Upcoming Shows
Sep 2 2023
Creative Alliance, Baltimore
The People's Longband @ Creative Alliance, Baltimore
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Aug 30 2023
The Lou Costello Room at Zissimos, Baltimore
8-Bit Desperados at Zissimos @ The Lou Costello Room at Zissimos, Baltimore
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Aug 27 2023
Great Falls Honey Harvest Festival, Great Falls
Solo Set at Honey Harvest Festival @ Great Falls Honey Harvest Festival, Great Falls
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Aug 24 2023
Linganore Winecellars, Mt Airy
Solo Acoustic @ Linganore Winecellars, Mt Airy
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Aug 23 2023
Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
Heumann Gannett Duo @ Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
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Aug 13 2023
Holy Frijoles, Baltimore
Dave Heumann and Miles Gannett @ Holy Frijoles, Baltimore
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Aug 12 2023
New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
Miles Gannett Band at New Deal Cafe @ New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
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Aug 11 2023
Clarksville Commons, Clarksville
Miles Gannett Band at Clarksville Commons @ Clarksville Commons, Clarksville
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Aug 2 2023
New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
The Campfire Sessions @ New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
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Jun 24 2023
Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
Miles Gannett and Jason Armstrong Baker at Tysons Corner Plaza (Duo Performance) @ Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
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Jun 23 2023
Dangerously Delicious Pies, Baltimore
Dave Heumann and Miles Gannett Duo Show @ Dangerously Delicious Pies, Baltimore
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Jun 22 2023
Landsdowne Woods of Virginia, Lansdowne
Miles Gannett and Eric Selby Duo Show @ Landsdowne Woods of Virginia, Lansdowne
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May 27 2023
Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
Miles Gannett and Dave Heumann (Duo Performance) at Tysons Corner Plaza @ Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
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May 20 2023
Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
Miles Gannett and Eric Selby (Duo Performance) at Tysons Corner Plaza @ Tysons Corner Plaza, Tysons
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May 13 2023
New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
Fractal Cat and Miles Gannett Band @ New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
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Jan 14 2023
New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
Fractal Cat / Miles Gannett Band @ New Deal Cafe, Greenbelt
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Dec 17 2022
The Barn of Harpers Ferry, Harpers Ferry
Miles Gannett Band @ Barn of Harpers Ferry @ The Barn of Harpers Ferry, Harpers Ferry
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Dec 9 2022
Wilder Hotel Tilghman Island, Tilghman
Solo Performance at Wilder Hotel Tilghman Island @ Wilder Hotel Tilghman Island, Tilghman
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Nov 26 2022
The Periodic Table, Columbia
Miles Gannett Trio @ The Periodic Table @ The Periodic Table, Columbia
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Music
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Meridian 3:350:00/3:35
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The Lucky Ones 4:000:00/4:00
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0:00/4:46
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Persuasion 3:520:00/3:52
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0:00/3:17
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Short Haired Willie 3:170:00/3:17
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Give and Take 3:030:00/3:03
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Spores on Grass 3:100:00/3:10
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Screw Loose 3:560:00/3:56
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Dark Time 3:540:00/3:54
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Long Burning Bridge 4:240:00/4:24
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Maria Sabina 9:080:00/9:08
Press
“Gannett is a tough artist to peg, as his original songs are as likely to be arranged for a bluegrass band as given an acid rock treatment.” - John Lawless
“Born in Louisiana but living in Baltimore, MD, Miles Gannett is making us rethink what it means to be an Americana artist. This rethinking is good. On his new album, Meridian, we're hearing a combination of hard driving bluegrass, as well as great folky songwriting. There's some jam moments, too. And it's all Americana. It's all rooted in the tradition of great lyrics paired with top tier instrumentation by great players.”
“For the longest time, some music has had this ineffable quality to just make me feel a certain way, to almost change my life, if only for a moment. Miles Gannett’s Meridian did this to me.” - Matt Ruppert
About

Miles Gannett doesn’t sit still creatively. The Louisiana native, who now calls Maryland home, hears the seamless character of all music, blending and balancing strains of bluegrass with psychedelic folk textures, classic country phrasing with the propulsive notes of acid rock, and earthy blues with spectral ambience. His inventive lyrics marry the probing meditations of Jason Isbell with the story-song style of Townes Van Zandt and John Prine and the lilting rhythms of Willie Nelson.
Gannett’s songwriting grows out of a lifetime of listening to and playing a broad variety of music. “My dad was a guitarist and a songwriter, and he’s had a huge influence on me,” says Gannett. His father bought him an “old, junker guitar” when Gannett was 7. “I’d already been walking around the neighborhood singing ‘La Bamba’ at the top of my lungs,” he laughs. With that first guitar, Gannett learned one chord at a time, and once he learned one chord, he would write a one-chord song, he recalls. By the time he was 12, he asked his father for an electric guitar: “he told me he would buy me one when I learned to play the lead guitar parts of ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode,’ and the rhythm intro to ‘Pinball Wizard,’” he laughs. Gannett got his electric guitar, and he eventually started playing in bands and writing and recording his own songs.
He put together a group called Fractal Cat in early 2011, recording three albums of original music with them and building a reputation on Baltimore’s airwaves and live music scene. After meeting up with recording engineer/producer Frank Marchand (Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, We Banjo 3) to record Fractal Cat’s third album The Tower, Gannett started working on his “first countryish album,” which reflects his deep love of progressive bluegrass and classic country.
The result is Meridian, a dazzling debut solo effort featuring members of the Seldom Scene dobroist Fred Travers and banjoist and mandolin player Ron Stewart. Gannett’s warm vocals carry listeners on shimmering waves of pedal steel through various musical landscapes.
The title track is a tribute to Meridian, Mississippi and the ways the town’s beauty shines even through its broken-down historic buildings. It’s a snapshot based on Gannett’s first chance visit to the town, trying to avoid a storm while en route to Nashville.
“The Lucky Ones” features a jangly lead guitar solo on the instrumental bridge that floats over a lush bed of pedal steel; the music itself creates a palpable sense of nostalgia, a look back to days before the world got just a little too complex. “It’s sort of a nostalgic song,” says Gannett. “It’s about being a kid or a teenager before the internet and technology became so much a focus of our lives.”
In “Persuasion,” the narrator tries to persuade his true love who is “promised to another” to run away with him. “I was looking for a title, and my wife was reading Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion; she suggested the title based on its courtship theme and persuasive tone.”
The bluegrass scamper “Spores on Grass” lights off with sprightly fiddle runs that are chased around by skittering banjo and mandolin runs. “It’s a psychedelic bluegrass gospel song,” says Gannett. “I modeled it on Hank Williams’ ‘I Saw the Light’ and the Clancy Brothers’ whiskey songs.”
Gannett demonstrates his songwriting depth and breadth in the spacious meditations “Dark Time” and “Maria Sabina.” The latter floats over a Mariachi country river of sound that flows around rivulets of British psychedelic folk. “It’s a tribute to the Mazatec wise woman Maria Sabina, a healer to whom the psychedelic movement owes a great debt; she paid a great price for her kindness to Western seekers of the ‘magic mushroom,’” Gannett says, “and I wanted to share her story.”
The tongue-in-cheek country rambler “Short Haired Willie” pays tribute to the “short-haired” Willie Nelson who came to Nashville trying sell his songs. “It’s a really referential song about the early days of Willie Nelson and his struggles in Nashville. He didn’t give up, though, and he turned out alright,” laughs Gannett.
Today, Gannett’s music honors the contours of traditional music even as he continues to innovate freely and ingeniously within those contours. “I’m always adding elements that might be considered irreverent or blasphemous. I always try to build on old music, but I’m not making museum music.”