Sam Bush bears his soul when he performs.
“I feel fortunate that when it’s time to play, no matter how I feel physically or mentally, once the downbeat starts, my mind goes to a place that’s all music,” Bush said in his bio. “The joy of the music comes to me and overtakes me sometimes – I just become part of the music.”
Bush will perform Friday at The Spinning Jenny. Tickets are $32 in advance and $38 at the door. Doors open at 7 p.m. and The Blue Eyed Bettys will open at 8 p.m.
"Having a Grammy-winning, bluegrass superstar on stage this Friday at The Spinning Jenny is a guaranteed great way to start your weekend," Sharon Murry, Manager of Spinning Jenny said. "With The Blue Eyed Bettys, hailing from North Carolina, opening the night, this is a concert not to be missed.
“I’m hoping it just kind of flows for people and makes them go, ‘Hey, it’s a Sam record. It sounds like Sam and the band,’” Bush said. “But for the first time ever, I also find myself thinking, ‘I hope you enjoy the stories.’ It’s my singer-songwriter record."
"Limited seating is available on a first come, first serve basis, Murray said.
“I’m well aware that people buy individual tracks digitally, and that’s good. But I still think of it as an album – a body of work. And I’m really satisfied with these songs. It’s taken a while, but I sure am happy with them.”
Written with Jeff Black, “Transcendental Meditation Blues” recounts a long 1978 ride Bush took on a sweltering, broken-down bus to see a girl named Lynn in Louisville. Today, Lynn and Bush have been married for 31 years. “When I finally got to Louisville, there was Lynn, sitting in her little orange VW waiting for me,” Bush said. “You know you’re in love when you ride the Greyhound bus.”
Bush said when he is on stage he wants the audience to feel his same joy. “When we play live on stage, if people can feel the joy we’re feeling, then we have succeeded,” Bush says. “That’s the goal to me of playing music. Did the audience feel something?”
• The Blue Eyed Bettys, all actors by trade, met while performing in a play at the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, Fla. Daniel Emond on banjo, Sarah Hund on fiddle and Ben Mackel on guitar, they create a folksy bluegrass sound.