The spirit of a live hometown performance comes through on Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters‘ latest album, Live At The Grey Eagle, which captures the emotional delivery of her original and extraordinary songwriting. The album, available now from Organic Records exists in two versions — the physical album featuring 14 tracks and the digital version featuring a 21-song set.
Recorded at The Grey Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina, this collection spotlights the city’s seminal Americana/Country outfit at an ideal time in their career. The dynamic performance recorded over two nights in front of a rabid hometown crowd results in everything from rambunctious renderings of the group’s edgy 70’s-influenced folk and country songs like “Carolina” and “Diamond in the Rough” to fan-favorite sing-a-longs like ”Irene” and “Better Woman” to moments of intimacy offered by stripped down versions of “90 Miles” and “The Road.”
Evolved versions of selected songs from the group’s five prior releases, two new originals written by Platt (“18 Wheels” and “Low Road”) and a cover of “To Love Somebody” take on new life when played live. With a palpable audience reaction that only a renowned musical destination like Asheville’s Grey Eagle can provide, the result is a magical union of artist and audience in the moment.
“I’ve wanted to do a live album for a long time. I think that when a band has been touring together, and everyone is really in step with one another, the songs take on an entirely different spirit live. Some of the older songs have grown and changed with me over the years, and I wanted to capture that, too. Live versions simply have more of a pulse to them than studio recordings,” says Platt. “I wanted to do it at the Grey Eaglebecause for me, that was one of my first ‘white whales’ in Asheville. I loved seeing music there and dreamed of headlining someday. Then in 2012, we sold out our first show there! It’s always been a special place for me. I also think it encourages a kind of wildness in the audience that you don’t get everywhere, which I wanted for the album.”
Live At The Grey Eagle is an authentic representation of the Asheville region’s quintessential roots music sound and the music scene this flagship band helped define.
Listen to Live At The Grey Eagle HERE.
About Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters
Lyrically driven, the songs of Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters blend the band’s old-school country roots attitude with their shared influences of rock and folk. Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Amanda Anne Platt is a storyteller by nature with an incredible band backing her. Performing along with Platt, The Honeycutters are Matt Smith on pedal steel and guitar, Rick Cooper on bass, and Evan Martin on drums and harmony vocals.
There is an empathetic and charming wit ingrained in Platt’s songwriting. She has a knack for accessing a deep well of emotion and applying it to her story-telling, whether she is writing from her own experiences or immersing herself into the melody of emotions in another person’s life.
Music City Roots’ Craig Havighurst writes, “She’s soothing (even in the hurtin’ songs) and sobering (except for the drinkin’ songs) and nuanced… I’d be hard pressed to find a finer string of recordings from any band working in the classic country/mountain tradition in these last five years.”
A homegrown entity, the band is critically acclaimed locally, regionally, nationally, as well as overseas. Their prior album Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters [Organic Records 2017] placed #2 (sandwiched between Jason Isbell and Gregg Allman) in their regional radio station WNCW’s year end listeners poll for 2017. The station’s Music Director Martin Anderson said to No Depression, “Amanda Platt writes songs on par with Lucinda, Isbell, Lauderdale, Hank Sr. In my opinion, anyway.”
“This is a band that does everything right,” says Goldmine’s Mike Greenblatt. “Platt deserves all that might come to her over this, her fifth (and best) album. Backed by pedal steel, electric guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, and vocal harmony, it’s Platt’s show as she writes, sings and co-produces. Complete with lyrics of introspection with the kind of words you can chew on long after the album ends, it also works on a lighter level by dint of the fact that it just sounds so damn good. Go as deep as you want. It’s all good, as they say.”
Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters received a shout out from Fodor’s Travel Magazine in a write-up about the band’s hometown of Asheville, NC, and a couple of years back they were also featured on XPN World Cafe’s Sense of Place series. In 2017, their music also placed into the Americana Music Association Year End Top 100 list of Americana Airplay for the second year in a row.
About Author
