Florence Dore

Nashville native Florence Dore played with various punk, rock and country bands for 15 years before cutting her first LP Perfect City. An academic by day, Dore pursued her music career while earning a doctoral degree in American literature. Her dissertation was on modernism in the American novel and emphasized the work of William Faulkner, whom she's been known to reference in her literary, emotionally articulate songwriting. At the time of the release of Perfect City, Dore was working on a tenure track at Kent State, while holding residence in New York City due to a post doctoral fellowship at N.Y.U. Before that, she absorbed the musical climates of Boston, where she taught eighth grade while moonlighting with the Myrtles; Berkeley, where she played with San Francisco band the Mudsills; and Wesleyan College in Connecticut, where she performed alongside Matt Ashare in renowned punk band Puse Escalator. Onstage, Dore's academia goes out the window, and she can rock with the best of them. The band, which consists of Chris Erikson (lead guitar), who's been playing with Dore for over a decade; Scott Yoder (Mojo Dixon) on bass; and Dennis Diken (the Smithereens) on drums, holds its own on Dore's brand of poetically economical, Lucinda Williams-inspired country-rock.