$10 ADVANCE / $15 DAY OF SHOW*
5PM DOORS / 8PM SHOWTIME
*In response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, we are in accordance with the City of Minneapolis regulations: masks are required upon entry & when not eating or drinking. Thank you!
Eli Gardiner’s music is steeped in the singer songwriter tradition. Growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on a healthy dose of Springsteen, Croce, Taylor, Young and Dylan, he learned about the art of songwriting early on. “Some of my first musical memories are listening to Saturday Night Gold on the radio with my family, hearing the oldies, songs like “Runaway” by Del Shannon.” Eli states. Both his parents were musicians. His mother played flute and his father classical guitar.
Eli has been writing songs since he was in high school. Recording his first album when he was in college, The Fire and The Medicine will be his fifth album. A solo artist out of necessity, this time he decided to recruit some help to better serve the song. After moving to Minneapolis in the summer of 2018 he quickly jumped into the open mic scene of the Twin Cities. There he met some talented musicians who recorded on the new album.
The Fire and the Medicine was recorded and mixed at Bathtub Shrine studio in Minneapolis. Greg Schutte (Ryan Bingham, Mickey Hart) recorded, mixed, produced and played drums. Nick Salisbury (Ryan Bingham, Brian Fallon, Jack Klatt) on bass. And Dan Schwartz (His recordings have earned him a nomination for guitarists of the year and local Folk/roots album of the year.) Playing slide guitar, electric, mandolin, and banjo.
The songs on the new album are both personal and political. "The Right and the Wrong" a mid-tempo groove and the first song to be released off the new album, is undeniably relatable. Eli sings "walkin down the street, prayin for the rain, prayin for the lost and the broken and the pain." These songs are empathetic, full of soul, the stories of what it’s like to live in a world of confusion, pain and to ultimately find hope.
Sarah Morris has a habit of missing the forest. From the day the Minneapolis based singer-songwriter picked up a guitar, armed with the bone-deep memory of her parents’ well-loved record collection and rooted in the storytelling fire of a Mary Chapin Carpenter tune, she’s been too busy crafting love letters to the details of the trees. Sarah’s endearingly honest, expertly penned songs encourage audiences to pull away from the big picture and get caught up in the magic of our everyday minutia, the rainy-day ache in her sunlit voice granting us permission to escape into stories at once hauntingly familiar and uniquely her own.
A graduate of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, Sarah spent the first years of her career in Nashville, losing herself in the art of writing timeless Americana melodies. “Sarah Morris [is] a bright, clear, brilliant songwriter,” wrote Jon Hunt of L’Etoile Magazine. “…pure and crisp and perfect.” In the eight years since her 2011 debut album, Lonely or Free, Sarah’s career, like her songs, has been overflowing with delicious details. Ordinary Things (2015) and Hearts in Need of Repair (2017), recorded with band mates Thomas Nordlund and Andrew Foreman with producer Eric Blomquist, earned international airplay and considerable critical acclaim, reaching notable positions on both the Americana Music Association and Euro Americana charts. In 2016, Sarah was a top four finalist in the NewSong Music Contest at Lincoln Center in New York City, 2nd place winner of the Chris Austin Songwriting Competition at MerleFest in Wilkesboro, NC, and an Americana semi-finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. In 2018, she went on to win the Kerrville New Folk Competition, collecting an honorable mention at the Telluride Troubadour contest along the way. “Rootsy singer Sarah Morris offers a Norah Jones-like approach to Americana, smoothing overs its rough edges with a butter-velvety voice and an intimate songwriting style.” Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune.
Inclined toward the intimacy of live performance, Sarah performs solo, this evening.