Ballroom Marfa presented a free concert by guitarist Marisa Anderson who played her latest songs behind the Marfa Studio of the Arts building. The concert was free and open to the public.

Combining boundless creative imagination with a deep reverence for American folk, blues and country music, Marisa Anderson’s guitar playing is fluid, emotional, dexterous and original. Signal to Noise magazine calls Anderson’s guitar work “Utterly fabulous”, Time Out London refers to her playing as “Stunning…haunting and evocative”, Pitchfork calls her latest record, Mercury, “Brilliant” and Wire Magazine says, “Her sound has strength in restless variety…Anderson’s playing is heartfelt and utterly American, free from grandstanding and steeped in respect for the old tradition.”

Recording primarily on the Mississippi Records label, Anderson’s work features improvisations and compositions inspired by Delta blues, West African guitar, Appalachian mountain music, vintage country and western, gospel, noise, rhythm, cycles, mortality, and praise. In performance, Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition.

Before landing in Portland in the late nineties, Anderson dropped out of college at age nineteen to walk across the United States and didn’t stop traveling for fifteen years. Her music is a direct result of Anderson’s peripatetic existence, reflecting years of living in cars, tents and buses, traveling to Mexico with a circus, walking, hitchhiking and always playing guitar. She played guitar in the Dolly Ranchers and the Evolutionary Jass Band before going solo in 2009. In the past two years, Anderson’s music has landed her festival appearances in Europe and the United States and opening slots for artists including Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Devil Makes 3 and Sharon Van Etten. In August 2013, KBOO Community Radio released a split 7″ featuring Anderson and Elizabeth Cotten.

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