Jessica Malone has been honing her singing and songwriting craft for the past decade, hewing close to her Northern California home in both body and musical spirit. On Gold Flowers of the West, her second full-length studio album, Malone farms her California foothill roots (notwithstanding occasional lyrical calls to sisterly locales like Montana and Carolina) and serves up a variety of tasty fruits that have sprung from her labor.

Hot Buttered Rum (HBR) kicked off 2024 with a celebration of its silver anniversary at the Sweetwater in Mill Valley on Saturday, January 27, 2024. Yes, the NorCal bluegrass band and left-coast jam festival staple has been around for 25 years – congrats, boys!

At it for 30 years now, The Mother Hips have an incredibly deep catalog of music to choose from, many selections of which present themselves nicely to acoustic interpretations. Which is not to say that this was a church-quiet affair with a couple of soft guitars and vocals. Indeed it was an evening of full-band songs and jamming, with co-founders Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono leading the way on their Boswell (Bluhm) and Martin (Loiacono) acoustic guitars. And while it was a seated show by design, little by little mostly in the second set, folks rose up to dance and sway in the space in front of the first row. Chief songwriter and vocalist Bluhm delivered his audio tales with his uniquely comforting, caramel-smooth voice. Loiacono is a fine singer as well, and provided lead vocals for such selections as “State Fair Letdown,” “Freed From a Prison,” and “Meet Me on the Shore,” the latter of which offered this romantic notion, “You are strong when I am weak / If you’re weak I will be strong / I want to stay right here with you / I am the words you are the song.”