Round”), and George Strait (“I Just Want to Dance with You”). Prine won his first Grammy for the 1991 album The Missing Years , and the Grammy Hall of Fame inducted 1971’s John Prine in 2014. Two years later he accepted the PEN New England Lyrics Award, and earlier this year he was nominated to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and named a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His critically acclaimed new album, The Tree of For- giveness , debuted last year at number five on the Billboard 200—a career high chart position and sales week for the legendary singer, songwriter, and performer. John Prine first played at Ravin- ia in 1972 and was a guest on A Prairie Home Companion during its live broadcast from the festival in 2010. Tonight he is making his sixth appearance at Ravinia. MAY 31 – JUNE 9, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 101