After a five-year break from recording music, Hayes Carll released his first album since 2011 last year and is supporting Lovers and Leavers with a tour. Stuart’s Opera House will host Carll on Friday, and the doors open at 7 p.m.
General admission tickets are $20 before the show and will cost $25 at the door.
“If you know you’re coming, you need to get your tickets,” Brian Koscho, the marketing director of Stuart’s, said. “(The show) is selling well.”
The show will begin at 8 p.m. with John Evans opening the evening. Evans is from Texas, and according to his website, his “iconic look” is described as “big hair, horn-rimmed glasses, bell-bottoms and vintage cowboy boots.”
“(Evans) has collaborated with Hayes before,” Koscho said.
Evans has been a songwriter for more than 20 years, and he has written more than 400 original songs. He has won eight consecutive Houston Press Awards, including Best Male Vocalist, Best Songwriter, and Musician of the Year.
Evans’ daughter passed away in 2013 from a skin disease, and according to his website, she was “very involved” with her father’s music career, traveling with him on tour and selling merchandise at his show.
“The gusto she lived her life with opened my eyes to how delicate life can be and how you really have to take life by the reins and go live it,” Evans said on his website. “She was one heck of a girl.”
Carll is a singer-songwriter hailing from Texas, and his music has an Americana flair to it. He once played the Nelsonville Music Festival in 2012 and multiple times at the Opera House.
Carll was nominated for a Grammy in 2016 for Best Country Song with his hit “Chances Are.” His music is usually humorous through the way he tells stories, but Lovers and Leavers shows a different side of Carll.
Carll said he recorded the album Lovers and Leavers with the assistance of Joe Henry, a poet and artist.
“We recorded this record live in five days, using just an acoustic guitar, a mix of bass, percussion, pianos and organs, and a touch of pedal steel,” Carll said on his website.
On his website, Carll said, “Lovers and Leavers isn’t funny or raucous. There are very few hoots and almost no hollers. But it is joyous, and it makes me smile.”
The album reflects on his divorce and his son and is “quiet.”
“He’s a really great storyteller, and he’s been around for awhile now,” Koscho said. “He’s had some good critical acclaim.”
Koscho said that Carll is a creative musician doing exciting things and is a great performer.
“He’s out on tour and it was a good opportunity to bring him back for a show,” Koscho said. “Americana is important to us (at Stuart’s), and Hayes is one of the best.”
Max Look, a junior studying integrated media, has been to Stuart’s Opera House in the past for an acoustic show similar to the one on Friday.
“It’s pretty great,” Look said. “The concert room sounded fantastic, and it was very cozy.”
Solo shows at Stuart’s are more intimate, Koscho said, and offer the opportunity for the artist to share the story behind the music, and focus on the songs.
“Stuart’s is great for acoustic and solo shows where the focus is on the music,” Koscho said. “The audience is excited by that kind of setting.”
Koscho said the show will feel close, like a small show.
“The acoustics in there are great. It’s not super big, but it’s very nice,” Look said.
