Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

ROBBY KLEIN (ELL) ROBBY KLEIN (ELL) LITTLE BIG TOWN Georgia natives Kimberly Schlapman and Karen Fairchild first sang together in college, and when they reunited in Nashville in the late ’90s with the addition of Arkansans Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet, Little Big Town was born. The quartet quickly cemented the signature sound of their four-part vocal har- monies and released their eponymous de- but album in 2002 on Monument Records, the same label that had produced the Dixie Chicks’ early successes. Little Big Town en- tered Billboard ’s country chart at number 40 thanks to the singles “Don’t Waste My Time” and “Everything Changes.” Clint Black’s Equi- ty Music Group picked up Little Big Town for a new single, “Boondocks,” and the ensuing album, The Road to Here , which topped the indie chart on the strength of that platinum single. “Bring It on Home,” the album’s sec- ond single, marked the group’s first top-five country hit. A Place to Land followed in 2007, cracking the country top-10 and producing the popular singles “I’m with the Band,” “Fine Line,” and “Good Lord Willing.” Little Big Town made their major-label debut in 2010 with The Reason Why and their third big ra- dio hit, “Little White Church,” which led to the even wider embrace of Tornado in 2012. Its lead single “Pontoon” topped the country charts and earned the group its first Grammy in 2013. Little Big Town followed up with Pain Killer (2014), featuring the hits “Day Drink- ing” and “Girl Crush,” the group’s best-sell- ing single, second Grammy winner, and first top-20 hit on Billboard ’s Hot 100. After 2016’s Wanderlust with Pharrell Williams as pro- ducer and co-writer, the foursome immedi- ately got busy with 2017’s The Breaker , which debuted atop the country charts and featured the multi-week number-one single “Better Man,” their third Grammy-winning song. That same year, they held the first-ever res- idency at the Ryman Auditorium. Little Big Town self-produced their latest album, Night- fall , including their 10th Grammy-nominated single, “The Daughters,” and the hit “Wine, Beer, Whiskey.” In April they released “Hell Yeah,” the first song from their forthcoming 10th album. Little Big Town first played Ra- vinia in 2015 and is making their third ap- pearance at the festival. LINDSAY ELL Calgary native Lindsay Ell began learning pi- ano at age 6 but fell in love with the guitar at age 8, honing her string skills and developing as a songwriter while traveling to bluegrass camps with her father. These parallel paths of musicianship were taken to a new level after a chance meeting at age 13 with Randy Bach- man (BTO, The Guess Who), who became her mentor and introduced her to an even wider range of guitar styles, especially that of blues rockers like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Derek Trucks. The multi-instrumentalist began touring along- side such artists as Buddy Guy and Luke Bryan. By 2006, before Ell was out of her teens, she had recorded her first album with Bachman, Consider This , and the acoustically oriented Alone followed in 2009. After sign- ing with the Stoney Creek label, Ell relocat- ed to Nashville. She released her first official single, “Trippin’ on Us,” in late 2013 and kept building momentum with the 2014 tracks “Pickup Truck” and “Shut Me Up,” 2015’s “By the Way,” and 2016’s “All Alright,” a top-10 hit in Canada. With those five songs under her belt, she dropped six more in 2017 with her EP Worth the Wait , priming country fans for the release of The Project later that year. The LP topped Billboard ’s indie chart and was named the Best Country Album of 2017. Its singles “Waiting on You” and “Criminal” became major hits in Canada; the latter, pro- duced by Sugarland’s Kristian Bush, topped the chart up north and hit number 28 in the US. Ell had previously worked with Bush on a track-by-track cover of John Mayer’s Contin- uum , which she released in 2018. She scored her first number-one in the US in 2019 with “What Happens in a Small Town,” a duet with Brantley Gilbert for his Fire & Brimstone al- bum, and the following year she tallied an- other number-one in Canada with “Want Me Back” off her most recent album, Heart Theory , an exploration of the seven stages of grief. Her newest single, “Right On Time,” was released in April. This is Lindsay Ell’s first return to Ravinia following her 2018 debut. CAROUSEL STAGE 7:30 PM THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022 HENHOUSE PROWLERS CHRIS DOLLAR, guitar JAKE HOWARD, mandolin BEN WRIGHT, banjo JON GOLDFINE, bass HENHOUSE PROWLERS Formed in Chicago in 2004, the Henhouse Prowlers are dedicated to keeping authentic acoustic bluegrass music traditions vital, not only through international performances but also as devoted instructors throughout the Chicago area. The Prowlers don’t just play traditional songs; they also create original material ranging from lightning-fast picking to sentimental ballads, as well as covers of contemporary tunes. One of their biggest hits in the latter vein stemmed from the group’s numerous trips to sub-Saharan Africa with the support of the US State Department, cov- ering the Nigerian pop hit “Chop My Mon- ey” in order to bring something familiar to their audiences in addition to their own bluegrass fare. The cover proved so popular with all their listeners worldwide that it was included on the Prowlers’ 2015 album Still on That Ride . The Prowlers have been official cultural ambassadors since 2013 and often play over 175 shows a year, not only across the United States but to such far-flung areas as the Middle East and Siberia; they have toured more than 25 countries, often going to places traditional American music has never been. These global experiences have pushed the band in new directions musically, with songs from Africa and Asia appearing on several albums, but they have also moved the group to start the educational outreach program Bluegrass Ambassadors, using traditional American music as a foundation to talk about folk music and cultures all over the world. The Prowlers released two albums in 2017— Live from Kyrgyzstan and the studio album Separation Man —and on their ninth and most recent collection, 2021’s The Departure , the band explores their collective life experi- ences through songwriting and intricate instrumentation, bending and squeezing bluegrass into a sound all their own. The Henhouse Prowlers previously appeared at Ravinia in 2017 and 2019 and have also been guests artists in Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play music education and engagement programs. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 29