Deepak Chopra, MD FACP, Founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing and Jiyo.com is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and a Clinical Professor in Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. The World Post and The Huffington Post global internet survey ranked Dr. Chopra #17 influential thinker in the world and #1 in Medicine”.
Chopra also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Executive Programs at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and of Columbia Business School, Columbia University.
Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including 25 New York Times bestsellers.
TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as "one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
As CEO, Doug leads a strong management team that is helping people around the world save money and live better. Under his leadership, Walmart is bringing together its stores, logistics network and digital commerce capabilities in new ways to make every day easier for customers. Each week, 265 million customers and members visit our more than 11,200 stores and clubs in 26 countries and eCommerce websites.
Doug previously served as president and chief executive officer of the company’s International and Sam’s Club business units, and he is a longtime champion of Walmart’s customers, associates and culture.
Anne-Marie Slaughter is President & CEO of New America and the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor Emerita of Politics & International Affairs at Princeton University. From 2009-2011 she served as director of Policy Planning for the US State Department, the first woman to do so.
Prior to government, Dr. Slaughter was Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs from 2002–2009 and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, & Comparative Law at Harvard Law School from 1994-2002.
She has written or edited seven books including “The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World” and “Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family”, and is a frequent contributor to a number of publications including The Atlantic and Financial Times.
In 2012 she published “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” in The Atlantic, which became one of the most read articles in The Atlantic’s history and helped renew national debate on continued obstacles to full gender equality.
J.D. Vance is an investor, commentator, and author of the #1 NYT Bestselling Hillbilly Elegy, described by the National Review as a “brilliant book” and by the Economist as “one of the most important” reads of 2016.
Raised by his working class grandparents in Middletown, Ohio, J.D. graduated from Middletown High School in 2003 and then immediately enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. During his time in the Marines, he deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
When he finished his four-year enlistment, J.D. moved back to Ohio and enrolled at The Ohio State University, where he studied Political Science and Philosophy, and helped coordinate the university’s bipartisan voter education drive in 2008. After graduating from college, he studied at Yale Law School. During his time at law school, J.D. worked at Yale’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic, providing free legal counsel to veterans of our nation’s wars in Vietnam and Iraq. J.D. earned his law degree in 2013.
After a stint at a large corporate law firm, J.D. moved to San Francisco to work at the leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm Mithril Capital, cofounded by Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan. Recently, he became the managing partner of the Rise of the Rest Fund, a $150 million early stage venture capital fund.
J.D. continues to lecture and write on topics of public interest. He regularly discusses politics and public policy on national networks, and has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN, and Fox News.
Shamina has spent her career building partnerships across the public, private and non-profit sectors to support positive social and economic impact. As Executive Vice President of Sustainability and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, she is responsible for advancing equitable economic growth and financial inclusion around the world. Previously, she was Mastercard’s Global Director of Government Services and Solutions, where she worked to digitize social subsidy programs in over 40 countries.
In 2015, Shamina was appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to a six-year term to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency responsible for engaging more than five million citizens in community service. She is also a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Public-Private Partnerships, an advisory body to the U.S. Government on policies, proposals and strategies for developing public-private partnerships that promote shared value with the private sector worldwide.
Prior to joining Mastercard, Shamina led Government and Public Affairs for Nike and spent five years with Citigroup’s Global Community Development Group. Over a 15-year career in the public sector, she held senior positions in the White House and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Shamina is an alumna of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders program and currently serves on the Council on Economic Growth and Social Inclusion. She is on the board of Global Health Corps and the advisory boards of Data & Society and the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University. She is a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute. Shamina holds an M.P.A from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a B.S. from Old Dominion University.
James Fallows has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic for more than thirty-five years, reporting from China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe and across the United States. He is the author of 12 books, including the latest, Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart
of America.
He has won the National Book Award, the National Magazine Award, and a documentary Emmy. He has also done extensive commentary on National Public Radio. James Fallows has a degree in American history and literature from Harvard and in economics from Oxford, as a Rhodes
Scholar, and was President Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter for two years.
Deborah Fallows is a writer and a linguist, with a PhD in theoretical linguistics. She has written for The Atlantic, National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, and The Washington Monthly. She is the author of three books, including Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin lessons in Life,
Love, and Language and the latest, co-authored with James Fallows, Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America.
Ms. Fallows worked previously at the Pew Research Center, Oxygen Media, and Georgetown University. She and James Fallows have two married sons and four grandchildren.
Richard Florida is one of the world’s leading urbanists.
He is a researcher and professor, serving as University Professor at University of Toronto’s
School of Cities and Rotman School of Management and a Distinguished Fellow at NYU
and Florida International University.
He is a writer and journalist, having penned several global best sellers, including the award
winning The Rise of the Creative Class and his most recent book, The New Urban Crisis
published in April 2017. He serves as senior editor for The Atlantic, where he co-founded and serves as Editor-at-Large for CityLab.
He is an entrepreneur, as founder of the Creative Class Group which works closely
with companies and governments worldwide.
Kathleen is responsible for programs that help Walmart create economic opportunity through jobs and sourcing; enhance the sustainability of food, apparel, and general merchandise supply chains; and strengthen the resilience of local communities. Through business initiatives and philanthropy, her teams work with Walmart associates, suppliers, non-profit organizations, and others to drive significant and lasting improvements to economic, social and environmental systems. Last year, the company awarded more than $1.4 billion in cash and in-kind donations, including $1 billion of food donations.
Kathleen serves on the board of the Council on Foundations, and is a member of CECP’s Strategic Investor Initiative Advisory Board. Before joining Walmart in 2013, she spent over 20 years with the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
Kathleen earned a Bachelor of Science from Boston University in Electrical Engineering, as well as Master of Arts in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Balliol College at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She also has a diploma in Theology from Oxford. She is married with three children and divides her time between Bentonville, Arkansas, and Toronto, Ontario.
Wendy Guillies is the president and chief executive officer of the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the United States with more than $2 billion in assets
Guillies leads the Foundation’s work to boost student achievement in Kansas City and to accelerate entrepreneurship across the country. Before becoming CEO, she played an instrumental role in building the Foundation's local, national and global reputation as
a thought leader and innovator in its fields.
Guillies has deep expertise in communications, marketing, organizational development and talent management. She serves on the boards of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, MRI Global, Folience, Saint Luke’s Health System and the Enterprise Bank Advisory Board. The Kansas City Business Journal named her to the Power 100 list in 2016 and 2017, and TechWeek KC named her to the Tech 100 list. She was also selected for the 2014 class of Women Executives in Kansas City by Ingram's magazine.
Guillies is a native of Kansas City, Kansas, and a graduate of the University of Nebraska. She currently lives in Overland Park, Kansas, where she and her husband are the proud parents of two daughters.
Steve Case co-founded AOL in 1985 and under his leadership and vision, AOL became the largest and most valuable Internet company, driving the worldwide adoption of a medium that has transformed business and society.
Case is Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a Washington, D.C.- based investment firm that partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build significant ‘built to last’ businesses. In 2014, Steve and Revolution launched the Rise of the Rest, a platform to shine a spotlight on entrepreneurs that are starting and scaling businesses outside of Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston.
Case serves as Chairman of the Case Foundation, which he established with his wife Jean in 1997.
He is also the author of New York Times bestselling book, The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future.
Joseph Thompson is the founding director of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), having guided the museum’s development and arts programming since its inception in 1987. Opening with 200,000 square feet of renovated space in 1999, the arts complex has grown to over 550,000 square feet of galleries, stages, workshops, and tenant space.
A 1981 graduate of Williams College, Thompson received an MA in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an Annenberg Fellow, and holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, where he was named a Morgenthau Fellow for his work in public policy and management.
Thompson has organized many exhibitions and performing arts events at MASS MoCA, including the first solo exhibition of the visual art of David Byrne; the Clocktower Project, a permanent sound art installation by Christina Kubisch; Robert Wilson’s 14 Stations; Tim Hawkinson’s Überorgan; Ann Hamilton’s corpus; Cai Guo-Qiang’s Inopportune; and, most recently, Xu Bing: Phoenix. Thompson is a co-organizer of the annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA; with the rock band, Wilco, he co-produces the Solid Sound Festival, which
takes place at MASS MoCA every other summer; and he helped conceive and organize
FreshGrass, an annual festival of American roots and new bluegrass music at MASS
MoCA.
Thompson has been awarded the Commonwealth Award (the highest award granted to private citizens by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and the Williams College Bicentennial Medal for outstanding achievement by a Williams College alumnus. He is on the Board of Directors of MountainOne Bank and Berkshire Health Systems.
Devita Davison is executive director at FoodLab Detroit, a membership-based nonprofit focused on entrepreneurs and communities who have been traditionally under-resourced that aims to build economic power and resilience by supporting locally owned food entrepreneurs. In this position since 2014, she works to cultivate, connect, and catalyze a supportive community of food entrepreneurs with the goal of creating a new food economy that acknowledges the importance of food justice, community representation, local ownership and sustainability.
Davison was previously managing director of Detroit Kitchen Connect, a board member of Hopeful Harvest, and founder/owner of Southern Pantry Company. She was a 2014 TEDx Detroit speaker, 2014 UIX Urban Innovator and was named one of 100 Women to Watch in Wellness by mindbodygreen.
Luis stepped into his current role with the Outdoor Recreation Industry Office when the agency was established in 2015. But, don’t let the shirt and blazer fool you; Luis self-identified as a dirtbag prior to his appointment by Governor Hickenlooper, and he still does.
His early career was spent conducting mountaineering, climbing, and skiing courses for the Outward Bound Professional development program. While Luis still guides for Outward Bound through his Endeavor Consulting Company, an even more intense occupation captured his imagination: high altitude mountaineering. Through Endeavor Consulting and other organizations, Luis has led parties of climbers to the summit of some of Earth’s most imposing peaks. His first of six summits on Mount Everest was in 2001 with blind athlete Erik Weihenmayer, and Luis has guided on the famed Seven Summits numerous times.
At the heart of his career, Luis has always focused on teaching as well as serving. Some of his most rewarding work has been to help create the nonprofit “Trekking For Kids”, which focuses on service based expeditions allowing participants to climb and trek while teaching them about local issues like housing and healthcare for orphans around the world. He has also worked closely with Warriors to Summits, a nonprofit focusing on serving returning Veterans by connecting them with the outdoors.
Luis’ staggering climbing achievements are only one of many reasons why he is where he is today. He’s fortunate to have been able to transfer the fearless passion and leadership he honed in the mountains to our state’s flourishing outdoor recreation industry. And today, Luis is at the helm of a powerful machine going at full throttle.
The outdoor recreation industry in Colorado is responsible for over $28 billion in consumer spending and $2 billion in taxes annually. The national outdoor recreation industry has grown to such great heights that it recently earned its place in the calculus of our national gross domestic product - contributing a larger percentage than mining, oil, and gas. The State of the Rockies Project’s 2018 Conservation in the West Poll, which was released at the first Outdoor Retailer trade show in Denver, shows that 96% of Coloradans believe the outdoor recreation industry is essential to the economic future of our state, and that our public lands give us an advantage over other states.
This industry is bigger however, than just sales of skis and fishing poles. A major shift is taking place, one in which Luis seeks to transform the outdoor industry into a powerful force for economic development, conservation, education and wellness. Through the Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, communities across the state are uniting and becoming empowered to advocate for and steward the resources that enable their adventurous pursuits and passions.
TIM FERRISS has been called "a cross between Jack Welch and a Buddhist monk" by The New York Times. He is one of Fast Company's "Most Innovative Business People" and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek. The Observer and other media have named him "the Oprah of audio" due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 300 million downloads and been selected for "Best of iTunes" three years running. His latest book is Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World."
Award-winning actress Jennifer Garner has enjoyed a successful career at the top of her field in both film and television, and most recently taken on the role of philanthropist. An Artist Ambassador for Save the Children, Garner brought the organization’s early childhood and school-age literacy programs to her home state of West Virginia. Over the past decade, she has advocated on Capitol Hill and in state capitals on behalf of Save the Children and traveled the country to see the effects of rural poverty firsthand. Garner recently joined the global non-profit's board of trustees, deepening her commitment to issues affecting children in America and around the world.
Mitch Landrieu was the 61st Mayor of New Orleans. Under Landrieu's leadership, New Orleans is widely recognized as one of the nation’s great comeback stories. Landrieu was named “Public Official of the Year” by Governing and was voted “top turnaround mayor” in a Politico survey of mayors. He gained national prominence for his decision to take down four Confederate statues in New Orleans, which also earned him the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. He is the author of the New York Times best- selling book, In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History. Landrieu recently launched the E Pluribus Unum Fund, a nonprofit that will work to bring people together across the South around the issues of race, equity, economic opportunity and violence. He also serves as a What Works Cities Fellow at Bloomberg Philanthropies and Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
Amasa Hines is a five piece rock band based in Little Rock, AR. Formed in 2012, their influences span a diverse spectrum from Soul to Indie Rock. The tight-knit group skillfully shapes their songs from homages, snapshots, skeletons and obsessions. Their lush, dynamic arrangements provide the platform for lyrical content sourced from observing intimate relationships, nature, and the perceived divine. A new five-song EP "Ivory Loving Glass" will be released in 2018, followed by a full length follow up to their debut album “All The World There Is".
Singer-songwriter Bonnie Bishop and producer Dave Cobb had almost finished recording her 2016 album, Ain’t Who I Was, when Cobb’s cousin Brent burst into the studio with a just-written tune he wanted them to hear. As soon as he and co-writer Adam Hood began playing it, Bishop had a “Killing Me Softly” moment, as if their fingers were strumming her fate — or at least, her manifesto.
In what became the album’s title track, she sings Lord I’m finally proud of who I am now/Thank God it ain’t who I was, her soulful, Dusty-ish voice simultaneously mingling the weariness of struggle, the relief of confession and the power of renewed hope.
Turns out that optimism was well placed; Ain’t Who I Was has earned Bishop the best reviews of her career. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Billboard and Rolling Stone offered praise; the Nashville Scene called it brilliant, noting, “A gifted songwriter and a powerhouse singer, her voice booms with the force of a Texas straight-line squall.” American Songwriter observed, “Her vocals mix the Southern sass of Shelby Lynne with the guts of Susan Tedeschi, leaving room for a fair amount of Bonnie Raitt-styled grit and gumption.” No Depression asserted, “If we can go ahead and choose the BEST album of the year, it’s clearly Bonnie Bishop’s.” Lonestar Music magazine added, “Bonnie’s brilliant voice makes this gut-punching record a seamless triumph.” And in her childhood hometown, the Houston Press anointed her as the “new queen of country soul.”
That recognition has opened several other doors for Bishop, among them singing on preacher’s son Paul Thorn’s knockout gospel album, Don’t Let the Devil Ride (tracked at Memphis’ legendary Sam Phillips Recording), then joining Thorn on tour, and undertaking her first — and second — Scandinavian tours, plus her first official U.K. trek to coincide with the album’s release there. She also performed on the 2017 Cayamo cruise, and is booked again for 2019.
But scoring the perfect album title track to accompany her six co-writes and three other covers, and working with Nashville’s hottest producer — who helped Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell become award-winning chart toppers — were just two of several fortuitous developments for a woman whose life and career have had more twists than a tornado. The fact that Ain’t Who I Was exists at all is a testament to Bishop’s courage, because doing it represented a huge leap of faith — one she thought she’d never take again before meeting Cobb.
By then, Bishop had spent 13 years on the road, doing all the heavy lifting herself. After five albums, one failed marriage and too many years of not making ends meet, she’d decided to give up — despite earning Grammy and New York Times Song of the Year recognition for co-writing “Not Cause I Wanted To,” which Bonnie Raitt covered on her comeback album, Slipstream. Bishop also had witnessed actor Connie Britton perform another of her tunes, “The Best Songs Come From Broken Hearts,” on the hit TV show Nashville.
At the time, Bishop was living in the show’s namesake city. But she packed her possessions and retreated to her parents’ ranch in Wimberley, Texas, to lick her wounds, mourn her dead dreams and figure out what to do next. For therapy, she began writing stories.
“I started seeing these threads connecting through them in a way that allowed me to celebrate what I had done, instead of beating myself up for having failed,” Bishop explains. “I thought maybe I could make a career doing that. So I applied to graduate school.”
But before she headed back to Texas, she called Thirty Tigers co-founder David Macias, a friend. Macias, whose multi-faceted entertainment company handles Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin, Simpson and Isbell (whose Cobb-produced album won 2015’s Best Americana Album Grammy), told her not to give up.
“You just need to make a great record with a real producer,” he said. Then he put her in touch with Cobb — who was in the midst of producing what became Stapleton’s (and Cobb’s) Grammy winning album, Traveller. After hearing her demos, he told her she should be singing soul, not country, and that he was looking to make an album with a soul singer. Her.
During Bishop’s childhood years in Houston, her mom made sure she got familiar with the Motown sound. After her mom married Bishop’s stepfather, football coach Jackie Sherrill, the family moved to Mississippi so he could turn around Mississippi State’s football program.
She spent fall Saturdays on stadium sidelines, dodging linebackers while toting Sherill’s headset cord, helping him achieve what still stands as the best record in MSU history.
During the week, she attended public school and learned how to sing with soul from the girls in choir class, where, unlike Texas, she was a racial minority.
“There’s a lot of Mississippi in me. It’s definitely where learned that I had a voice; it’s also where I found that soulful groove,” Bishop says.
But she’d never fully tapped her soul side, and found the prospect daunting. After an 18-month break from performing, during which she’d finally made peace with her decision and started graduate school, she reflects, “I had doubts about whether or not I could still even sing.”
Despite that fear, and the danger of further heartbreak if she failed, she placed her faith in Cobb and gingerly rekindled a flickering flame of hope.
When Macias heard the tracks she’d recorded, he financed the entire album.
Though enduring what amounted to a break-up with her old identity was painful, Bishop is glad she went through it, because coming out the other side has been nothing short of a rebirth. It’s made her more appreciative of her current success — which includes her namesake fan recording another Bishop tune, “Undone,” on 2016’s Dig in Deep. She’s also performed at the 30A Songwriters Festival, AmericanaFest and other prestigious gatherings, occasionally singing with gospel mavens the McCrary Sisters and other roots music luminaries. She’s also been busy with a variety of new projects since settling in to her new home in Fort Worth, Texas.
One of them is The House Sessions, a just-for-fans album mixing acoustic versions of songs from her early catalog with a few never-before-released tracks.
“I wanted to put new versions out there for super fans who loved me before any of the success from Ain’t Who I Was — the fans who have been there from the beginning who love those songs and ask for them all the time,” she says. It’s also an effort to re-embrace her early career, a time when, by Nashville standards, she was a failure.
But as Nashville’s establishment — and legions of roots music fans — are now well aware, she ain’t who she was. In fact, the self-described “singer/songwriter/storyteller” has not only spun that “failure” into success she couldn’t fathom just a few years ago, she’s vastly expanded her creative pursuits. Bishop’s website features Story and Song, a series of writings about various songs accompanied by video vignettes; she’s also posted Let’s Talk About Bonnie, a beautifully designed and illustrated, printable online book of candid career anecdotes and insights. Bishop is also resuming summer-session graduate studies at Sewanee, and is working on a book about her renowned stepfather, who retired in 2002 after a 30 years as a head coach at Pitt, Texas A&M and Mississippi State.
“I learned so much from him about perseverance — how to get back up after you get knocked down; how to chase a dream — all the things I would need to know to survive the music business,” she says with a laugh.
And yes, Bishop is preparing to record a follow-up to her life-changing 2016 album. She already has a title: The Walk. Like Ain’t Who I Was, it will be full of soul. And truth.
On his sophomore album Good Thing, Leon Bridges’ voice breaks into the debut single “Bad Bad News” in much the same way the artist broke into the public eye in 2015 - forcefully, honestly, and all at once. “They tell me I was born to lose,” he sings with characteristic soulfulness, “but I made a good, good thing out of bad, bad news.”
The lyric is a fitting way to sum up a whirlwind ascent for the young artist. In 2015, Bridges’ first album, Coming Home, surprised the music industry by debuting at #5 on the Billboard Top 200. Only months prior, he had been playing sparsely attended open mics in Dallas-Fort Worth after work washing dishes at a local restaurant. In a span of three years, Coming Home would take Leon to the White House to perform for former President Obama, see him on the stage of Saturday Night Live and earn him nominations for two Grammy Awards including Best R&B Album. The debut album has gone on to sell over 500,000 records (certified RIAA Gold) and has been streamed 350 million times and Leon now regularly sells out 10,000-person capacity rooms in cities around the world.
Good Thing marks the beginning of another transition for Leon Bridges. If Coming Home anointed him the R&B underdog whose sound was reminiscent of days past, Good Thing is an album firmly rooted in the modern world, with nods to R&B’s storied and varied history. “We wanted to find a way to bring the old sound in a way but evolve it,” Bridges explains.
To create the record, Leon returned to Niles City Sound, the Dallas-Fort Worth production team responsible for Coming Home, but he moved the operation to Los Angeles and brought in famed pop producer Ricky Reed. The recipe worked. “The cliché thing to say is that you have your whole life to write your first album,” Leon explains, “but with the process for Good Thing we started and basically finished one song a day.”
“We wanted to find a way to bring the old sound in a way but evolve it” says Bridges. The evolution traveled well beyond its bpm’s parameters as the song lyrics centered in on more intimate details of Leon’s life—from experiencing love and heartache to grappling with newfound fame. “This album was me pulling from some current relationships I was in—some of that came from the fear of falling in love and fighting insecurities; some of it came from the celebration of success in life,” he explains.
Sonically, there’s a noticeable shift: weaving various genres into one cohesive work, yet retaining the integrity of Bridges’ infectious music. “When you have a sound that’s so specific like that, people are going to put you in a box,” he admits. “I feel like I have a better sense of myself now.” Arguably more upbeat, there is still a soulful element to Good Thing that remains Bridges’ signature, though the heart of the project lies in its innovation as there is an overt shift into less of a nostalgic tone. “I don’t think people are just looking for some retro thing again,” he admits. “They just want good music. Knowing that people are waiting for something dope from me made the process even better.”
The album opener “Bet Ain’t Worth the Hand” is an R&B slow ballad with the addition of soaring strings and playful bells that belie the sorrow of a conflicted lover ending a relationship before he can get hurt. “Shy” is a modern pop seduction, with a touching reveal about the seducer in the last chorus. “Forgive You,” written from the perspective of an ex-girlfriend, struggles with the aftermath of a relationship and coming out whole on the other side. The album closes with the musical memoir “Georgia To Texas,” by far Leon Bridges’ most personal work to date. “I wanted to tell vignettes about my life,” he expresses of the concept, which begins before he’s born and tackles hard memories of his family’s financial struggles to his losing his virginity to a prostitute in his teens.
The result is an album that veers from uptempo to down, from highly structured pop-R&B to deconstructed jazz, and from past to present. It is not just sonically rich, but lyrically complex as well, touching on the more intimate details of Leon’s life, from experiencing love and heartache to grappling with newfound fame.
Gone are the days of Leon Bridges, the up-and-comer with potential. In the years since the release of Coming Home, Leon has proved himself a true artist with staying power. Good Thing cements him as complex, multifaceted, and capable of making groundbreaking work. “I really wanted to prove to people that I can exist in any genre, but still be myself,” he says intently. “I don’t want to be the R&B underdog anymore.”
Movement Art Is (MAI), co-founded by Jon Boogz and Lil Buck, is an organization that uses movement artistry to inspire and change the world while elevating the artistic, educational, and social impact of dance. Through movement art films, workshops, performances and exhibitions, MAI is resetting the spectrum of what dance is.
"We don’t believe dance is just entertainment. We believe dance is a tool to educate, a tool to empower. Our goal is not just to touch on socially conscious topics but to empower movement artists and dancers to say we’re artists too. We want to be considered on that level of a Picasso or a Basquiat," says Boogz. Lil Buck adds, "Things used to be like that. Fred Astaire and the Nicholas Brothers and Earl 'Snakeships' Tucker — it was a certain level of artistry, and their dancing was superior, and we don’t really have that anymore. Dancing has dropped to where it’s just background for an artist instead of dancers being at the forefront of their own artistry. We want to shift the mind-set of dancers."
MAI’s award-winning short film “Color of Reality” directed by Jon Boogz, featuring the art of Alexa Meade and the movement artistry of MAI, went viral in fall of 2016. The film has gone to receive coverage internationally, won Great Big Story’s Art as Impact Award; Best Experimental at Toronto International Short Film Festival; and Concept Video of the Year from World of Dance, among others. MAI’s recent/upcoming projects include: a short film created in collaboration with DAIS entitled “AM i A MAN” (April 2017), a performance entitled “Honor Thy Mother” at TED Conference in Vancouver, a live rendition of “Color of Reality” at Aspen Ideas Festival (June 2017) and a VR collaboration with director Terrence Malick and Facebook launched at SxSW and Tribeca Film Festival in spring 2018.
The duo recently choreographed for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago with music composed by Dev Hynes aka Blood Orange, and is currently developing a new full length show Love Heals All Wounds
Kweku Collins is a 21-year old rapper/producer/songwriter from Evanston, IL that has been making music for most of his life. Born into a musical family, Kweku joined his dad on-stage playing African drums at the early age of 4. As a teenager, Kweku transitioned to making his own music, crafting bedroom classics throughout high school. In 2015, just shy of his high school graduation, Kweku joined the Chicago's indie rap outfit, Closed Sessions and shortly after released his debut EP, Say It Here While It's Safe. The EP received critical praise and landed Kweku on Pigeons and Planes 20 rappers under 20 List. In 2016, Kweku followed up with Nat Love - a proper LP that garnered an 8.0 Pitchfork Review, produced a Pitchfork Best New Track, and landed Kweku in publications such as The FADER, Billboard, Chicago Reader, and more. Kweku's latest release, Grey, is available now via iTunes, Spotify, Tidal, and other digital retailers.
Academy Award, Golden Globe, Emmy and Grammy-winning artist, actor and activist, Common continues to break down barriers with a multitude of critically acclaimed, diverse roles, and continued success at the box office.
Common most recently wrapped production on THE KITCHEN, based on the DC/Vertigo female-led comic book series. He stars alongside Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss. Set in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen during the 1970s, the story follows wives of Irish mobsters (McCarthy, Haddish and Moss) who team up to take over running the business after their husbands are sent to prison.
Up next on the big screen, Common lends his voice to Warner Brothers’ animated feature SMALLFOOT, in theaters September 28, 2018. The animated film follows a young Yeti as he discovers a human. The film also stars Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, LeBron James, Gina Rodriguez and Yara Shahidi. Later in the Fall he can be seen in the Fox 2000 film, THE HATE YOU GIVE opposite Amanda Stenberg, Issa Rae and KJ Apa. This timely drama, directed by George Tillman Jr., follows a teenage girl who witnesses a white police officer shooting her best friend and is based on the novel by Angela Thomas.
In 2019 he will appear in Andrea Di Stefano’s action-thriller, THREE SECONDS, with an all-star cast including Clive Owen, Rosamund Pike and Joel Kinnaman.
He starred in the Oscar nominated film, SELMA, a film centered around the civil rights marches that changed America. Alongside John Legend, he won the Academy Award and Golden Globe in 2015 for “Best Original Song in a Motion Picture” for “Glory” which was featured in the film. In 2016, he appeared in the David Ayer’s high profile comic book movie, Warner Bros’ SUICIDE SQUAD. The film broke box office records both domestically and around the world.
In 2017, Common starred opposite Keanu Reeves in the highly anticipated sequel JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2, and appeared in Judy Greer’s directorial debut A HAPPENING OF MONUMENTAL PROPORTIONS with Allison Janney. He also appeared in Bleecker Street’s MEGAN LEAVEY alongside Kate Mara, Tom Felton, Bradley Whitford and Edie Falco.
It was announced that Common will executive produce “Black Samurai” a TV adaption of Marc Olden’s 1974 book series, which inspired the 1977 film of the same name. He is set to star in QUICK DRAW, a new revenge action thriller to be produced by TRANSFORMERS producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Content Media.
Behind-the-scenes, Common recently executive-produced the Netflix drama BURNING SANDS and performed the closing credits original song “The Cross” featuring Lianne Le Havas. The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix March. He serves as an executive producer of Showtime’s hit TV series “The Chi,” a coming-of-age story set in Chicago from Emmy Award winning writer Lena Waithe.
Common’s 11th studio album, BLACK AMERICA AGAIN, was released November 4, 2016 on ARTium/Def Jam Recordings. The album includes socially conscious new single, “Black America Again” featuring Stevie Wonder and the anthem “Letter to the Free,” the end-title track to Ava Duvernay’s powerful Oscar-Nominated documentary 13TH, for which he also received the 2017 Emmy for “Best Music and Lyrics.” After collaborating on the album, Common, Robert Glasper and Karriem Riggins joined together to form supergroup August Greene. The trio made their live debut in January 2018 at New York’s Highline Ballroom as part of Glasper’s annual Grammy Awards party and will release their first joint album on March 9th through Amazon Music.
Common was most recently featured on Andra Day‘s song for Open Road Films’ MARSHALL soundtrack, “Stand Up for Something,” co-written by Common and eight-time Academy Award-nominee Diane Warren. The original song has received Oscar, Grammy, NAACP, and Critic Choice Award nominations, as well as the “Hollywood Song Award” at the 2017 Hollywood Film Awards.
"Round here, you can be however you wanna be," Elise Davis sings at the end "33," one of 10 self-empowered southern anthems from her newest album, Cactus.
Released two years after The Token -- Davis' 2016 debut, whose electrified roots-rock sound earned praised from outlets like Rolling Stone Country, Noisey, and The Wall Street Journal -- Cactus shows the full range of her songwriting. Here, she moves between lush alt-country and stripped-down folk confessionals, gluing everything together with story-driven songs about independence, liberation, and resilience as an adult woman. If The Token's own songs were vulnerable and diary-like, their lyrics pulled from Davis' past romances, then Cactus turns a new leaf, with Davis taking pride in her status as a single, self-sufficient adult woman. Like the desert plant that lends the album its title, she doesn't need help from others to grow tall.
"Cacti are independent plants that sustain themselves," she explains. "They can be beautiful with bright-colored flowers on them, but if you touch them, they will hurt you. I see a lot of parallels with the way I have felt most of my life. It felt like the perfect album title for these songs."
Davis' independent streak began in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she began writing songs at 12 years old. By college, she was booking her own tours and gigging regionally across the state. It was her relocation to Nashville that kickstarted the busiest phase of her career, though, with Davis landing a publishing deal during her first two years in town. Daily co-writing sessions whittled her songwriting to a sharp point, while an ongoing string of recordings -- including The Token, recorded in Maine and released in partnership with Thirty Tigers -- all showcased a musician who shone just as brightly onstage as she did in the writing room.
When it came time to record Cactus, Davis remained in Tennessee, tapping producer Jordan Lehning (Rodney Crowell, Caitlin Rose, Andrew Combs, Birdcloud's Jasmin Kaset) to helm her most personal work to date. The two worked together for six months, holed up in Lehning's home studio, looking to albums like Tom Petty's Wildflowers and Aimee Mann's Mental Illness for inspiration. They paid tribute to Davis' adopted hometown, too, layering songs like the woozy, western "Hold Me Like a Gun" and the cathartic "Don't Bring Me Flowers" -- the latter co-written with Grammy-winner Maren Morris -- with pedal steel, acoustic guitar, keyboards, strings and vocal harmonies. Davis' melodies remained at the forefront of every mix, her voice honest and unflinching, stripped free of the reverb that had swirled its way throughout The Token.
A bold, country-leaning album, Cactus never pulls its punches. Davis examines long-term monogamy and loneliness with "Lone Wolf," "Hold Me Like A Gun," and the album's percussive title track, then talks frankly about sexuality during songs like "Man" and "Don't Bring Me Flowers." She tackles the institution of marriage -- as well as the societal misconception that women should be married by a certain age -- on "33" and "Married Young," then looks at wider issues like depression ("Moody Marilyn") and climate change ("Last Laugh") during the album's second half.
Together, Cactus paints the picture of a modern woman in the modern world. It's an album about what it takes to stand alone, rooted in the hard-won wisdom of a songwriter who's unafraid to shine a light on her missteps and victories.
The Going Jessies is an Americana band from central Arkansas that capitalizes on the pleasant harmonies created by the uniquely compatible voices of Derek Wood (vocals/guitar/keys) and his partner, Angela Paradis (vocals/bass). Along with longtime friend and drummer James Breeding (drums/percussion), the trio melds a traditional singer-songwriter quality with a diverse array of musical influences to produce a sound described by one local music promoter as “country soul”.
The band released its first EP, Let’s Go, in March of 2017 and plans to be back in the studio again in 2018 to work on a full length album drawing on decades of both old and new material written by Wood, whose style has been informed over the years by such artists as Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett and Jeffrey Foucault.
Playing an eclectic mix of originals and atypical covers, The Going Jessies currently perform throughout the state of Arkansas at venues ranging from live music clubs to sidewalk festivals to the occasional living room
Jeff Houghton is a 4 time Emmy award winning host of The Mystery Hour, a syndicated late night talk show he created out of Springfield, Missouri. The Mystery Hour started in a basement improv theatre as a non-televised show in 2006 and is now in its 8th season on television. With an abundance of irrational determination, Jeff has grown the show remarkably over twelve years, as it is now broadcast on FOX, ABC, and CW affiliates across the country, from Missouri to Minnesota to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Described by New York Times comedy critic, Jason Zinoman, as "very Lettermanesque," Houghton, in fact, used to work at The Late Show with David Letterman. Jeff is also a writer, improviser, radio host, and travels internationally emceeing live events. Jeff may be most known for the viral hit, Instagram Husband, which has garnered more than 60 million views online, coining a worldwide phrase. He additionally created the hits, Make Something Where You Are, Unnecessary Bouncer, Jeff and Dave Fix Songs, among many others.
”For a long time I always had to go off on my own,” says Nathaniel Rateliff of his creative process. “For the first Night Sweats record, I demo’ed everything up and created most of the parts. But for this new record, I felt like we’d all spent so much time on the road that we should all go off somewhere together. We should have that experience together. I wanted the guys to feel like they were giving something to the project beyond just playing.”
In other words, the Missouri-bred, Denver-based frontman wanted to make the band disappear along with him—out in the middle of the desert at first, and then deep in the woods. The result is the aptly titled Tearing at the Seams, a vivacious and inventive full-band record, with significant contributions from all eight members of The Night Sweats. These songs are grounded in old-school soul and r&b but are far too urgent for the retro or revivalist tag. There are familiar elements of soul and garage rock, but also jazz and folk and even country: the crackling energy on opener “Shoe Boot,” the cathartic sing-along of “Coolin’ Out,” the melancholy folk of the closing title track. “The future of this band is to take everything we’ve ever done in the past and just do it with our own little twist,” says Rateliff. “I hear that in my favorite bands. They just sucked everything up.”
Like his heroes, Rateliff has always been an omnivorous listener and player. Growing up in Hermann, Missouri, a small town with a booming tourism industry as well as a rampant meth epidemic, he started his music career playing in his family’s band at church, but that came to a tragic end when his father was killed in a car accident. Music became an obsession for him and his friends. “We would walk around these deserted country roads and talk about music all the time, how it can change the world and how it could change our world,” recalls Night Sweats bassist Joseph Pope III. “Music was what we thought would save us.”
In 1998 Pope and Rateliff moved to Denver where they worked nightshifts at a bottle factory and a trucking company while testing out their songs at open-mic nights. Their first band, Born in the Flood, attracted some major-label interest, but the pair had moved on by then, gravitating from heavy rock toward a folksier sound. Rateliff released an album on Rounder Records with a backing band called The Wheel, but despite the critical success of that and subsequent albums, he was still trying to find the right sound, the right outlet for what he needed to say.
A set of rough demos recorded in the early 2010s and based on old Stax and Motown records pointed Rateliff in a new direction. “That old soul stuff meant a lot to him when we were young,” says Pope. “Of all the projects we had done and all the different genres we had played, this was the most natural thing I’d heard him do. It sounded like it came from a really deep place in him, but it took this really meandering path to come through.”
Those demos eventually developed into the band’s 2015 self-titled debut, which became a massive hit and pushed them out on the road for two long years. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats blasted their way through hundreds of shows in North America, England, Ireland, and Australia, and they played Coachella, Farm Aid, Newport Folk Festival, and the Monterey Pop Festival’s 50th Anniversary. The crowds grew larger with every show and The Night Sweats grew tighter and more vigorous.
In May 2017, they brought that same boundless energy to the opens plains and prickly cacti of Rodeo, New Mexico, where the entire band disappeared for a week to write songs for their follow-up. “We just did what we like to do best,” says Rateliff, “which is hang out and be a family.” They recorded a number of demos, some complete songs and others fragments or just ideas, but all were anchored by the preternaturally tight rhythm section of Pope and drummer Patrick Meese, then buoyed by the rambunctious keyboard runs from Mark Shusterman and the textural guitar riffs of Luke Mossman.
It was a sunny setting for emotionally overcast music. Together, The Night Sweats created a set of songs that comprise both an r&b party record and deeply personal confessional from Rateliff, who penned all the lyrics. The album recounts moments in the last few years of his life, some good and others not so much. “I remember finishing one song and just losing my shit and breaking down. These songs are so personal, but not everyone will get that. I get to leave little secrets in there for myself, so that everybody else gets to have their own individual interpretations of the songs.”
From New Mexico, The Night Sweats headed north to rural Oregon, specifically to the home studio of producer Richard Swift, who has helmed records for The Shins and Foxygen in addition to The Night Sweats’ debut. “He’s like a brother to me,” says Rateliff. “We hit it off during the last record. I feel like I get what Richard’s trying to do and he gets me. And his studio doesn’t really feel like a studio. It’s in this little building behind his house. That’s why I like it so much.”
In that tiny space The Night Sweats jammed hard, building off the demos they’d recorded in Rodeo. Often Swift would get dynamic takes without the band realizing he was even recording, which creates a loose, live sound on Tearing at the Seams. “Sometimes it just takes time for songs to reveal themselves to you,” says Rateliff. “You try not to get in the way of the songs and just let them be what they need to be or what everybody understands them to be.”
That’s how “Hey Mama” evolved from an acoustic guitar riff Rateliff devised in one of hundreds of green rooms the band has occupied pre-show into one of the catchiest songs on the album. He admits he wasn’t satisfied with his first stab at lyrics and melody, but “everybody in the band would walk around singing that melody and I’m like, Goddammit! I have to write a new melody! But if everybody’s singing it, it must be okay.”
The band took several cracks at “Intro,” a showstopper that opens the second side with a pretzel horn riff courtesy of tenor saxophonist Andreas Wild and trumpeter Scott Frock. A few measures later, Jeff Dazey unfurls a blazing alto sax solo. “We played that song live for a while,” says Rateliff. “It was a jam we came up with before we were really a band. We tried to record it so many different times in so many different places, but it never turned out the way we wanted it to sound. Finally, we just put it together at Richard’s one night. It was a drunken mess, but we got it.”
The album shows The Night Sweats tearing at their own seams, at their own sturdy sound, at their long-held definitions of friend and family and band. It’s an album that builds on the sound of their debut but dramatically redefines what they can do and where they can go next. Says Rateliff, “I want—and I need—everybody to feel like they’re a part of this band. I want them to feel like they’re contributing artistically and emotionally to the experience of writing and creating this music. We’ve all had to make sacrifices to be in The Night Sweats, and I want them all to know that it’s worth something.”●
Smokey & The Mirror is husband+wife duo Bryan and Bernice Hembree. Based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, the Smokey & The Mirror have toured nationally/internationally over the past decade. The band has supported tours for Old Crow Medicine Show, The Wood Brothers, I’m With Her, Elephant Revival, John Fullbright, and many of their musical heroes. They tour most often as a duo, but also plays many shows a year as a four-piece band. Whatever the configuration, the interplay of their two unique voices coupled with engaging, accessible songs form the foundation of Smokey & The Mirror.
The Hembrees work tirelessly on many musical and creative pursuits. They are committed to others’ music as much as their own. They have found that the most satisfying path to longevity in the music business is to put others’ art in the spotlight or to inspire others’ to find their voice. They believe that the future of music is not winning the “me first” battle, but rather building community. They are founders and co-creators of the Fayetteville Roots Festival (Arkansas). They also spent a year (2017) with Austin-based international songwriting collaborative, House of Songs, to pilot House of Songs Ozarks in Bentonville, Arkansas. Bernice is also a music educator and has worked in private instruction, with the I’ll Fly Away Foundation’s songwriting program for elementary students, and to develop a music curriculum for the Fayetteville Montessori School. Bryan co-founded the Crooked Crow Songwriting Retreat for working songwriters with good friend and fellow musician, J Wagner.