Nashville's Emily Nenni, Dylan Earl @ The Drake Underground, Saturday

California-born, Nashville-based singer/songwriter Emily Nenni revels in the honky tonk side of country music. Check the clips! 

Here's the scoop...

Emily Nenni has a confession: she didn’t always plan on being a performing artist. “I thought I was just going to be a songwriter,” she admits. Clearly, life had something else in store. The singer and guitarist has emerged as one of the freshest and most electrifying voices in Nashville, with a sound rooted in classic honky tonk and spiked with serious country, soul and rock ‘n’ roll fire, and sweet-and-sassy lyrics that chronicle hard living, hot nights, heartbreak and other universal truths about the human condition. Over the past several years she’s enraptured audiences across Music City with sizzling sets in smoky bars and clubs, honing her command of the stage, perfecting her skills as a band leader and sharpening an already astute world view, all of which are on full display on her newest studio album, Drive & Cry. 

The record is a marked departure from her previous full-length, 2022’s acclaimed On the Ranch. Whereas that effort saw Nenni uproot herself to lend a hand – and write – while assisting at a ranch in southern Colorado, Drive & Cry drops the listener smack in the middle of her boisterous and bustling Nashville world. The album kicks off with “Get to Know Ya,” a honky-tonk rave-up that celebrates the end of the work day and the beginning of a music-filled, come-what-may night. Nenni busts out her biggest hoops, jumps into the jeans she can “really only stand up in,” and heads to the local bar. “Play ‘til the sun’ll come / when the daylight’s done,” she sings as the instrumental accompaniment races in step behind her.

 From there, Nenni leads into “Greatest Hits,” a pedal-steel-inflected Dolly Parton-style number in which she tips her hat to underground honky-tonk venue Santa’s Pub, a dive bar squeezed inside a double-wide trailer that has become her home-away-from-home in Nashville. “When I first came to town, I was 21 and singing at clubs with folks who were twice my age,” Nenni recalls of moving to Music City from her native California. “Then a buddy of mine said, ‘There's a place where people are making this music that are actually your age, and where you'd really fit in.’ And that was Santa’s Pub. It’s where I learned that music doesn't have to be perfect – everybody is just having fun and there’s no judgment. You can show up however you're feeling that night, have a good time and be surrounded by friends.”

You can get tickets for Emily Nenni's Toronto show at the Drake Hotel Underground on May 17 via Ticketmaster right here. Watch Emily perform her version of Terry Allen's "Amarillo Highway" and a few more clips below. 

Jay Douglas sings lovers rock for Valentine's Day at Sonic Boom, Friday

Jamaica To Toronto keyman Jay Douglas is appearing at Sonic Boom on Friday (6 pm) followed by a full show at The Drake Hotel on Saturday (February 15).  

Here's the scoop...

Back from a successful west coast swing promoting the great new feature-length documentary Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul with director Graeme Mathieson, the film's star Jay Douglas is looking forward to returning to the stage in Toronto – despite the chilly temps – for a Valentine's Day warm-up. While some performers choose to hibernate during the winter months in the Great White North, Jay Douglas is clearly made of sterner stuff.  

"We just flew in from the Yukon," say Jay, "where we had a screening of Play It Loud! at the Available Light Film Festival in Whitehorse. It was well accepted by the audience there and other than the bitterly cold weather, everything worked out great!" 

Later today he'll be singing a set of lover's rock for a free in-store at Sonic Boom (215 Spadina) starting at 6 pm to coincide with Light In The Attic's timely vinyl repress of the Jamaica To Toronto 2LP anthology and follow it up with a full show at The Drake Hotel on Saturday (February 15) backed by his longtime pal, dynamite drummer Everton "Pablo" Paul and crew. The doors open at 9:30 pm and tickets are $17.31 available right here. 

Check out a short clip of Jay's version of "I Wish It Would Rain," the trailer for "Play It Loud!," a video chat about the documentary with Rudy Blair along with some performance footage.