Moors & McCumber return to Sundilla on Friday, January 27. Admission is $15 at the door, but $12 advance tickets are available at Spicer’s Music, Blooming Colors, Music Town Records, and online at www.sundillamusic.com. Free coffee, tea, water and food will be available at the show, but attendees are invited to bring any food or beverage they prefer.
James Moors and Kort McCumber grew up in different places and listening to different kinds of music – classical, rock, bluegrass, you name it. But when they met a dozen years ago they knew they’d found something golden. Since then, they’ve been cultivating their wide-ranging musical influences in songs that delve into love and life through haunting lyrics, soaring harmonies, and dazzling instrumental proficiency. As Grammy award-winning producer Lloyd Maines puts it, “These guys should be playing every major festival in the country. They bring it all to the stage and deliver it in a big way.”
Multi-instrumentalist, Americana-folk-bluegrass-newgrass groups are making waves in popular music these days (think Mumphord and Sons, The Avett Brothers, Shovels and Rope, The Civil Wars, etc.) and Moors & McCumber are leaders in the revolution, not followers. James Moors and Kort McCumber are an acoustic duo that crafts beautiful story songs that walk the line between rootsy folk and melodic pop. The two songwriters met at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in 2005. Sitting around a campfire swapping songs, they each heard something in the music of the other that just fit. The two have been performing and writing together ever since.
James Moors is heralded by Steve Morse, longtime Boston Globe writer, as “sharing some of the same melodic gifts of Neil Finn, enhanced by a warm-hearted spirit that makes you want to hear more.” Born and raised in Minneapolis, he grew up with the music of The Replacements, Soul Asylum and Prince but today draws inspiration from troubadours like Ron Sexsmith and Eliza Gilkyson. An official recipient of the prestigious McKnight Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, his songwriting has been recognized three years in a row by the Big Top Chautauqua competition.
A talented multi-instrumentalist, Colorado artist Kort McCumber plays a variety of instruments (guitar, banjo, fiddle, cello, mandolin, harmonica, piano, Irish Bouzouki, accordion, Weissenborn) in his own brand of Americana that is one part rock and blues, two parts country-bluegrass and all parts McCumber. But it is his songwriting abilities that have made him a Colorado favorite and garnered him national and international recognition. He is a recent winner of the Flat Rock Festival Songwriting Competition in North Carolina and was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition.
Although successful solo songwriters, Moors & McCumber discovered that their music together is more than the sum of the parts. Embracing a bigger sound than most duos, they switch up instruments on almost every song (playing guitar, mandolin, piano, Irish bouzouki, fiddle, harmonica, cello, 12-string guitar and Dobro), creating catchy melodies that are big, bright and electrifying to watch live.
Moors & McCumber will be playing on Friday, January 27. Admission is $15 at the door, but $12 advance tickets are available at Spicer’s Music, Blooming Colors, Music Town Records, and online at www.sundillamusic.com. Free coffee, tea, water and food will be available at the show, but attendees are invited to bring any food or beverage they prefer. For more information, just go to www.sundillamusic.com.