Tour Starts with NYC Show to Benefit Kentucky Floor Relief As Album Earns Plaudits from New Yorker, NPR, & Official Playlist Placements with Spotify and Apple Music
Fresh from triumphant sets as Newport Folk Fest and the Philadelphia Folk Fest, seventeen-year-old Nora Brown will see her third album Long Time To Gone released this week via Jalopy Records. She performs this Friday at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, NY, where she recorded the album, with special guests Stephanie Coleman, Jackson Lynch, and Hannah Read. Half of tickets sales from that concert will benefit St. Ann’s food bank with the other half donated to Appalshop’s flood relief efforts in Kentucky, where she has spent significant time learning local styles of music. Her tour kicks off the following week and will find her performing at AmericanaFest September 17.
Nora’s Kentucky mentors include Lee Sexton (of Linefork, KY, in his 90s, who passed away in 2020), George Gibson (Knott County, KY), and John Haywood (tattoo artist and director of Letcher County Pick and Bow Program, an after school program dedicated to teaching old time mountain music). Appalshop, a key organization in Nora’s growth, started as a film workshop in 1969, and 50 years later is still documenting and revitalizing the traditions and creativity of Appalachia; its cultural archive flooded recently. Outside of Kentucky, her mentors have included her first teacher through the Jalopy Theater, Shlomo Pestcoe; and legendary filmmaker and New Lost City Ramblers member John Cohen. Here’s a playlist she made of her mentors and influences.
Nora’s been added to Spotify’s official Instrumental Bluegrass playlist and as well as Apple Music’s official Americana Best New Songs, Acoustic Coming Soon playlists. Here’s what we’re reading about Long Time To Be Gone:
“A disarming collection of traditional laments and exquisite banjo instrumentals which she recorded in the palatial St. Ann’s Church.”
–Jay Ruttenberg, The New Yorker, August 22, 2023
“Nora has a passion for the music of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee… with a thirst for storytelling.”
–Bob Boilen, NPR All Songs Considered, July 6, 2022
“Long Time to Be Gone is a quietly important record — not simply an enthusiastic chunk of reverence to an old-time ethos, but a work that marks its teenage creator as not only a fine musical talent, but also an educator and evangelist, a living, breathing vessel for the nurturing of a rich and remarkable tradition.”
–Spencer Grady, No Depression, August 23, 2022
“Phenomenal.”
–Sachyn Mital, PopMatters, August 4, 2022
“Lovely.”
–Brooklyn Vegan, August 3, 2022
“What a treat… banjo sensation.”
–Peter O’Dowd, NPR Here & Now, July 18, 2022
“Likely to wow[,] her command of traditional Appalachian music is already proficient and emotionally exacting.”
–Kim Ruehl, Folk Alley, July 20, 2022
“This new album is absolutely gorgeous.”
–Joey Black, SIRIUS XM Bluegrass Junction, August 12, 2022
“Must-see artist.”
–Stuart Munro, Boston Globe, July 19, 2022
“If you’re not listening to Nora Brown yet, you’re wasting your life.”
–Jake Blount, July 22, 2022
“Long Time To Be Gone is an engrossing and resonant album from start to finish; Nora’s playing is always expressive and moving.”
–Dave McNally, Folk Radio UK, August 2, 2022
Nora Brown Tour Dates
August 26 – Brooklyn, NY – St. Ann’s Church (album release show), more info & tickets: https://www.viewcy.com/e/nora_brown_album_rele
August 27 – The Music Hall Loft – Portsmouth, NH
August 28 – One Longfellow Square – Portland, ME
September 1 – Club Passim – Cambridge, MA
September 3 – The Guthrie Center – Great Barrington, MA
September 9-10 Oldtone roots Music Festival – Hillsdale, NY
September 17 – Nick Loss-Eaton Media / Cornelius Chapel Records AmericanaFest Day Party at Imogene+Willie – Nashville, TN
September 17 – AmericanaFest @ Koinonia / The Well – Nashville, TN
September 29-30 – Trans-Pecos Festival of Music & Love – Marfa, TX
November 12 – The Parlor Room at Signature Sounds – Northampton, MA
