About the Event

Signature Partner

Over the past two decades, Keb’ Mo’ has cultivated a reputation as a modern master of American roots music through the understated excellence of his live and studio performances, proving he is a musical force that defies typical genre labels. A 12-time Grammy® nominee, he’s a four-time winner in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category, and his 2019 release, Oklahoma, was named Best Americana Album. 

Artists who have recorded his songs include B.B. King, Buddy Guy, The Chicks, Joe Cocker, Robert Palmer, Tom Jones, Melissa Manchester, Solomon Burke, and the Zac Brown Band to name a few. The list of artist collaborations comprises a who’s who in the music industry and includes Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Jackson Browne, Natalie Cole, Lyle Lovett, India Arie, James Cotton, Bobby Rush, Timothy B. Schmit, Marcus Miller, and many more. His guitar playing has garnered him two invites to Eric Clapton’s acclaimed Crossroads Festival and has inspired Gibson Brands to issue the Keb’ Mo’ Signature Bluesmaster and Bluesmaster Royale acoustic guitars and Martin Guitars to issue the HD-28KM Keb’ Mo’ Limited Edition Signature model. 

The talented artist has also been awarded 14 Blues Foundation Awards and 6 BMI Awards for his work in television and film. In addition to acting, he has written music for Martha Stewart Living, Mike & Molly, and Memphis Beat. He played his iconic version of “America the Beautiful” in the series finale of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, as well as at the actual White House for President Barack Obama. A long-time supporter of the Playing For Change Foundation, which creates positive change through music education, he is also a mentor at The Johnson School of Excellence in Chicago, Illinois, as part of the Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts program. 

Anthony D’Amato 

Anthony D’Amato first emerged to international acclaim with the 2014 release of The Shipwreck From The Shore, his New West Records debut. Inspired in part by time spent studying with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon, the album garnered rave reviews on both sides of the pond, with NPR inviting D’Amato for a Tiny Desk Concert and lauding that “he writes in the tradition of Bruce Springsteen or Josh Ritter” and Uncut proclaiming that his songwriting “echoes with early Bob Dylan.” D’Amato followed it up in 2016 with the Mike Mogis-produced Cold Snap, which featured contributions from an all-star cast of Omaha musicians, including Conor Oberst and members of Bright Eyes, Cursive, and The Faint. The record landed D’Amato his first national TV appearance along with an “Artist You Need To Know” nod from Rolling Stone, which hailed his writing as “folk music raised on New Jersey grit.”

In response to mounting humanitarian crises overseas and at our own southern border, D’Amato returned the following year with a collaborative charity EP titled Won’t You Be My Neighbor, which has raised more than $10,000 for refugee aid to date. Songs from D’Amato’s solo albums, meanwhile, have racked up more than 10 million streams on Spotify alone and landed him headline and festival performances in the United States, Europe, and Australia, as well as support dates with Ben Folds, Valerie June, Shovels & Rope, The Old 97’s, American Aquarium, The Felice Brothers, Tyler Childers, Langhorne Slim, and more.

D’Amato’s latest collection is Five Songs From New Orleans, a stripped-down, acoustic EP recorded in the living room of a historic 1860s Garden District home. Praised as “stunning” by Billboard, the collection is a raw, unfiltered affair that draws on an eclectic array of New Orleans sounds, from Cajun fiddle and traditional jazz to classic country and fingerpicked folk.