Blake Thomas returns to Madison with a stellar supporting cast

The formerly Madison-based folk artist headlines The Bur Oak on Wednesday, November 8.

From around the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, Blake Thomas played a crucial role in Madison’s music community. Over that stretch, Thomas released several albums, became the centerpiece of a weekly Mickey’s Tavern concert series that ran for three years (Honky Tonk Tuesdays), and accumulated a host of talented collaborators. Around a decade ago, Thomas moved from Madison to Duluth. Thomas committed himself to various projects while in Duluth—including as the vice executive director and artistic director of the live theater podcast Take It With You—but has remained committed to writing and performing music.

The singer-songwriter will revisit his wealth of Madison connections with a Wednesday, November 8 show at The Bur Oak. Doors open at 7 p.m. and tickets are $15 in advance or $20 at the door.

Thomas has around two decades worth of show-playing experience under his belt, so his appearance at The Bur Oak should find the songwriter locked into an impressive, albeit familiar, groove. He’ll be joined throughout the performance by a handful of familiar names: Mary Gaines and Chris Wagoner (of Gaines & Wagoner), Free Dirt’s Chris Sasman, and fellow folk singer-songwriter Josh Harty. The press release for the show hints that others may join Thomas for this performance as well. Thomas having that type of support shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the songwriter’s pedigree.

Sasman tells Tone Madison in an email that Thomas and this roster of collaborators have remained tight-knit for years. “We’ve all been professional artists working on various projects, sometimes living in various other places, but [continuing] to come back to play together and [to] devise effective ways to work on new material from afar,” writes Sasman. Later in the message, Sasman points towards their friendships being an engine for the music, creating and sustaining a bond that has made overcoming obstacles more manageable. It’s a wholesome note that speaks directly to the character that’s always been at the heart of Thomas’ decidedly modest, but incredibly well-articulated strain of lightly dusty folk/country.

Going back to his 2005’s Real Like Theater, all of the records Thomas has released have mixed twang with determination. At his most fiery, Thomas skirts a punk-indebted brand of Southern rock, making for rousing barn-burners (Real Like Theater‘s punchy opener, “Anyone Tonight,” is a perfect example). At his most gentle, though, Thomas colors his work with warmth, inviting listeners further in with a genuine sense of comfort (as he did on the relatably sorrowful, piano-aided “The Last Thing,” from the 2011 album The Window & The Light). Flatlands, Thomas’ 2008 effort, saw him refining both ends of that spectrum and finding ways to bridge the gap. From insistent, clear-eyed opener “How Long” on through the rest of the album, Thomas and his band of collaborators animate a series of blue-collar vignettes with well-earned conviction.

In 2013, Thomas released Stay Tuned, a soundtrack to a musical Thomas co-wrote with two of his Take It With You cohorts, Mary Fox and Andy Frye. Stay Tuned acted as a striking culmination of the musical gifts Thomas had been honing in his solo work, which would eventually steer him towards greater personal and artistic investment in Take It With You. In turn, Thomas’ efforts to keep that podcast operating at a high bar have allowed him to keep his musicality sharp.

Another of Thomas’ long-time collaborators, guitarist Louka Patenaude, will open the show. Patenaude has made an impact across a whole range of genres. When he’s operating in singer-songwriter mode, Patenaude also excels at presenting familiar sounds in a way that feels both novel and unassuming. Patenaude will be joined for his set by KASE bassist John Christensen. Under the moniker Louka, Patenaude has been responsible for some of the more arresting folk-leaning music to come out of Madison in recent memory. Both Patenaude and Thomas also have a penchant for reaching back further than most modern folk musicians for inspiration, evoking an old-timey sound that flourishes through both musicians’ sense of modernity. Paired together on a bill with this roster of collaborators in tow, the two songwriters might make a bit of history on their own.