Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz - Grammy Nominees from Nashville/TN am Freitag, 31. Mai, 20 Uhr im RW-Bluesbuero, Neckartal 95 in Rottweil. Finest Roots and Americana Music
Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz
Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz have worked together now for more than a decade. Be it for Eric’s solo albums, or his albums with Peter Cooper, or his last album with the band Last Train Home, Thomm is more often than not the recording engineer, producer, guitar player and harmony singer.
Eric and Thomm both have something distinct and slightly skewed to say about the world, and when they bring their singular perspectives to the stage, it’s a perfect example of a whole being much greater than the sum of its parts. And what parts they are!
Eric Brace began his musical career in Washington D.C. where he was a journalist with The Washington Post. There, he launched his acclaimed roots-rock band Last Train Home in the late ‘90s, touring with the group extensively across the U.S. and Europe, releasing seven albums and one concert DVD. The band moved to Nashville in 2004, where Eric met Peter Cooper, an award-winning journalist who covered music for The Tennessean newspaper. They began a part-time duo, which soon became a nearly full-time thing, and so far they have about six records to their name, all released on Red Beet Records.
Eric and Peter were nominated for a Grammy for producing I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, their 2011 release on Red Beet Records that featured them, along with Patti Griffin, Bobby Bare, Jim Lauderdale, Duane Eddy, and Tom T. Hall himself, all reprising tunes from his classic kids record of 1974, Songs of Fox Hollow.
During the Covid years, Eric worked with his friends from Last Train Home and they released 2 CD’s. ‘Daytime High and Overnight Lows’ came out in 2020 and the year after saw the release of ‘Everything Will Be’. Both cd’s were collated by sending audio files back and forth, bouncing ideas off of satellites and through underground cables, thanks to
producer/engineer/guitarist Jared Bartlett’s uncanny ease at layering myriad soundwaves, it turned into a coherent whole great new album.
Thomm Jutz Raised in the Black Forest of Germany, Thomm Jutz has become an American roots music treasure. Jutz was a young, classically trained musician in Germany when he heard Outlaw legend Bobby Bare sing on a television show and decided to devote his life to informal music. He saved money, won the immigration lottery (yes, there is such a thing), and eventually moved to Nashville, where he found work touring with Nanci Griffith, Mary Gauthier, David Olney, Kim Richey, and many more. He built a recording studio and produced albums for Country Music Hall of Fame members Bill Anderson and Mac Wiseman, among many others.
Beloved by Grammy winners including Bare, Tom T. Hall, Jim Lauderdale, and Buddy Miller, Jutz writes songs of depth and breadth. He sings of mill workers, Civil War characters, folk heroes, struggle, heartbreak, and triumph. In a time of division, he seeks and finds connection.
His virtuosity, eloquence, and clarity of expression have made him a linchpin of Nashville’s creative community, and in 2020 his To Live in Two Worlds, Volume 1 was nominated for the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy, making him the first immigrant to receive a nomination in that category.
He’s earned four nominations and a 2021 win for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Songwriter of the Year award and is a current lecturer of songwriting at Belmont University. He has written numerous Bluegrass number ones, and his songs have been recorded by John Prine, Nanci Griffith, The SteelDrivers, Balsam Range, and more. He’s had over 250 film and TV placements of his music worldwide.
Jutz is working on a master’s degree in Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University, writing his thesis on Grammy-winner Norman Blake. Additional writings and essays have been published in American Songwriter and the IBMA Songwriter’s Newsletter.
Jutz is featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s American Currents exhibit, slated to run 2022-2023
Together, Eric and Thomm weave stories, songs, harmonies, and guitar playing into something very special. The lyrics are as thoughtful as those of their heroes, a list that includes John Prine, John Hartford, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall, Paul Simon, and Townes Van Zandt. Add harmonies that bring to mind the Seldom Scene, Emmylou Harris, and the Everly Brothers, and sumptuous guitar arrangements, and you have a truly memorable evening of music.
