The Pearl Company

Jonathan Byrd / Raghu Lokanathan / Corin Raymond: Friday, January 27. 7:30pm doors/8pm show, $20/$10 artists and students. Jonathan Byrd’s Cackalack is his first release since joining Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell on the Chicago Tribune’s list of the 50 most significant singer-songwriters of the last 50 years! “This rootsy North Carolinian may be the most buzzed-about new songwriter in folkdom. He displays John Prine’s gift for stark little songs that tell big, complex stories, Guy Clark’s lean melodicism, Lyle Lovett’s wry mischief, and Bill Morrissey’s knack for the revealing image.” — Scott Alarik, Boston Globe  “Sly, subversive and able to say more in two words than most other people can say in a novel….” Midwest Record. “Jonathan Byrd doesn’t sing songs; he sings truth.” – Performing Songwriter.  www.jonathanbyrd.com Raghu Lokanathan’s latest album, ‘Blue Girl’, takes bold risks and vividly spins the stories of characters that are as likable and warped and dignified and unlikely as the grinning man himself; clever, sympathetic songs that showed a dark, and darkly humorous, edge.  These are brilliant songs, grittier than before, with radical experiments in song structure and point-of-view that always sounded natural, even inevitable.  “He writes songs like they used to a long time ago.” Utah Phillips.  http://www.raghumusic.com Corin Raymond is the Toronto-based troubadour who is also half of the Undesirables and whose band, The Sundowners blew us all away when they played here last May; John Prine comparisons often come his way. Corin is a Pearl favourite; a wonderful, warm human being who specializes in bringing the best singer/songwriters he can find to wonderful, warm, welcoming places like The Pearl.  His own songwriting talent is impressive and if you have heard him live, you will know that his personality and performance charm, captivate, and thoroughly entertain.  He is also the guy whose play “Bookworm” was the audience favourite at last summer’s Hamilton Fringe Festival and the guy who is paying for his next two albums with Canadian Tire money!  See his (going viral) YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9lVyhraw-A And Corin’s music:  https://www.facebook.com/CorinRaymondMusic