Ready for a ‘Hollerday’? Sundy Best’s Nicholas Jamerson will play Lexington

Nicholas Jamerson is ready to exhale. With an active year performing in multiple situations — as solo artist, as chieftain of his Americana-rooted band the Morning Jays and as half of the reactivated country duo Sundy Best — the Prestonsburg songsmith is ready for celebration and song to end 2023. Then he looks to do some serious living as 2024 commences.

The finale for such a fruitful year unfolds this weekend with the return of his annual seasonal engagement at The Burl. This go-round he will be alongside his Mornings Jays with packs of friends (Magnolia Boulevard, Sam Burchfield) and family (sister Emily Jamerson) as opening acts. The formal name for such onstage winter jubilation: Hollerday Gitdown.

“This is kind of where I’m at now,” Jamerson said. “I’m just really trying to enjoy things. I feel the holiday spirit of togetherness and all that, but we’re also just trying to focus on the fact this is probably going to be the last time before 2024 that I see a lot of people. It’ll be my last show, it’ll be my band’s last show, so we just really want to have fun with it.

“The work feels like it’s done for the year, so we’re just kind of relaxing with this. In the other parts of the year, you’re always sort of in this constant state of flux. You’re doing the show that’s in front of you, but then there is always the next show. There’s the week after. You’re always going, usually from Friday to Saturday, someplace different. This will be the culmination of all our work, of just songs we’ve played at different parts of the year. Then we’re also including some holiday music, as well. It’s kind of like the end-of-the-year office party.”

In 2023, Jamerson released two albums, one a solo effort (the Appalachian themed “Peace Mountain”) and another with a reconstituted Sundy Best (the aptly titled “Feel Good Country,” the first set of new songs following a 2018 split between Jamerson and bandmate Kristofer Bentley). Then there was the roadwork required to back those projects. That kept Jamerson onstage with either with Sunday Best’s comfortable duo intimacy or the Morning Jays’ fuller ensemble charge for much of the year.

“Before 2016, I had only really been in Sundy Best,” Jamerson said. “I had only done that sort of duo arrangement stuff — well, duo and solo stuff, really — pretty much my whole life. It just got to where I was imagining more instruments, you know? What makes Sundy Best so special is the continuity of the duo, the togetherness of it — just the stripped down-ness of what we do. There’s also just the low maintenance of the whole operation, of just two people. When you have a five or six-person band, that’s a lot of logistics. It’s just more. What I’m doing now, though, allows me to enjoy them both and not have to rely on one entirely. They both have fed each other. It’s given me a chance to spread my circles even more.

“When we were just doing Sundy Best, it felt like anything else would be a conflict of interest. People we were working with were like, ‘Well, you can’t do both.’ And we quit working with them. It was something I had to make happen before anybody else was going to see it. So this has been an incredible year. I’ve gotten to do so much along both avenues.”

Play with Sundy Best, Morning Jays

With the current Morning Jays lineup (siblings Wes and Aaron Smith of the Lexington band Brother Smith on guitar and fiddle respectively, guitarist Zach Lafferty and bassist Jordan Allen), Jamerson feels he has hit upon not just a more expansive sound. There is also a bit of a family feel at work.

“A band is like a family, it’s like a team. You’ve got to put the time in and the work into the relationship of the core group. Four us have been together for four years. Three of us are dads (Jamerson has a 3-year-old daughter). That’s good for me, to be around other fathers that are also trying to find the balance of the two different lives, of life on the road and life at home.

“The lead guitarist, Zach, and I have been playing music together since we were 19, so that’s going on 20 years. I feel like this year especially, we’ve really gone through a lot of growth, that we’re really starting to reap the benefits of that time spent together. I’ve never been with people who can just pick up so fast. Just anything I can imagine, they are able to articulate it musically so quickly. I couldn’t be happier with this group and the work that we’ve done and the shows we’ve gotten to do this year. For me, it feels like we’ve arrived.

“As a musician, it’s such a process of learning how to articulate your feelings. You spend so much time, so many years digging and searching and refining. And it never ends musically, really. I feel like this group is a really good representation of my vision, my inner vision, for what I want to put out there and all the influences that I love — in particular, Southern music and Appalachian music. It’s been a sigh of relief in a way.”

On tap next year

Expect a different sigh, though, in the months ahead. Aside from the sophomore outing in May of Sleeping in the Woods, the songwriter festival he curates at Hidden Ridge Camping at Lake Cumberland, and some Sundy Best shows to start the new year, Jamerson plans to put on the brakes a bit in 2024.

“I feel like I’m going to take a step back. There will be more Sundy Best shows to start the year. We already have some stuff on the books. But I really want to focus on writing, on just living my life and enjoying the fruits of my labor in a way. I’m thinking about the next 20 years and what I need to do to just show up for that. I’m wanting to help people to make music. It’s more accessible now than ever to make high quality music, so I want to help people do that. I just want to pass on stuff that I’ve picked up and further build this community of songwriters in ways where I feel I can help.

“I want to do that and just live — just live and be with my daughter and her mom and write and get ready for the next record. It’s already shaping up. I’m just trying to refine my approach and the rhythm in which I operate in this life. It’s so easy to keep saying yes to things. And that’s great. It’s awesome to have opportunities. But I feel like saying, ‘No, you’ve got to have that time to recalibrate and reassess.’ That’s where I’m at, especially at this time of year.”

Hollerday Gitdown with Nicholas Jamerson and the Morning Jays

When: 8 p.m. Dec. 15 and 16

Where: The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd.

Opening: Magnolia Boulevard, Emily Jamerson (Dec. 15); Sam Burchfield and the Scoundrels, Lucas Wayne (Dec. 16)

Tickets: $20, $35 through theburlky.com.