Fall Soirée with Wine Tasting & Live Music
2025-11-15 16:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Balch Hotel, Heimrich Street 40, Dufur, OR, 97021, United States
Ease into a relaxed Saturday at the Balch with a casual fall soirée featuring wine tasting and live music. A pop-up wine tasting and happy hour menu in the lobby begins at 4pm, featuring guest winery Aanpama, a Columbia Valley boutique winemaker specializing in Sangiovese and Cabernet.

Then join us in the Bistro for dinner service accompanied by live music from gardentender – the indie-folk duo of Kyle J. Glenn and Linoy Yechielia – performing from 5–7pm.

Dining reservations are encouraged for the show.

Learn more and make reservations here: https://www.balchhotel.com/events

Punk in the Gorge
2025-11-15 17:00 - 21:00 | Thunder Island Brewing Company, 601 NW Wa Na Pa Street, Cascade Locks, OR, 97014, US
Punk in the Gorge
Saturday, November 15th, 2025
Punk show in the Tent! 🤘
Bands:
Scontro
The Seditionists
Erik Anarchy
Doors at 5:00pm
Show at 6:00pm
All Ages
$5 at the door for 18+
Under 18 Free!
Bring a non-perishable food donation or a blanket (new or gently used) for the local food bank if you can.
River Room will be open during the event.

Special Three Course Smoked Prime Rib Dinner
2025-11-15 17:30 - 20:30 | Trout Lake Hall, 15 Guler Rd, Trout Lake, WA, 98650, United States
Saturday, November 15th, 2025
Make your reservations for Special Dinner with Post Office Coffee and TLH Chef Jessica Kunze.
First Course:
Winter Salad with Local Chicories and creamy dressing
Main Course:
Smoked Angus Prime Rib with house au-jus, mashed Yukon Golds and horseradish (gf) ($50)
Or
Delicata Squash and Mushroom Risotto (gf/can be vegan) ($35)
Dessert Course:
Cheesecake
Or
Chocolate Mousse (gf/vegan)

Tyson Huckins
2025-11-15 18:30 - 21:30 | River Tap Pub, River Tap Pub
Can’t teach the try

Toga Party with The ULTRONZ
2025-11-15 19:00 - 22:00 | Hood River Elks Lodge #1507, 304 Cascade Ave, Hood River, 97031, United States
Get ready to wrap up in your finest bed sheets and party like it’s 55 BC at our epic **Toga Party** featuring **The Ultronz**! This Gorge Legends surf band is back by unpopular demand, bringing their signature bad attitude, reverb-drenched riffs, and high-energy vibes to shake the Elks Lodge. Expect a wild night of surf-rock anthems, cheeky banter, and pure, unfiltered shenanigans that’ll have you dancing like a Roman god on ambrosia.
**What to Expect:**
**Live Music:** The Ultronz will shred through their set of surf-punk bangers, blending gritty guitar licks with a rebellious edge.
**Drinks & Vibes** Sip on themed cocktails like the and cold beer while snacking on grapes, cheese and crackers.
**Photo Booth** Immortalize your night with our Roman-inspired photo booth, complete with props like plastic swords and grapevines.
**Dress Code** WEAR. A. TOGA. Grab a sheet, channel your inner senator or goddess, and get creative—bonus points for gold accents and sandals.
Don’t miss this legendary night of surf, swagger, and toga-fueled mayhem with The Ultronz—because who needs popular demand when you’ve got this much attitude?

Jazz by the Fireplace Returns!
2025-11-15 19:30 - 22:00 | Hood River Hotel, 102 Oak, Hood River, 97301
We’re back for another season of live jazz at the Hood River Hotel!
Come celebrate our re-opening night with a hot (mostly) acoustic string trio featuring Dave Henehan (guitars), Kerry Williams (mandolin, vocals), and Victor Johnson (rhythm guitar, vocals).
We’ll be playing Gypsy Jazz, swing, Latin, originals, and more! Great for listening and dancing. No cover. All ages and dogs welcome.

Tunnel No. 3 live music
2025-11-15 21:00 - 23:00 | Trillium Cafe, 207 Oak St, Hood River, OR, 97031, United States
Tunnel No. 3 will be playing at Trillium Cafe, November 15 from 9:00 to 11:00 pm. Singer/songwriter Casey Wykes, Paul Huffman on sax and flute (not at the same time), William Weiler on keyboards, and James Lundin on bass. But William is in Alaska.
We play some of Casey’s originals and cover some of our other favorite songwriters like Warren Zevon, Bob Dylan, Rowland Salley, Norman Blake, Jackie Wilson, Gram Parsons, Curtis Mayfield, Kate Wolf, Paul Simon, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Woody Guthrie, and Neil Young.

Bootleg Barney and the Stray
2025-11-16 03:30 - 17:30 | Oregon
at Hood Crest Winery: Come enjoy the music, wine, pizza and more with Barney & Chris.

Christmas Craft Fair Fundraiser Event
2025-11-16 10:00 - 13:00 | Goldendale Adventist Christian School, 210 S Columbus Ave, Goldendale, WA, 98620, United States
Join us for our Christmas Craft Fair Fundraising Event to help support funding for our school!
Goldendale Adventist Christian School offers a Christ centered education where we equip and challenge each student to reach his or her unique potential: spiritually, academically, socially, and physically.
We are excited to host this Christmas event to not only benefit our school but to offer an opportunity for the community to come together at this festive time of year. Come shop local craft vendors for handcrafted gifts, stocking stuffers and delicious treats.
We are looking forward to visiting with you and to share more about our school! See you there!
Location: The Lodge, 210 S. Columbus Ave, Goldendale, WATime: 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
If you would like to be a vendor, please contact Charleen Jaeger @ (360) 536-5711. This is the only way to reserve a table. Please do not respond to anyone asking to be private messaged. They are not with our organization. Vendor Fee is $25. Fee includes one 8ft table and 2 chairs. Please no jewelry vendors.

Holiday Market Benefitting BlinkNow
2025-11-16 11:45 - 13:45 | Riverside Community Church, 317 State St, Hood River, OR
Come support BlinkNow at the upcoming holiday market at Riverside UCC!
About BlinkNow’s programs: 👩‍🧵🌱 The Women’s Center provides skills training, literacy classes, counseling, and small business support for local women. 🌸
When caregivers have jobs, it is more likely that children will have stability at home and be able to learn at school.
By uplifting women, BlinkNow strengthens families and the entire community. The social network at the Center has become a powerful force too, as women support and mentor each other in their career choices and in overcoming cultural gender barriers.
⭐ To directly support the Women’s Center, come ready to shop some lovely handmade goods from Center graduates!
Cash, check, and Venmo will be accepted. Or visit the online store at www.blinknow.org/shop

Holiday Bazaar - Artisans Market
2025-11-16 12:00 - 16:00 | Cascade Pet Camp, 3085 Lower Mill Dr, Hood River, OR, United States, Oregon 97031
Come join us for an afternoon of shopping and fun.Featuring local artisans.Get all of your holiday shopping done in one lovely place.
Venders include: Bearfoot botanicalsCanine to Equine – treatsCrisp and TartNeiko’s NaturalsPaloma Ayala PhotographySundog FarmacySunshine CreationsVivid Tunnell Vision Trixie’s Hats and Things

CGOS: 20th Anniversary Season: Cello Concerto Collage
2025-11-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Wy’east Middle School Performing Arts Center, 3000 Wyeast Rd, Hood River, OR, 97031, United States
The Columbia Gorge Orchestra Association
20th Anniversary Season
Cello Concerto Collage
Gorge Sinfonietta
November 14 7 PM, November 16 2 PM
Wy’east Middle School Performing Arts Center
What’s more exciting than a cello concerto played by a virtuoso musician? How about three of them? That’s what is in store for audiences as the Gorge Sinfonietta presents its November concerts, Cello Concerto Collage. The concerts feature three members of the Sinfonietta in solo roles. Principal cellist Michelle Edwards will perform the first movement of Elgar’s beloved concerto, Aaron Young will be featured in the Dvorak cello concerto, and Annie Harkey will perform the first movement of Haydn’s classical concerto in C.
Conductor Mark Steighner says the concert is unique in many ways. “We’ve never featured three concertos in the same concert, let alone three cellists. Although we’re performing movements from three different composers, the format follows a typical concerto structure of fast, slow and fast movements.”
“We have so many talented and accomplished musicians in the orchestra,”
Steighner said, “and this is a way to highlight more than one.”
It isn’t the first time the orchestra has put together a hybrid work. “A few years ago we stitched together a symphony that included movements by Bruckner and Brahms, two 19th century contemporaries who definitely didn’t agree on musical style. We called it a “Frankensymphony.””
In addition to the cello feature, the concert includes the Prelude to Act 1 of Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner. Steighner explained that this piece was the very first one he conducted with the orchestra at his inaugural concert in 2005. Steighner is retiring as conductor after this season.
The concert will be rounded out by the extremely well-known and popular Suites from Carmen by Georges Bizet. “The Carmen Suites probably have more recognizable melodies-per-minute than any other pieces.”
The Cello Concerto Collage concerts are Friday, November 14 at 7PM and Sunday, November 16 at 2 PM at the Wy’east Middle School Performing Arts Center, 3000 Wy’east Rd in Odell. Tickets and information about CGOA can be found at gorgeorchestra.org. CGOA offers free tickets for kids and students (high school and college IDs at the door), plus discounted tickets ($5 at the door) for SNAP card holders through the Arts for All program.
The concert kicks off the orchestra’s series of performances in CGOA’s 20th Anniversary Season which also includes performances with the Voci Community Choir in April, and a Piano Summit concert in June, featuring soloists Kathy Apland and Mitchell Jett Spencer.
The Columbia Gorge Orchestra Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and presenting musical performances of the highest quality in the Columbia River Gorge region. With a commitment to artistic excellence and education, CGOA brings the joy of music to audiences of all ages.

LIVE MUSIC - Matt Brown
2025-11-16 15:00 - 17:00 | The Pines 1852, 415 Oak Street, Hood River, OR, 97031, United States
Join us this Sunday from 3 pm to 5 pm for a relaxed afternoon with Matt Brown. His music has the soul of Ray Charles, the storytelling of Kris Kristofferson, and the classic warmth of The Beatles. Matt’s style is heartfelt and familiar, and his performances always feel personal.
Grab a glass and enjoy an afternoon of great wine and great music.

Willy & Nelson Trio live music
2025-11-16 17:00 - 19:00 | Phelps Creek Tasting Room, 301 Country Club Rd, Hood River
Join The Willy & Nelson Trio this Sunday, November 16th, at Phelps Creek Winery from 5-7 PM. Sip on a delicious glass of wine and listen to the smooth sounds of the Willy & Nelson Trio. LIVE MUSIC SUNDAYS are a great time to enjoy friends and great wines!

Goodnight,Texas / Ryan Sollee (of The Builders & The Butchers) at Trout Lake Hall
2025-11-16 17:00 - 20:00 | Trout Lake Hall, 15 Guler Rd, Trout Lake, WA, 98650, United States
TICKETS RELEASE FRIDAY, AUGUST 1st at 10am PST
Sunday, November 16th, 2025
$25 Advance // $30 Day Of Show5pm Doors / 6pm ShowAll Ages
GOODNIGHT, TEXAS
Conventional wisdom says the two frontmen of a band shouldn’t live on opposite sides of the United States, but that’s never seemed to deter Avi Vinocur and Patrick Dyer Wolf.
Goodnight, Texas is a tough-to-define storytelling folk rock band whose strength lies in unexpected sweet spots. Drawing their name from Pat and Avi’s onetime geographic midpoint (the real town of Goodnight in the State of Texas, a tiny hamlet east of Amarillo directly betwixt San Francisco, CA and Chapel Hill, NC), the five-piece band also exists at the center of its songwriters’ contrasting styles — via a 1913 Gibson A mandolin and a 2015 Danelectro Baritone Guitar, at the crossroads of folk and blues and rock ‘n’ roll, in a place where dry wit and dark truths meet hope and utmost sincerity.
The band’s new single, “RUNAWAYS,” trades the thought-provoking, earthy blend of folk-rock for which they’re known, for a beast of a hard-rock song. Indelible riffs, thundering rhythms and a positively scorching lead guitar, from none other than metal giant and Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, prove that this band is not afraid to push their own musical boundaries.
“This is the hardest we’ve ever rocked on a recording,” Patrick explains of the new single. “That’s thanks in no small part to an actual and absolute vintage Kirk Hammett wah solo on his legendary Greeny guitar, about which I am self-pinching daily. The main riff of the song had been lurking in my drafts like a caged animal since our last album, and at some point in the past year we decided it was time to set it free.”
“We’re not abandoning our banjos and mandolins, and in fact, there’s banjo in there; if you squint you can hear it. For now though, we’re slinging double electrics, Scott traded brushes for drumsticks, Chris is grinding the low strings, and we have a metal legend coming in at the 2:25 mark.”
2022 brought the band’s highly anticipated fourth album ‘How Long Will It Take Them To Die’, a dark yet lighthearted shoebox of knick-knacks and newspaper clippings – perhaps reflecting on either two years of global isolation, or the whole of American history. Where past Goodnight, Texas albums have traveled cross-country and throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, this new offering falls on a z-axis somewhere between the aurora borealis and six feet underground.
Of the album’s first single ‘Hypothermic’, singer and co-songwriter Avi Vinocur says:
“Stories from different corners of the American past can often be dark and heavy. Our band’s music has always followed along, telling tales of fiction and non-fiction with sonic landscapes to match. Many of our past songs and albums had taken place in the American South, Northeast, Midwest, and Southwest – but I had written a story in my notebook of a character braving the frigid tundra of Canada by car, north toward the distant U.S. state of Alaska – through hallucinations, paranoia, and exhaustion – to escape something unknown. It matched the sinister sound of this strange heel-thumper I had been working with on guitar – and together they were a perfect pair. “Hypothermic” is the result – our attempt to tell stories of America’s furthest corner, under a darker headlight, and attempting to sonically capture the heaviness of not only America’s past, but its present.”
In March 2020, as the world confronted a new indoor reality, two long minutes of the GN,TX mainstay “The Railroad” found themselves in the intro sequence of the first episode of Netflix’s “Tiger King,” which shattered streaming records with 34 million views in 10 days.
In 2021, Goodnight, Texas were invited by Metallica to contribute to The Metallica Blacklist, a collection of reinterpretations of their legendary 1991 album Metallica (the Black Album). Goodnight, Texas was the only band to cover “Of Wolf and Man” gaining praise from press and even Metallica themselves – they used the song over the PA following their live performances in late 2021.
RYAN SOLLEEAmerican singer/songwriter and musician from Anchorage, Alaska, currently living in Portland, Oregon. Ryan Sollee is known mainly as the mastermind of the Portland-based folk rock/alt-country band The Builders And The Butchers.

Singalong!
2025-11-17 19:00 - 20:30 | Adams Creek CoHousing – Common House, 413 Adams Creek Pl, Hood River, 97031
Join us for an evening of folk music singing. Song books and accompaniment provided. All welcome!

Donate Blood!!
2025-11-19 10:00 - 15:00 | Skyline Heath Meeting Space, White Salmon, Washington
Roll-Up-Your-Sleeve Party (AKA Blood Drive!)

Join us at Skyline Health on Wednesday, November 19 from 10 a.m.–3 p.m. to give blood and save a life.

This season, blood supplies are low and every donor truly matters.
Come for the good vibes—leave knowing you made a real-life difference.

PLEASE PARK IN LOWER LOT

Yotes - Rockabilly, Country, and Americana
2025-11-19 18:00 - 21:00 | KickStand Coffee & Kitchen, 1235 State St, Hood River, OR, 97031, United States
Yotes brings a stompin’ blend of rockabilly, country, and Americana music, combining original tunes with his favorite songs from a wide range of artists.Keep an open ear and you’ll hear elements of Johnny Cash, The Stray Cats, Social Distortion, and Murder by Death throughout the show!

Live Music feat. Al Hare
2025-11-19 18:30 - 20:30 | Hood River Brewing Co. Taproom, 101 4th St., Hood River, OR, 97031, United States
Come catch this local favorite playing 1st and 3rd Wednesdays in the taproom every month. His solo music covers a wide variety of 90s and modern country mixed with 80’s rock and current pop.

The Lobbyists Live
2025-11-19 18:30 - 20:30 | Oregon
Ben Bonham, Tim Ortlieb, & Ronnie Ontiveros bring classy jazz standards to the new Lightwell Hotel lobby for your listening pleasure. Come enjoy a drink!

Film Screening | The Last Class with Robert Reich
2025-11-19 19:00 - 20:30 | Columbia Center for the Arts, 215 Cascade Ave, Hood River, OR, 97031-1724, United States
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich might be famous for his public service, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always considered teaching his true calling. The Last Class captures a master educator wrestling with the dual realities of his own aging and his students inheriting a world out of balance. Reich confronts the impending finality with unflinching candor, humor, introspection, and a rawness of emotion he has never shared publicly before.
One thousand students fill the biggest lecture hall on campus—the last class to receive Reich’s wisdom and exhortations not to accept that society has to stay the way it is. His final assignment: Who will be the teachers of tomorrow?
Get Tickets

Live Music - Rae Gordon
2025-11-19 19:00 - 21:30 | 64 Taphouse, Oak Street 208, Hood River, Oregon, 97031, United States
The multi-award-winning Rae Gordon Band serves up a potent stew of gritty blues and heartfelt soul – soaring vocals with searing guitar counterpoint, hard-driving rhythm section with the power of a freight train.

Coffee and Coverage – Open Enrollment Event
2025-11-20 11:00 - 14:00 | Skyline Hospital, 211 NE Skyline Dr, White Salmon, WA, 98672, United States
Sign up, renew, or switch plans.

Get free expert help with your health insurance.
– Marketplace Open Enrollment– Oregon Health Plan and Apple Health– Review Medicare enrollments– Help understanding your coverage and options

Open to the community. No appointment needed.

Coffee, pastries, and fruit provided.

Call 541-256-4245 if you have any questions

Willy & Nelson Trio
2025-11-20 15:00 - 17:00 | Mt Hood Winery
Join us this Thursday, November 20th from 3-5pm at Mt. Hood Winery for Sip & Sound Thursdays! Enjoy delicious wines and the smooth sounds of the Willy & Nelson Trio, all while surrounded by beautiful scenery and majestic Mt. Hood.

Happy Hour & Live Music With Juliet Yänko
2025-11-20 16:00 - 18:00 | The Pines 1852, 415 Oak Street, Hood River, OR, 97031, United States
Join us Thursday, November 20th at The Pines for live music from 4pm to 6pm. Enjoy the soulful, bluesy tunes from this award-winning vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Juliet Yänko. With over 15 years as a jazz singer, Juliet brings a rare mix of heart, humor, and raw talent to the stage. Her music weaves together blues, roots, and Americana in a way that’s deeply human—sweet, sexy, and soul-stirring. She’ll make you laugh, cry, and even dance a little.
Come early, grab a spot, and settle in for something special. Happy Hour starts at 3pm!!

Live music featuring All Jazz Considered
2025-11-20 17:00 - 19:00 | Oregon
Join us for food, wine, and Jazz at Phelps every Thursday 5-7pm

3rd Origin Film Festival Fundraiser
2025-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Hood River Middle School Auditorium, Hood River Middle School Auditorium
Fundraiser for the Middle School Ski and Snowboard Program 11/20: The Origin Film Festival features athletes from the Hood River area that are excelling in their sports on a global stage. This years films feature local talent such as Hannah Bergemann, Tucker FitzSimons, Hunter Hess, Torsenn Brown, and many more.
Admission is $10 Donation at the door. Raffle tickets sold at the door for great swag, such as new skis, snowboards, helmets, SICKOS merchandise and much more.
Doors open at 6:00 pm, Movies from 6:30-7:30 and the Raffle follows.
All proceeds benefit HR Parks and Rec Ski and Snowboard bus scholarships.

Chic Preston & Kerry Williams Live Music
2025-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Walking Man Brewing, 240 SW 1st Street, Stevenson, WA, 98648, United States
Country/Western Urban/Eastern
Greengrass Punk-Funk Jazz on Mandolin and Guitar. Oh, and they sing purdy, too.

The Deslondes / Kristina Murray
2025-11-20 18:00 - 21:00 | Trout Lake Hall, 15 Guler Rd, Trout Lake, WA, 98650, United States
Thursday, November 20th, 2025
$25 Advance // $30 Day Of Show6pm Doors / 7pm ShowAll Ages
THE DESLONDES
“This band feels like the old family farm,” says Sam Doores, one of five songwriters and multi-instrumentalists in the Deslondes. “It’s a place where we can meet for the Fourth of July, bring our families, grill some burgers, and make some music together. It’s always going to be there, and we know it’s going to work and feel good.” After more than 15 years together, four albums, and countless live shows, the five members have found new inspiration in the ties that bind them together as friends and collaborators, as something close to kin. That sense of comfort and commitment animates their new album, Roll It Out, lending it a quiet poignancy as they reflect on what it means to devote yourself to other people—whether it’s family, friends, audiences, or other guys in the tour van with you.
Founded less as a band than as a neighborhood hang at Doores’ home on Deslonde Street, the band devised an anything-goes philosophy that allowed them to incorporate sounds they picked up on their travels and everything they heard at home: classic country, hobo folk, crust punk, rural blues, Third Ward jazz, rockabilly, r&b, Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint but also George Jones and the Band. “We take turns giving each other somebody to lean on when it’s our turn and the freedom to express themself any way they want,” says Riley Downing, who usually plays guitar and sings his own and others’ songs. “That means we don’t have a particular genre. It’s a gumbo of all different genres and time periods. Everybody’s literally into everything.”
Roll It Out recaptures the crackling energy of the band’s early days but also reflects the new perspective of age and maturity. “We’ve had some of these songs for a long while, and fans who know us might well know some of these songs,” says John James Tourville, who plays electric guitar, pedal steel and occasionally the fiddle, and who writes songs but doesn’t sing them. “It’s about half and half old versus new, so it feels both fresh and familiar to us. It reminds me of back when we were starting out, before we were even the Deslondes—back when we were the Tumbleweeds. It’s like we’re moving forward to get to where we were.”
KRISTINA MURRAY“I’ve been to some pretty low places these last ten years,” Kristina Murray confesses. “Faced a lot of heartbreak and loss and grief, but you have to learn to live with those things if you’re going to survive. You have to persevere.”
That spirit of perseverance forms the bedrock of Murray’s stunning new album, Little Blue. Recorded with producers Misa Arriaga and Rachael Moore, the collection grapples with loneliness, desperation, and existential crises through a series of cinematic snapshots of small-town burnouts and last call lovers. Murray is a country artist in the truest sense, a genuine craftswoman with a keen eye and ear for the little details that bring her working-class characters to life, and her delivery is timeless, blurring the lines between the old school honky-tonk, swampy Americana, and R&B-infused southern rock she grew up on in her home state of Georgia. If Murray sounds like a seasoned vet on Little Blue, that’s because she is. While the album marks her Normaltown debut, Murray’s spent the last decade since moving to Nashville paying her dues in an endless series of dive bars and juke joints, and the result is an electrifying introduction to an artist only just beginning to get the kind of wider recognition her talent has long warranted.
“Country music is having a moment right now, and of course I’m thrilled to be a part of that,” Murray reflects. “But even when that moment passes, I’ll still be making it. This genre’s a never-ending treasure chest of discoveries. Country music is who I am.”
Born and raised in Atlanta, Murray first fell in love with country music at the age of five, when she heard Patsy Cline’s Greatest Hits on cassette in her momma’s car. After self-releasing her debut album in 2013, she moved to Nashville, quickly finding her place in the community as she helped establish the now-legendary Honky Tonk Tuesdays series and became one of the first women to front a band at Santa’s Pub.
“I wanted to surround myself with great writers and players so I could grow as an artist,” Murray explains. “It’s funny to look back now and realize how little I knew when I first got to town, but I was confident, I’ll say that,” she laughs.
Murray worked multiple jobs at a time to pay for her sophomore album, Southern Ambrosia, which landed on an array of Best Of lists and prompted Rolling Stone to declare her an Artist You Need To Know, praising her sound as “country-rock with a deep, poetic reverence for the land in which it was born.” The breakout critical acclaim didn’t translate to breakout success, though, and Murray soon found herself right back where she started, unsure of where to go or what it all meant.
“I felt stuck,” she recalls. “My father died suddenly when I was 25, a wound that never heals, and through breakups, car wrecks, and just general brokenness, all of which I was still processing when the whole world shut down in 2020. And while I’d had some brushes with notoriety and a few opportunities to tour in Europe and share bills with some fantastic artists over the years, it just seemed like I was spinning my wheels getting nowhere.”
So Murray did what she always does when the going gets tough: she kept writing, kept performing, worked harder.
“I just wrote and wrote and stockpiled songs for the right opportunity,” she explains. “I knew I needed to level up, and that meant finding the people who could help me get there.”
First up was Misa Arriaga (Kacey Musgraves, Wyatt Flores), who’d collaborated with Murray on a covers project in 2022 and eagerly signed on to help her record a full-length LP. It was around this same time that Murray met Rachael Moore (T Bone Burnett’s longtime engineer), who was so blown away by Murray’s live show that she invited her to come record in Muscle Shoals pro bono.
“I wanted to work with both of them,” Murray recalls, “but with two different producers in two different studios, I honestly wasn’t sure how it would all come together. Rather than worry about it, though, I tried to just trust in the songs and be as present as possible in the moment, which helped me fall more in love with the process than ever before.”
In the end, the dual producer setup proved to be perfect for capturing the two sides of Murray’s creative personality. Over a winter weekend in Muscle Shoals with Moore, she and the band dug deep and chased sounds with meticulous focus and precision; over a spring weekend back in Nashville with Arriaga, they were able to let loose and embrace a spirit of improvisation and discovery.
“Both producers work in very different ways, but their techniques turned out to be really complementary,” Murray explains. “The songs were so cohesive when they all came together. It just felt totally natural and organic.”
“A lot of the characters on this record are coming to terms with the fact that life just has a lot of sadness in it,” Murray reflects. “But making peace with that sadness is what allows you to carry on and find joy and meaning and purpose.”
“Our time here is so short on this little blue dot,” Murray muses, “too short for all the bullshit we get caught up in day to day. This whole record is dropping in and out of these little snippets of sadness in life, but I wanted to end on this note of hope, this reminder that you can still find love and beauty no matter how dark things may seem.”
All it takes is a little perseverance.
Anthony D’Amato

American Wool, Regenerative Agriculture, and the Future of an Industry.
2025-11-20 18:00 - 21:00 | Oregon
Special, Pop-Up event with the incredible Jeanne Carver. Attendees will also have the chance to visit a new exhibition, Sense of Place, at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum. The exhibition includes a deep dive into the value and importance of sustainable ranching and includes hands-on wool samples, Olympic uniforms, and a closer look at the history of the Imperial Stock Ranch and Shaniko Wool.
