Tyler Childers coming to Alabama on âMule Pull â24 Tourâ: How to get tickets
Tyler Childers, a rising star in country and Americana music, has announced 21 stops on his “Mule Pull ‘24 Tour,” including a show in Alabama.
The Kentucky singer-songwriter and his band, The Food Stamps, are set to perform on April 15 at the Legacy Arena at the BJCC in downtown Birmingham, with opening act 49 Winchester. Tickets go on sale Friday, Sept. 15, at 9 a.m. CT via Ticketmaster, priced at $49.50, $59.50, $79.50, $99.50, $129.50 and $159.50, plus service charges.
Pre-sales start Wednesday at 10 a.m. and run through Thursday at 10 p.m. Right now, the Birmingham show is Childers’ only concert in the state, bracketed by appearances in Fort Worth, Texas (April 13, Dickies Arena), and Knoxville, Tennessee (April 16, Thompson-Boling Arena).
Childers, 32, released his sixth studio album, “Rustin in the Rain,” on Sept. 8. The record includes the song “In Your Love,” which prompted controversy when an accompanying video depicted the relationship of two gay coal miners in the 1950s. The script for the video was written by the novelist Silas House, a Kentucky native who’s known for illuminating LGBTQ+ issues in Appalachia.
“(One) reason that I wanted to do this music video was my cousin growing up, who’s like my big brother, is gay,” Childers said in an interview with NPR Music. “And he graduated from Northern Kentucky, went to Chicago and never came back. He taught me so much about singing; he was my first tough critic. And just thinking about him not having a music video on CMT that spoke to him.”
Childers, who won an Americana Music Award for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2018, has never shied away from hot-button topics in his songs, referencing racism, civil unrest and police brutality in the 2020 album “Long Violent History” and pointing to religious intolerance in 2022′s “Can I Take My Hounds To Heaven?”
“Even if you have the privilege of walking through this world unfazed, it’s more important than ever to stand with and for and up for things, to be vocal,” Childers told NPR in July, when “In Your Love” was released as a single.
Childers’ music blends traditional country sounds with bluegrass, Southern rock and folk influences, and he’s known for thoughtful storytelling.
“Childers’s music, from his 2017 debut ‘Purgatory’ and beyond, has always done this work: rewriting and recontextualizing rural and Appalachian America and the folks within it, and spreading their stories wide,” The New York Times said in a recent feature story.
Childers has pointed to the Drive-By Truckers as an influence on his music, calling the band “the soundtrack to my teenage angst” when he talked to The New York Times. On a more playful note, Childers said some of the tracks on his new record were envisioned as tunes a Nashville songwriter might pitch to Elvis Presley.
Along with “In Your Love,” the “Rustin’ in the Rain” album includes songs such as “Phone Calls and Emails,” “Percheron Mules,” “Luke 2:8-10″ and “Space and Time.” Featured artists are Margo Price, S.G. Goodman, Erin Rae and the Travelin’ McCourys.
Childers has performed in Birmingham before, in 2020 at the Legacy Arena (on a bill with Sturgill Simpson) and in 2019 at Avondale Brewing Co. (where a second show was added due to a demand for tickets).
The BJCC has announced several other shows for the Legacy Arena in recent weeks, including Rod Wave on Nov. 18, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Dec. 20 (two shows), Kansas on Feb. 3, 2024 (50th anniversary tour), and Fall Out Boy on March 13, 2024, with Jimmy Eat World, The Maine and Daisy Grenade.
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