Songs In The Round - Frank Fiction, Chels&Tim/Redhill Valleys, Alfie Smith

Songs In The Round returns to Crown & Press on June 18th—an intimate, Bluebird-inspired evening where three artists trade original songs and stories. The audience sits close on all sides, watching the musical conversation unfold in real time and becoming part of the exchange through reactions, laughs, and the odd gut-punch.

This month features:

The regular host of Songs In The Round, Frank Fiction is the new project from Juno Award–winning songwriter Elias Dummer (frontman of The City Harmonic). Performing unreleased alt-folk songs and a few sideways covers, he draws from two decades of quietly crafted material.
His writing leans into vulnerability and a crooked smile, echoing Jason Isbell, Rufus Wainwright, Andy Shauf, and John Prine. With 100M+ streams and multiple Billboard-charting singles behind him, this project steps into something looser, grounded, and deeply human.

Chelsea McWilliams and Tim Allard are the founding members of The Redhill Valleys, the Hamilton alt-country band that won Group or Duo of the Year at the 2025 Country Music Association of Ontario Awards. They formed in 2014 over a shared love of Tom Petty, Neil Young, and The Band, and have since toured Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., including three shows at C2C: Country to Country 2024 (Europe's biggest country music festival). Their single "Anymore" took first place in American Songwriter Magazine's lyric contest and earned regular play on SiriusXM's North Americana, CBC Country, and Tom Petty Radio. McWilliams (bass/vocals) and Allard (guitar/vocals) are used to a full band behind them, so hearing them trade songs acoustically pulls the writing back to where it started.

Alfie Smith is a Hamilton-bred blues troubadour with 12 Hamilton Music Award nominations and a recording career spanning more than a quarter century, beginning with his 1998 debut Alfred John Smith. His eighth album, Every Rome Needs A Nero, was released in November 2024 — his first studio record in a decade. He's been selected by the Toronto Blues Society to represent them at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and he's a regular at Mariposa, Home County, Winterfolk, and Orangeville Blues & Jazz. A guitar virtuoso fluent on slide and vintage National resonators with endorsements from Godin, Goldtone Banjos, and Goodman — Smith has the kind of deep, earthy voice that doesn't need a band behind it to fill a room.

Born from Frank’s decade in Nashville and the ethos of the Bluebird Café, Songs In The Round is a stripped-back concert where three artists share the stage at once—taking turns sharing original songs (or songs they wish they'd written!), responding to each other, and letting their songs breathe.

These nights tend to sell out. If you want a seat in the room, don’t wait.

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