Doors open 7.30pm, starts 8pm.
This gig is for a seated audience.

THIS GIG TAKES PLACE AT THE CHURCH OF LEONARD’S ON HYTHE HILL, COLCHESTER, CO1 2NP.
https://www.stleonard-at-the-hythe.org.uk/

KEY ACCESS INFORMATION TO NOTE:
Access to the building is via 4 steps, unfortunately this is at a gradient too steep to put in a wheelchair access ramp. This means we generally have limitations to access this event.
We are happy to discuss any issues with access to the building if you are still wanting to attend, and explore any access needs you may have. Please contact us via info@colchesterartscentre.com if you’d like to discuss this.

At the Crossroads & The Friends of St Leonard’s are proud to present a night with Kentucky bluesman & poet Nat Myers, with support from Essex country/folk artist Jack Browning. The gig will take place at St Leonard-at-the-Hythe CO1 2NP. For details of how to get there, parking etc please see https://www.stleonard-at-the-hythe.org.uk/visiting-the-church – please wear appropriate warm clothing as the church has limited heating.

Nat will be visiting Colchester as part of his first UK tour. Nat’s journey includes tours and support slots with some of the biggest names in current roots music including Charley Crockett, Willi Carlisle, Kelsey Waldon & Nick Shoulders, as well as being featured on WesternAF, PBS and NPR in the United States. His debut album, Yellow Peril, is full of jumpy blues songs about hopping trains, burning up highways, running from some danger but also running toward something harder to define and even harder to catch. Full of intelligence and soul, contradiction and nuance, these songs reflect his restlessness and wanderlust in their fleet riffs, complex rhythms, and quick tempos, as he draws from a variety of stylistic strains and historical threads to weave a complex epic about life in post-pandemic America.

He started busking while studying poetry in New York but Covid eventually put an end to his performing career. Myers retreated back home, waiting out the pandemic and uploading videos of his performances to social media. Those clips caught the ear of Dan Auerbach, the Black Keys frontman and founder of Easy Eye Sound Records, who reached out and asked to meet up in Nashville.

Myers made several more trips down to Nashville to co-write with Auerbach, famed songwriter Pat McLaughlin, and blues legend Alvin Youngblood Hart. ‘We did a number of takes on ‘Yellow Peril,’ which Myers wrote during the pandemic, just before the Stop Asian Hate movement took off. “I knew they were going to blame us yellow folks for the virus. I’d felt it already. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing demographic in this country, but we’re also the poorest in terms of the wealth gap in America.”

Steeped in history, in poetry, in old 78s, Yellow Peril sounds current, capturing its creator’s idiosyncrasies as well as the country’s contradictions. Not only did these songs help Myers connect with his own heritage, but they allow him to keep moving through America—onward as well as upward. “I wasn’t raised with a clear understanding of my Asianness, and I didn’t really have a consciousness about who I was as a Korean American until very recently. I got very militant about it during the pandemic, and while I’ve chilled out a little since then, I’m all about Yellow Power. I want this record to raise my folks up.”

Jack Browning is a 26-year-old artist and musician hailing from London (UK), but takes inspiration from all over Europe and the United States. A sucker for folk, blues, rock and country music, Jack divides his time between the recording studio, the art studio, and touring the UK, Europe and the US.