Grateful Fred's Newsletter No: 97

Keep on runnin'...

Feb 18, 2025

Since the last newsletter (no: 96), we’ve enjoyed a wonderful night at Grateful Fred’s at The Atkinson when a full house enjoyed three belting sets from headliner Katie Nicholas, support artist Oisin Hassan and openers Vinny & The Engineers. It was a great start to the 2025 season and the beginning of Grateful Fred’s 16th year.

The next Grateful Fred at The Atkinson night is Wednesday 5th of March when we have, all the way from Oklahoma, USA, the wonderful Carter Sampson Band.

https://cartersampson.net/

Carter Sampson is an Oklahoma-born and raised, award-winning singer-songwriter. who tours nationally and internationally with her band.

Sampson won 1st place in the Chris Austin Song Contest at Merlefest and was a top 5 finalist in the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Troubadour Contest. Sampson has released five studio albums including her newest release LUCKY recorded with Jason Scott in Moore, OK. Sampson’s 2016 release Wilder Side received international attention and was No. 3 on the Euro Americana year end chart for 2016.

"Add her high quality song writing and gorgeous vocals and she is no longer a promising country singer songwriter but one who can now be talked about as being one of the very best around. If 'Wilder side' sowed the seeds this tremendous album brings that talent into full bloom." -americanrootsuk.com

Support for Carter will be Rob Jones and Rob White, two of Liverpool’s finest singer-songwriters who have been performing together since school days.

Opening the show will be The Wanderers, whose members consist of myself on bass, Pete Rimmer on guitar and fiddle-player extraordinaire, Chris Nelson.

We’re hoping for another sell-out so please get your tickets early from:
https://www.theatkinson.co.uk/events/grateful-freds-march-2025/

Price Rise

Those of you who have bought tickets over the last few weeks will have noticed there has been an increase in the ticket price from £13 in advance to £15 in advance.

Unfortunately, as with all things over the last few years, costs have risen across the board for The Atkinson for all of their services, energy costs, staff wages and so many other things. I know they have done their best over the last few years to maintain our Grateful Fred ticket prices at the £13 mark but sadly they just cannot do that any longer so have had to increase the ticket cost.

I hope you will still feel that a Grateful Fred Night is great value and will be able to continue to enjoy the wonderful live music that our artists bring.

Your support is very much appreciated by me.

The Grateful Fred Bijou Sessions

The next Grateful Fred Bijou Session is coming up very soon when we welcome, from Colorado, USA, David Starr.

https://www.davidstarrmusic.com/

David is a Colorado-based Blues and Americana singer/songwriter with over 11 albums to his credit. He has honed his decades-long career touring internationally, sharing the stage and collaborating with esteemed artists such as John Oates (Hall & Oates), John McEuen, Steve Cropper, Jim Lauderdale, and Wild Ponies as well as opening for acts like America, Karla Bonoff, Jim Messina, Survivor, and more.

Starr’s critically acclaimed album Beauty & Ruin is a collection of songs inspired by Of What Was, Nothing Is Left, a novel written by Starr’s grandfather in 1972. Produced and arranged by John Oates, it is a southern gothic tale beautifully told through Starr’s own musical lens, with the help of some of his favorite Nashville collaborators including Dana Cooper, John Oates, Irene Kelley, Doug and Telisha Williams, Shelley Rae Korntved, and Jim Lauderdale.

Opening the evening will be John Jenkins, who many of you will know from his appearances at Grateful Fred’s over the years and throughout Merseyside and the north west.

Tickets are still available from: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/southport-bijou-cinema/t-xmkdxpp

We’ve just added a further Grateful Fred Bijou Session for Wednesday 13th of August when we’ll be welcoming back the amazing “Rodney Branigan” who blew us all away last year.

If you didn’t manage to get to see him last year then here’s a tiny taste of Rodney…

Tickets are now on sale at: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/southport-bijou-cinema/t-lnprxmg

Coming up this week:

We, The Silver Freds, will be hosting another “Totally Acoustic” night at Formby’s Cafe D’Art, just off Chapel Lane in Formby village centre.

This time our guests will be our friends from “The Cabin Hill Band”.

It’s all happening this Wednesday, the 19th of February, from 8.00pm and it’s completely free. So please come along and join us if you can.

Well,