Sometimes, simplicity can feel startlingly fresh.
Hot Water Music veteran Chuck Ragan has run away with the idea, organizing the second year of The Revival Tour, a group of more than 20 artists collaborating on acoustic music.
The tour will stop in Gainesville Friday night at the Common Grounds. Doors open at 9 p.m.
The show will feature artists like Ragan, Jon Snodgrass, Jim Ward and Gainesville native Jon Gaunt sharing the stage in various combinations, singing and playing on one another’s tunes freely.
“It’s super simple, nothing that’s never been done before,” Ragan said.
Harking back to a Rolling Thunder Revue-style spirit, this year’s lineup features a disparate group of musicians, from folksters to bluegrass players to Americana crooners.
With an average of 10 musicians on the bus on any given stretch of the tour, Ragan has found that putting it all together is as rewarding as it is difficult.
“I must say, as a musician, it has been probably the most enjoyable way of touring I’ve done in my life and probably the most challenging,” he said.
A goal for the musicians is to forsake the traditional structure of shows, with the predictable opening acts, breaks and headliners. Ragan wants to leave behind all of that monotony.
“When the show starts, we present everyone from the beginning. There’s no ego on this run. We don’t care who’s going to play first or who’s going to play last,” he said.
With all of the players throwing caution to the wind, new collaborations spring up every night, and newcomers get to show off their chops.
One of those newcomers is the first and only woman to join The Revival Tour, Audra Mae. Ragan invited Mae to join after he heard her music on her MySpace page. He eventually proved instrumental in her getting a record deal.
At 25 years old, the gentle-voiced singer and songwriter is glad to bring well-roundedness to the tour as a woman and as the youngest performer, and she’s thankful that the guys have been nurturing, she said.
“The guys have been super protective,” she said.
Friday’s show is a sort of homecoming for Ragan, who spent 10 years living here while playing in Hot Water Music. He loves coming back to the scene that nurtured his musical ambitions for years, he said.
“We have a lot of dear friends there. There’s normally never enough time to do all the fishing I want to do,” he chuckled.
