POOR MAN'S WHISKEY

bluegrass · jam band · americana

Poor Man's Whiskey is a Northern California band that blends bluegrass and old-time string music with southern rock and jam-band improvisation. The group emerged from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001 around the songwriting of banjo player Josh Brough and guitarist Jason Beard, and its touring identity rests on long, loosely structured sets that move between original material and reinterpreted rock and folk repertoire. The working lineup pairs Brough, who plays banjo, keyboards and harmonica and sings, and Beard on guitar and mandolin with Jimbo Scott on acoustic guitar and vocals, Tony Robinson on bass and George Smeltz on drums and suitcase. Alongside originals the band is best known for full-album tribute sets, most notably Dark Side of the Moonshine, a bluegrass reworking of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon recorded in 2008 and 2009 and issued as a double disc that pairs the Floyd material with the band's own songs. The Moonshine program is often staged as a themed event, including performances built around a Wizard of Oz motif that plays on the long-running fan practice of syncing the Pink Floyd record to the 1939 film. Other recurring tribute nights include a set drawn from Paul Simon's Graceland, an Old and In the Way set, and evenings devoted to the Allman Brothers Band and to California songwriter Kate Wolf. The studio discography runs from Train to California (2003) and Roadside Attraction (2005) through Goodbye California (2011), Like a River (2012) and Whiskey Under the Bridge (2015), with the compilation Barrel Aged Whiskey collecting earlier work in 2014. The band has appeared at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the High Sierra Music Festival in California and at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Music Festival in Australia, and has headlined the Fillmore in San Francisco.

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Upcoming shows in Oregon

Where they play in Oregon

Upcoming shows in Washington

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