CHUCK HAWTHORNE & LIBBY KOCH will perform at the Uptown Art House on Friday, August 24 from 7pm to 9pm. Open seating tickets are $10.00 in advanced and $15.00 at the door on the day of the event.  Uptown Art House doors open at 3pm on Fridays. Buy TICKETS HERE. CHUCK HAWTHORNE was sitting in a Chicago airport next to his guitar case. He had been visiting friends for the weekend and was waiting on a flight back to Austin, where he had recently relocated following his retirement from the US Marine Corps. Another gentleman toting a guitar took the seat next to him and struck up a conversation. That man was Juno Award winning artist Ray Bonneville.  As the flight boarded, the two exchanged contact information, and Ray asked Chuck to send him some songs. Chuck had heard that line before and figured that airport conversation would be the last he heard from Ray Bonneville. But the next day, he emailed Ray a few songs anyway. Ray sent a reply that would change Chuck’s life and career. It read, “Let’s meet for coffee and discuss your record.”The road that led Chuck to that chance airport encounter started on a cattle ranch in Amarillo and spanned the globe over 21 years of military service. Chuck developed his voice as a songwriter riding the Texas plains with his cowboy heroes Clifton Lowe and Alvin Hamrick, sailing the Adriatic sea and picking guitar aboard the USS Iwo Jima, writing Post 2 Gate in the basement of a Baghdad palace, and while experiencing the stories of the people he came to know in his hometown, his numerous deployments, and points in between. The 11 songs on Chuck’s debut album, Silver Line, were produced by Ray Bonneville at Shine Studios in Austin, Texas, and feature a roster of stellar guest musicians including Eliza Gilkyson and Gurf Morlix. The record recently caught the attention of Michael Martin Murphey, who heard Chuck play at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. Murph has since invited Chuck to play shows with him at the Saxon Pub in Austin and the Franklin Theatre in Nashville, and along with Bonneville, he has become a musical mentor to Chuck. Chuck Hawthorne is currently touring the country in support of Silver Line, which promises to put him firmly on the Americana map alongside the great songsmiths that now admire his work. LIBBY KOCH – Texas Americana singer-songwriter Libby Koch (pronounced “coke”) is a “country meets soulful” (Free Press Houston), “feisty Texas songbird” (Country Music People) who “sings her story with a little twang, some slide guitar, and a lot of heart” (Texas Monthly). Libby is working on the follow up album to her critically acclaimed 2016 LP Just Move On (Berkalin Records). Working in Nashville with Grammy-winning producer Bil VornDick, she draws on legends from Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn to Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, among others, to craft “true cryin’ and leavin’ country songs.” Combining her country soul with a seventh-generation Texas troubadour’s storytelling skill, Koch fills her songs with intimacy and honesty. Like the most timeless country classics, they’re the kind that make you feel good about feelin’ bad.  Koch’s gospel-grounded and honky-tonk voice powerfully navigates the emotions inherent in an album about relationships, starting with the opening break-up trio, “Just Move On,” “You Don’t Live Here Anymore” and “Out of My Misery” — three diverse, retro-to-modern songs that ultimately convey more about the triumph of empowerment than the pain of loss. Tracked live with veteran players handpicked by VornDick, the album, her fourth, is a fine follow-up to her 2014 release, Tennessee Colony, which drew on her ancestors’ stories to address themes of family, faith and home. Calling it “a frisky blend of country, folk, bluegrass and gospel set to some mighty fine fiddle, banjo and mandolin” and labeling it “daisy fresh,” the Houston Press put Tennessee Colony on its year-end top 10 list. Though Houston native Koch began writing songs in junior high school, she never considered doing so professionally until she attended law school at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, where she discovered she could hold her own in a city full of heavyweight talents. A job at a large Houston law firm convinced her music, not law, was her true calling, and eventually, she decided it was time to … just move on. Just Move On earned Libby three first-round GRAMMY ballot nominations in the Country Solo Performance, Country Song, and Country Album Categories.