Red Clay Strays Bring Grateful to Philly
Driving to Philadelphia for The Red Clay Strays on August 7, I was watching the sky almost as much as I was watching the road.
The storm was bad enough that I was actually looking for signs of an active tornado. After nearly two hours on the road, I was wondering if I was even going to get the chance to photograph a band I had been waiting more than a year to shoot.
The show was going on. The Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts runs its shows rain or shine.
Fortunately, the rain had mostly moved through by the time The Red Clay Strays took the stage at the TD Pavilion. The air was humid, the crowd was packed in and the stage was ready.
I have been looking forward to photographing The Red Clay Strays since they played the Stone Pony Summer Stage the previous year. There was something about this band that made me want to get to the front of that stage with a camera.
Philadelphia turned out to be a pretty special place to finally do it.
The band opened with Demons in Your Choir and moved into Stone's Throw, Don't Wanna Know, Walking Away and Down South. From the first few songs it was obvious that every member of this band mattered.
Brandon Coleman has the voice that grabs your attention. It is powerful and soaring, with Southern rock, blues, rockabilly and gospel all living in the same place. There is history in that voice, but there is also something very current about the way he uses it.
But Coleman is only one part of what makes this band work.
Drew Nix, Zach Rishel, Andrew Bishop, John Hall and Sevans Henderson are not simply there to fill out the sound behind the frontman. They are a true band. The guitars, bass, drums and keys create the foundation that allows these songs to move through rock, blues, soul and gospel without losing the identity of the group.
And then there were the voices behind them.
Tamica Nicole, Olivia Jones and Sarina-Joi Crow added another dimension to the live performance. When the band leaned into its gospel side, their voices filled out the arrangements and gave the songs another layer of emotion.
Watching them from the side of the stage and then seeing the full group together from out front, it was easy to understand how important those voices were to the overall sound.
There are years of work behind this band. You can hear it and you can see it.
That is a band.
The Red Clay Strays formed in Mobile, Alabama in 2016, growing out of a cover band and spending years playing bars and small rooms around the South. Their path forward was not handed to them. Their first album, Moment of Truth, was independently released, and their early fans helped support the band through crowdfunding.
Those years matter when you see where they are now.
The band followed Moment of Truth with Made by These Moments in 2024 and Grateful in 2026. There is a story in those titles. Moment of Truth came from a period of faith and difficult times. Made by These Moments looked at how those experiences shaped them. Grateful reflects where the band is now and what it means to have made it through the journey.
That journey is a big part of why I think it is a mistake to define The Red Clay Strays by Wondering Why.
That song opened the door for a lot of people and it deserves the attention it received. But there is an entire catalog waiting on the other side of that door.
Spend some time with all three albums.
The Philadelphia set made that point pretty clearly. Can't Fix You, Devil in My Ear, Sunshine, People Hatin', Drowning, I'm Still Fine, Moments and On My Knees all showed different sides of the band. Wondering Why was there too, of course, but it was one piece of a much bigger picture.
The Red Clay Strays have worked for this.
There is never much certainty in trying to keep an original band on the road. There are long drives, small rooms, difficult years and plenty of reasons to give up. The Strays kept going.
The talent was there too.
You can hear it in Coleman's voice, but you can also see it in the way these six musicians play together. There is a confidence that comes from knowing the people standing beside you can take a song somewhere without losing the thread.
And then there is Philadelphia.
Two days after the Mann show, The Red Clay Strays would headline Madison Square Garden. The show was sold out.
I was not there to photograph that performance, but knowing it was coming made the Philadelphia night feel pretty special.
The Highmark Mann is a much smaller setting, and that gave me the chance to photograph the band up close and see the connection between the musicians and the audience. From where I was standing with my camera, I could see the individual players, the backing singers, the interaction between the band members and the reaction from the crowd.
For a photographer, those are the nights you want.
I had been waiting more than a year to photograph The Red Clay Strays. I finally got the opportunity in Philadelphia, after driving through a storm that had me looking for tornadoes on the way in.
Then the band took the stage.
The storm had passed.
And I finally found the storm on stage - The Red Clay Strays.
The Revivalists
The Red Clay Strays The Revivalists Highmark Mann Center Bill Baumann
