Bobtown at the Buttonwood Tree

With their distinctive original songs and vocal arrangements, Bobtown is recognized as taking an unconventional and refreshing approach to the tradition of folk and Americana. WFUV’s John Platt chose the group as one of his top three music discoveries of 2013, and Americana UK perhaps summed up the band best when they said, “If you’re looking for acoustic, Gothic-folk-Americana kissed with gorgeous harmonies then look no further.”

http://www.bobtownmusic.com/

http://bobtownmusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-history-of-ghosts

http://bobtownmusic.bandcamp.com/album/bobtown

The band formed in the summer of 2007 when New York City resident Katherine Etzel wrote some field hollers, a song form she had became aware of while working the corn and bean fields of Iowa as a kid. On a whim, she then recruited several more songwriters, Fred Stesney, Jen McDearman, Karen Dahlstrom and Gary Keenan, as an outlet to perform the songs, calling the project Bobtown after a neighborhood along the river near where she grew up. After a year, the group expanded to include wider instrumentation, and by 2010, Bobtown had released their eponymous first album of original material, which received positive reviews and airplay both domestically and internationally, as well as being featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered.

August of 2012 saw the birth of Bobtown’s second full-length album, Trouble I Wrought, and Alan Lee Backer’s addition to the group (replacing Keenan). The eclectic theme continued on this release as the band again called upon traditional roots precepts, but realigned them in a cross-genre, contemporary context. Trouble I Wrought charted on multiple Cashbox/Roots Music Reports, including the 2012 Top Radio Airplay, International.

The band’s third full-length CD “A History of Ghosts” is slated for release in late 2014.

• Dance Now Downtown Festival, September 2009
• #5 of Best 100 Songs of 2010, Lucid Culture
• Hardly Strictly Bluegrass/Steam Powered Hour Finalists,
  February 2011
• #15 on the Cashbox Magazine / Roots Music Report’s Folk Top
  50, August 2012
• #4 on the Roots Music Report’s Folk Internet Airplay Chart,
  August 2012
• Susie Wollenberg Showcase Selection, Northeast Regional Folk
  Alliance, 2012
• Official Quad Showcase Selection, Northeast Regional Folk
  Alliance, 2012
• 10 Best Albums of 2012, New York Music Daily
• Top International Radio Airplay Albums of 2012
• #1 Group Album of 2012, WTUF Americana Radio Hour
• Favorite Albums of 2012 / Most Awesome Live Performances,
  WMSC Radio Nowhere
• 3rd Annual Folk-to-Funk Festival, Long Beach, NY, 2013
• Falcon Ridge Music Festival Emerging Artist, 2013
• Most Awesome Song of 2013, WMSC Radio Nowhere
• Top Music Discoveries of 2013, John Platt, WFUV
• 2014 Great American Roots Stomp Festival
• 2014 Huntington Folk Festival
• 2014 CT Folk Festival
• 2014 Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Formal Showcase Artist