Sky Stage Presents: Stripmall Ballads, with Olds Sleeper

Doors, 7pm, $10 (under age 12 free). Limited seats available at the door. Beer/wine available for purchase for 21+ with ID.

Outsider folk music artist Stripmall Ballads is the haunted, dust-blown project of Phillips Saylor Wisor, a songwriter wandering the backroads between myth and memory. Drawing comparisons to Neil Young, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Maybelle Carter, his work lives in the tension between Appalachian tradition and modern disillusionment—aching with spectral beauty, dry wit, and a bone-deep sense of longing. A Maryland-based rollicking musical rambler, rife with story-songs rich in emotion and hardihood.

He’s shared stages with Tommy Prine, John R. Miller, Danny Barnes, Les Claypool, The Be Good Tanyas, Willy Tea Taylor, just to name a few.

In his early days, Wisor found comfort in DC’s encampments searching for validation in the gritty corners of tucked away spaces. Where street people applauded and encouraged as he picked away...

As founding member of The Shiftless Rounders, Phillips dove deep into the Appalachian ocean of old time banjo and balladry. And as a fervent practitioner of Shape Note music, he has spent countless hours singing in the “old way” and devouring the harmonic notions of American roots music.

With a nod to Woody Guthrie, Phillips deploys all these influences in his music. Stripmall Ballads is a testament to the enduring power of painting experience with emotion, forever a voice of the strange amongst strangers.

Winner of 2021 WAMMIE Award for Best Folk Album -Distant

Olds Sleeper (aka Heath James) is a blues and Americana musician from York, PA. His music is a mix of originals that draws from Delta blues, old country, folk and Americana. He plays banjo, resonator guitar, ukulele and guitar in a variety of styles and has been featured on NPR ( WITF) as an artist of the month, nominated as an artist of the year by Saving Country Music, nominated for 2021 Best Folk Band by Pennsylvania Music Hall of Fame, and was also featured as an emerging artist at the 2018 Susquehanna Folk Festival. https://oldssleeper.blogspot.com

He also records as Jellyspine Jenkins

Host or Publisher Frederick Arts Council