Photograph by Ryan Davis
Renowned indie-folk musician Gregory Alan Isakov will be making his return to Atlanta at the Atlanta Symphony Hall on March 23 and 24. He will be returning to perform alongside the Atlanta Pops Orchestra as part of his massive, national symphony tour.
Aside from being a farmer and owner of Starling Farms, Isakov is more widely known for his tender ballads and crushingly beautiful lyrics. Tracks like “The Stable Song,” “Big Black Car,” and “Amsterdam,” are among his most popular, and in 2019 his album, Evening Machines, was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards.
Most recently, he and singer-songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff joined efforts in creating the poignant track, “Flowers,” which debuted on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! and took over five years to write. To Isakov, “Flowers” was a slow burn. “I do this thing at the farm, sometimes it’s just friends. We’ll stay up all night and write one song, then spend the rest of the night tracking it. Normally one of us has a little seed in our pocket and we work with that. We put it to bed for years, we didn’t even think about it. A few months ago Nathaniel said, ‘Hey, remember that track we did? Let’s re-do it.’ We didn’t want to overdo it, we wanted to keep it raw. It was really fun.”
Isakov’s music often evokes feelings of nostalgia through his keen ability to reflect the way seasons change and impact our hearts over time. When discussing how he feels about the process of releasing this deeply profound music, Isakov emphasized that “Music belongs to the listener, not the artist. There’s going to be a different picture for someone else listening in their mind. And that is what makes music so amazing. When I love a record, that record is mine. That record has driven me to California five times, that record has been my friend when I’m lonely at night, or scared, or I am in the hospital and I need something to hear. It has nothing to do with the artist who made it.”
When speaking about the upcoming symphony tour and performing in Atlanta, Gregory mentioned “It was just a labor of love to hear all of these arrangements come together. We had our first symphony rehearsal the other day and it was so great. Every single place we’re going to is really good. I can’t wait to hear these arrangements in the spaces they’re meant to be played in. Every time we go to Atlanta, it’s my favorite show. Every time we play in Atlanta, we have a really magical experience. I think the crowd is a huge part of it. It’s just a great music town.”
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