ALAMOSA — Society Hall, Alamosa’s premier live music venue at 400 Ross Avenue, invites the public to another wonderful musical evening with Buddy Mondlock, Friday September 8th at 7:30 p.m. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. with tickets $15 in advance, $20 at the door, available online at www.societyhall.org, or in Alamosa at The Green Spot, 711 State Avenue. Society Hall – Where Community Celebrates!

Buddy Mondlock has been described as an American Original, in the troubadour tradition, with his songs likened to your favorite movie; you want to hear them over and over. His lyrics brilliant in word choice, expressive in observation and powerful in presentation. Critics describe his songs as “an express lane to the heart” and his performance as “creating his share of magic with his high clear voice and inventive acoustic guitar.”

Buddy Mondlock writes songs. He does it so well that some great songwriters have recorded his

songs on their own albums. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, and Janis Ian, to name just a few. You might’ve heard his song “The Kid” (recorded by David Wilcox, Peter, Paul and Mary and Cry, Cry, Cry) and maybe even sung it yourself around a campfire. He draws you into his world - where a single snowflake follows the trajectory of a relationship, where you get your pocket picked by a Roman cat, where you might swim over the edge of the world if you’re not careful and where dreams that don’t come true still count.

His new CD, “The Memory Wall,” was funded entirely by fans, friends and family through a Kickstarter campaign. “I had no idea if this would work or not,” he says. “I was overwhelmed by the support I got and even more by the sense of community that came out of it.” This, his sixth release, draws on some veteran Nashville musicians including Dan Dugmore, Stuart Duncan and Kenny Malone. He even played a little banjo on it himself. The album has a rootsier feel to it with pedal steel, dobro, fiddle and mandolin adding to his acoustic guitar and beautiful vocal harmonies from Melissa Greener and Celeste Krenz. Bass work was shared by his long-time accompanist on the road, Mike Lindauer and upright acoustic player Bryn Davies. After 25 years of living there you can finally hear the Nashville on this one. 

“I’ve been wanting to make this record for a long time,” says Buddy. And indeed a few of the songs date back to his early days in Nashville, including a collaboration with Garth Brooks called “A Canary’s Song” about a coal miner transplanted to a city slum waking each morning to the sound of the bird he brought with him from home. But the album also stretches the context of the instrumentation. The first cut, “The Ugly One,” includes pedal steel and mando-cello but it grooves in 5/4 time and tells the story of an early cave artist. Mondlock wrote it in Ireland in the fall of 2011 with Galway songwriter Parisch Brown. “The Memory Wall” has fared well with radio presenters since it’s release. For the month of June 2013, it was the #3 album on the US Folk DJ Chart with two songs in the top twenty simultaneously.