“Today” and “tonight” represent Friday, Aug. 9; Saturday and Sunday are Aug. 10 and 11.
It’s been a rock ‘n’ roll summer so far at Olympic Cellars, the dairy barn-turned-winery on U.S. Highway 101 between Port Angeles and Sequim.
Come Saturday, that will switch. Chance McKinney, fresh from last weekend’s Watershed country music festival at the Gorge Amphitheater, is next up in Olympic’s summer concert series.
Winery owner Kathy Charlton booked the singer as part of her personal “best of” lineup of events culled from her 14 years running this place. She has stepped away from daily operations of Olympic Cellars to work with her husband in his business, Target Focus self-defense training, while partners Lisa Martin and Molly Rivard continue running the winery.
But Charlton, a Texan, didn’t want to go the summer without some twang.
McKinney, who recently released his fifth album, “Think About That,” played at the winery back in summer 2008 when he was part of the country duo Nathan Chance. Now a solo artist, he will arrive at 7 p.m. Saturday at Olympic Cellars, 255410 U.S. Highway 101. Tickets are $13 in advance at www.OlympicCellars.com and $15 the night of the show.
McKinney chafes at the “country” label, though. He says his music goes beyond the genre, and he unabashedly calls it “industrialized country.”
“It’s country lyrics, rock riffs and Motown backgrounds,” as in “those flying harmonies,” he said.
Oh, and there’s heavy metal in there, too.
After about seven years, McKinney is on the fast track. He’s in the midst of a 20-shows-in-30-days stretch that had him at the Tulalip and Clearwater casino amphitheaters and at the Gorge, where his fellow Watershed festival performers included Toby Keith and Brad Paisley.
“It’s a little bit surreal,” McKinney said.
He added that his new album was released as a CD in May and then put out on iTunes and other digital sites in June — so “we did things exactly the opposite of the way a major label would do it.”
As with each Olympic Cellars summer concert, a portion of Saturday’s proceeds will benefit a local charity; this time, it’s the Welfare for Animals Guild (welfare4animalsguild.org.)
Gates will open at 6 p.m. and Nourish, the restaurant in Sequim, will be the on-site food vendor while Olympic Cellars wines and other beverages flow.
For more details, see
OlympicCellars.com or phone 360-452-0160.
