James Hunter to perform at Rent Party

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — Maplewood’s favorite monthly live music event will present Daptone Records recording artist James Hunter on Friday night, Feb. 23, at The Woodland. Proceeds from the show will help fight hunger in Maplewood-South Orange. Tickets are available at www.brownpaperticket.com.

It has been 10 years since the Englishman burst onto the scene with his U.S. debut “People Gonna Talk,” topping the Billboard Blues chart, earning a Grammy-nomination and attracting universal acclaim from critics and his fans — including Van Morrison, Sharon Jones and Allen Toussaint. Over the last decade, Hunter has toured extensively around the world on the club, theater and festival circuits, steadily growing a dedicated audience comprised of hardened gig-goers, old-school baby boomers and young hipsters alike. His follow-ups “The Hard Way” and “Minute By Minute” further cemented Hunter’s reputation as a soul powerhouse, heralded for his talents both as a live performer and perhaps even more so as a songwriter, with The New Yorker describing his “tight, taut compositions” as “rooted in American soul music without being bound to it.” Hunter is now back with his fourth album, “Hold On!”

Started in 2009, Rent Party is a once-a-month live music event at The Woodland, 60 Woodland Road in Maplewood. The proceeds from these shows help fight hunger in our community by supporting three local food pantries, building and maintaining a large community garden on the front lawn of the South Orange Elks that raises fresh produce for the pantries, and running the BackPack Pals program that provides a weekend’s worth of nutritious food to approximately 100 food-insecure children in South Orange-Maplewood schools. For more information about Rent Party, visit www.rentpartylive.com.

  Rent Party, The Woodland