the damn quails

March 18 on the back patio – $15 tickets

George Ducas

April 14 on the back patio – $15 tickets

Four albums (and countless songs written for other artists) into one of country music’s more esteemed careers, country recording artist/songwriter George Ducas continues to evolve. Teamed with Pete Anderson, award-winning, platinum producer/guitar player, in what will crystallize Ducas’ country roots and expand into other genres, on the horizon comes a highly anticipated 5th album, “Long Way From Home”. Born in Galveston, Texas, George Ducas’ family wasn’t a particularly musical one, leaving Ducas to take the reins of his own music education. He did benefit from hearing a steady diet of Willie Nelson and Texas singer-songwriters Jerry Jeff Walker and Guy Clark around the house. He taught himself how to play guitar around the age of 12 and later expanded his learning to both blues and rock. With parents who divorced early in his childhood, Ducas spent his childhood years in both Texas with his father and Southern California with his mother. After graduating high school in Houston, he enrolled at Vanderbilt University, even as music was calling his name. After graduating and moving to Atlanta for a brief stint, Ducas made the life-altering drive from Atlanta to Nashville, forging his own path in an industry built predominantly on formula. Early on, he dedicated himself to his songwriting and performed regularly in and around Nashville, cultivating a following both in and outside of the music industry. His new album, “Long Way From Home”, appropriately mixes elements of timeless honky-tonk country with roots rock music, retaining Ducas’ unmistakable identity while continuing to show his evolution as an artist and have some cross genre surprises. Of his previous albums, Ducas’ self-titled debut album on Capitol Records yielded four Billboard charting songs, including “Teardrops” and the Top 10 smash “Lipstick Promises”. His second album yielded two more Billboard charting songs and included a Grammy nomination. During this time, he also began notching scores of hits as a songwriter for artists such as Garth Brooks, Sara Evans, Eli Young Band, Randy Rogers Band, Gary Allan, Dixie Chicks, Trisha Yearwood and more. For the most part, Ducas shrugs this off, “What anyone creates is rarely totally “original” – although people tell me that I am, and that’s definitely what I strive for. But the success of a song also hinges on a lot of other hard-working believers behind the scenes, doing an exceptional job. In the end, I just want to bring my music to as many people as I can – and sure we all want to be accepted, but I’m also always aiming to trailblaze a little bit of my own territory.” All together to date, Ducas has been a part of studio albums that have sold more than 20 million copies and even garnered a Grammy nomination. All the while, Ducas maintains that the best part of it all is to tour and perform live – whether it’s back home in Texas, across the US, headlining festivals in Japan, France, Brazil, Switzerland, the UK, or appearing on Nashville’s famed Grand Ole Opry. Of his live show, Ducas says, “I like for the experience to be a non-stop musical journey, of both my own recordings and songwriting hits, both past and present. And I can’t wait to add the songs from this new album to my live show.”