Award-winning singer-songwriter and innovative guitarist Erika Luckett returns to the Freight stage to celebrate the Bay Area release of her new album, Unexpected. A rare opportunity to hear Erika accompanied by a full band of stellar musicians, the show also features Dawn Richardson on drums, Paul Olguin on bass, Julie Wolf on keyboards and vocals, and Michaelle Goerlitz on percussion.

Bringing with her a breath of poetic, sensual air, Erika wraps her smoky voice around tunes that pull listeners in with their intelligent, heartfelt lyrics and worldly rhythms. Making her home in a rich musical crossing somewhere between flamenco and folk, bossa nova and pop, she reminds us that beauty and a luminous heart transcend any boundary.

Born in Mexico and raised in Brazil and Venezuela, Erika played in the Paris subways as a teenager and studied at the Berklee School of Music; fortunately for us her wandering feet brought her to the Bay Area in the early 1990s, where she helped found the popular world jazz ensemble, Wild Mango. More recently, Erika set out alone with her guitar into the world of singer-songwriters, where she quickly established herself by winning the Northern California Songwriters Association Song of the Year, Acoustic Guitar magazine's Best Independent Release of the Year and, most recently, the 2004 Just Plain Folks Female Artist of the Year. We can't wait to hear her latest gems!