Josh Ritter to Perform with Jon Batiste & More on 'A Prairie Home Companion'

Acclaimed singer/songwriter Josh Ritter will perform with Jon Batiste and Emma Willmann on the newly re-launched "A Prairie Home Companion," hosted by Chris Thile. The performance will be broadcasted live from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN on Saturday, May 13. Additionally, Ritter has also confirmed additional solo tour dates where he will try out new material. These "works-in-progress" dates extend Ritter's ongoing North American tour with stops in Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and more. See below for complete tour dates.

Ritter's latest album, Sermon On The Rocks (Pytheas Recordings/Thirty Tigers), continues to receive critical praise. The New York Times proclaims, "The literary-minded songwriter Josh Ritter...recharges his music on his eighth studio album, Sermon On The Rocks...Harking back to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and maybe a little Mark Knopfler, Mr. Ritter has always been a slinger of serious ideas and high-flown imagery," while The Wall Street Journal adds, "The new album's music is airy, propulsive and more often than not, catchy."
Produced by Ritter and Trina Shoemaker (Queens of the Stone Age, Emmylou Harris), Sermon On The Rocks was recorded over two weeks at New Orleans' The Parlor Recording Studio and features Matt Barrick from The Walkmen on drums, Zachariah Hickman on bass, Josh Kaufman on guitar and Sam Kassirer on piano. Of his inspiration behind Sermon On The Rocks, Ritter comments, "I wanted to play messianic oracular honky-tonk."
Over the course of his acclaimed career, Ritter has released seven full-length albums including, 2013's The Beast In Its Tracks, which debuted at #22 on the Billboard 200 and #8 on the Top Rock Albums chart. The record also received widespread critical praise-NPR Music called it, "...gorgeous and glorious," while Pitchfork asserted, "Beast is contemplative and forgiving, a means of burying one relationship to commit to another, and Ritter nicely evokes the excitement and resignation of such a transition." Additionally, in 2011, Ritter made his debut as a published author with his New York Times best-selling novel Bright's Passage (Dial Press/Random House). Of the work, Stephen King writes in The New York Times Book Review, "Shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime...This is the work of a gifted novelist."

JOSH RITTER LIVE

June 7-Annapolis, MD-Rams Head On Stage*
June 8-Easton, MA-Avalon Theatre*
June 16-Londonderry, NH-Tupelo Music Hall
June 17-Hudson, NY-Clearwater Festival
June 18-Kennett Square, PA-Longwood Gardens
June 30-Hartford, CT-Infinity Hall*
July 11-Cleveland, OH-Music Box Super Club*
July 12-Ann Arbor, MI-The Ark*
July 13-Milwaukee, WI-Live at the Backroom at Colectivo*
July 14-Bayfied, WI-Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua*
July 15-Fish Creek, WI-Door Community Auditorium*
July 16-Maquoketa, IA-Codfish Hollow Barnstormers*
August 18-Salt Lake City, UT-The State Room*
August 19-20-Lyons, CO-Rocky Mountain Folks Festival*
*Solo

Photo credit: Laura Wilson