Blake Christiana of Yarn with Heather Hannah

Blake Christiana is the founding member and songwriter for the band, Yarn. That’s certainly no small accomplishment, especially for a band that spent two years honing their chops during a Monday night residency at the famed Kenny’s Castaway in New York’s Greenwich Village. In effect, it allowed them to rehearse onstage, mostly in front of audiences that often ranged in size from five to fifty people on any given Monday night.

8 studio albums followed — Yarn (2007), Empty Pockets (2008), Come On In (2010), Almost Home (2012), Shine the Light On (2013), This Is The Year (2016), and Lucky 13 volumes 1 & 2. The band then took to the road, playing upwards of 170 shows a year and sharing stages with such superstars as Dwight Yoakam, Charlie Daniels, Marty Stuart, Allison Krauss, Leon Russell, Jim Lauderdale and The Lumineers. They performed at any number of prestigious venues — Mountain Stage, Daytrotter, the Orange Peel in Asheville, the Fox Theater in Boulder, the 9:30 Club in D.C, South by Southwest, the Strawberry Festival, Rhythm and Roots, Meadowgrass and more, eventually accumulating over 1,000 shows, half a million miles and performances in nearly all 50 states.

Indeed, the accolades piled up quickly along the way. They appeared on the Grammy ballot for 3 of their studio albums, garnered nods from the Americana Music Association, placed top five on both Radio and Records and the AMA album charts, garnered airplay on Sirius FM, I Tunes, Pandora, CNN, CMT and Roughstock.com, and also accorded the “Download of the Day” from Rolling Stone, and even shared songwriting credits with John Oates, of Hall & Oates fame.

When Blake performs on his own it is all about the songs, raw, as the way they were written and the stories behind them.