John R. Miller, Peter Mulvey & Jenna Nicholls, and more on Mountain Stage

GUEST ARTISTS: John R. Miller, Peter Mulvey & Jenna Nicholls, and more artists TBA (click each artist name to learn more)

All tickets to this show are e-tickets and will be emailed to you upon purchase. Open up the pdf and the QR code on your ticket will be scanned at the door. This event will also be offered as a livestream.

Mountain Stage livestreams are free, however, there are some incredible folks out there who’d like to show their support through a donation-based, pay-what-you-want “ticket” for the livestream. This is a donation-based “ticket” to show some love for the program and is not a ticket to the live event.

You’ll be able to catch the show from the comfort of your home (or wherever you wish) Sunday, June 7, 2026 – at 7 PM ET at mountainstage.org.

Click here to learn more about Mountain Stage and the live show experience!

• Doors to the lobby open at 5pm
• Doors to the theater open at 6:30pm
• Show starts at 7pm

John R. Miller is a true hyphenate artist: singer-songwriter-picker. Born in the Washington, DC area and raised in West Virginia, Miller has built a reputation as a thoughtful, boundary-pushing voice in alt-country and Americana, drawing from punk, traditional Appalachian music, and less conventional rock influences. Every song on his thrilling debut solo album, Depreciated, is lush with intricate wordplay and haunting imagery, backed by a band that is on fire. One of his biggest long-time fans is roots music favorite Tyler Childers, who says he’s “a well- travelled wordsmith mapping out the world he’s seen, three chords at a time. ” Miller is somehow able to transport us to a shadowy honkytonk and get existential all in the same line with his tightly written compositions.

Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur and almost-poet since before he can remember. Raised working-class Catholic on the Northwest side of Milwaukee, he took a semester in Ireland, and immediately began cutting classes to busk on Grafton Street in Dublin and hitchhike through the country, finding whatever gigs he could. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging in the Midwest before lighting out for Boston, where he returned to busking (this time in the subway) and coffeehouses. Small shows led to larger shows, which eventually led to regional and then national and international touring. The wheels have not stopped since.

Nineteen records, an illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp, opening for luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, and Chuck Prophet, appearances on NPR, an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own boutique festival (the Lamplighter Sessions, in Boston and Wisconsin)… Mulvey never stops. He has built his life’s work on collaboration and an instinct for the eclectic and the vital. He folds everything he encounters into his work: poetry, social justice, scientific literacy, & a deeply abiding humanism are all on plain display in his art.

In late January 2019, Mulvey and his band, SistaStrings (Chauntee & Monique Ross) with Nathan Kilen on drums, decamped to their home turf, the Cafe Carpe, in Fort Atkinson, WI where they spent just five days making two records in the tiny back room. The live record, “Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings Live at the Cafe Carpe” is out now on Righteous Babe Records. It’s a celebration of a world that is temporarily on hold: a small folk club, packed with listeners, and a band shoulder-to-shoulder, playing and singing with intimacy and abandon.

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Hailing from the small town of Irwin, PA near Pittsburgh, after college Jenna Nicholls set her sights east to test her wings as a songwriter and performer. Initially trying Boston, she ultimately gravitated to the creative hotbed of Manhattan’s Lower East Side forging lasting friendships with other like-minded artists and musicians. Nicholls made three albums on her own dime: Curled Up Toes in Red Mary Janes, The Blooming Hour, and Radio Parade. The albums revealed a restless muse and a theme that would be a constant for Nicholls: a love of vintage music – anything from classic music films like “Singin’ in the Rain” to Bessie Smith.

The Commuter displays Jenna’s melodic and lyrical gifts in full flower. It’s a cinematic trip that takes the listener to 1930’s Parisian cafés, New Orleans juke joints, Tennessee hills and the wide-open vistas of Texas and Oklahoma; even the weekly commute from Manhattan to the Hudson Valley home Jenna created with her husband makes an appearance. “Strung together with a thread of the American experience, this album reflects the great vintage recordings that I hold so dear. With that in mind, I can think of no better person to have worked with on this project than Larry Campbell. Watching Larry’s genius come to life, the fluidity and grace in which he works was a privilege I’ll never forget. The recording, engineering, and performances by the many talented players on this record are astonishing. I’m blessed beyond measure to have been included in their company.”

A fascination with offbeat themes shows up in “You, Me and the Moon” and “No Boots,” both featuring cowboys: “I’d been commissioned to write a musical about Will James, a cowboy/actor/painter who lived in the 1930’s” says Nicholls. “For a variety of reasons, said show never happened. But “You, Me and the Moon” and “No Boots” remain alive and well.”

“Small Talk,” with its swaggering horn driven arrangement, combines Jenna’s present-day outlook with her love of vintage music: “This story began as a response to a Randy Newman song called “Last Night I Had a Dream.” I’d been listening to it on the train one evening on my way home from work in NYC. The first line is “Last night I had a dream, and you were in it” – The curmudgeon in me thought to myself “Thank God because if I wasn’t in it, I’d have zero desire to hear your dream story”. The first line of “Small Talk” is “I don’t care about your dream last night, if I ain’t in it, don’t wanna’ hear It” – and the rest is history.” These and other tunes from Jenna’s repertoire form the backbone of her adventurous and charming live performances. Whether delivered via ukulele, guitar, keyboard, with the occasional whistling or mouth-trumpet solos, Jenna’s songs connect, anchored by her wit and vocal virtuosity.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Culture Center Theater, 1900 Kanawha Blvd E, Charleston , WV, United States

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