The Hillbilly Thomists, a Bluegrass band of Dominican friars, will be making a stop at the Athenaeum on a rare tour of the US!
The friars started playing music together as a casual creative outlet during their time at their Dominican House of Studies in DC; and no one was more surprised than they when the album they’d recorded for family and friends reached #3 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart in 2017!
Since then, they’ve been busy doing what Dominicans do best – preaching, teaching, and serving. Despite living on different continents, the Thomists have managed to keep writing music, and record not one, but two more albums. Their most recent was just released last week, Holy Ghost Power, which has since gone to reach #5 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart.
In their own words,
With this new record of original songs, The Hillbilly Thomists keep one foot rooted in the Blue Ridge foothills of Bluegrass and Americana while stepping across the Mississippi into the land of New Orleans delta blues and old Western country. Flowing from the Dominican friars’ life of contemplation, study, and preaching, the thirteen tracks of Holy Ghost Power sing of redeeming love and old-time religion, Diet Coke and Original Sin, pilgrimage and the sweet prospect of the life that awaits beyond the River Jordan’s stormy banks. They’re songs for people who are made of a little bit of angel and a little bit of dust.
And so, as summer’s end draws near, we invite you to text your friends, gather your children and family, and join us for a lively, soulful, and inspiring evening of Bluegrass music with the Hillbilly Thomists!
Our founder, Lawrence Daufenbach, sat down (virtually) with the Hillbilly Thomists to learn more about these Bluegrass-playing, banjo-picking Dominicans. Read the interview here: Who Are the Hillbilly Thomists?
