Cleveland’s New Soft Shoe To Celebrate 15th Anniversary

The New Soft Show. Credit: Courtesy of Brent Kirby

The New Soft Shoe, an ensemble of talented local musicians that plays tunes by the late alt-country singer-songwriter Gram Parsons, came to fruition in January of 2010 with its inaugural performance at the Happy Dog. Since then, the group that local singer-songwriter Brent Kirby leads has consistently performed on the second Thursday of the month (their current residency is at Forest City Brewery, where they have been since 2018).

They’ve just announced they’ll play a special 15th anniversary show at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Forest City Brewery.

Parsons is credited as one of the founders of the California country rock movement in the late 1960s, and the New Soft Shoe only plays songs that Parsons personally performed them as a solo artist or with his bands (the International Submarine Band, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers).

Every month, Jenna Juredine, Kirby’s wife, carves a unique cork stamp that is used to stamp the attendees hand to show they have paid the cover. The stamp also goes in a special stamp book. At the end of the year, attendees with 10 or more stamps are presented with a limited edition T-shirt and deemed All Gram All Nighters for their year-long support. For this anniversary show, the 2024 All Gram All Nighters will be presented with their new T-shirt awarding them for their dedication.

“I feel like we have exposed many people to Gram’s music, and it’s far exceeded the connection that we thought it would make,” says Kirby in a press release. “It’s turned into quite a wonderful monthly gathering with people constantly singing along and driving distances to come and see the band.”

In addition to Kirby, the band includes Tom Prebish on bass and vocals, Jon Niefeld on drums, Andy Leach on guitar and vocals, and Rachel Brown on piano and vocals.

The anniversary performance will feature local musicians such as Alex Bevan, Becky Boyd, Mary Bridget Davies, Thor Platter, Anthony Papaleo, Justin Gorski, Freddy Perez-Stable, Mike Allan, and Griffin and Julia Leach. The anniversary show set list will be similar in format to the 10×3 Songwriter Showcase that Kirby hosts at the Bop Stop each month. Each performer will play three songs each, except all of the songs will be Parsons songs.

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