A guitar, a mic and a head full of songs combined with a few beers and a reasonably attentive audience-it's such a simple formula really, and that's what makes it so damned hard to pull off.
Before the digitization of all things melodic turned everyone and their momma's into laptop producers, the easiest way to jump into the industry was as a singer/songwriter: get a halfway decent guitar, a few heartfelt lyrics and a couple of people to listen to you and boom-you're a musician.
But while a hand full of newbies have successfully pulled off the Joni Mitchell/Traci Chapman steez, the road to Bob Dylanhood is littered with discarded guitar cases, cried in beers and song lyrics scribbled on barroom napkins. But for singer/songwriters Emily King and Anthony David, playing tonight at Q's lounge in Jack London Square, the road has put them on the highway to success and a possible place among the coffeeshop greats.
22 year old Emily King is a bit of a musical prodigy. After leaving school at 16 because classes were moving too slowly, the ambitious New Yorker got her GED and set out to start her own musical movement that so far has led to international acclaim and a 2007 Grammy nomination for her debut album "East Side Story". From the beginning, King's music-nimble guitar playing under soul, jazz and pop melodies that lives somewhere between Corinne Bailey Rae, Norah Jones and Mary J Blige, has been drawn from her life story, independent ideology and desire to make a difference in the world. "I think music is such a revolutionary thing" she says "and that's what it should be."

Anthony David

Atlanta's Anthony David isn't necessarily out to start a revolution, he just wants to make some good music. "Sometimes (my music) is escapism, sometimes it's sympathy or emotion," he explains. "Sometimes it's grounded in the present and some times it's taking you away from it." The modern day troubadour calls his style "Millennium Blues" because of the way it "all goes back to the blues. The lyrics, the music, my using everything from acoustic to hip-hop, the story telling...all of it connects through the blues like a bridge."
A product of Atlanta's singer songwriter and spoken word scenes, David is signed to close friend India.Arie's Soulbird Music label and has worked with some of the ATL's most prolific performers. When he straps on his guitar southern influences drip from his music like molasses. His guitar playing on his new album "Acey Ducey" has a relaxed, "on the front porch" ease to it, and his lyrical honesty paints a picture of a man who's comfortable in his skin and with what he has to offer.
David's songs are impressive without trying to impress. From the duet "Words," that reveals his musical relationship with Arie, to the "Red Clay Chronicles," a candid depiction of hustling and city life to "Smoke One," an ode to kicking back with friends-David says this relaxed, no frills approach to music is the only way he'd ever think of creating.When the young revolutionary from back east meets the laid back southern crooner tonight over dueling guitars, it should be a great meeting of the musical minds as well as an instructional session on how to make this deceptively simple style sound as sweet as we all know it can.-kwan