Hot Buttered Rum Duo – Nat Keefe & Erik Yates

Hot Buttered Rum Duo at Rancho Nicasio
* Sunday, February 5, 4:00 pm Music

Hot Buttered Rum – Nat Keefe & Erik Yates

Nat Keefe: guitar & vocals

Nat’s panoramic songwriting and baritone vocals play a defining role in Hot Buttered Rum’s sound. In the course of a decade of playing professionally, Nat has written hundreds of songs, including collaborations with Zach Gill & Dave Brogan (ALO), Brett Dennen, Tim Bluhm (Mother Hips), Fred Torphy (Big Light), and his bandmates. He’s produced nine albums of his own and others’ music. He’s produced almost a dozen Concert Carnival variety shows, bringing together artists to create new work. Most importantly, he’s performed over a thousand times, singing and playing guitar to the best fanbase in the world.

When not touring, rehearsing, and recording with HBR, Nat lives in the Hayes Valley district of San Francisco. Outside of music, Nat enjoys the same things he’s liked since he was a boy: flyfishing, backpacking, backcountry skiing, urban-adventure bikeriding, and SF Giants baseball.

Recently, Nat lead a group of American musicians to Ghana, West Africa and produced a ten-day program of workshops, jam sessions, and recording with Ghanaian music and dance masters. The resulting recording is Girl Thursday. It features Bonnie Paine (Elephant Revival), Kate Gaffney, Erik Yates & Lucas Carlton (HBR), Jeff Coleman (Big Light), Simon Kurth & Murph Murphy (Huckle), in collaboration with the Local Dimension Highlife Band and Ocherema Praa. This was Nat’s third trip to Ghana, and second recording project there.

Erik Yates: banjos, guitars, woodwinds & vocals

Erik Yates never met a song he didn’t like. “There’s always something to love,” he recently told Paste magazine, “something to learn from.” The Oakland, California-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has spent the last twenty years bringing that love to the world. His wide-open blend of soul, lyrical bluegrass and Americana has garnered him fans nationwide through his solo recordings, his sideman work and his steady contributions to Hot Buttered Rum. Erik has worked all over the US, both with HBR and with other groups including Railroad Earth and Rapidgrass. He’s performed, taught and toured in Canada, Europe and the Caribbean, and was recently honored to travel to central Africa with the band with the American Music Abroad program.