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The Grandsons

Friday, November 27, 2009 at 8 p.m.

$16

Dubbed “the hardest working band in D.C.,” the Grandsons are a celebratory mainstay of the metro area’s thriving music scene. Now in their 23^rd year, this roots-rock quartet continues to enjoy critical success as the 2007 recipient of the Washington Area Music Association’s (WAMMIE) Artist of the Year and Best Roots Rock Recording awards. Boasting six full length albums, including two live discs recorded at The Barns at Wolf Trap, Live at the Barns—The Legendary Wolf Trap Recordings Volume One and Volume Two, the Grandsons’ work continues to represent an exuberant blend of rhythm and blues, rockabilly, swing, and country two-step.

Priding themselves on avoiding repetitive themes in their lyrical content, the Grandsons entertain with hilarious songs about hitchhiking and heartbreak, mob bosses’ daughters, finding happiness on a tight budget, overly aggressive young ladies, civil engineering, and supermarket tabloids. Live music enthusiasts can also hear the Grandsons on Raise The Roof–A Retrospective: Live from The Barns at Wolf Trap, a benefit album for Wolf Trap’s numerous education programs.

John Eaton

Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 8 p.m.

 $25

A renowned Washington, D.C. jazz pianist, and one of the flagship artists of the Wolf Trap Recordings label, John Eaton returns to The Barns for another masterful installment of his yearly American Popular Song series with Where it All Began—The Glorious Songs of Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Headlining The Barns at Wolf Trap for nearly 20 years, Eaton is a revivalist of jazz heroes Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Fats Waller, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, and Harold Arlen, not to mention Berlin and Kern—whose timeless songs and musical philosophies ruminate through Eaton via his own unique style of jazz and spoken word.

Eaton is currently immersed in a series of audio recordings celebrating America’s popular music, produced in conjunction with Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. His fourth and latest release—The Jazz Connection: Hoagy Carmichael and Fats Waller—features songs and medleys by two of the most significant creators and performers of the American popular song. Eaton intends to produce 10 recordings under the Wolf Trap Recordings label. The current four are available at www.wolftrap.org and a variety of online distributors including Amazon.com, iTunes, and CDBaby.

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 Tickets can be purchased by calling 1 (877) WOLFTRAP; or online at

 http://www.wolftrap.org/Purchase_Tickets.aspx

For more information, call The Barns at Wolf Trap at (703) 938-2404.