P. O. Box 427
Centre Hall, PA  16828
pennsvalleyhopefund@gmail.com

Lisa Bodnar and Whistlegrass

Wed, 03/01/2023 - 8:24pm -- hopefund
Price: 
$12 per ticket
Date time: 
Saturday, March 11, 2023 - 8:00pm
Location: 
Elk Creek Cafe + Aleworks
Contact: 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lisa-bodnar-and-whistlegrass-tickets-544611927937

Please join us for an evening of fun and great music by Lisa Bodnar and Whistlegrass at the Elk Creek Cafe + Aleworks in Millheim, PA.  This is the Centre County stop for Bodnar’s PA67 Tour and will benefit the Penns Valley HOPE Fund! Lisa and the band, are embarking on a two-year, state-wide celebration for community outreach to help the people, places, and programs that need it the most. Uniting with non-profit organizations through their shared philosophy of altruism, they will provide one-of-a-kind concert events in every county in the commonwealth during 2023/24.

The Lehigh Valley, which includes Lisa home city of Allentown, has certainly seen some trying times. Famously, the region has long faced the economic downturn brought on by the decline of its industries. But somehow the area’s managed to triumphantly emerge from the darkness—stronger and more resilient than before.

Lisa, who’s endured some trying times of her own, has inherited some of that defiantly optimistic, won’t-be-beaten-down Lehigh Valley grit, weaving it into the moving, beautifully crafted songs that make up 40 Years in the Desert, her long-awaited third album.

“I’ve definitely been in a dark place at times,” says the singer-songwriter, who’s not only made it through the ups and downs of life and relationships and the unrelenting workaday grind most of us face, but also through a series of merciless floods that destroyed her home. “Somehow, I stayed positive. And I got some good songs out of it.”

Great songs, actually. The songs on 40 Years in the Desert—the album’s title inspired by a transformative trip to Joshua Tree National Park in California—are some of Lisa’s best. “Feeding Time,” a haunting, mid-tempo burner, was inspired by her dealings with the predatory sharks so common in the music and business worlds: “I don’t wanna be around / When it’s feeding time,” she sings with unwavering resolve. The twangy, country-pop ballad “Best That I Can” finds the songstress reflecting on “the one that got away” and is rich with imagery that’s both tactile and poetic: “Dog-eared pages in the Book of Job / I’m cleansing my conscience in a hotel robe.” But the album’s not all Brechtian bittersweetness: “I Love You Friend” is an upbeat, mariachi-flavored gem that captures the nervous warmth felt when friendship becomes something more.

The perfect storm of Lisa’s musical career came together in the late 1990s and early 2000s locally and in Philadelphia, where she was a featured artist on WXPN. Her debut, Maybe I Did, was released in 2003 to instant acclaim and even charted on college and triple-A radio (the disc was reissued with bonus tracks in 2005). In the mid-2000s, Lisa relocated to the New York area, where she recorded 2007’s glossier Come Hell or High Water. The sophomore set fared even better, garnering four Grammy nominations (Best New Artist; Best Pop Vocal Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; and Producer of the Year) and winning praise in the music and mainstream press.

And now, after 12 years of steady gigging that’s included slots with Vapors of Morphine and other top acts, Lisa has reemerged with 40 Years in the Desert, a sparser, rawer affair than either of its predecessors.

“Bodnar sings with an undefeated strength of spirit in a voice that soars with hope and passion,” writes Dave Howell of The Morning Call, while Adam Harrington of Whisperinandhollerin.com says, “With such delicious singing Lisa Bodnar could be singing about a natural disaster, and we’d still be swooning at her feet.”

Get your tickets now at Eventbright.com and help your neighbors in the Penns Valley Area.