Get wined and dined at The Burl to start a busy music weekend

Justin Wells

Shooter Jennings and Jason Boland

The Burl isn’t slowing down as the holidays draw closer. The Distillery District club has two distinctive shows on the books for this weekend.

The first is a veritable feast. Now in its third year, the Burl’s third annual “Wine & Dine” event turns the venue — for a few hours, at least — into something of a supper club. The event is a two-part performance program. The first is a sit down-and-chow gathering with music provided by Cincinnati Americana/folk songsmith Arlo McKinley and grub catered from Bourbon n’ Toulouse. The second is a full evening bill headlined by Justin Wells, the always reliable Central Kentucky songsmith and rock/Americana/country/what-have-you stylist, who also was the featured artist at last year’s Wine & Dine show. Matt Woods and the Natural Disasters from Knoxville will open.

Here’s how admission works. $20 covers the whole evening. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Not hungry? Then $12 gets you in just for Wells’ performance.

Then Saturday, the amps get a rest as Shooter Jennings and Jason Boland play an all-acoustic set. The date is part of a 12-city tour, a reprise of a trek that the two artists took on this time last year.

To many people, Jennings is known foremost as the son of the late outlaw country colossus Waylon Jennings, although his own career, which has operated well outside the commercial country norm, has been going strong since the release of his debut album in 2005. Boland has often been tagged as a practitioner of the nebulous country sub-genre known as red dirt music. In Boland’s case, the tag refers to songs with indie-country designs that go hand in hand with his Oklahoma heritage. He usually performs with his band The Stragglers.

Among the numerous artistic projects Jennings juggled this year was the September release of “Do You Love Texas?” The benefit single, produced by Americana maestro Dave Cobb, was designed to raise relief money for those in Houston and nearby regions in the wake of Hurricane Harvey — specifically, for the Rebuild Texas Fund. The song features vocal help from Boland, Kris Kristofferson, Kacey Musgraves, Asleep at the Wheel chieftain Ray Benson and others.

Jill Andrews

Here’s a treat for a December Sunday: an evening with Nashville folk/Americana songstress Jill Andrews.

A singer whose voice and compositions promote a melodic delicacy in a huge emotive range, Andrews is becoming a band member again as 2017 draws to a close. Initial reaction to her quietly turbulent music came from extensive touring and recordings with the indie folk troupe The Everybodyfields. Now, roughly eight years after the group’s split, Andrews and songwriter/producer Peter Groenwald are embarking on a new band project called Hush Kids. But Sunday’s performance at Willie’s Locally Known will be exclusively an Andrews affair.

With songs that have been featured generously on television in episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Wynonna Earp” and “Nashville,” via a cover of “Tell That Devil” by Hayden Panettiere, Andrews operates from stylistically rich and varied soundscapes on her most recent album, 2015’s “The War Inside.” The terrain shifts from the dark pop sheen and charge of “Get Up, Get On” to the spacious melancholy of “I’m Not OK” to the sparse folk expression of “I’m So in Love with You.” The latter is a duet with Seth Avett, a longtime friend since tours The Everybodyfields shared in years past with the Avett Brothers.

Sundy Best’s Nicholas Jamerson will open the evening.

This story was originally published December 12, 2017 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Get wined and dined at The Burl to start a busy music weekend."