The Pasadena Folk Music Society will present Jeni & Billy and their Big Picnic Band in one week, on Saturday, November 15 at 8:00 p.m. in Beckman Institute Auditorium (Little Beckman).  Jeni & Billy, now living in Nashville, made their debut at Caltech in 2012, impressing the audience tremendously with mostly original compositions and with singing that evokes Jeni’s roots in rural Virginia and North Carolina.  Accompanying themselves on guitar, banjo, mandolin, and harmonica, the duo’s music has a beautiful simplicity, which, combined with their southern folksiness, has gained them many fans.

Next week’s Caltech show will be a bit different.  It is a very special CD release party that brings together most of the musicians that were involved in their newest project, Picnic in the Sky, including Craig Eastman on fiddle, lap steel, and mandolin, Dillon O’Brian on keyboards and harmony vocals, Denny Weston Jr on percussion, David Jackson on upright bass and accordion (if he can resolve a schedule conflict) and Dave Way (who produced the recording) on percussion and guitar.  We’ll have to squeeze them into the performance area of the hall.  You are not likely to get another opportunity to hear this configuration, so make your plans now!

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