Estrojam Music & Culture Festival
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - September 22, 2007
w/ Bettye Lavette, The Noisettes, Suffrajett, DJ Mother Hubbard
This Is Somewhere (Ragged Company/ Hollywood Records) marks the coming of age of the young, Vermont-based rock band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. To say that this album makes good on the band’s immense promise would be an understatement. While these assertions quite naturally invite skepticism, we respond: “just insert and press 'play'.” The album manifests incredible growth in the writing and singing of 24-year-old phenomenon Grace Potter, who has clearly found her true voice in both respects, as well as the instrumental prowess of the band: Potter on the Hammond B3, guitarist Scott Tournet, bassist Bryan Dondero and drummer Matt Burr. On this remarkable record, they make a glorious racket indeed.

Who is Bettye LaVette you ask? The simple answer is Ms. LaVette is one of the greatest soul singers in American music history, possessed of an incredibly expressive voice that one moment will exude a formidable level of strength and intensity and the next will appear vulnerable, reflective, reeking of heartbreak. Unfortunately, it says much about the vagaries of the popular music industry that, although LaVette has been recording for over four decades, up to this point she has remained criminally unknown.

Noisettes are fronted by the supremely talented and beautiful Shingai Shoniwa, a vocalist and instrumentalist who sings like Billie Holiday on PCP and patrols the stage like an Amazonian Warrior with an eye for fashion. Shingai howls and soothes, gives you goose bumps and shoots soul into your main arteries. Dan Smith, the second line of defence, wields his six stringed axe around the stage like being a guitar god is going out of fashion. Driving rhythm becomes a soaring riff as this virtuoso sets the stage and the hi-fi alight. Bringing up the rear is Jamie Morrison, a drummer so heavy with his sticks and skin that you won’t notice he is more hair than man.

learn more about Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
learn more about Bettye Lavette
learn more about The Noisettes
learn more about Suffrajett
learn more about DJ Mother Hubbard

The Estrojam Music and Culture Festival is an annual 501C3 not-for-profit, community-based event that features internationally acclaimed and emerging female musicians and artists, educators, activists, and community leaders in dozens of events, including concerts, workshops, panels, and a film festival presented at Chicago's best venues. Estrojam is organized by women and open to all. Our mission is to help build and foster a supportive arts community that inspires, educates, breaks down stereotypes, and encourages bold creative expression. Each year, ESTROJAM partners with, presents and benefits powerful women and women's non-profit organizations for the arts, education, health, social change, human rights and non-violence. Estrojam uses art as a tool for social change by showcasing the most groundbreaking, fearless artists of our time whose work inspires new ways of thinking, breaks downs stereotypes and strives to eradicate injustice in our communities and around the world. Estrojam features women artists, creates positive images for girls and gives a voice to underrepresented genres, themes and human beings. Estrojam advocates for positive media representation and visibility for women. Estrojam values bold self expression, and involved, engaged communities.

learn more about Estrojam Music & Culture Festival