Hickory Ridge Concerts welcomes the series producer and host Chris Vallillo to the stage as the headline artist for our May 16th show at 7 p.m. at the historic Ellisville Opera House in Ellisville, IL. A roots musician and singer songwriter, Vallillo has spent his career documenting and writing about the people and the places of “unmetropolitan America” in his music.
A master of finger style and bottleneck slide guitar, Dirty Linen magazine described the music as, “vivid, original story songs” delivered with an “eye for detail and a sense of history” while Folk Wax Magazine Editor, Arthur Wood said “Vallillo’s guitar playing flows like warm honey and is a true aural delight.”
Perhaps the archaeology degree Vallillo earned at Beloit College (BA Anthropology, 1976) helped him see the important little details of life which imbue his songs with a sense of history.Lee Masters and Vachel Lindsay and you can hear the strains of the Carter Family and Jimmy Rogers reflected in his writing. Its roots based original and contemporary folk with the rich acoustic textures of bottleneck slide, finger style and flatpicked guitars that echo the influences of Mississippi John Hurt, Norman Blake, Doc Watson and Ry Cooder. A recipient of a 1986 Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship Award for music composition, Chris was a nominee for the Illinois Arts Council’s 1987 Governor’s Award for Individual Artist.
In 1987 he conducted the Schuyler Arts Folk Music Project to document the last of the pre-radio generation. These recordings were accepted into the American Folklife Collection at the Library of Congress. From 1990 through 1998 he served as the performing host and co-producer of the nationally distributed, award-winning public radio performance series Rural Route 3 where he performed next to (and with) a virtual who’s who of contemporary and traditional folk musicians. Since then, he has created a series of shows that use music as the vehicle to explore a subject from the historic Abraham Lincoln in Song on up to his latest show, Forgottonia, a show that features all original music and award winning images tell the story of rural Illinois. He’ll perform a mix of original and traditional music at Ellisville.
The Hickory Ridge Concert Series is hosted by singer-songwriter Chris Vallillo. Concerts are usually (but not always) held on the 3rd Saturday of the month and begin at 7 p.m. with the doors opening at 6 p.m. The Ellisville Opera House is a second story venue however they do now have an elevator and is air conditioned.
Coffee, drinks, and a variety of desserts are available during intermission. There is an admission charge of $10 per adults with children under 12 free. Hickory Ridge Concerts is supported in part by WIUM 91.3 FM, your source for NPR programming, local news and a variety of music, the Two Rivers Arts Council, and the Doris and Ken Kolb Foundation. Follow Hickory Ridge Concerts on facebook, or on the website, www. hickoryridgeconcerts.com.
