Granville Automatic writes songs the Associated Press calls “haunting tales of sorrow and perseverance.” Horses, history and war are just some of the topics songwriters Vanessa Olivarez and Elizabeth Elkins prefer – all fitting subjects for a band named after a 19th-century typewriter. Granville Automatic has created a quiet and lyrical sound devoted to telling stories from the past. They duo has released three albums: Live from Sun Studio, Granville Automatic and 2015’s, An Army Without Music.

Effie Burt was born and raised in Oxford, Mississippi as one of twelve musically gifted siblings. Effie has been singing since the age of 13 with her family at churches and local musical events in Mississippi and Tennessee. A now-proven performer at festivals and concert halls, Burt brings excitement to jazz, her first love, and engages audiences by belting R & B, her soothing blues and the homegrown sounds of gospel.

Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues & Coming of Age Through Vinyl (Beacon Press) is a coming-of-age memoir about a young boy in rural Arkansas who searches for himself and his distant father through soul music. The dysfunction, sadness, and steely resilience of his family and neighbors was reflected in the R&B songs that played on 45s in smoky rooms.

Growing up in rural Arkansas, young Rashod Ollison turned to music to make sense of his life after his dad, a disturbed Vietnam vet, returned home from the war and divorced Ollison’s mom. Steeped in the sounds, the smells, the salty language of rural Arkansas in the 1980s, “Soul Serenade” is the memoir of a pop music critic (Dallas Morning News, Virginian-Pilot, among others) whose love for soul music was fostered by his estranged father, Raymond.