Friday, August 12, 2011

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals on Live From Daryl's House

There’s a little bit of Paris and a lot of rock & roll when Hollywood Records recording group Grace Potter & the Nocturnals visit with Daryl Hall for the 45th and latest edition of Live From Daryl’s House, premiering Aug. 15 exclusively at www.lfdh.com. This month’s installment of the Webby and MTV O Music award-winning Internet series, which last year made its national television broadcast debut on WGN America to impressive ratings, will feature Potter, a collision of Tina Turner sass and vintage retro-glam, fronting the soul-infused, classic rock outfit with a decidedly modern bent. Formed at upstate New York’s St. Lawrence University, based in Vermont, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals have received numerous critical accolades, including being named One of the Best Bands of 2010 by Rolling Stone magazine.


The group’s self-titled album, their third major label release, produced by Mark Batson [Dave Matthews Band], featured the hit single “Paris (Ooh La La),” and debuted in the Top 20 on Billboard’s Top 200, reaching #1 on the iTunes Rock Album chart. GPN, known for playing over 200 shows a year, have built a loyal, dedicated fan base across the U.S. from their incendiary live concerts.



Potter recently made a special solo appearance at Los Angeles’s famed Hollywood Bowl, performing with Stevie Wonder, Sharon Jones and Janelle Monáe, among others. This summer, GPN made their debut on Bonnaroo’s main stage as well as at this year’s Lollapolooza festival in Chicago. The band will promote their first-ever Grand Point North Festival in Burlington, VT, on Aug. 13-14, then cap it all with a headlining show in New York’s Central Park Sept. 24.



The N.Y. Post called a recent GPN live show “…a sizzling concert… the performance was a gripping moment in music where a girl and her band (who’ve enjoyed critical and cult admiration) showed they could hold their own with the biggest acts in music.”



"Playing in Daryl Hall's living room is like stepping into a rock and roll time machine,” raved Grace. “And then they feed you, which is awesome. Daryl went above and beyond to make us feel welcome; even satiating my eternal thirst for old guitars and good wine. He's a class act.”



GPN joined Daryl to perform five songs from their self-titled release, including the serrated rock “Paris (Ooh La La),” which they performed recently on VH1’s Divas telecast, along with “Money,” “Goodbye Kiss,” “Low Road” and “Things I Never Needed.”



Hall and the band also collaborated on “Room to Breathe,” a 1976 classic written by Daryl, which appeared on the Bigger Than the Both of Us album.



Says Daryl: “Grace and the Nocturnals have the kind of classic-rock influences--including The Band, Little Feat, JJ Cale, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan—that are very familiar to me, having experienced that era. We had a great time playing together.”



The past four years have marked a steady stream of superlatives and recognition for Live from Daryl’s House, with Hall receiving a Webby Award for Best Variety series from more than 10,000 entries before garnering an O Music Award from MTV earlier this year.



The 44 previous episodes of Live From Daryl’s House have featured a mix of well-known performers Booker T Jones, Rob Thomas, Train, Smokey Robinson, The Doors’ Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek, Toots Hibbert, Nick Lowe, K.T. Tunstall, Todd Rundgren, Travie McCoy, Dave Stewart, Goo Goo Dolls’ John Rzeznik and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump along with newcomers such as Mayer Hawthorne, Eric Hutchinson, Chromeo, Cash Money rocker Kevin Rudolf, Matt Nathanson, Parachute, Plain White T’s, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, soul diva Sharon Jones, Diane Birch, L.A. neo-R&B party band Fitz & the Tantrums, hot new alternative band Neon Trees and veteran alternative mainstays Guster.

Daryl launched the free monthly web series in November, 2007, after having the light-bulb idea of “playing with my friends and putting it up on the Internet,” and the show has since garnered acclaim from Rolling Stone, SPIN, Daily Variety, CNN, BBC,Yahoo! Music and influential blogger Bob Lefsetz, who have cited Live From Daryl’s House as a perfect example of a veteran artist reinventing himself in the digital age by collaborating with both established and newer performers. The show marked its broadcast debut New Year’s Eve on Superstation WGN America, where it improved ratings for the time period by almost 75%.



Daryl also recently performed a live version of the show with friend and former LFDH guest, Todd Rundgren, to a sold out venue in Atlantic City.

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