• Cory Chisel and The Duke & The King
• 9:00pm

Like many artists before him, Cory Chisel first connected with the power of song – and the spellbinding possibilities of live performance – through the music he heard in church. The gospel’s rich vernacular of loss and redemption also informed his innate poetic sense and lyrical range. “For most of my life,” he says, “my dad was a Baptist minister, so I learned a lot about being a showman, and I learned a lot about music. Many of the hymns from church still are the most beautiful songs I know. I'm thankful for growing up where stories and the pursuit of happiness were on everybody's mind. I think I’m still trying to achieve the same euphoria I felt at a very young age, when I would be completely taken over by these rhythms and these sounds and these stories.”

The Duke & The King grew out of Simone Felice's decision to take an extended break from The Felice Brothers at the end of 2008, after three years of non-stop touring. He set to work on his third book, and began writing and recording with his longtime friend Burke, himself on leave from recent stints with George Clinton, Sweet Honey in the Rock and film scoring work for acclaimed French director Cedric Klapisch.

The two holed up in splendid isolation at The Chapel with a cache of vintage instruments, and emerged with an album of inspired contradictions. Made in the depths of winter, “Gold” feels sun-faded and warm. It emits a bucolic calm, yet was mixed and mastered in Brooklyn by hip-hop legend Bassy Bob Brockmann (Notorious B.I.G.). Fusing unlikely elements of blue-eyed soul, Topanga Canyon cool and Marc Bolan-esque acoustic reverie, The Duke & The King sing of a time and place they can never return to, but will never forget.