Festival of Small Halls has announced that Karen Lee Andrews and Juzzie Smith will feature on their upcoming Summer Tour 2022: New South Wales.
Presented by veteran festival producers Woodfordia Inc, the twenty-fifth edition of the much loved not-for-profit music tour is taking on a packed tour schedule with the finest of Australia’s home-grown talent to twenty community halls in New South Wales.
These icons of community life have been drawn from across the rich and diverse landscapes of New South Wales. Halls of all shapes and sizes will throw open their doors, from the salty seaside town of Iluka right down to the fragrant gums shading the mighty Murray and back up to the rolling hills of the Northern Rivers, these artists are passing farms and floodlands, waterfalls and weirs, beaches and backcountry on an epic one month tour.
‘I’m so excited to share this beautiful experience and my music with the wonderful New South Wales Small Halls tour audiences,’ enthuses Karen Lee Andrews. ‘I can’t wait to see you!’
Famous for their larger-than-life folk festivals over the last two decades, Woodfordia presents a programme to be loved by their core base and new fans alike with these long-time Australian festival audience favorites.
Karen Lee Andrews is in possession of a unique sense of artistic purpose. Surrounded by music her entire life, Karen’s career to date has largely revolved around classic soul and rhythm and blues sounds, but in recent years, as her musicality has evolved, she’s been leaning more towards blues. The influence of soul, gospel and Karen’s Polynesian background continues to inform what she does, but the blues has come to feel more like home. The beginnings of this shift were apparent on Karen’s 2018 EP, ‘Far From Paradise’, which served as a declaration of independence following several years appeasing the expectations of a major label.
A true musical virtuoso with a style that is bluesy/folk mixed into a world of its own, Juzzie Smith is a ridiculously talented one-man band, based in Byron Bay. Juzzie gives performances that are marked by an amazing ability to play guitar, harmonica and percussion at the same time using all of his body. It seems Juzzie is at home holding anything that makes a sound, and he combines this with a real rhythmic talent and a raw, warm vocal style. The result is truly engaging, mesmerizing music that makes you want to move and leaves you feeling inspired. This is a show that has spread to over 200 million views on social media and placed on the top of the iTunes blues charts all around the world.
‘Festival of Small Halls tours is the ultimate Australian tour,’ adds Juzzie Smith. ‘Playing intimate venues in small country towns is going to be an adventure of a lifetime.’
Festival of Small Halls Summer Tour 2022 starts on the 9th February in Iluka at the Iluka Community Hall before continuing on to 19 more communities across coastal New South Wales. The tour concludes at Eureka Public Hall on March 6th.
Tickets on sale from 5th January 2021 at https://smallhalls.iwannaticket.com.au/event/festival-of-small-halls-summer-tour-2022-MjU5MTI
The Small Halls Festival will be at The Foundations in Portland on Sunday 13 Feburary, from 3pm.
