Jacob Sharp: Middle Kid Album Release Show

Skip to content Jacob Sharp: Middle Kid Album Release Show Taylor Ashton Buy Tickets Friday, November 13 Doors: 7 pm : Show: 8 pm Cat’s Cradle Back Room Jacob Sharp has been writing songs and playing shows for 15 years. And he finally has an album of his own worth sharing.

The songs of “Middle Kid” provide nuanced insights to the relational intrigue that has long driven both his musical and interpersonal worlds. A richly-textured album that feels bound to immediately serve as a lexicon for an increasingly vast indie-folk world, it’s as equally sparse as it is confident, and full of both the emotional directness and pop hooks that have become the calling cards of Jacob’s writing and songs.

From a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, Jacob grew up surrounded by music and obsessed with bands. As a founding member of Mipso, who sprang from Chapel Hill as a genre-bending stringband in 2012 and now serves as a maven to a fully-bloomed folk/americana scene, he has long been most comfortable making music with friends.

Though this is a solo-debut, the collaboration at its core is what gives it its most striking edge – and the album is a celebration of the musical community Jacob has built living in Brooklyn and Los Angeles when not on the road over the last decade. It was initially conceived as an outlet for the co-writing that drives his creative world; the record features co-writing contributions from Bridget Kearney (Lake Street Dive), Benjamin Lazar Davis (Maya Hawke, Cuddle Magic), Taylor Ashton and Shane Leonard.

But when demo sessions began with co-producer Benjamin Lazar Davis it became immediately clear that the batch of songs deserved a band of ringers. Jacob’s closest friends and most-treasured musical companions gathered in Los Angeles in the early summer of 2024 and gave the tunes the life they needed to become a record too good not to share. “Middle Kid” is out on October 9th – with select tour dates this fall to celebrate the release.

Taylor Ashton is a shape-shifting songwriter with the heart of a novelist and the timing of a stand-up comic. Whether it’s just his warm baritone over solo clawhammer banjo or his agile falsetto soaring over an electric six-piece band with horns, his live shows unfold like a play: vulnerable, funny, and slyly profound.

Laughter often gives way to a hush. Ashton’s sound evokes the intimacy of Nick Drake, the soul of Bill Withers, the tender playfulness of Harry Nilsson, and the searching spirit of Joni Mitchell.

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