By Jazzelle Jones
Special to The PREVIEW
The Americana Project class at Pagosa Springs High School is pleased to announce its first Guest Artist Series concert featuring the beautiful sounds and incredible songwriting talents of Songs of the Fall on Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m.
The concert will be held in the Pagosa Springs High School auditorium and the cost is only $10 (free for 12 and under).
Songs of the Fall is a Pagosa Springs-based Americana duo featuring five-time Grammy nominee Cia Cherryholmes on banjo and vocals, and Stetson Adkisson on guitar and vocals.
Their music has been described as a meeting of celtic, delta blues and bluegrass with a strong dose of country. This husband-and-wife duo will take you through the full range of emotions with their heartfelt and sincere music. Adkisson and Cherryholmes will also be teaching a master class for the students, as well as playing an assembly for the entire high school.
Cherryholmes grew up in a musical family, so she always had the benefit of being around people to practice and play music with. Her family toured together for 12 years all over the world and garnered five Grammy nominations — two for country instrumental of the year and three for bluegrass album of the year.
“It was exciting and an honor to receive the nominations and to get to attend the Grammys several times,” stated Cherryholmes.
Adkisson grew up in Pagosa Springs, then moved away and traveled as a hunting/fishing guide and as a musician.
Adkisson and Cherryholmes met through a recording engineer at the studio of the label that Cherryholmes was signed to. Cherryholmes’ friend thought that Cherryholmes and Adkisson should collaborate in writing music together. They instantly hit it off, but didn’t start doing any kind of music together until about a year later.
Over the five years that they have been together, they have enjoyed performing and working together, and appreciate all the wonderful opportunities they have shared. They enjoy being able to travel all over the world, meet new people and use their creativity to tell stories and relate to people through their songs. A few of their favorite performances that they have done are Cane’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Okla., and The Highline in New York City. They played both of those venues when they opened up for Crowder’s 2013 tour.
They approach songwriting by developing a melody or a hook line and building upon that. Usually, one of them will start a new idea and then bring it to the other one to help finish. Sometimes the whole song will come to them very quickly, and other times the song can develop over several months. Some of their musical inspirations include:1930s and 1940s jazz, old spirituals, Ray Lamontagne, Jason Wade and Bob Dylan.
In the future, they hope to always write, play, and enjoy music together. They have a lot of great opportunities coming up in the next year.
Students from the Americana Project will open the show. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and tickets are only available at the door the night of the show.
We hope you can join us Nov. 3 for a magical night of music and help support the Americana Project program.
