Cincinnati is lucky enough to have one of the best music scenes in the Midwest, and perhaps the country. Asheville, N.C. is another city that is exploding when it comes to its music scene. Cincy is a much bigger town with a longer history, of course, and a river city as opposed to the mountain haven that is Asheville. Yet, Asheville’s musical history can be traced back to the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival of 1928, promoted by Bascom Lamar Lunsford and fueled by the extensive music culture of the surrounding Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. These days, Asheville is seeing some big-time growing pains as somewhere along the way it became a “hip” city, in large part due to its blossoming music and arts scene.
One of the best current acts to come out of Asheville is The Honeycutters, a great band ready to be discovered by the rest of America. The group seems to triangulate Country music — it is definitely and thankfully not a Bro-Country dog-and-pony show, yet the band is also off to the side of the classic Country music sound. There is a steel guitar and mandolin in the mix, as well as the wonderful vocals and songwriting of Amanda Platt. The sound of The Honeycutters is bright yet pensive, real-deal yet breezy and sweet — a perfect soundtrack for late afternoon road-trip driving west into a sunset.
The Honeycutters new album is called Me Oh My, and the first single off the project is “Jukebox,” a perfect example of the band’s groove. You can watch the “Jukebox” video on the group’s website, honeycutters.com, then head to Clifton this week and have some fun watching and listening as The Honeycutters work to break out on a national level.
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This article appears in Apr 27 – May 4, 2016.