117 / 132
FRANKIE BALLARD
Country-blues rocker Frankie Ballard grew
up in Michigan, where in
he earned his
break as the winner of Kenny Chesney’s Next
Big Star regional competition; he subsequent-
ly opened for Chesney as the contemporary
country star toured the area. Ballard soon inked
both a recording and a publishing contract and
decamped for Nashville to begin working with
producer Michael Knox (Jason Aldean, Trace
Adkins).
e single “Tell Me You Get Lonely”
announced his arrival in
, garnering signif-
icant country radio airplay, followed by its host
album, the eponymous
Frankie Ballard
, and a
new single, “A Buncha Girls,” in early
. War-
ner Bros. Records brought Ballard up under its
own name from the imprint Reprise soon a er,
and the singer-songwriter began touring with
the likes of Lady Antebellum, Bob Seger, and
Keith Urban. A er another stint in the studio,
Ballard hit the airwaves running with “Helluva
Life” in
, setting up the breakthrough that
was his follow-up album,
Sunshine & Whiskey
.
Both the disc and its title track became num-
ber- ve country hits in
, with the single ac-
cruing platinum sales. A third single, “Young &
Crazy,” became a top country song in
—in
fact, all three singles from Ballard’s sophomore
e ort topped the country airplay charts and
made the top of
Billboard
’s country chart as
well as the top of the trade journal’s Hot
singles chart. Ballard was already at work on his
next album, however, and its rst single, “It All
Started with a Beer,” appeared before the close
of
. is third disc,
El Rio
, appeared in
and was named one of the best country al-
bums of the year by
Rolling Stone
. Frankie Bal-
lard is making his Ravinia debut.
LINDSAY ELL
Canadian native Lindsay Ell began learning pi-
ano at age but fell in love with the guitar at
age , honing her string skills and developing as
a songwriter while traveling to bluegrass camps
with her father.
ese parallel paths of musi-
cianship were taken to a new level a er a chance
meeting at age with Randy Bachman (BTO,
e 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.
e multi-instrumentalist
began touring alongside such artists as Buddy
Guy, Luke Bryan,
e Band Perry, and Keith
Urban. By
, before Ell was out of her teens,
she had recorded her rst album with Bachman,
Consider is
, and a more acoustically oriented
disc,
Alone
, followed in
. A er signing with
the Stoney Creek Records label, Ell relocated to
Nashville. She released her rst o cial single,
“Trippin’ on Us,” in late
and kept building
momentum with the
tracks “Pickup Truck”
and “Shut Me Up,”
’s “By the Way,” and
’s “All Alright,” a top- hit in Canada. With
those ve songs under her belt, she dropped six
more in
with her debut EP,
Worth the Wait
,
which moved the needle for the release of
e
Project
later that year. e LP topped
Billboard
’s
indie chart while making the top as well as
the country chart’s top ve. Its singles “Waiting
on You” and “Criminal” became major country
hits in Canada; the latter, produced by Sugar-
land’s Kristian Bush, topped the chart up north
and hit number in the US. Earlier this year,
Ell released a track-by-track cover of John May-
er’s
Continuum
entitled
e Continuum Project
,
which she had co-produced with Bush before
working on
e Project
. Lindsay Ell is making
her Ravinia debut.
WINTRUST CHAIR AND TABLE RENTAL, MANAGED BY THE RAVINIA WOMEN’S BOARD,
BENEFITS RAVINIA AND ITS REACH*TEACH*PLAY EDUCATION PROGRAMS.
HEAVY
lifting
to us.
Leave the
WINTRUST CHAIR RENTAL
RESERVE LAWN CHAIRS AND TABLES WITH YOUR TICKET ORDER
2R %< &/I&.ING ȇA''ɯ2N ITEMSȈ 2N T+E &2N&ERT :E%3AGE
RESERVATIONS MUST BE MADE BEFORE 8:00 P.M. ON THE DAY BEFORE THE CONCERT.
RAVINIA.ORGAUGUST 20 – AUGUST 26, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE
115