Mumford & Sons @ Bourbon & Beyond

Mumford & Sons are an English folk rock band formed in London, United Kingdom in 2007. The band consists of Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums), Ben Lovett (vocals, keyboards, piano), and Ted Dwane (vocals, bass guitar, double bass). Banjo player Winston Marshall left the band in 2021. Mumford & Sons have released four studio albums: Sigh No More (2009), Babel (2012), Wilder Mind (2015), and Delta (2018). Sigh No More peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart and the Billboard 200 in the US, with Babel and Wilder Mind both debuting at number one in the UK and US, the former becoming the fastest-selling rock album of the decade and leading to a headline performance at Glastonbury Festival in 2013. The band have also issued two live albums: Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire (2011) and The Road to Red Rocks (2012). Mumford & Sons were formed in December 2007 by multi-instrumentalists Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Winston Marshall and Ted Dwane. Band members play acoustic guitar, drums, keyboard instruments, bass guitar, and traditional folk instruments such as banjo, mandolin and resonator guitar. The band name originates from the fact that Marcus Mumford was the most visible member, organising the band and their performances. Lovett indicated that the name was meant to invoke the sense of an "antiquated family business name". A handful of similar bands were increasing their visibility in West London around the same time, giving rise to the label "West London folk scene". Mumford downplays that characterise as an exaggeration - Mumford & Sons and a few other folk acts just happened to be operating in the same general area at the time. In an interview with the Herald Sun, Marcus Mumford said, "It's not folk really. Well, some of it is, and it's certainly not a scene. Someone got over-excited about a few bands who live in a hundred-mile radius and put it in a box to sell it as a package. It's a community, not a scene. It's not exclusive." Having developed in the same musical and cultural environment, Mumford & Sons' sound has been compared to that of artists such as Noah and the Whale, Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling, whose backing band had included Marshall, Mumford, and Dwane. In early 2008 the band began working with manager Adam Tudhope, who, as part of management company Everybody's, also represents Keane and Laura Marling. It was through Tudhope's connection that Mumford & Sons were exposed to their future A&R at Island, Louis Bloom, who began monitoring the band. Bloom told HitQuarters that they were still at a fledgling state and not yet ready for a label deal: "There was no one there for it, just a few friends, and they needed time to develop. Over the next six months I kept going to see them and they were literally picking up fans every time." In February 2008, the band completed an extensive UK tour with support from Alessi's Ark, Sons of Noel and Adrian, Peggy Sue and others. June 2008 marked the band's first appearance at the Glastonbury Festival. They also toured Australia with Laura Marling, whose disinclination to interact with audiences encouraged Mumford into the spotlight. The experience helped inform his attitude towards Mumford & Sons audiences, which is to interact frequently and to try to create a comfortable, casual atmosphere. Mumford & Sons' first project was an EP entitled Love Your Ground which took a year to complete and was released in November 2008 on Chess Club Records. The band began by using bluegrass and folk instrumentation, with the core instruments of acoustic guitar, banjo, piano and a double bass, played with a rhythmic style based in alternative rock and folk. In the documentary Big Easy Express, Marcus Mumford recognises the Old Crow Medicine Show influence: "I first heard Old Crow’s music when I was, like, 16, 17, and that really got me into, like, folk music, bluegrass. I mean, I’d listened to a lot of Dylan, but I hadn’t really ventured into the country world so much. So Old Crow were the band that made me fall in love with country music." Mumford acknowledges that "the band inspired them to pick up the banjo and start their now famous country nights in London." Ketch Secor, Old Crow front-man, concurs: "Those boys took the message and ran with it. Much of Mumford & Sons' lyrical content has a strong literary influence, their debut album's name deriving from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The track "Sigh No More" includes lines from the play such as Serve God love me and mend, For man is a giddy thing, and One foot in sea and one on shore. The title of the song "Roll Away Your Stone" is an allusion to Macbeth; the song includes the line Stars hide your fires/ And these here are my desires which borrows and pares down Macbeth's line in act 1, scene 4: Stars, hide your fires,/ Let not light see my black and deep desires. Additionally, "The Cave" includes several references to The Odyssey, in particular the sirens that Odysseus encounters on his journey home. The song also contains many references to G.K. Chesterton's book, St. Francis of Assisi, in which Chesterton uses Plato's Cave as a way of explaining how St. Francis views the world from God's perspective. "Little Lion Man" appears to be a retelling in dramatic monologue form of Chretien de Troyes' Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, which is the story of a knight who goes mad after betraying a promise to his wife to return to her. Both "Timshel" and "Dust Bowl Dance" draw heavily from the John Steinbeck novels Of Mice and Men, East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. The band's change in sound on their third album was described by Lovett as a "natural departure." At the end of the Babel tour Winston Marshall traded his banjo for electric guitar in sound checks and Mumford started playing more drums as the band jammed on heavy instrumentals and even some Radiohead tunes. Banjo does not feature on the record, an instrument that had become synonymous with the band. NME reported that the band's sound is "More expansive than ever and decidedly heavier, thanks to the shift in instrumentation." The group also employed a full drumkit instead of kick drum. "We've had our standard line-up of instruments for the last six years and we felt like that was our palette, [but] we started picking up other stuff," said Lovett. "It's a very natural departure from some of that rootsier stuff." Lovett told NME that working with James Ford for Wilder Mind was part of trying something new. "We felt a need for change. Not from Markus [Dravs], but he was so closely attached to those first two records that as we had taken that time off, we wanted to try doing something new. It felt like, if we do our third record with Markus, does that mean we do our ninth and 10th records with Markus? At some point you have to try different things, as we collectively felt like it was time to try other stuff. Markus knows that we might well make the next record with him. We definitely haven't broken up [with Dravs], we're just playing the field!". The band have won a number of music awards throughout their career, with Sigh No More earning the band the Brit Award for Best British Album in 2011 and six overall Grammy Award nominations. The live performance at the 2011 Grammy ceremony with Bob Dylan and The Avett Brothers led to a surge in popularity for the band in the US. The band received eight total Grammy nominations for Babel and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The band also won the Brit Award for Best British Group in 2013.

Kacey Lee Musgraves is an American singer and songwriter. She began her career in the early 2000s, when she self-released three solo albums and recorded another album as a member of the duo Texas Two Bits. In 2007, Musgraves appeared on the fifth season of the USA Network singing competition Nashville Star, where she finished in seventh place. In 2012, she signed with Mercury Nashville and released the hit single "Merry Go 'Round". Her major-label debut studio album, Same Trailer Different Park (2013), won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.

Hootie & The Blowfish is a rock band which formed in 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina, United States at the University of South Carolina. The band consists of Darius Rucker (vocals, guitar), Mark Bryan (guitar, vocals), Dean Felber (bass, keyboards) and Jim Sonefeld (drums). The band has released five albums, "Cracked Rear View" (1994), "Fairweather Johnson" (1996), "Musical Chairs" (1998), "Hootie & The Blowfish" (2003) and "Looking for Lucky" (2005). Their debut album Cracked Rear View" is currently the 15th best selling album of all time in the United States, and was for several years the best selling debut album of all time. Hootie & the Blowfish formed in 1986. The quartet met when they were freshmen at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Bryan heard Rucker singing in the showers of the dorm they shared and was impressed by his vocal ability. They began playing cover tunes as The Wolf Brothers; eventually they collaborated with Felber, a former high school bandmate of Bryan's, and Jim "Soni" Sonefeld as Hootie & the Blowfish. Brantley Smith was the original drummer for the band. He left the group to pursue music ministry, but he has made scattered guest appearances with the band (he played cello on their MTV Unplugged performance in 1996, and played drums at Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas, on June 27, 2008). The group independently released two cassette demo EPs in 1991 and 1992. In 1993, they pressed 50,000 copies of a self-released EP, Kootchypop. Their mainstream debut album was Cracked Rear View (1994). It was an instant success, ultimately going platinum 16 times in the U.S. and becoming the best-selling album of 1995. The album was propelled by four hits, "Hold My Hand" (U.S. #10), "Let Her Cry" (U.S. #9), "Only Wanna Be with You" (U.S. #6), and "Time" (U.S. #14). Miami Dolphins' Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino appeared in the band's video for the song "Only Wanna Be with You", along with several other athletes. The band won the "Best New Artist" award at the 1996 Grammy Awards. Hootie & the Blowfish appeared on MTV Unplugged on the eve of the release of their second album, 1996's Fairweather Johnson. Though sales began promisingly, and it contained the hit single "Old Man and Me" (U.S. #13), the album sold four million copies in the U.S. In 1995, Hootie & the Blowfish contributed the song "Hey Hey What Can I Do" to the Encomium tribute album to Led Zeppelin. Their cover of Canadian group 54-40's "I Go Blind", originally released on the soundtrack to the TV series Friends in 1995, did not appear on Cracked Rear View or Fairweather Johnson, but nevertheless became a hit at radio in 1996 after three singles from Fairweather Johnson had been released. Both "Hey Hey What Can I Do" and "I Go Blind" were later released on the collection Scattered, Smothered and Covered. Hootie and the Blowfish started their own record label, Breaking Records, in 1996 as a subsidiary of Atlantic. They had planned to focus on signing local Carolina acts. Edwin McCain and Cravin' Melon were both associated with the label at one point, but did not release any material on it. Meat Puppets, Jump, Little Children, Treadmill Trackstar and Treehouse released one album each on Breaking Records. The label folded in 2000. In 1998, they performed on Frank Wildhorn's concept album of the musical The Civil War. In 200, the band released a B-sides and rarities compilation in 2000 entitled Scattered, Smothered and Covered. The band covered the 1968 Orpheus hit "Can't Find the Time" in 2001 for the soundtrack of the Jim Carrey movie, Me, Myself and Irene. Orpheus leader Bruce Arnold performed the song with the band during several concerts on the West Coast of the United States in 2001. In 2009, Hootie and the Blowfish performed live in a ballet which chronicled their rise and success in the 1990s. In 2008, Rucker announced in an AOL Sessions interview that Hootie and the Blowfish would be going on hiatus so Rucker could pursue his solo career as a country music performer. Although the band will no longer be recording or touring, Rucker confirmed that they will still perform their scheduled charity concerts, stating, "We have four charity gigs every year and we will still do them, but we will not do a record or tour." Rucker also said that the split will last "for five or six years, or until I record three or four country albums". He later amended his statement, saying, "To be honest with you, we're not even split up right now, and we're not really thinking about splitting up."

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit is an Americana / Southern rock band originating largely from the Muscle Shoals area of Alabama, and led by former Drive-by Truckers singer / guitarist Jason Isbell. The band consists of Isbell (vocals, guitar); Sadler Vaden (guitar); Jimbo Hart (bass); Derry DeBorja (keys, accordion); Chad Gamble (drums). Fiddle player and singer Amanda Shires features regularly as a session player and occasional touring member. The band is named for the colloquial name of the psychiatric ward of Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital in Florence, Alabama. The band are credited as such on five of Isbell's eight studio full-lengths, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (2009); Here We Rest (2011); The Nashville Sound (2017); Reunions (2020); Weathervanes (2023). Though some or all of the members feature on Jason's three "solo" albums, 2007's Sirens of the Ditch, his 2013 breakthrough Southeastern, and 2015's Something More Than Free. The band tour regularly in the United States and internationally, including and annual week of shows at Nashville's legendary Ryman Auditorium supported by Shires and a variety of up and coming country, folk, and soul artists.

Matthew Charles "Charley" Crockett is an American traditional country music singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. He has released 17 studio albums since 2015, with The Man from Waco, $10 Cowboy, Lonesome Drifter, and Dollar a Day all breaking into the US Billboard 200 in 2022, 2024, and 2025, respectively.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1979 as a conjunction of lead musician, singer and songwriter Joan Jett and the backup band. It has undergone many lineup changes since its inception, with founders Jett and producer Kenny Laguna being its only consistent members.

Squeeze are an English rock band that came to prominence in the United Kingdom during the new wave period of the late 1970s, and continued recording in the 1980s, 1990s and 2010s. In the UK, their singles "Cool for Cats", "Up the Junction", and "Labelled with Love" were top-ten chart hits. Though not as commercially successful in the United States, Squeeze had American hits with "Tempted", "Black Coffee in Bed", and "Hourglass", and were considered a part of the Second British Invasion.

Violent Femmes are an American folk punk band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The band consists of founding members Gordon Gano and Brian Ritchie, joined by multi-instrumentalist Blaise Garza, and drummer John Sparrow. Former members of the band include drummers Victor DeLorenzo, Guy Hoffman (1993–2002), and Brian Viglione (2013–2016). Violent Femmes are considered to be an integral part of the then-underground folk punk and alternative rock scenes of the 1980s, and remain influential or inspirational to the subsequent movements, particularly on folk rock, indie rock, grunge, pop punk, emo, and the late 1980s and 1990s alternative rock scene.

Noah Lindsey Cyrus is an American singer and actress. As a child actress, she voiced the titular character in the English dub of the film Ponyo (2008), and appeared in minor roles on shows including Hannah Montana and Doc. In 2016, she made her debut as a singer with the single "Make Me (Cry)" featuring Labrinth, which peaked at number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100. Cyrus has released three extended plays: Good Cry (2018), The End of Everything (2020), People Don't Change (2021). Her first full-length album, The Hardest Part, was released on September 16, 2022, to widespread critical acclaim. Her second studio album, I Want My Loved Ones to Go with Me, was released on July 11, 2025. She was nominated for Best New Artist at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. Cyrus is the youngest child of Billy Ray Cyrus and Tish Cyrus and the younger sister of Miley Cyrus.

Durand Jones & The Indications is an American contemporary R&B and soul group founded by the core songwriting trio of singer Durand Jones, singer/drummer Aaron Frazer, and guitarist Blake Rhein. Formed in 2012, the band came to prominence as part of the soul revivalist movement around the time of the reissue of their debut album in 2018. Their second album American Love Call was released in March 2019, followed by Private Space in July 2021. “My grandma always heard me singing at home, and she said, ‘I’m gonna put your ass in the youth choir,’” remembers Durand Jones. “I was reluctant. But one day the organist could hear me in the choir, and said ‘boy I’m gonna give you a song.’ So I sang the song… the whole church just flipped out. People were running and jumping and afterwards they were giving me money and stuff. Man it was really cool. That’s when the realization came that maybe I could make something of this.” In the fall of 2012, Durand Jones left small-town Louisiana for the foot-hills of Indiana. Alto saxophone in tote he enrolled in the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. “Being a singer was never part of the plan,” Jones admits. But soon enough Jones found his way in front of a rowdy rock-n-roll band belting out a rambunctious rendition of “Dock Of The Bay,” to a basement full drunken undergrads. That rowdy band unfolded into the Indications – comprised of drummer, Aaron Frazer, guitarist Blake Rhein, bassman Kyle Houpt, and organist Justin Hubler. Inspired by a handful of dusty and obscure 45s baring names like the Ethics, the Brothers of Soul, and the Icemen, the Indications set out to make a record steeped in heavy drums, blown-out vocals, and deep grooves. Gathered around a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and a case of Miller High-Life, the group spent their Sunday evenings recording into the early hours of the morning. They released their first single in 2015 and followed with their eponymous debut album in 2016. During July and August 2018, the band recorded their second album in Brooklyn, New York and focused on developing a "vocal group sound." Their record, American Love Call, was released in March 2018. In May 2021, the band announced that that their third record, Private Space, would be released July 30, 2021 and released the lead single "Witchoo". The ten track album was recorded in New York City at Diamond Mine and features a more disco and modern soul-inspired sound. The album was written and produced by Jones, Frazer, Rhein, and Okonski with contributions from bassist Michael Montgomery as well as arrangers Ginger Dolden and Peter Lanctot, harpist Brandee Younger, and Eli "Paperboy" Reed, among others.

Vertical Horizon are an American alternative rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1991. Vocalists and guitarists Matt Scannell and Keith Kane started the band when they were students at Georgetown University, later expanding the duo into a full four-piece band. Since the mid-2000s the group has undergone multiple line-up changes, with Scannell serving as the only constant member throughout. The band has released seven studio albums since 1992 – the most successful of which was their third, Everything You Want, which was certified double Platinum by the RIAA. Its title track is the band's signature song, having reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2000 – the only single of the band's to do so. The album also spawned two further two Hot 100 entries, "You're a God" and "Best I Ever Had ".

Tonic is an American rock band, formed in 1993 by Emerson Hart and Jeff Russo. Later members have included Dan Lavery, Kevin Shepard, Pierce Bowers and Dan Rothchild. The band signed with Polydor Records in 1995, through which they released their debut studio album Lemon Parade (1996). Despite lukewarm critical and commercial response, it spawned the singles "Open Up Your Eyes" and "If You Could Only See" in 1997, which significantly entered several Billboard charts, including Adult Alternative Airplay, Radio Songs, Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock. The album received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Nine Days is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. It was formed in the hamlet of St. James, Suffolk County, New York in 1994 by John Hampson and Brian Desveaux, and released three independent albums in the 1990s before their mainstream debut album, The Madding Crowd, released in 2000. The band scored a hit in the United States from the album The Madding Crowd, with the single "Absolutely ".

There are one artist and a gaming company that releases music as ATLUS. 1) ATLUS is a not an artist, but a video game publisher. They publish games such as the Shin Megami Tensei, Trauma Center, and Ogre Battle. They own the rights to several game studios, such as Research and Development 1 - the group responsible for Shin Megami Tensei games. Their noteworthy project composers are, Shoji Meguro, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Toshiko Tasaki and many more. Meguro is known primarily by fans, for work on compositions in the Shin Megami Tensei games. The games typically feature both orchestrated, and metalized tracks. Additions of electric guitar, pipe organ, and various synthesized sounds make the many of the tracks seem demonic in nature, which plays well with the theme of demons in the games. 2) A Glaswegian producer releasing his debut ep on Mister Saturday Nights imprint. 3) Raised in a single-parent home marked by poverty and addiction, Atlus had to grow up fast, building incredible resilience and laying the foundation for a life rooted in the search for authentic relationships and honest storytelling. Phonetically named after the mythological Titan who held up the heavens, Atlus wrote his first two (of four) albums while working as a commercial driver behind the wheel of semi-trucks, using the long, lonesome miles of highway to craft lyrics and workshop melodies as he drove countless hours to help support his family and fund studio time. That pavement-pounding lifestyle became both his education and his engine. Over time, it helped grow his underground following and ultimately led to breakout moments like performing alongside Jelly Roll at a packed Red Rocks Amphitheatre in his home state, and landing a Top 5 album on Spotify’s Global Album Chart, along with a Platinum single. The magic of Atlus lies in how he marries candid, arresting, and often dark subjects with a kaleidoscope of sound. His music blends multiple styles into something fresh and immersive, anchored by storytelling that creates a deep connection with fans. Now with over a billion on-demand streams and two million followers across socials, Atlus continues to build his career on real connection and resilience. He’s holding up his musical dreams in support of his family and anyone who turns to music as an outlet for their own struggles.