**Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley - Living In A Song Tour 2023**

**Live at Eddie's Attic w/ Special Guest Surrender Hill**

"Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley shred..." -Rolling Stone

"Two musical phenoms" -NPR

"Steel-string bluegrass with all the intensity of rock 'n' roll" -Acoustic Guitar

"An acoustic firestorm...Ickes & Hensley are changing the rules..." -Vintage Guitar

"Two of the finest musicians playing today" -No Depression

Take a 15-time IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Dobro Player of the Year and a Tennessee-born guitar prodigy identified as “Nashville's hottest young player” by Acoustic Guitar magazine, and you have Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley, a powerhouse GRAMMY-nominated acoustic duo that has electrified the acoustic music scene. Known for their white-hot picking and world class musicianship, as well as their soulful stone country vocals, Ickes and Hensley cleverly meld bluegrass, country, blues, rock, jamgrass, and more to create a signature blend of music that defies restrictions of genre. The new critically acclaimed, song-centric Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley album, Living In A Song—produced by Grammy Award-winning producer/engineer/songwriter Brent Maher (The Judds, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner)—is available now.

Ickes & Hensley have shared the stage or collaborated with Tommy Emmanuel, Taj Mahal, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, David Grisman, Jorma Kaukonen, Marty Stuart, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Steve Wariner, among many others.

Ickes, the most decorated musician in IBMA Awards history, former founding member of bluegrass "supergroup" Blue Highway and highly sought-after Dobro master, has graced the recordings and concerts of artists such as Earl Scruggs, Merle Haggard, Alison Krauss, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Tony Rice and many more.

Hensley, who earned IBMA Guitar Player of the Year nominations for the past three years, made his Grand Ole Opry debut at the age of 11, performing with Marty Stuart and Earl Scruggs (thanks to an invite from Stuart). Hensley has appeared on stage with the likes of Johnny Cash, Peter Frampton, Charlie Daniels and Old Crow Medicine Show.

All four of the Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley albums on Compass Records have received widespread acclaim, including their GRAMMY-nominated debut Before The Sun Goes Down, their sophomore release The Country Blues, their third release World Full of Blues (featuring collaborations with Vince Gill and Taj Mahal), and their 2023 release, Living In A Song.

Among notable side projects, Ickes and Hensley teamed with guitar master Tommy Emmanuel (at Tommy's invitation) for a very special EP, Tommy Emmanuel - Accomplice Series Vol. I With Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley (released in 2021 via Emmanuel's label, CGP Sounds). Ickes and Hensley have also recorded several songs with the legendary Taj Mahal, and Taj invited them to go on tour to be part of his first-ever Taj Mahal Sextet, which completed a lengthy tour in 2022 as well as a very special performance at AmericanaFest in Nashville, Tennessee and The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Frequent Grand Ole Opry performers, Rob and Trey are currently on their Living In A Song U.S. Tour. In addition to performing headline dates of their own, they're touring with legendary singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell on his The Chicago Sessions U.S. tour in 2023, performing their own set and then joining Crowell's band for the set from the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member. This summer and fall, the Living In A Song Tour continues, and Ickes and Hensley will also join Little Feat for select dates and collaborate live once more with Jorma Kaukonen.

For more information on Rob and Trey, visit robandtrey.com

**Surrender Hill**

For years, Robin Dean Salmon and Afton Seekins made their living on the road.

As the songwriters behind Surrender Hill, they played more than 200 shows annually, sharpening their blend of soul, country, and rock & roll one gig at a time. They weren't just an Americana duo; they were full-time world travelers, too, funneling their experiences into the story-driven songs and autobiographical anthems that filled albums like A Whole Lot of Freedom.

Things changed in 2020, when a global pandemic brought Surrender Hill's touring schedule to a sudden halt. From their home in northern Georgia, Robin and Afton watched as the country around them struggled to regain its footing. They began writing songs that responded to the modern moment — songs about division, struggle, survival, and redemption, anchored by melodic hooks and diverse arrangements. Some songs nodded to the band's longtime appreciation for mellow, melancholic Americana music. Others skewed closer to honky-tonk and western swing, influenced by larger-than-life Texans like Bob Wills and Willie Nelson.

The result is Just Another Honky Tonk in a Quiet Western Town, an ambitious double-album project that shows the full reach of Surrender Hill's abilities. The first record, Just Another Honky Tonk, unfolds like the jukebox playlist of some neon-lit cowboy bar in the Wild West, full of Telecaster twang, classic melodies, and the occasional dobro. It's a lighthearted record, stocked with original songs inspired by Robin's childhood on a Texas ranch. An award-winning rock & roll frontman who spent the first half of his adolescence in apartheid-era South Africa, he relocated with his family to a longhorn ranch in Texas during the early '80s. When the teenage Robin wasn't listening to a cross-cultural mix of the Sex Pistols, the Texas Playboys, Marty Robbins, and the Clash, he'd participate in trail drives, spending his nights sleeping beneath the stars of a wide-open Texas sky. "I'll always remember the sound of these older cowboys sitting around the campfire during the evening, telling stories," says Robin, who pays tribute to those memories with Just Another Honky Tonk's opening track, "Cowboy Campfire Song."

Just Another Honk's counterpart is Quiet Western Town, an Americana record that digs deep into the lonesomeness of today's world. "Tumbleweed" is a song about isolation, inspired by the shuttered storefronts and empty sidewalks that turned once-thriving cities into ghost towns during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. "Call Upon My Friends" celebrates the social circles that can provide support during times of struggle, while "Love Your Neighbor" nods to the dividing lines that run throughout American society, with lyrics that call for open-mindedness and compassion. “Nothing but the Skin” cuts through the divisive struggles we have all faced in recent times and beckons to wake up to the possibilities of finding deeper meaning through real human interactions.

The diversity that runs throughout the two-disc Just Another Honky Tonk in a Quiet Western Town is emblematic of the bandmates' own experiences. Before meeting Robin at a gig in Sedona, Arizona, Afton Seekins grew up splitting her time between an Alaskan fishing village and an Arizona frontier town. A talented dancer, she moved to New York City during her 20s and found success as a choreographer, although her songwriting career ultimately brought her back home to Arizona. Salmon, too, spent time in New York, where he signed a major-label deal with Sony Music as the frontman of the rock band See No Evil. A decade later, he found himself unable to shake the rootsy sounds of his childhood on the ranch, where cattle workers would strum country songs after a long day's work. Inspired, he relaunched a career as an alt-country songwriter, eventually forming a duo — and, later, a family — with Seekins.

"We've both been making music for a long time," he says. "There have been times where each of us has struggled with self-doubt, but together, Afton and I have found our own oneness. There was her and there was me, but now, there's Surrender Hill. We've found our stride as people and as a band, and that really shines through on this record. We're exploring two genres over two different albums, but together, it's one project."

That feeling of togetherness extended to the project's recording sessions. Across the country, bands like Surrender Hill found themselves stuck at home, their touring schedules canceled due to the pandemic. Robin and Afton reached out to many of their housebound friends, asking musicians like pedal steel player Mike Daley and guitar legend Mike Waldron to contribute to the record from their own homes. Despite being created during a quarantined year, Just Another Honky Tonk in a Quiet Western Town brought its cast of songwriters and sidemen together, emphasizing collaboration and camaraderie along the way.

Don't let the band's name fool you. Surrender Hill is still fighting the good fight, responding to the challenges of contemporary life with music that's ambitious, hook-filled, topical, and artistically diverse. Just Another Honky Tonk in a Quiet Western Town is an album that creates its own geography, setting up camp at the crossroads of Americana, outlaw country, and western music.

This is an all ages event.

Presented by Eddie's Attic.

Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley w/ special guest Surrender Hill

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Eddie's Attic

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