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Selwyn Birchwood is bringing his sound to FD

The gates for the July 28 event open at 1 p.m. Tickets are $25 to $30 for adults. Kids 12 and under get in free. The location of the event is 2298 S. River Road, Fort Dodge.

Selwyn Birchwood and his band are set to headline Blues Under the Trees at Frontier Sports Park in Fort Dodge on July 28.

Birchwood is on tour to promote his 2017 album release, “Pick Your Poison.” The 13-song album is all written, produced and arranged by Birchwood. He will perform alongside his band that includes saxophonist Regi Oliver, bassist Huff Wright and Courtney “Big Love” Girlie.

The album has been described as roaming “through raw roots rock, infectious Southern R&B, sweaty funky jams, searing blues and after-hours ballads forging a groundbreaking new sound created by one of the most sensational new blues talents in ages.”

Birchwood said that in writing this album he was inspired by the world around him and real-life experiences that people can relate to. He likes writing songs that have stories or that convey a message to his audience.

“I draw from just observing the world or seeing what someone else has gone through that I’m close to and trying to put myself in their shoes sort of thing,” Birchwood said.

“I have a hard time writing unless it’s about something that really kind of moves me and I feel like if it moves me, maybe it’ll move someone else to be able to relate to it. I think why music is really cool when you get that personal connection and you feel like a song was written just for you. I think it’s that relatability with this style of music that makes people drawn to it”.

Attendees should expect to see a band that truly loves what they do. The band is one of a kind and has been critically acclaimed by multiple major media outlets, including Rolling Stone.

“This is a genre of music where if you have any aspirations of becoming a millionaire or being a celebrity or something like that, if you’re getting into this style of music for any reason other than love for the music and you just have to do it, I think you’ll end up being disappointed, Birchwood said. “When we go to perform, you’ll see a band that’s doing what they love to do and are sharing their soul and their story and their passion with you and we try to convey to the audience in our performances that there’s nowhere else we’d rather be than on that stage playing for them. We try to do that every night.”

When he began his music career at 19, he was picked up by the Texas blues band Sonny Roads. He toured with them all over the U.S. and Canada. That was where Birchwood learned how to lead a band, to front a band and to travel with a band. After four to five years of touring with them, he began to start to focus on writing his own music and creating his own band and he did.

After getting his band together, they competed in the 2013 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, and won first place out of more than 200 bands.

From there, they signed on with Alligator Records out of Chicago. Since they’ve signed on with Alligator Records, they’ve won multiple awards for the records they made with them, according to promotional material. They won the Blues Music Award in 2015 for Best New Artist Album. They were also nominated for two Blues Music Awards for Pick Your Poison for Best Contemporary Blues Album of the Year and Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year.

“We’re really just excited that people have been receiving our music and have been paying attention to our music and have been enjoying it so much,” Birchwood said. “We’ve performed in over 15 countries for the past two years and we tour tirelessly, non-stop just to get as far as we can with our music and we’re happy that people are diggin’ on it.”

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