Folk Bands and Artists
Ocotillo
Kirsty McGee (UK)
UK songwriter Kirsty McGee is best known for her song ‘Sandman’, which featured in Danny Boyle’s film Trance (2013). Through 14 years and 7 albums she has toured relentlessly, fronting the award winning Hobopop Collective. Her sound is joyful, gentle and dusty with hints of gospel, 30s jazz and old vinyl blues. Her 2014 album Those Old Demons features Tom Waits’ sideman Marc Ribot.
Robert Garson (US)
Robert Garson was born in Arkansas and raised in the San Joaquin Valley in central California where his folks danced to Merle Haggard and Buck Owens performing at the Big Fresno Barn. He now resides in the high desert of Southern California near Joshua Tree. Steeped in the traditions of country, bluegrass and rhythm and blues, he marries ancient and new lyric sensibility to the deep grooves heard in roadhouses from Bakersfield to New Orleans.
Travelling in the Mojave desert, McGee first became aware of the rough-voiced, ardent picking of Robert Garson in April 2015. Intrigued, a return trip to Joshua Tree in the fall marked the start of a musical friendship and of the duo Ocotillo, (pronounced ‘ock-a-tea-oh’) named after a Sonoran plant whose crimson rainflowers have earned it the nickname desert coral. March 2016 brings these two artists together for the first time in a performance that promises to be a musical feast.
