Living Room with Oliver Bates Craven

The Living Room Concert Series, part concert, part live interview, the night will be hosted by Steel Wheels Frontman, Trent Wagler


Meet the Guest:
Originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Oliver Bates Craven is a Nashville based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. The oldest son of a folk-singing preacher, his diverse musical upbringing included a family band, a decade of classical violin lessons, and ultimately skipping football practice to teach himself the guitar playing along to Hendrix records. Oliver has spent the last ten years as a professional musician, and from intimately crowded folk clubs to sold-out festivals, has found himself on North American and European stages more than a thousand times.

A founding member of the revered Americana band The Stray Birds, he has collaborated with such artists as The Wood Brothers, Keller Williams and Mandolin Orange, and worked in studios with producers such as Dan Knobler (Lake Street Dive, Rodney Crowell) and Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan, Levon Helm). Stepping out of the band dynamic squarely to the center of the stage, he finds a voice and a style more uniquely his own. Critic Michael T. Baker remarks, “Oliver is like if J.J. Cale and Bonnie Raitt had a son.” A poignant writer with soulful and powerful vocal and instrumental deliveries, accompanied by a dynamic sense of performance that honors nuance and originality, his musicality is one of a seemingly effortless focus, and a clearly impassioned and tangible joy.

Meet the Host:
Trent Wagler, lead singer and primary songwriter of The Steel Wheels, penned many of the band's songs in response to loss, and the uncertainty that comes with facing what we can’t control. Click here to read more about The Steel Wheels.


Living Room Furniture Courtesy of Harrisonburg’s Rent-A-Center