Anais Mitchell 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM “The most engaging, and in some ways, most original artist currently working in the field of new American ‘folk’ music” INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY. “Terrific…Mitchell is a skilled story-teller and her delivery gives an emotional complexity that welcomes and even demands repeated listens.” PITCHFORK. After high-profile opening dates with the Punch Brothers and Bon Iver, and a sold-out U.K. tour, Anaïs Mitchell will perform songs from her recent albums Young Man in America and Child Ballads. The Blind Boys of Alabama 8:45 - 10 PM The Blind Boys of Alabama aren’t merely a group of singers borrowing from decades-old gospel traditions; rather, they are themselves the group who helped define and cement those traditions during the course of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. During the 1960s, they sang at benefits for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and provided a soundtrack to the Civil Rights movement, which adopted both the Christian message and the dignity of old gospel songs. During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, gospel groups that had originated in the church began recording secular music, yet the Blind Boys of Alabama stuck to their calling. “We sing gospel music,” says Carter. “That’s what we do. We’re not going to ever deviate from that.” The collaboration between one of popular music’s longest-running acts and one of its fastest-rising stars -- Justin Vernon, from Bon Iver -- came about naturally—not from the ledger of a label exec but from the artists’ desires to create something new and lasting. Originally, the Blind Boys planned to work with several different producers to create an album, but as plans developed, it became clear that Vernon had the knowledge and vision to make an informed, one-of-a-kind full-length with the group. That album is I’ll Find a Way.