AAFFM PRESENTS: The January Duo, and CJ Jones and The Spirit Bones

THE JANUARY DUO

The January Duo was founded in January of 2015 when multi-instrumentalist Payton Scott and classically trained singer Sara Grace Carmical met in high school.Shortly after, Chris Scott, bassist, trumpet player, and Atlanta Symphony Chorus alum (and Payton’s dad) joined up to accompany the Duo. They have enjoyed playing traditional music from all over the world for audiences on two continents.

Sara Grace Carmical has ten years of classical voice training and is currently a sophomore voice and biology major at Emory University. Payton Scott started playing banjo in the ninth grade. Soon after that he expanded to the guitar, accordion, mandolin, bass, Celtic drum, and dulcimer. Payton has honed his craft under the tutelage of Frank Hamilton and Jens Krüger. He currently serves as an instructor at the Frank Hamilton Folk School.

From folk to bluegrass to old-time to gospel and blues, the January Duo look forward to bringing their arrangements of a wide range of classic tunes to their first appearance at Fiddler’ Green.

CJ JONES AND THE SPIRIT BONES

The local band CJ Jones and the Spirit Bones will also make its Fiddler’s Green debut.  The group plays original songs that “sound like Commander Cody, Mojo Nixon and Hunter S. Thompson had a three-way mutant love child with an intellectual edge,” according to Candler Park resident and Emory professor Ted Pettus. the band leader.

Their concept album The Odyssey of Cledus Jeremiah Jones is built around Pettus’s creation, an Appalachian prophet of that name.  Jones’ pronouncements on spirituality (“It ain’t religion if it ain’t got snakes”) and spirits (“Smoke away my memory, drink away my pain”) have attracted an eclectic following in Atlanta’s funky Americana music scene.  Pettus composed the songs.

Four other brilliant musicians put meat on the Spirit Bones:

• Singer/guitarist Craig Rafuse has been performing songs with social significance in 1963  while also playing in dance bands. In addition to the Spirit Bones, he currently appears with Expand Band, Owls and Kahootz.
• Drummer Bobby Andre has played in jazz, blues, rock, pop and country bands. He has recorded with several bands including Glenn Phillips and has toured with Billy Joe Royal, Glenn Phillips and Aviva and the Flying Penguins among others.
• Bassist Andy Weiskoff has played in rock, blues, and contra bands. His musical epiphany came one day at a traffic light while listening to a Baroque string quartet, when a car playing hip-hop pulled up beside him, and the two musical selections merged seamlessly!
• Keyboard player Alan Dynin has performed concerts for the Jazz and World Music Association, the Atlanta Symphony Associates, and many other house concert series. He is one of the more diverse pianists in the Southeast, playing and composing in jazz, Latin, blues and boogie, ragtime, concert classical, gospel, free improvisational, and now… Funkabilly.

CJ Jones and the Spirit Bones has been seen around Atlanta at the Clermont Lounge, Red Light Café, The Earl, Inman Park Festival and Lake Claire Land Trust, among other venues.

www.cledusjeremiahjones.com