Abbey Leach & Eliza Blue take the stage at Transcendent Music Showcase
Thursday, September 3rd, Thursday’s free concert will include the first public performance of Leach’s program-supported single, “Smoking Gun.”
Leach will debut “Smoking Gun,” a standalone single created through the Transcendent Musicians program. The song is separate from the 11-song album she will begin releasing in October, with a different recording process and its own artwork.
The Transcendent Musicians Showcase runs from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. The concert is presented in partnership with the Rapid City Arts Council and is free and open to the public.
From mentorship to a finished song
Transcendent Musicians is a statewide nonprofit created to increase opportunities and representation for women and trans musicians in South Dakota. Its professional development program offers participants a package that can include career mentorship, a professionally recorded single, photographs and logo design.
The program is designed to meet musicians at an early and often difficult point in their development: they have songs, but may not yet have the recordings, images, industry knowledge or professional connections needed to put those songs in front of an audience.
Leach entered the program with more experience than many of its intended participants. She was already performing regularly, working with a band and recording her own album. The resource she wanted most was access to other women who had already built careers in music.
“I think that I’m kind of an outlier in terms of their program,” Leach said. “I already had a band. I already had been doing some recording. It was really the mentorship that I was looking for.”
One of those mentors was Pierre singer-songwriter Katie Dwyer, who helped Leach work through digital release planning and the administrative side of putting music into the world. That guidance arrived as Leach prepared for her first substantial series of releases, a process she said has required far more behind-the-scenes work than listeners might realize.
The mentorship also pushed her to think more carefully about what she wants from a music career.
“There’s so many different ways to be successful,” Leach said. “You can tour, you can be like a local legend, you can mostly do stuff online. You can do all kinds of things.”
For Leach, that range of possibilities became more useful than a single model she was expected to follow. The question shifted from how a music career is supposed to look to what kind of career fits her music and her life.
Two South Dakota songwriters at the Dahl
Thursday’s showcase places Leach alongside Eliza Blue, a folk musician, writer and rancher from Perkins County. Blue’s work moves among music, essays, radio and television, much of it rooted in the people and landscape of the Northern Plains. She is also the host of the PBS series Wish You Were Here with Eliza Blue, which centers rural artists and culture.
The concert will feature full performances from both artists. “Smoking Gun” gives the evening its release occasion, but it will be heard as part of a larger night of original music rather than as a one-song presentation.
The single was written, sung and produced by Leach and recorded as an analog project. Its linocut artwork and recording approach distinguish it from the album she has been assembling separately with a larger group of Black Hills and Boise collaborators.
Know Before You Go
What: Transcendent Musicians Showcase featuring Abbey Leach and Eliza Blue
When: Thursday, Sept. 3, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City
Admission: Free and open to the public
Donations: Welcome and benefit the Emerging Performing Artists Program
New release: Abbey Leach will debut “Smoking Gun,” a standalone single created through the Transcendent Musicians program.
Coming in October
“Smoking Gun” is separate from Leach’s forthcoming 11-song album. That project begins its release Oct. 3 with a CD release show at the Custer Beacon, where CDs and full digital downloads will be available. The songs will also be released to streaming platforms one at a time over the following year.