River City Sessions Is April 12 At The Granfalloon

The River City Sessions will feature Stringers Ridge, Tom Brown and Robert Thatcher, and Dana Shavin on Thursday, April 12, at the Granfalloon.  Claire Haynes will have her pottery on display and available for purchase at the show. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will be available at the door. 

Review for the performers: 

Stringers Ridge
On a cold New Year’s Eve in 2017, three musicians met at John C. Campbell Folk School; they became friends, started jamming together at Slick’s, and created a new trio, Stringer’s Ridge, a
band likely to go down in Chattanooga history if for nothing else, as the first to take advantage of that name. New Chattanooga residents Tom and Fran Morley make up two-thirds of Stringer’s Ridge, a band that crosses musical and geographic boundaries with music that focuses on Celtic and Old Time but could veer off into other eclectic genres at a moment’s notice. 

Fiddler/Violinist Tom Morley has played professionally most all his life in many styles of music.Classically trained, he’s been a concert violinist, toured Europe with New Orleans jazz bands, dabbled in Cajun, and has a Gold Album representing his Nashville years on stage and in the studio with Country/New Traditionalist singer John Anderson. His passion for Irish Traditional Music over the past two decades led to the formation of bands that played across the country and inspired him to write a book on the subject.

His wife, Fran Morley, picked up the bodhrán, the Irish drum, around the same time and has played alongside him in concerts and pub sessions in Ireland, England, Scotland, Holland, Canada, and throughout the Southeast U.S.

A long time Chattanooga resident and teacher at GPS, guitarist Bryant Haynes calls himself a Jack of all trades and master of none, although he does have a master’s degree in physics should that ever be called for in a band. He plays a wide variety of acoustic instruments, sings, tells stories when the spirit moves him, and can pound a rhythm into the floor with his amazing Podorythmie talents—otherwise known as French Canadian foot tapping. 

Tom Brown and Robert Thatcher
In November of 2017, Robert Thatcher and Tom Brown embarked on a musical adventure with the intention of combining their creative juices to enter songwriting competitions. So far they have received honorable mention in the 2017 Musicians United Against The Pebble Mine Songwriting Contest, honorable mention in the Woody Guthrie Songwriting Contest, and third place in the American Songwriter Contest. 

A Chattanooga native, Robert Thatcher is strongly influenced by the southern Appalachian folk and bluegrass music of this area. His songs are about the natural beauty and people of this region, and often touch on environmental issues that endanger a more traditional way of life. He has twice received an honorable mention in the international competition held in honor of Woody Guthrie. His songwriting efforts reflect a strong desire to have both a good message and a strong melody line in his compositions. Robert’s songs have appeared on Bluegrass Bands Helping Vol. 2 and the Scenic City Sampler, a compilation of Chattanooga area artists. He and his wife Alice have been members of the Orchard Band trio for the past 13 years, playing frequently throughout the Chattanooga area. 

Over the years Tom Brown has worn many hats. His songwriting efforts have have resulted in  several of his songs being recorded by regional and national bluegrass bands and he has been selected four times for the IBMA World of Bluegrass Songwriter Showcase. Tom co-wrote the musical comedy Fat Shirley’s: A Trailer Park Opera, first staged in 2005 and most recently at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015. He also wrote the music for Twisted Roots, a collaborative effort with author Peggy Douglas. He often can be seen performing with the bluegrass band Spatial Effects and on rare occasion with the legendary Gobbler’s Knob String Band. He currently serves as the director of the WoodSongs Dalton Concert Series and he produced the Scenic City Sampler Cd, a compilation of Chattanooga area Americana musicians and songwriters. 

Brown currently serves as the executive director of the DEO Clinic, a nonprofit clinic that provides medical care to uninsured low income residents of Whitfield and Murray Counties in northwest Georgia.

Dana Shavin
Dana Shavin’s essays have appeared in Oxford American, The Writer, Alaska Quarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, The Sun, Fourth Genre, Third Coast, Hawaii Pacific Review, Willow Review, Palo Alto Review, Gravy, and numerous alternative health, arts, and entertainment newspapers. She has been a Lifestyle columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press since 2002 and is the editor of the Chattanooga Jewish Federation newspaper, The Shofar. Dana has been a panelist and workshop presenter at northern Pennsylvania's Keystone College literary conference, The Gathering, since 2012, and has spoken and read at venues as diverse as the Unitarian Universalist Church, Unity of Chattanooga, the Jewish Cultural Center, the University of Tennessee, Meacham Writers Workshop, and at various book clubs, writers groups and performance venues. Dana received a literary arts grant through CreateHere in 2008. Her website is Danashavin.com, her blog is Get My Drift, and you can find her on Facebook at Dana Shavin Writes. Dana's memoir, The Body Tourist, is forthcoming from Little Feather Books. To read an excerpt go to www.LittleFeatherBooks.com and click on New Releases.