Thu, June 18th
This month, Frank Fiction is joined by Chelsea + Tim of The Redhill Valleys—winners of Group or Duo of the Year at the 2025 Country Music Association of Ontario Awards—alongside Hamilton blues legend and 12X Hamilton Music Awards winner Alfie Smith. Together, they’ll share the stage, trading stories and stripping down their songs in an intimate, collaborative circle.
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What is Songs In The Round?
Songs in the Round is an intimate concert where multiple songwriters share the stage, trading songs and stories one by one. Inspired by Frank Fiction’s decade as a songwriter in Nashville and the famous Bluebird Cafe, we’re bringing this unique format to Crown & Press, stripping songs to their essence: human, conversational, and often spontaneously collaborative. All evening, songwriters take turns sharing the story behind and then performing a song, offering the audience a rare look at the craft behind the music, with others sometimes joining in. It’s a listening-room experience built on connection, surprise, and songs as they were written: up close and personal.
Special Guests
Chelsea + Tim (The Redhill Valleys)
Chelsea McWilliams and Tim Allard are the founding members of The Redhill Valleys, the Hamilton alt-country band that won Group or Duo of the Year at the 2025 Country Music Association of Ontario Awards. They formed in 2014 over a shared love of Tom Petty, Neil Young, and The Band, and have since toured Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., including three shows at C2C: Country to Country 2024 (Europe’s biggest country music festival). Their single “Anymore” took first place in American Songwriter Magazine’s lyric contest and earned regular play on SiriusXM’s North Americana, CBC Country, and Tom Petty Radio. McWilliams (bass/vocals) and Allard (guitar/vocals) are used to a full band behind them, so hearing them trade songs acoustically pulls the writing back to where it started.
Alfie Smith
Alfie Smith is a Hamilton-bred blues troubadour with 12 Hamilton Music Award nominations and a recording career spanning more than a quarter century, beginning with his 1998 debut Alfred John Smith. His eighth album, Every Rome Needs A Nero, was released in November 2024 — his first studio record in a decade. He’s been selected by the Toronto Blues Society to represent them at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, and he’s a regular at Mariposa, Home County, Winterfolk, and Orangeville Blues & Jazz. A guitar virtuoso fluent on slide and vintage National resonators with endorsements from Godin, Goldtone Banjos, and Goodman — Smith has the kind of deep, earthy voice that doesn’t need a band behind it to fill a room.
Who is Frank Fiction?
Frank Fiction is an alt-folk/americana project from Hamilton songwriter Elias Dummer, a Juno Award–winning recording artist whose career includes eight Billboard Top 40 singles, five Top 40 albums, and over 100 million streams. After a decade in Nashville, Dummer returned to his hometown of Hamilton to co-found Crown & Press, where he now hosts Songs In The Round—a full-circle moment that brings together a lifelong love of songs with a room where art meets everyday life.
Socials
See past performances, recorded live.
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