Adrienne Young
is a Spotsylvania, VA-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. She is founder and operator of AddieBelle Music which produces her recordings.
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ADRIENNE YOUNG TICKETS
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History
A native of
Tallahassee,
Florida, in fact a seventh-generation Floridian, she was raised on the land farmed by her family generations earlier.
[1] Young grew up in a musical family in
Clearwater, where she was a member of the band
Big White Undies.
She was graduated
magna cum laude
from
Belmont University in Nashville with a Music Business/Spanish degree. Endless and unfulfilling clerical jobs along
Music Row motivated this triple-threat singer, writer, and multi-instrumentalist to start her own
record label, Addiebelle Music.
She also formed the short-lived band Liters of Pop with
Eric McConnell.
She learned to play clawhammer-style banjo from Ketch Secor of
Old Crow Medicine Show, and set about amassing a catalog of
old-time tunes. As she says:
"I got really into traditional music when I was longing to connect with my family again, and that led to trying to build up a repertoire that my grandfather was familiar with, the classic old-time music
—old-time and Bluegrass music, "ref">[2
Young began gaining attention with her 2003 win in the
Chris Austin songwriting contest at
MerleFest for "Sadie's Song." Co-written with
Mark D. Sanders, the song is a re-telling of the murderous bluegrass standard "
Little Sadie" told from the victim's point of view.
Recordings
"
Little Sadie" featured prominently on her first
CD,
Plow to the End of the Row
, produced with another
Nashville-based
musician,
Will Kimbrough, and released on her own
AddieBelle record label. (The label takes its name from a nickname Young was given while working as a tour guide at Nashville's
Belle Meade Mansion.) The
CD, which includes a packet of wildflower seeds along with artwork based on the
Farmer's Almanac
, was nominated for a
Grammy award for Best Album Package.
An early version of
Plow to the End of the Row
, released in 2003, has become a sought-after collectible. That version included several tracks with Young backed by
Old Crow Medicine Show and was a top pick for 2003 Debut Artist by the Freeform American Roots DJ Chart. The nationally-released version, featuring different sequencing, new tracks, and re-recorded versions of several songs, was released on April 13, 2004, one day before an interview with Young aired on
NPR's
All Things Considered
. The
Americana Music Association included Young and her band in their nominees for Emerging Artist of the Year, and the
Nashville Scene
named "Home Remedy" as Best Country Single of the year. The CD went on to place at or near the top of numerous "best of" lists for the year and the
Los Angeles Times
called Young "the
Americana music find of the year."
Young and her band Little Sadie (at the time, Tyler Grant on guitar, Clayton Campbell on fiddle and mandolin, Amanda Kowalski on bass, and Steven Sandifer on percussion) toured extensively across the U.S. and in England. The members of the band left to pursue other projects prior to the recording of Young's second CD,
The Art of Virtue
.
That disc, released on
June 28,
2005, took its theme from
Benjamin Franklin's
Thirteen Virtues
. A copy of Franklin's pamphlet is included with the CD. Will Kimbrough co-produced the CD and co-wrote several tracks. Alongside original songs and traditional tunes, the disc featured a cover of the
Grateful Dead song "Brokedown Palace." Young's AddieBelle label struck a distribution deal with
Ryko Records which insured that her music got placed in more record stores. She also continued to receive support from
public radio and was invited to appear on
World Café
,
Mountain Stage
, and
A Prairie Home Companion
. With a new incarnation of Little Sadie (fiddler and banjoist Eric Merrill, guitarist Hans Holzen, bassist Kyle Kegerreis, and percussionist Eric Platz), Young toured even more extensively in 2005.
The Art of Virtue
placed third in
Amazon.com's list of the best folk recordings of the year. Young was invited to sing in
Philadelphia on
January 17,
2006, as part of Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday celebration.
In May 2006 Young took her band to
Levon Helm's studio in
Woodstock, New York to record tracks for a third album, titled
Room to Grow,
which was released May 22, 2007.
Social and environmental action
Young's second CD,
The Art of Virtue
released in 2005, took its theme from
Benjamin Franklin's
Thirteen Virtues
and included copy of Franklin's pamphlet inside. The title track addressed issues that Young found herself pondering after the 2004 re-election of
George W. Bush, specifically how the
Republican Party had leveraged the theme of
morality as a
campaign tool. As she said at the time:
"There seems to be a growing passion, collectively and individually, to understand the foundation of our American culture and how we've turned from that. Personally, it steered me back toward a time when our country was rooted in agrarian ideals and words were powerful enough to begin a new world. Ben Franklin had such a practical approach toward nurturing virtue, the first point being nobody's perfect."
Since 2004 Young has been a spokeswoman for the
FoodRoutes Network, which aims to aid organizations in rebuilding local, community-based food systems.
[3] Young used the release of the
CD The Art of Virtue
to call attention to her involvement with the
FoodRoutes Network, a non-profit organization that promotes
sustainable agriculture and connects consumers with local farmers who are willing to sell direct.
Room to Grow
furthers her involvement in this movement with lyrics and songs directly addressing the issue.
This wasn't the first time she mixed her farm action fever with artistic output: Plow To The End Of The Row
, her 2004 debut CD, came with a packet of seeds enclosed (and was nominated for the packaging design Grammy).
Young advocates locally-grown and
sustainable agriculture. A portion of each record sold of
Room to Grow
goes to the Save A Seed fund, which she created with nonprofit organizations the
FoodRoutes Network and the
American Community Gardening Association. The money will provide non-genetically modified seeds to community gardens across
North America.
Young has toured with help from the organization Buy Fresh Buy Local and each of the 49 FoodRoutes chapters. Along with her performances, each tour stop offered sustainable living workshops with local sponsors in each community. "Preserving cultural genetics and agricultural heritage is the key to true security and self-reliance," she says.
Young says her music has influenced her activism because she feels at peace in nature and wants to communicate those feelings through her music.
Sound and style
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Her music, created with various incarnations of her band Little Sadie, blends elements of