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Arts & Entertainment

Concert to Benefit the Impact Society

Concert to Benefit IMPACT Society: Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders, Tony Denikos Band with Jen Smith

EVENT INFO: 410/381-5200
TICKETS: $20 suggested donation, walkup only

MP3 DOWNLOADS:    
Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders “Safe Home”  http://andrewmcknight.bandcamp.com/track/safe-home-live-cd-preview
Tony Denikos Band “Big Easy Down”  http://www.thewoodandstoneroom.com/songfiles.html

VIDEO PREVIEW:
Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders “Beyond Borders”  http://youtu.be/KTRJD8FRHrg
Tony Denikos “Under the Church” http://youtu.be/YtnEwypJPWI

ARTIST INFO: http://andrewmcknight.net
http://www.tonydenikos.com   
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THE STORY
Singer/songwriters Tony Denikos and Andrew McKnight spent some time chatting over coffee one morning at a recent music industry conference in New York. The two friends shared their ideas and frustrations about the modern music business, the tough economy, and their mutual desires to help encourage younger musicians. Denikos had recently started working with the IMPACT Society, a locally-based non-profit corporation providing teens with “Something Cool After School”; the opportunity to explore and develop skills in the arts leading to creating, performing and producing works.

In the wake of those coffee conversations, the Westminster-based Denikos pitched an idea to his friend, and the two quickly planned the upcoming concert on February 4th to help raise awareness and funds for work of the IMPACT Society. The two Americana/roots singer/songwriters and their bands will join forces for a big night of music in Columbia, sharing their wide range of songs and stories in separate sets to help inspire and nurture the generations coming behind them.

McKnight, who makes northern Virginia’s Blue Ridge his home, has a long history of sharing his music for a variety of worthy causes, from concerts for food banks and ending poverty to singing about the plight of workers and communities displaced by mountaintop removal coal mining. One of McKnight’s bandmates is Les Thompson, one of the founding members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band who achieved double platinum and Grammy success for their traditional music collaboration Will The Circle Be Unbroken? in the early 70s. The sentiments of that title seem to provide a theme for the idea of giving opportunities to the next generation.

The Tony Denikos Band have earned acclaim and lots of fans regionally for their rootsy backbeat grooves and beautifully delivered ballads framing Denikos lyrical depth and warm husky vocals. The band finds their center stylistically where Creedance Clearwater, Bruce Springsteen and John Prine might intersect. Denikos recently released his third CD Already Gone, a collection of 11 distinctive tunes that explore the entire spectrum of Americana music. This CD is full of cutting lyrical wit, breathtakingly personal storytelling and foot stomping backbeats, all framing common and familiar threads about love, working class attitudes, hope, regret, forgotten patriots and unwitting heroes. For this show the band will be augmented by longtime Baltimore favorite Jen Smith of Naked Blue.

Along with Thompson, Les’s wife and fellow songwriter Stephanie Thompson, and WAMMIE-winning singer/songwriter Lisa Taylor, Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders has delighted concert and festival audiences since their collective debut at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington. They came together then to perform in the wake of McKnight’s most recent solo CD Something Worth Standing For, a finalist for the Washington Area Music Awards Overall Album of the Year, and will soon release One Virginia Night, a live CD and bonus DVD. Their eclectic arrangements of McKnight's award-winning songs fuse oldtime influences, roots rock sounds, rich vocal harmonies, and an assimilation of many stylistic elements that truly stretch "beyond Appalachian, beyond blues, beyond folk".

Denikos is hoping that enthusiastic support for this inaugural concert will help him turn it into an annual series of two or three shows. Given his friend McKnight’s enthusiastic response to his first efforts, he likely won’t have trouble convincing other artist friends to lend their voices for a great cause in the future.

For more about the IMPACT Society, please visit http://www.theimpactsociety.org
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