Editor’s Note: This article was first published in The Wake Weekly here.

Listen up: The Wake Forest Listening Room is back and ready for musicians and audiences.

Started in 2017, the Wake Forest Listening Room hosted a series of performances featuring local and regional original musicians.

The owners state on the website the main intent behind the listening room was to give artists a “sacred space” where their music could be focused on by the audience with no distractions such as sports on TV or loud conversations.

“The series found a permanent home downstairs from Sugar Magnolia Cafe, where we hosted more than 300 performances before COVID shut us down in late 2021. In October 2023, we’re re-opening in the new space next door to our independent Wake Forest bookstore, Page 158 Books.”

The new space offers more seating, new sound and light systems and food and drinks. “We’ll keep that same ‘listening room’ vibe that guests and musicians have come to love and appreciate,” the website states.

The first show in the new space at 415 Brooks St. features John Howie, Jr. & The Rosewood Bluff at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 27. Tickets are $12 for the all ages show. In 1995, Howie Jr.’s honky-tonk band, the Two Dollar Pistols, emerged from the North Carolina alt-country explosion that gave the world “Whiskeytown” and “The Backsliders,” among others. The Pistols spent 12 years traveling around the United States and Europe, making records for the esteemed Yep Roc label with an updated, soulful take on old-school country and honky-tonk sounds. Howie spent the majority of 2016/2017 in the studio and on the road playing drums for Bloodshot Records artists Sarah Shook and the Disarmers. He left the Disarmers in late 2017 to continue to work on his own music, and released his critically acclaimed solo album, “Not Tonight,” which featured members of the Disarmers and the Rosewood Bluff, in September 2018. 2020 found John and the Rosewood Bluff releasing the “Better Things” single and video and working on a new album of original material, “Never Enough,” for release in 2023. 

North Carolina native Caleb Caudle is set to return to the Listening Room to perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 10. Caleb’s latest record “Forsythia” was recorded at the Cash Cabin with John Carter Cash producing and featuring appearances by Jerry Douglas, Elizabeth Cook, Carlene Carter and Sam Bush, among others. Caudle says “Forsythia,” is a portrait of his truest self, of the artist at his most solitary and reflective. Thematically, it meets anticipation for the unknown future with nostalgia for the past, and reconciles both with meditation in the present. It paints a vision of who Caudle was, is and will hopefully be someday, according to his Facebook page.

For tickets, more upcoming shows and more information, visit https://wakeforestlisteningroom.com/