Riley Downing

Riley Downing plays Hillsiders on Sunday, October 25, at 7 PM. He's a Missouri singer-songwriter who built his name in the New Orleans combo the Deslondes and in the rootsy Tumbleweeds. His voice is deep, dusty and drawling, and his songwriting weaves together country, blues, folk, R&B, bluegrass, rock and soul.

The show is built around Start It Over, his first solo album. It was written and recorded during the pandemic: he returned home to Missouri to help his brother with a plumbing business, then teamed up with Deslondes bandmate John James Tourville (JJ) and producer Andrija Tokic (Dre), passing demos back and forth between Missouri, North Carolina and Nashville. The record was cut at Bomb Shelter Studios in Nashville with a crack of session musicians, among them Meg Coleman (Yola), Jimmy Lester (Los Straightjackets), Dennis Crouch, Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs) and Jeff Taylor (George Strait, Elvis Costello).

Downing is a Missouri native, so this is a homecoming of sorts. The album came together across three states, and the session players on it come from a wide range of backgrounds—country, rock, and soul—which fits the way he pulls from so many different styles at once. On the night, he'll be performing with Hillsiders.

It's a Sunday night show, so you'll have the rest of the weekend to get your head right before it. The set starts at 7 PM at Hillsiders, 403 N 5th St, Kansas City, KS.