I made so many discoveries in Arkansas earlier this month, and though I already shared most of them, I’ve been holding this one up my sleeve.

In my hours roaming the Crystal Bridges Museum, I’d been introduced to and compelled to visit their sister museum for rotating contemporary exhibits, The Momentary. I don’t remember how it came up in conversation, but as I was shutting down the museum’s shop on a Thursday evening, one of the staff members mentioned that I should take a ticket to their Friday night concert.

Concert, you say?!

I hadn’t seen live music since my Kentucky Fried friend back in Madrid, NM, so I was very much about that outdoor lawn concert life, and after spending about 2 seconds looking over the musician bios on the website, I was sold.

And it didn’t take much selling. Though it’s not the first thing he tells people about himself, there’s a crucial detail about Phillip-Michael Scales that does a lot of the talking for him: he’s B.B. King’s nephew.

So YES, I wanted a ticket, please and thank you.

The Momentary’s website detailed how Phillip-Michael describes his music as “‘Dive Bar Soul’ which takes a bit of indie rock storytelling and couples it with the passion of the blues.”

That was precisely what he delivered, and it all truly came together in the slightly irreverent and deeply soulful, “O, Hallelujah.” He duets with his good friend Nikki Morgan here, and had she not been included on this track’s recording, I would have included her elsewhere on the playlist because she’s another amazing talent that I’d have gladly seen on her own.

But together, they burn up this track, and the video only turns up the heat. Under the neon glows of an uproarious dive bar and a still sanctuary, Phillip-Michael and Nikki hold church, and in discovering them by chance on a sweltering Friday night, I got blessed.

𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭 | 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭