The Skylighters

As front man of the acclaimed roots-rock band Last Train Home, as a solo artist, and as a duo with songsmith Peter Cooper, Eric Brace is a prolific and admired artist. A former music journalist for the Washington Post, Brace relocated to Nashville in 2003. He has released eight CDs and one live concert DVD with Last Train Home (Last Train Home, True North, Holiday Limited, Time and Water, Bound Away, Tributaries, Last Good Kiss, and Live at IOTA), as well as a sublime album called The Skylighters, where Brace led a band that included bluegrass luminaries Mike Auldridge on dobro and Jimmy Gaudreau playing mandolin.

After moving to Nashville, Brace began touring and recording with duo partner Peter Cooper, and the pair has two much-lauded albums to their credit. You Don’t Have To Like Them Both was released in 2009 and was a #1 album on the Freeform American Roots Chart, Top Five on the Folk Chart, and Top Ten on the Americana chart. The opening track on that CD, "I Know a Bird," which was penned and sung by Brace, was the #1 Folk song on its release and a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. The pair's most recent album, Master Sessions, is a tour de force that made its way onto numerous critics' lists of the best albums of 2010. It features the instrumental work of pedal steel guitar legend Lloyd Green and dobro master Mike Auldridge.

Brace continues to tour and record with Last Train Home, most recently releasing a record called Six Songs, which Twangville called the best EP of 2010. Brace lives and works in East Nashville, where he runs indie record label Red Beet Records. He's a devoted champion of the rich and productive East Nashville music scene, having produced three compilations of East Nashville music featuring some of Nashville’s finest songwriters.  Brace is co-producer of the Grammy-nominated I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow, on which he appears with his band Last Train Home. His next project, slated for release in 2012, is a 20-song folk opera about the California gold rush.