2012-2013 Club Jaeb season

The David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts announces the

2012-2013 Club Jaeb season

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Tampa, FL – Now celebrating its eighth season, Club Jaeb transforms the Straz Center’s Jaeb Theater into an intimate music space featuring folk, Americana, alternative, country and other “hand-picked music that matters.”

The 2012-2013 Club Jaeb season is presented by Merchants Association of Florida, Inc. and includes:

Darrell Scott ∙ Oct. 8

Scott’s songs have been recorded by more than 70 artists including the Dixie Chicks, Faith Hill, Sam Bush and Garth Brooks. He won Americana Songwriter of the Year in 2007 and ASCAP’s Songwriter of the Year in 2002. Rolling Stone says he “matches Guy Clark and Bruce Springsteen at their best.” Performing Songwriter calls him “the best of the best.” USA Today says his songs are “brilliantly clever.” In addition to his songwriting, Scott is a brilliant player on multiple instruments. He recently toured with Robert Plant’s Band of Joy. His most recent recording is A Crooked Road, and he also wrote Red Molly’s “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.”

Carrie Rodriguez ∙ Nov. 12

Rodriguez started as a teenage violinist who went on to study at the Berklee College of Music. Since then she’s mastered mandolin and guitar and toured with Chip Taylor, Lucinda Williams and Alejandro Escovedo. Although she’s a skillful songwriter (note her prideful shot at a cheating lover on “She Ain’t Me”), her latest CD Love and Circumstance is a collection of covers from some of the very best songwriters including Richard Thompson, Townes Van Zandt and more.

Tyrone Wells ∙ Dec. 10

A preacher’s kid, Wells combines soul, pop and folk rock – and more than a few stories – in his live shows. He has spent the last year bouncing between Nashville and Los Angeles, so it makes sense that his spring 2012 release, Where We Meet, bounces effortlessly between intimate and epic. His previous recordings Hold On and Remain contain songs that were featured on Grey’s Anatomy, The Vampire Diaries and Rescue Me. In 2010, Metal & Wood spent nearly three weeks at No. 1 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter chart and debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. Although he has hundreds of original songs, he has a knack for selecting great songs to cover and make his own, such as the Kings of Leon hit “Use Somebody.”

Kris Delmhorst ∙ Jan. 21

A former member of Redbird (with Peter Mulvey and husband Jeffrey Foucault), Delmhorst approached one of her best recordings, Shotgun Singer, with a decidedly lo-fi method. She isolated herself in a rural cabin with minimal recording gear and a houseful of instruments. Then she added some layers, “like an oil painting,” she says. Delmhorst’s voice has been described as “wine deep and honey bright.” Never predictable, her Strange Conversation recording turned the words of moldering poets like Rumi, e.e. cummings and Walt Whitman into modern songs.

“The album is an assured model of sophisticated songwriting and heartfelt musicianship.” – Boston Globe

Cheryl Wheeler ∙ Feb. 11

A well-covered songwriter and natural-born storyteller, Wheeler counts Kenny Loggins, Garth Brooks, Holly Near and Dan Seals among those who have recorded her work. She returns to Club Jaeb a few years after a sold-out show that had the audience crying and laughing, occasionally at the same time.

“Imagine a performer with the songwriting whimsy of a Randy Newman, the soul of a Joan Armatrading, the vocal pyrotechnics of a Diane Schuur and the wry humor (and cluttered look) of a Linda Ellerbee.” – L.A. Times

Richard Shindell ∙ March 11

Shindell first gained worldwide attention during a European tour with Joan Baez, later forming a kind of folk supergroup with Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky called Cry Cry Cry. His South of Delia recording, featuring songs by Robertson, Dylan, Springsteen and Guthrie, was named a Top 10 selection by NPR. With Not Far Now he returns (mostly) to his own songs. Long a spiritual seeker – first in a Zen Buddhist monastery and then at a seminary – Shindell is a powerful writer and equally powerful performer.

“One of the folk circuit’s most quietly lucid songwriters, with a compassionate intelligence that gleams through his songs.” – Jon Parales, New York Times

Tift Merritt and Simone Dinnerstein ∙ April 6

*This concert is in the Straz Center’s Ferguson Hall.

It may seem an odd pairing at first, this Grammy® Award-nominated alt-country darling and a pianist known for her interpretations of Bach, Beethoven and Shubert. But Merritt has always resisted easy classifications, as comfortable in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium as in Paris, where she lived for a while. The album Night features a collection of new songs written especially for the duo by the likes of Brad Mehldau, Patty Griffin and Philip Lasser. Jenny Scheinman, whose previous collaborators include Bill Frissell, David Byrne and Madeleine Peyroux, has contributed arrangements of some of Merritt’s and Dinnerstein’s favorite songs. Both artists will perform solo as well – Merritt in her own songs – more like musical short stories, including some from her latest recording See You on the Moon – and Dinnerstein in some of her favorite selections from the solo classical piano repertoire.

“Always a storyteller … Merritt is the type of disarming talent who can easily coax her way into any genre.” – NPR

Lori McKenna ∙ May 6

After taking a circuitous route to the music business, including raising a family, this Boston-based singer-songwriter nods to Nashville but stays rooted in her own world. Marriage, family, a sense of place – they all inform McKenna’s intimate and detailed lyrics. Fellow musician Mary Gauthier helped get McKenna’s songs noticed in Nashville and superstar Faith Hill recorded three of them on her album Fireflies. Since then McKenna has recorded two stellar albums – Unglamorous and her most recent Lorriane, named for her mother.

“The power of McKenna’s music lies in her artful pairing of intimacy and universality. … Her songs will break your heart, compel you to hug your children, or remind you that time passes, and fast. … She celebrates the sweet romance of the familiar. She dances to the rhythms of a settled life.” – Boston Globe

All Club Jaeb performances are on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. except for the concert with Merritt and Dinnerstein, which is on a Saturday. Audiences can come early for the 6:30 p.m. Monday Music Mingle, with affordable light snacks and drinks and then stay to see the show.

Current season ticket holders get the first chance to keep their seats for next season. Those packages are available now and begin at $130. Pending availability for this popular series, new season tickets will be available June 1. Those interested in learning more can call the Straz Center Ticket Office at 813.229.STAR (7827) or outside the Tampa Bay area at 800.955.1045 or visit www.strazcenter.org. Individual show tickets are $28.50 and will go on sale Sept. 4.

Events, days, dates, times, performers and prices are subject to change without notice.