Two hours of happiness!

Down Home: Season Finale with Mike Compton & Joe Newberry

The Bucktown Americana Music Show closes its 2025–26 season on Friday, May 15 with a night we've been quietly waiting all year to put on. Our guests — all the way from Nashville — are mandolinist Mike Compton and songwriter‑banjo player Joe Newberry, two musicians whose names would land at the top of anyone's short list of the best in American roots music.

TICKETS COMING SOON!

Mike is a Grammy winner and IBMA award‑winning mandolinist, a John Hartford Band alumnus, a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and one of the Soggy Bottom Boys on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Mandolin Magazine calls him "a certified mandolin icon." The New York Times called him "a new bluegrass instrumental hero." He plays in pressed blue overalls and rocks and weaves when he gets going. You'll know what they mean inside of eight bars.

Joe is one of the most widely recorded songwriters working in old‑time and bluegrass today, with a voice that sits somewhere between front‑porch and pulpit and a banjo touch that's the opposite of showy. His songs have been cut by everyone from the Gibson Brothers to the Fairfield Four.

We'll also welcome back our good friends Comfort Food — Vicki and Rich's folk duet — to round out the night. And of course the Bucktown cast and house band will be on stage doing what we do: two hours of happiness, rated E for everybody.

This is as good as anything you'll hear at the Adler or the Mississippi Valley Fair, at a fraction of the ticket price and in an intimate room where you can hear every note. It's also our last show until autumn, so if you've been meaning to bring a friend who's never been — this is the one.

7 p.m. Friday, May 15 Rock Island Library Watts‑Midtown Branch Theater 2715 30th St, Rock Island, IL 61201.

⭐ Location: Rock Island Library Watts-Midtown Branch Theater, 2715 30th St., Rock Island.

Special thanks to our season sponsor, Picture Perfect Travel. The Bucktown guarantee: Two hours of happiness!