Evanston Folk Festival 2026 - SUNDAY

Flytjendur

• 

  James McMurtry

  Growing up, Jonathon Linaberry was obsessed with the radio.
  
  “Music was my whole world,” he recalls, “and the radio was pivotal in that. There was
  something so romantic about it. You never knew what you’d hear, what you’d discover and fall
  in love with. I wanted to find a way to recapture that.”
  
  Radio Waves, Linaberry’s sixth studio album as The Bones Of J.R. Jones, is indeed steeped in
  the past, but there’s more than just nostalgia at play here. Recorded in Toronto with producer
  Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Bahamas), the collection is moody and hypnotic, drawing on the sonic
  landscape of Linaberry’s youth as it reckons with all the doubt and uncertainty of adulthood.
  The arrangements are utterly entrancing, built on the tension between acoustic instruments
  and retro synthesizers, and Linaberry’s performances are raw and visceral, at times aching in
  their unflinching vulnerability. Put it all together and you’ve got a poignant exploration of
  memory and longing delivered by a relentless searcher, a revelatory work of personal
  reflection rooted in the endless beauty, pain, and chaos that comes with finding your place in
  this world.
  
  “I’ve never really resonated with the idea of ‘the good old days,’” Linaberry reflects. “Your
  understanding of the past and your relationship with it change as you get older, and I’ve
  always been more interested in the evolution of those feelings than in looking at them with
  any kind of rose-colored glasses.”
  
  Born and raised in central New York, Linaberry got his start playing in hardcore and punk
  bands before becoming enamored with the field recordings of Alan Lomax, who documented
  rural American blues, folk, and gospel musicians throughout the 1930s and ’40s. Inspired by
  the unvarnished honesty of those vintage performances, Linaberry launched The Bones of J.R.
  Jones in 2012 and, operating as a fully independent artist, began releasing a series of
  critically acclaimed albums and EPs that would land his songs in a slew of films and television
  shows (including True Detective, Suits, Daredevil, Longmire, and Graceland) and lead to
  countless tours across the US and Europe (including stops everywhere from Telluride Blues to
  Hardly Strictly Bluegrass). Along the way, Linaberry also shared bills with the likes of The
  Wallflowers, G. Love, and The Devil Makes Three, soundtracked an Amazon commercial
  helmed by Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi, and earned praise from Billboard, American
  Songwriter, Under the Radar, and more.
  
  “After a dozen years of touring and recording, I found myself getting burnt out by the
  constant barrage of new music that’s out there,” Linaberry reflects. “In some ways, it’s great
  to have that kind of access, but it can also be numbing, and I found myself missing what it
  felt like to have an album change your life, to listen to your cassette of Born In The USA so
  many times you have to wind the tape back up with a pencil.”
  
  Linaberry set out to tap back into that magic on Radio Waves, writing songs steeped in the
  sounds and stories of his own coming of age. He tuned out the modern world in favor of stark,
  lo-fi demos built around fingerpicked guitars and old school electronics, and when it came
  time to record the album, he leaned into working with an outside producer for the first time,
  traveling to Canada for two ten-day sessions at Lackritz’s studio.
  
  “A lot of these songs started on a drum machine, which was very intentional,” Linaberry
  explains. “I wanted to focus on simplicity, on stripping tracks back to their most essential
  elements so that the melody and the vocals could shine.”
  The result is an almost primal sound, familiar yet uneasy, like a memory hanging perpetually
  just out of reach.
  
  “These songs live in the night—the endless kind, where you get in your car just to drive and
  listen to music, to feel like you’re going somewhere even if you’re not,” Linaberry says. “It’s
  the sound of a kitchen heavy with the leftover heat of an August day and a table crowded
  with drinks, of arguments and first loves and first heartbreaks, of not living up to your
  potential, of breaking promises, of being human.”
  
  Take a listen to album opener “Car Crash” and you’ll understand exactly what he means.
  Tender and hazy, the track offers up a bittersweet embrace of life’s imperfections, finding
  meaning and connection in our shared flaws and shortcomings. “I want your whole heart,”
  Linaberry professes, “even the broken parts.” Like much of the record, it’s insistent yet
  understated, as much a celebration as it is a confession. The sensuous “Savages” revels in the
  reckless abandon of young adulthood, while the spare “Heart Attack” stares disappointment
  directly in the face, and the piercing “Shameless” works its way through a lifetime of what
  ifs.
  
  “Our lives are an endless series of revolving doors,” Linaberry reflects. “Even the smallest
  decisions can change our entire trajectory. What kind of arrogant fool doesn’t look back and
  wonder?”
  That sense of lostness, of uncertainty as to who we are and where we belong turns up
  throughout the record. The blistering “Drive” devours itself from the inside out in the tedious
  solitude of the road; “The Devil” grapples with identity, intimacy, and dependence; and the
  breezy “Catching You” wonders what we were ever trying to prove with all the debaucherous
  nights and bad decisions of youth.
  
  “I think so many of us live in the past because it’s easier to face than the future,” Linaberry
  explains. “But I’m not interested in going back. I’m interested in understanding the feelings
  and experiences that made us who we are: the passion and the hunger, the faults and the
  failures, the hopes and the fears.
  
  Truth be told, those feelings never really go away. They’re all still out there, floating in the
  ether, drifting through eternity on an endless sea of radio waves. All you have to do is tune in.
• 

  Tift Merritt

  Handmade songs.

  Stream "Everyday Singing" Out Now!

  https://ffm.to/everydaysinging

  Pre-Order 'Sugar', out June 26th!

  https://stores.portmerch.com/tiftmerritt/

  Pre-Save 'Sugar' out June 26th!

  https://ffm.to/tmsugar

• 

  Tray Wellington

  https://linktr.ee/traywellington

• 

  Indigo Girls

  The Indigo Girls are Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met on the playground in grammar school in Decatur, Georgia, and have been playing together since high school. They were signed to Epic Records in 1989 and won the grammy for best contemporary folk album later that year (for their self titled release) Some of their hit songs include "Galileo," "Closer to Fine," and "Shame on You." Aside from being musicians, Ray and Saliers are activists, constantly supporting causes like gun control, women's rights, Native American rights, environmental protection, lesbian/gay/trans rights, and abortion rights. They constantly devote their time and money to such causes, often playing benefit concerts. Ray and Saliers both have side projects. Ray owns and founded Daemon Records, an independent label based in Decatur. She also has a career as a solo artist, and has released two albums thus far. Saliers is the part owner of Watershed, a restaurant and wine bar in Decatur. Together, the Indigo Girls are constantly touring. Their new album, Despite Our Differences, was released 19 September 2006.

• 

  Margaret Glaspy

  NEW ALBUM 'I Am Both' OUT AUGUST 7