In one of those “why didn’t this happen sooner?” circumstances, Sundilla will welcome RJ Cowdery to the stage for the first time on Friday, May 4. Showtime at the AUUF is 7:30; admission at the door will be $15, but $12 advance tickets are available at Spicer’s Music, Blooming Colors, our newest outlet at World Cup Coffee, and online at www.sundillamusic.com. Free coffee, tea, water and food will be available, and attendees are welcome to bring whatever food or beverage they prefer.
RJ Cowdery has solidified her place in the world of performing singer-songwriters, garnering accolades at Mountain Stage NewSong, Kerrville, Falcon Ridge, Rocky Mountain Folk Festival, and Sisters Folk Festival. She plays a clean guitar, flat picking or strumming, stringing chords together to develop melodies built like a proverbial brick house and pours over it all with a voice like butter. Her lyrics are sincere and plainspoken, inviting you to lean in hard and come out the other side changed.
Though she wrote her first songs as a teenager, Cowdery took a circuitous path to becoming a full-time artist. She experienced exciting creative breakthroughs followed by distractions and obligations that took her away from her lifelong dream of being a professional singer/songwriter. But it has all paid off in recent years.
Cowdery’s past few years on the folk festival trail have been nothing short of extraordinary. She has received major accolades at some of the most prestigious festivals in the U.S., including wins at the 2007 Mountain Stage NewSong, 2008 Kerrville New Folk, and 2008 Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist competitions. Most recently, she won the Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest at the Sisters Folk Festival in Oregon.
Cowdery is a fixture at the Folk Alliance International Conference, where she has been an Official Showcase Artist. But it is her late-night showcases that are can’t-miss; people crowd into rooms until there is no room left, all to enjoy music that Joe Crookston calls “not just songs, they are arrows shot directly into the heart.” And it’s not just the music; RJ is unassuming, honest, deeply emotional, self-deprecatingly charming and funny.
Sundilla has garnered a reputation over the years as a venue where you can feel safe taking a chance on a performer you’ve never heard of before; acts such as Dana Louise and the Glorious Birds, Act of Congress, Harpeth Rising, Runa… the list of performers who went from “I’ve never heard of them” to “you MUST book them again!” in the space of one concert is long. It is a guarantee that RJ Cowdery is about to place herself solidly on that list.
So join us when the latest Sundilla “discovery” steals your heart. RJ Cowdery will take the stage on Friday, May 4; showtime at the AUUF will be 7:30. Advance tickets are just $12 and can be found at Spicer’s Music, Blooming Colors, World Cup Coffee, and online at http://www.sundillamusic.com; admission at the door will be $15. Free coffee, tea, water and food will be available, and attendees are invited to bring whatever food or beverage they prefer. For more information, go to www.sundillamusic.com.