Blue Yonder
| Shows at the Purple Fiddle |
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“One of my top ten albums of 2013” — Todd Burge, WOUB Public Media
“Blue Yonder lives where classic country music meets western swing, a honky-tonk beat meets a beautiful ballad, and red hot country jazz guitar licks meet cool blue yodel vocals.” — Larry Groce, Mountain Stage
“There’s swing and there’s blues, but there ain’t nothing like swingin’ the blues and that’s exactly what this trio from West Virginia does…on their 2013 CD Bittersweet Road.” — Song of the Day. The Westerner
A mix of virtuoso musicianship and original songwriting that plays as well in a hipster coffeehouse as it does in a small town concert hall.” — Larry Groce, Mountain Stage
Blue Yonder is a band from Charleston, West Virginia, that takes strands of early country music – from swing to honky-tonk, bluegrass and rockabillly – and weaves them together with award-winning original compositions and a contemporary feel. The group features three seasoned musicians each with distinctive and notable skills: singer and songwriter John Lilly, Russ Hicks, Jupiter Little and bassist Will Carter. The band’s debut recording, Bittersweet Road, which features all original songs, reached #2 on the Freeform American Roots Radio charts in late 2013.
• John Lilly, Blue Yonder’s vocalist and front man, is known throughout the country and in Europe for his heartfelt original songs about loving, living, and losing. John recently released his fifth CD, “Cold Comfort,” recorded in Texas and Tennessee. In 2007, his “Haunted Honky Tonk” CD rose to #1 on radio charts in the U.S. and Europe. John’s songwriting earned him top place in the 2005 Ghost Writers in the Sky song contest, as well as the 2010 “Next Great Road Song” contest, sponsored by Spin and Midas. A former tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, John travelled as a member of the Green Grass Cloggers dance team and with Appalachian master fiddler and NEA National Heritage Fellow Ralph Blizard. Lilly now tours widely, sharing his own music. He has served as editor of West Virginia’s Goldenseal magazine since 1997.