(LEFT) Anya Hinkle, photo by Ricky Garni (RIGHT) Rod Picott

(OCEAN GROVE, NJ) -- Critically acclaimed singer/songwriters Rod Picott and Anya Hinkle will co-headline a performance at Jersey Shore Arts Center in Ocean Grove on Saturday, April 26, 2025. Showtime is 8:00pm. The show closes out the 2024-25 season of the Split Level Concerts series which highlights renowned Americana and contemporary folk musicians in a uniquely intimate setting.  The series will resume in the fall.

Over twenty-four years, twelve albums, three published books and a few thousand shows, Rod Picott has worked; powered by the fuel of the blue-collar world he was born into. The son of a hard drinking welder and a homemaker, Picott’s youth set him on a road of self-reliance and fierce independence that at sixty years old still runs through his blood. Raised in the small town of South Berwick Maine, Picott was a restless and rebellious youth and after high school, a construction worker by trade until moving to Nashville in 1994. He turned down the one record deal he was offered at the start of his career and did not look in the rearview mirror; choosing instead to cut his own path and lay a bet on his own hard work.

Picott is a writer who mines the invisible, downtrodden, working-class men and women of the background he comes from. He does this with the grace and dignity only someone who knows the splinters of that life firsthand can conjure.  His latest album, Starlight Tour, features some of his sharpest writing to date. The album ponders the songwriter’s own difficult past and peers into an uncertain future. The album has a feel of noir cinema. There is a darkness and uncertainty roiling through the collection of songs but there is also hope and grace shadowing alongside.

Picott will be retiring from the road at the end of this year.  His appearance at the Jersey Shore Arts Center will mark one of the last two concert appearances he will make in the Garden State.

Born in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Anya Hinkle’s music is steeped in the tones of folk and bluegrass and seasoned by travels across the world with vivid storytelling, vibrant musicianship, and arresting honesty.  Anya won the Merlefest Chris Austin song contest and was a finalist in the Hazel Dickens songwriting competition in 2019 for her song “Ballad of Zona Abston,” and was runner-up in the International Acoustic Music Awards in 2022 for “Hills of Swannanoa.”

Anya tours nationally in the U.S. as well as extensively in Japan and Europe. She has played stages at Merlefest, Gettysburg Bluegrass Festival, La Roche Bluegrass Festival (France), and Bristol Rhythm & Roots. She has recorded some 10 albums in various collaborations both in the U.S. and Japan. Her most recent album Oceania, released last spring, was recorded at Citizen Vinyl in Asheville, NC with storied producer Kevin Moloney (U2, Sinéad O’Connor).  The album features legendary Irish guitarist John Doyle and slide guitar master Billy Cardine.

Advance tickets are $30 and are available for purchase online.  The Jersey Shore Arts Center, located at 66 S. Main Street in Ocean Grove, offers a diverse array of programming that promotes the arts, provides educational experiences, engages the community, and supports local artists.

Net ticket proceeds from all the concerts in the series are being used to support the programming and arts education offered by the Jersey Shore Arts Center, a non-profit organization serving Ocean Grove and its surrounding areas.  In addition, Jersey Shore Arts Center and Split Level Concerts are proud to partner with Brookdale Public Radio 90.5 The Night and Musicians On A Mission (MOAM) to promote the concert series. 

Musicians On A Mission is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating connection and inspiring giving through music. MOAM will be on hand at all of the Split Level concerts, collecting non-perishable food donations and cash donations to benefit Fulfill, as well as holding a raffle with proceeds benefiting a different local organization doing good in our community each month.  April's beneficiary is Brookdale Public Radio 90.5 The Night.