Tyrone Cotton plays Best Video Film & Cultural Center on Sun., May 19. The show starts at 3:30 PM and the cover is $10. Little Silver, playing in duo format, opens the show.
Tyrone Cotton’s earliest musical revelation was listening to the raspy, inspirational voice of his grandfather, the Reverend Cleveland Roosevelt Williams, at his childhood home in Louisville, KY. Cotton began playing guitar along to the sounds of popular rock and blues artists and draws inspiration for his debut album from influences such as Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, and Mississippi John Hurt, who intrigued Tyrone with his “ finger pickin’ and soft, wispy voice.” Cotton’s debut album, Man Like Me, is the result of a lifelong journey of his nearly 30 years of performing in venues and as a beacon of the Louisville music community where he continues to reside today. The collection of songs developed over the past decade and documented on Man Like Me, is a deeply stirring reflection of Cotton’s own experiences which explores connection, loss, hope and resurrection, punctuated by a voice that is hauntingly evocative yet equally warm and alluring.  The duo of Erika Simonian and Steve Curtis wrote their debut LP, Somewhere You Found My Name about the ever-shifting landscape of losing and gaining loved ones and the emotional complexity inherent within. They’re currently working on a new record at Firehouse 12 in New Haven and will be debuting some of those new songs at Best Video.   “The elegantly understated debut from this Brooklyn band does what great, grown-up indie rock at its best has always done; it maps out states of personal, emotional and historical in-betweenness with careful, intelligent grace.” —ROLLING STONE