Bubbles flow and souls expand. Lee Fields & the Expressions ring in 2020. Opening set by Aaron Abernathy Trio.

Soul music pours out of Lee Fields, as free and unstinting as God’s love. It has ever since the 1960s, when he was a teenager in North Carolina sweating it out on juke joint stages, crumpled dollars hailing at his feet. It continues now that the living legend is in his late sixties, ushering in the most successful and fruitful period of his career.

Today, he stands at the forefront of the soul revival, a bustling and ever-growing corner that has nourished the nutrient-starved waters of 21st century pop music with virtues it lacks: a sense of timelessness, of eternity, of a tradition extending backward into generations. Lee Fields music has been chopped up and sampled by hip hop artists as diverse as J. Cole and Travis Scott:

Cole, Fields laughs, thought that the sample was taken from a song “from back in the day.” It wasn’t, in the strictest sense—Cole sampled “My World Is Empty Without You” and “Ladies,” which were both from Fields’ album My World, made in 2009—in a deeper sense, it was true. Fields’ music doesn’t belong to now; it belongs to eternity. He has been testifying, in the purest sense of the word, since Otis Redding was alive. He is living history.

Rising Ohio pianist/singer Aaron Abernathy's style is rooted in Gospel and the organic, acoustic Soul of the early 70s and the R&B Soul vibe of the 90s. Frequent collaborator of hip-hop artist Black Milk, Abernathy has created a stir with his his 2019 release Epilogue! Abernathy has toured globally with acts such as Slum Village and The Foreign Exchange and collaborated with Grammy-nominated artists including Jack White, and Eric Roberson. Compared to the likes of D'angelo, Bilal, Prince, and Anderson Paak, Abernathy will open 20/20 Vision.