An Evening with Emily Duff
City Winery NYC Presents An Evening with Emily Duff on September 4th at 7:30pm
A longtime icon of New York City's roots-rock community, Emily Duff has spent her career blurring the lines between rock & roll, soul, roadhouse country, and punk. She's been a solo artist. A bandmate. A multi-instrumentalist who strums the guitar, plays the cello and writes her own string arrangements. But above all else, Emily Duff has been — and always will be — a songwriter.
Duff’s songs emphatically nod to the sounds that first captivated her attention as a child during the 1970s. Raised in Queens and Long Island, she gravitated toward the era's roots legends and soul singers: Kris Kristofferson, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash, Al Green, and countless others. Her 5 full length albums and recent EP turn that rich tapestry of sound into fuel for something original, with Duff delivering a potent collection of heartland rock anthems, folksongs, barn burners, gothic murder ballads, soulful love songs, punk classics and everything in between.
If Duff's previous albums explored different corners of her musical personality — the “demo”purity of Go Tell Your Friends, the Muscle Shoals-sized R&B of Maybe in the Morning, the gospel grit of Hallelujah Hello, the Eric “Roscoe” Ambel produced, punky rock & roll of Born on the Ground & Razor Blade Smile — her newest works return the artist to her timeless roots.
And who, exactly, is Emily Duff? She's a street-smart New Yorker who traded mix tapes with Lou Reed during her 20s and struck up a musical partnership with Gary Lucas, the experimental guitarist who performed with Captain Beefheart's Magic Band before launching his project, Gods and Monsters. When the band's original lead singer, Jeff Buckley, left the lineup to launch his meteoric solo career, Duff stepped in as his replacement. Before long, she'd left that band and formed another group, Eudora, whose mix of Americana instrumentation and baroque textures earned them a gig opening for Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. But, despite the momentum, Duff longed to do something even more personal. By the time she launched her solo career during the 2000s, she'd already lived a life rich in experience and eclectic music, which lent a mature perspective to her songs.
From the stage of CBGB’s — where she played her first show — to the confines of her 340 square foot Greenwich Village tenement apartment where she is happily raising her two teenage children and hound dog with her husband, Emily Duff has never been afraid to chase her muse into uncharted territory. Duff presently has a record being mixed and another in production. Both are “modern records” inspired by classic American music, with Duff upholding her status as a genre-bending lifer.
“’Emily reminds me of some of the great earthy, big-voiced roots singers I loved in the 1970’s— Tracy Nelson, Marcia Ball and more. She borrows from that blues and roots tradition but makes it her very own with her sensitive and personal lyrics.” - Rosanne Cash
"Magnificent in its lyrical capacity, Duff flits between the swing and the honky tonk, between the rockabilly and soul, between country and rock and roll, between the solemnity of Mahalia Jackson and the mockery of the Rolling Stones. An authentic gem.” - Rock on Magazine
“One part Patti Smith, one part Muscle Shoals.” - Rolling Stone Magazine
“Duff’s gritty mix of desire and desperation can be found at every turn, a sound seemingly inspired by the unsettled state of a covid-conflicted world.”
- American Songwriter
“A roadhouse punk rocker — The Clash meets Jerry Lee Lewis” - No Depression
“Emily Duff to me will be the torchbearer for this generation, following the likes of Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams. Rating 9/10.” - Maximum Volume Music
“Deceptively bitter lyrics buried in melodic hooks. Duff has a knack for that killer line that just grabs. Duff's trajectory is rising.” - Country Standard Time
“Duff’s songs are hooky, toughly defiant and tenderly bruised odes to longing and survival.” - Dusted Magazine
“An ideal measure of swagger conjures early Pretenders mojo.” - Roots Music Report
Emily Duff and her band perform the 3rd Monday of every month at Cowgirl, located at 519 Hudson Street. Her band of all-stars includes Kenny Soule on drums, John Hamilton on bass, Benny Landa on electric guitar, Charlie Giordano on accordion and Danny Ray on Sax.
