Monica Rizzio

Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters are on tour with their latest album, a self-titled disc released June 9, 2017 on Organic Records. Lyrically driven, the songs of Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters blend the band’s old-school country roots attitude with their shared influences of rock and folk. Amanda says of the album, “I think it's just about life and all that that entails. Including but not limited to death, strangers, birthdays, money, leaving, arriving, seasons, corruption, and love.” “This is a band that does everything right,” says Goldmine’s Mike Greenblatt. “Platt deserves all that might come to her over this, her fifth (and best) album. Backed by pedal steel, electric guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion, and vocal harmony, it’s Platt’s show as she writes, sings and co-produces. Complete with lyrics of introspection with the kind of words you can chew on long after the album ends, it also works on a lighter level by dint of the fact that it just sounds so damn good. Go as deep as you want. It’s all good, as they say.” Based in Asheville, North Carolina, Amanda is a storyteller by nature with an incredible band backing her. Performing along with Amanda Anne Platt, The Honeycutters are Matt Smith(pedal steel and electric guitar), Rick Cooper(bass), and Evan Martin(drums). There is an empathetic and charming wit ingrained in Amanda’s songwriting. She has a knack for accessing a deep well of emotion and applying it to her story-telling, whether she is writing from her own experiences or immersing herself into the melody of emotions in another person's life. “She’s soothing (even in the hurtin’ songs) and sobering (except for the drinkin’ songs) and nuanced in a way that I think tops even those rather famous ladies of the moment named Margo and Kacey… I’d be hard pressed to find a finer string of recordings from any band working in the classic country/mountain tradition in these last five years,” writes Music City Roots’ Craig Havighurst. A homegrown entity, the band is critically acclaimed locally, regionally, nationally, as well as overseas. Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters’ placed #2 (sandwiched between Jason Isbell and Gregg Allman) in their regional radio station WNCW’s year end listeners poll for 2017! The station’s Music Director Martin Anderson said to No Depression, “Amanda Platt writes songs on par with Lucinda, Isbell, Lauderdale, Hank Sr. In my opinion, anyway." After a phenomenal response in 2017, the band went on their second extensive tour of the UK this summer which also included shows in Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The UK’s American Roots’ Magazine Mike Morrison writes, “This is a band whose back catalogue is a match for anyone's and yet still they're improving. Modern country music really doesn't get much better than the highly individual style of Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters.” Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters recently received a shout out from Fodor’s Travel Magazine in a write-up about the band’s hometown of Asheville, NC, and a couple of years back they were also featured on XPN World Cafe’s Sense of Place series. Their music also placed into the Americana Music Association Year End Top 100 list of Americana Airplay for the second year in a row! Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters is the group’s third release on Organic Records, and fifth album. Assembling the same the same team as 2016’s On The Ropes, Balsam Range’s Tim Surrett steps in for the second time to co-produce this album along with Amanda. Its thirteen tracks were recorded, mixed, and mastered by Scott Barnett at Crossroads Studios in Arden, NC near the band’s hometown of Asheville. "Amanda is so good it's ridiculous. I don't even know what words to use. Her singing, songwriting and presence is unmatched in Americana, Country, Pop… Simply breathtaking," says Saul Davis: producer (Percy Sledge), manager (Gene Clark, Carla Olson, Phil Seymour). Monica Rizzio No stranger to the east coast music scene, Texas-bred and Cape Codwashashore, Monica Rizzio is emerging as one of the finest singersongwriters that call New England home. For over 10 years she played fiddle and sang with Tripping Lily, a folk acoustic pop band, who toured up and down the east coast. In 2012, Monica left the band to rejuvenate her passion for music and began writing to help cope with the loss of the band and love. At FreshGrass, the following year, while perusing the vendors Rizzio found a 1956 Martin 0-18 guitar that would change her life and her song. She calls it the “moment I found Jesus again.” Drawing on her East Texas roots, Monica and her Martin, brought back the the little girl who loved to barrel race on her horse Bo, and she found her outlaw country sound deep within the folk world. Her debut album, aptly named, Washashore Cowgirl, is completely autobiographical, often times delivered in a fictional approach, sometimes with humor, and sometimes so strikingly honest you can feel the pain in her voice. The album is a testament to the relationships she has forged with many artists over the years and features Mark Erelli, Sierra Hull, Abbie Gardner & Molly Venter of Red Molly, G. Love, Tim Chaisson, Brittany Haas, and Laney Jones. Last December, Monica shared the stage with Tom Rush and Red Molly at his annual show at Symphony Hall in Boston and has supported Dianna Krall, Slaid Cleaves, and Joan Osborne. Washashore Cowgirl will be released in early 2016. https://www.monicarizzio.com/