Rayland Baxter at the Raccoon Motel -- November 9.
Thursday, November 9, 7 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With Glide magazine calling him “a classic folk artist that somehow manages to never remain too predictable,” Nashville's alt-country singer/songwriter Rayland Baxter headlines a November 9 engagement at Davenport's Raccoon Motel in support of his most recent album If I Were a Butterfly, the critically acclaimed work that led No Depression to rave, "Baxter has never sounded more alive."
After a youth spent in his native Bon Aqua, Tennessee, Baxter's professional career began following a move to Creede, Colorado, where he played open-mic nights, busked for change, and eventually landed a job as a roadie with the band Moonshine Sessions, whose tour of Europe led to an extended stay in Paris. He then traveled to Israel, where Baxter immersed himself in classic albums by artists including Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Townes Van Zandt and committed himself to the art of songwriting. By the summer of 2010, he had settled in Nashville, releasing his first EP The Miscalculation of Song a few months after his arrival. Released in 2012 through ATO Records, Baxter's first full-length album Feathers & Fishhooks featured extensive instrumental work from the artist's father, and was an immediate hit with reviewers. According to NoDepression.com, Baxter's “deeply personal songs, often featuring fierce pedal steel courtesy of his multi-instrumentalist father Bucky Baxter, puts one in mind of the dusty country songs recorded by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and even Steve Earle.”
Numerous touring engagements opening for acts such as The Civil Wars and Grace Potter & the Nocturnals followed the album's success, as did the 2013 EP Ashkelon, and in 2015, Baxter released his second full-length studio album Imaginary Man, praised by RedLineRoots.com for the “vibrant and lucid way in which he paints the characters of his stories.” Landing in 2018, Baxter's Wide Awake kept reviewers delighted, with the recording described by Rolling Stone as “Baxter’s sharpest batch of social commentary” and “a 10-song rumination on the state of the country – or, as he puts it on the opening track, life in this 'Strange American Dream.'” And prior to last year's If I Were a Butterfly, the artist delivered 2019's Good Mmornin, an album of seven covers of Mac Miller songs that was released the day before he played the Newport Folk Festival, where he performed several of the tracks live for the first time.
Rayland Baxter headlines his latest Quad Cities engagement on November 9, admission to the 7 p.m. Davenport concert is $25, and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
