Drake White and The Big Fire will be performing live at The Bluestone on Friday, May 5th, 2017

Featured Artist: Drake White

Opening Artist: Dave Kennedy

Opening Artist: Channing Wilson

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

PURCHASE HERE–This Show is SOLD OUT

Drake White Tickets on sale Friday, December 16th at 10am

VIP OPPORTUNITY AVAILABLE

VIP TABLE PURCHASE DOES NOT INCLUDE ADMISSION TICKETS TO THE SHOW.  

Admission tickets must be purchased separately.

• Loft Lower Tier: $250 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Prime view of the stage!
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• VIP Server
• Exclusive Private Bar access

• Loft Upper Tier: $200 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• VIP Server
• Private Bar Access
• May have an obstructed view
• *All VIP tables located in the loft area

*All Sales are final

Every reaction begins with a catalyst, some initial event that sets things on their inexorable course. For Drake White, it goes back to something raw and elemental in his debut album Spark.

“I learned how to play guitar and keep people’s attention around a fire,” explains the Hokes Bluff, Alabama native. “A spark can start a fire that can keep you alive and sustain you. So this is the beginning for me. This is the first strike of the flint.”

The spirit of Spark comes from those simple, early days spent enjoying the outdoors among friends in the warm glow of a fire. And though he’s now a city dweller with all the complications and distractions that entails, White still seeks the freedom and deeper connections he felt when the chorus of nature and the strums of his guitar blended into one harmonious song — the kind of contentment he sings about in the swirling majesty of his single “Livin’ the Dream.” Drake White

“We grew up free. We grew up on 4-wheelers, riding through the backwoods,” he says. “We grew up hunting and fishing and being out in the Appalachian Mountains. People don’t understand how beautiful north Alabama is until you see it in person.”

Drake White

Save for “Livin’ the Dream,” White wrote or co-wrote the remaining 11 tracks on Spark, working with red-hot producers Ross Copperman and Jeremy Stover through the process. He also brought in his own band for a handful of tracks to capture the energy of his live shows.

The first sound on Spark — before the pulse-quickening “Heartbeat” kicks into gear — is the voice of White’s late grandfather speaking from the pulpit. Several of these ghostly transmissions from the past appear on Spark, all extolling the virtues of love, brotherhood and nature. It’s a touch of the surreal that nods at White’s fondness for Pink Floyd’s psychedelic masterpiece The Wall, but also a deeply personal gesture that matches his vision perfectly.

“I went through about five or six sermons of my grandfather and picked out certain little snippets,” he says. “I just think they kind of fit. They’re weird and people are asking what they are. And that was my point: to get people talking about it.”

White has his own message of finding some harmony amid the demands of modern life, one that goes down easy in the uplifting, Zac Brown Band-assisted Southern rock anthem “Back to Free” and the cautionary-but soulful “I Need Real.” It’s a simple message of not letting oneself be swallowed up by technology and seeking out honest, genuine connections with others.

“When I’m at home, my wife and I keep our phones in the bedroom,” says White. “We listen to records. We hardly turn the TV on, unless it’s time for Game of Thrones. Before social networking was a smartphone app, we did it around a fire. That goes way back.”

With his gospel-derived, passionate delivery, White seems to have inherited his grandfather’s ability to touch crowds with a sermon — his divine vocal improvisations at the end of the honky-tonk flavored “Story” will undoubtedly get butts out of seats. White stresses that he isn’t a preacher, but doesn’t see a problem with putting his own methods for surviving the world out there.

“Some of the best songs, like Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” or anything by Bob Marley, have a little bit of preachin’,” he says. “I never want to come across too preachy, but instead I’m saying, ‘Hey man, this is my life, and this is what I do to be happy and I’m figuring it out just like you.’” Drake White

Spark covers an entire spectrum of emotions beyond these statements of character and self-definition. In “Making Me Look Good Again,” White cruises on an R&B-style groove to express his gratitude for his better half, while “Waiting on the Whiskey to Work” finds him embodying a man spun out on love and heartbreak. Then in the tropically-themed “Equator,” he flies south to give his nomadic side a little time to play.

“This record is about balance. It’s me asking, where’s that boy I used to be? Oh yeah, we gotta go get him back,” he says. “We gotta go on a hike or camping or grab my wife and go to some foreign country. I gotta feel alive. I gotta go out there and do that.” Drake White

Long a respected live entertainer with his (appropriately named) band the Big Fire, White’s climb to the limelight hasn’t been a straight or uncomplicated one. Rather than blowing up right away with a big debut single, he’s toiled on the road for years, giving jaw-dropping performances night after night and making believers one show at a time. “There are many different paths.

Country Music’s Rising Star,

Tony Jackson will be performing LIVE at The Bluestone on Friday, June 23rd

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

Opening Artist: Wyatt McCubbin

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 day of show

Tickets will go on-sale Friday, April 21st at 10am

PURCHASE HERE

RESERVED LOFT TABLE SEATING

RESERVED TABLE PURCHASE DOES NOT INCLUDE ADMISSION TICKETS TO THE SHOW.  

Admission tickets must be purchased separately.

• Loft Lower Tier: $250 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Prime view of stage!
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
• Server
• Exclusive Private Bar access

• Loft Upper Tier: $200 (seats four people-no exceptions)
• Includes first bucket of Miller or Coors Light
•  Server
• Private Bar Access
• May be Obstruction in View

*All Reserved tables located in the loft area

ALL SALES ARE FINAL

    Is it premature to see Hall of Fame material in a guy who’s just releasing his first album?

 Not if that guy is Tony Jackson. To put it plainly, Jackson is one of the most gifted singers ever to grace country music. His video “The Grand Tour” ignited an unprecedented 10 million Facebook views and 200,000 shares in just over 3 short weeks!

The respect Jackson has already earned within the music community is evident throughout Tony Jackson, as the new album is titled.  It features songs and/or performances by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members John Sebastian, Steve Cropper and Dr. John “Mac” Rebennack, Country Music Hall of Famers Vince Gill, Bill Anderson and Conway Twitty and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame luminary Norro Wilson.

But it is ease with which Jackson makes every song—even the familiar ones—distinctly his own that sets him apart.  Who else would dare to try and then succeed in bringing a fresh layer of emotional urgency to such a classic as George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” or Conway Twitty’s eternal “It’s Only Make Believe”?

On the first-time and lesser known songs, Jackson mints his own classics.  With its sweeping steel guitar flourishes and ambient barroom clatter, he transforms John Sebastian and Phil Galdston’s “Last Call” into the sweetest, most affectionate separation ballad imaginable.  With reverence and a twinkle in his eye, he enlists Sebastian and Vince Gill in revivifying (after 50 years) the Lovin’ Spoonful’s 1966 romp, “Nashville Cats.”  “When asked if we should recut the song,” Sebastian begins, “I said absolutely but we have to get Vince Gill, Paul Franklin and today’s real Nashville Cats in on the session and fortunately it was preserved on video,” he beams.

After capturing perfectly, the excitement of new love in Bill Anderson’s “I Didn’t Wake Up This Morning,” he moves on to a memory-stirring homage to Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Jr. and Willie Nelson in “They Lived It Up,” a lyrical scrapbook from Anderson and Bobby Tomberlin.

 Jackson shines as a keen-eyed songwriter in his own right with such memorable excursions as “Drink By Drink,” “Old Porch Swing” and “She’s Taking Me Home.”

 From start to finish, Tony Jackson stands out as a “discovery” album, the kind you listen to with such delight that you have to recommend it to friends.  And hundreds of thousands have done just that.

 Jackson is currently a headliner on the Old Dominion Barn Dance in Richmond, Virginia, and is almost certainly the only major bank executive ever to abandon a prominent IT job in finance at a Fortune 500 company to embark on a career in country music.  But he didn’t grow up a country fan.

The son of a Navy man, he led a base-to-base existence, at one point living with his family in Rota, Spain for three years.  His early musical background was sketchy at best.  “I sang ‘White Christmas’ in the Christmas play in the sixth grade,” he recalls.  ‘Everybody seemed to love it, but I was a wreck. My mother forced me to sing in the church choir, but I was kind of buried in the voices along with everybody else.”  This was basically his entire musical resume until ten or so years ago when a friend whose band had lost its lead singer asked Jackson to try out for the spot.  “I did,” he says, “and I was hooked after that.”

 Two weeks after graduating from high school, Jackson joined the Marines.  “I told my dad I was joining because I was sick of taking orders,” he says with a wry grin.  There was as much getting-ahead as gung-ho in Jackson’s enlistment.  “I was a computer and electronics geek as a teenager,” he says.  “When I talked to the recruiter, he told me the Marine Corps had just started a computer science school in Quantico, Virginia.  Fortunately, I scored high enough on the entrance exam to go to that school.” It was a smart move.  When he finished service, a prominent bank in Richmond snapped him up to work in its Information Technology division, initially assigning him the lowly chore of re-setting passwords.  “I was way overqualified,” he says, “so I got promoted fast.  I was a senior vice president by my early 30s.”

 It was while in the Marines that he first started paying serious attention to country music.      “My mother listened only to gospel,” he says.  “My dad was into jazz, hip hop, R&B, new jack swing—stuff like that.  But Armed Forces Radio played everything.  When I was living in Spain—when I was 10 to 13—Randy Travis came over there on a USO tour.  Some friends and I were out there early when they were setting up the stage, and we actually got to talk to him before we realized he was the guy who’d be performing later.  He was really cool to us. In the Marine Corps, when my friends and I played music for each other, we were all homesick.   So when you’d listen to these country songs that talked about family and home and heartbreak, it would really grab you.”

Drake White and The Big Fire live at The Bluestone on August 2nd, 2018!

*Opening Artist: Stevie Monce

*Doors for the show will open at 7PM

*Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 day of show

Tickets On-Sale Friday, May 11th at 10AM

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Born in Hokes Bluff, Alabama, country singer and songwriter Drake White’s mix of country, blues, funk, rock & roll, and reggae and his energetic, foot-stomping live shows eventually led him to Nashville and beyond. Growing up, he sang in the choir at his local church, and after getting a guitar at the age of 14 from a neighbor down the road who played bluegrass, he began writing and playing songs, continuing to do so while attending Gadsen State Community College and then Auburn University, earning a degree in building science even as he played in the local venues at night. After graduation, White took a job with a general contractor in Nashville, working by day and playing the song rounds at night, developing, with his band the Big Fire, a crackling and energetic stage presence that often found him freestyling lyrics in the middle of songs. He caught the eye of producer Jeremy Stover and was soon signed to MCA Nashville, turned his attention full-time to music, and released a debut single, “Simple Life,” on the label early in 2013. A year later, White signed with Big Machine affiliate Dot Records, resulting in a pair of 2015 singles, “It Feels Good” and “Livin’ the Dream.” In August 2016, Dot released White’s debut album, Spark. ~ Steve Leggett, Rovi

Drake White will return to The Bluestone on March 21st, 2019

Doors for the show will open at 7pm

Opening Artist: Jordan Brooker

Tickets are $20 in advance

THIS SHOW IS SOLD OUT!

PURCHASE HERE

Drake White at The Bluestone

To listen to Drake White’s music is to fully experience the soul and rhythm of his upbringing in the Appalachian foothills of Northeastern Alabama. The undeniable sound of his soulful voice has whipped concert audiences across the country into a frenzy as Drake and his band, The Big Fire, raise the roof and summon spirits to life onstage. It’s equal parts Baptist tent revival and amped-up southern rock festival. As you watch Drake crank the energy level up higher and higher throughout the night, you feel as if you’d walked in on a live gospel album backed up by all-stars from The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Of course those acts hit musical pay dirt recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, a little over two hours west of Drake’s tiny hometown of Hokes Bluff.

The same fire that drives Drake to pour his entire being in to those performances also demands that he continue exploring and refining that country soul sound, which the world first heard on his debut album, 2016’s SPARK (Big Machine Label Group). In the spirit of propelling his music forward, Drake teamed up with a crew of Nashville’s most creative musicians in an effort to, as he says, “Bridge that gap between Nashville and Muscle Shoals.” It’s in the crossroads of those two musical worlds that you’ll find Drake White’s new five-song EP, PIECES (BMLG Records) . The new project is helmed by hit producer busbee, best known in country circles for his work with Maren Morris and Keith Urban.

Drake White

The OPTIMYSTIC Tour

October 22, 2021

Doors 7 PM

The Bluestone

583 East Broad Street

Columbus, Ohio 43215

Drake White Live at The Bluestone October 22, 2021

To listen to Drake White’s music is to fully experience the soul and rhythm of his upbringing in the Appalachian foothills of Northeastern Alabama. The undeniable sound of his soulful voice has whipped concert audiences across the country into a frenzy as Drake and his band, The Big Fire, raise the roof and summon spirits to life on stage. It’s equal parts Baptist tent revival and amped-up southern rock festival. As you watch Drake crank the energy level up higher and higher throughout the night, you feel as if you’d walked in on a live gospel album backed up by all-stars from The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Of course, those acts hit musical pay dirt recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, a little over two hours west of Drake’s tiny hometown of Hokes Bluff.

The same fire that drives Drake to pour his entire being in to those performances also demands that he continue exploring and refining that country soul sound, which the world first heard on his debut album, 2016’s SPARK (Big Machine Label Group). In the spirit of propelling his music forward, Drake teamed up with a crew of Nashville’s most creative musicians, too, as he says, “Bridge that gap between Nashville and Muscle Shoals.” It’s at the crossroads of those two musical worlds that you’ll find Drake White’s new five-song EP, PIECES (BMLG Records). The new project is helmed by hit producer Busbee, best known in country circles for his work with Maren Morris and Keith Urban.

This ticket is a revocable license and may be taken up and admission refused upon refunding the purchase price appearing hereon and is grounds for seizure and cancellation without compensation. Holder of this ticket (“Holder”) voluntarily assumes all risks and danger incidental to the game or event for which this ticket is issued whether occurring prior to, during, or after same, including, but not limited to, contracting, and/or spreading the COVID-19 virus, and agrees that the organization, venue, presenter, agents, participants, or players are not responsible or liable for any injuries, sickness, or death resulting from such causes. Holder acknowledges that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a threat to individual and public health, COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease transmitted through human contact and respiratory droplets (including through the air and via common surfaces) and it is possible that Holder may contract COVID-19 while at the game or event for which this ticket is issued. Holder agrees by use of this ticket not to transmit or aid in transmitting any description, account, picture, or reproduction of the game or event to which this ticket is issued. Breach of the foregoing will automatically terminate this license. Holder agrees that the license comprised by this ticket may be removed and Holder may be ejected from the game or event for which this ticket is issued in the event that Holder violates any law, ordinance, or venue regulation. Holder grants permission to the organization sponsoring the game or event for which this ticket is issued to utilize Holder’s image or likeness in connection with any video or other transmission or reproduction of the event to which this ticket relates.

Drake White

w/ Morgan Myles

April 21, 2023 7 PM

Doors Open 7 PM

at The Bluestone

Columbus, Ohio

To listen to Drake White’s music is to fully experience the soul and rhythm of his upbringing in the Appalachian foothills of Northeastern Alabama. The undeniable sound of his soulful voice has whipped concert audiences across the country into a frenzy as Drake and his band, The Big Fire, raise the roof and summon spirits to life onstage. It’s equal parts Baptist tent revival and amped-up southern rock festival. As you watch Drake crank the energy level up higher and higher throughout the night, you feel as if you’d walked in on a live gospel album backed up by all-stars from The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Of course those acts hit musical pay dirt recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, a little over two hours west of Drake’s tiny hometown of Hokes Bluff.