Delco’s Devon Gilfillian knows Philly is always there for him

The Philly Music Fest, which begins Monday at Ardmore Music Hall and continues at various independent venues for seven nights, makes room for many styles of music, from rock to hip-hop, folk to funk.

What ties the event together, however, is its localness. As Greg Seltzer, the nonprofit fest’s founder, puts it: “Our genre is Philly.”

That doesn’t mean that every act that’s playing the fest, which donated $100,000 to local music education organizations last year, is based in Philadelphia. But all 22 bands — bringing to 150 the total number of bands who have played at the fest since its inception in 2017 — have deep connections to the region.

Devon Gilfillian, who’s headlining Underground Arts on Oct. 26 with three worthy acts in Mondo Cozmo, the Tisburys, and Emily Drinker also on the bill, is a perfect example.

The psychedelic soul singer grew up in Morton in Delaware County before making his name in Nashville, where he moved in 2013 after graduating from West Chester University, to spend a year rehabbing houses in an AmeriCorps program.

But lately, he’s been firming up Philly ties. He’s featured on the third Eagles holiday album, A Philly Special Christmas Party, which is due out Nov. 29, pairing off with Jordan Mailata on Sam Cooke’s “Having A Party.” And he’s got a new song, “Mending,” which he cowrote with John Oates.

When he got a call from Philly Special producer Charlie Hall, Gilfillian says, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, this isn’t real.’” The musician spoke to The Inquirer on the phone this week from Nashville while headed to what Music City songsmiths call “a write” — an appointment to compose a song together, in this case for the follow-up to his 2023 album Love You Anyway.

Gilfillian, a serious soul music student, covered Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Going On in its entirety in 2020.

He was impressed with Mailata when he paired off with the Eagle at Elm Street Studios in Conshohocken this spring. “I love Sam Cooke, and anytime you cover any those old cats — Otis Redding, Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye — you better be bringing it. You better be able to go deep and put a spin on it in an original way. And Jordan did that.”

His collaboration with Oates came “out of the blue.” “That was another pinch me moment. Like, ‘Is this really happening?’ He sent me a message on Instagram and told me he was getting Curtis Mayfield vibes from my record. We set up a write, and ‘Mending’ was the first song we wrote,” Gilfillian said.

The supple ballad is out now, and will be on Oates’ next album.

Playing the PMF — where his brother, singer Ryan Gilfillian, had an opening slot last year — “feels like coming home,” Gilfillian said. He plans to celebrate by bringing his sibling on stage, and maybe inviting his friends in horn happy band Snacktime to join him.

“I wasn’t ready as an artist when I lived in Philly. I had to move to Nashville to learn how to write songs, and learn the music industry. So to go back home and be included in the local Philly music scene is really cool. It makes me ache, and miss Philly. And it also makes me feel like Philly is always there for me.”

Ticket info and a full Philly Music Fest schedule can be found at phillymusicfest.com. Along with Gilfillian, here are nine other acts not to miss at the PMF.

Slaughter Beach, Dog started as a folk-rock side project for Modern Baseball coleader Jake Ewald a decade ago, but it’s been his primary outlet since 2017. The band headlines the first night of the PMF in support of its enticingly enigmatic 2023 album Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling. Power-pop practitioners Hurry are in the middle of the bill, which also includes Santa Chiara. Oct. 21 at Ardmore Music Hall.

Santa Chiara is Chiara D’Anzieri, who grew up in Turin, Italy, and moved to Philadelphia — after a stopover in Nashville — with her husband, Ron Gallo, when she was 25. The classically trained cellist sings an immigrant’s saga on her 2023 album Imported, which makes use of punky and experimental pop influences. Oct. 21 at Ardmore Music Hall.

It’s been a good year for Katie Crutchfield, the Alabama-born songwriter who now lives in Kansas City but resided in West Philly for the better part of the 2010s. Her terrific Tigers Blood is her most self-confident album yet — and also her most country-leaning — and sure to be a staple of year-end best-of lists. Opener is @, the hard to Google Philly-Baltimore duo. Oct. 22 at Ardmore Musical Hall.

It’s been nearly a decade since Philly foursome Sheer Mag took the world by storm with a series of EPs — titled I, II, and III — that harnessed the power of 1970s hard rock and punk in a fresh, pulverizing fashion. The Tina Halladay-fronted band’s first album in five years, Playing Favorites, came out on Jack White’s Third Man label this year. The Out-Sect open. Oct. 23 at Johnny Brenda’s.

The buzziest PMF show might be Waxahatchee squeezing into AMH after two nights at the Fillmore in September. But Amos Lee at World Cafe Live is a serious underplay too: the Philly singer-songwriter played the Mann Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2023. And you can’t get more Philly than the name of the record label on which Lee released his Lucinda Williams tribute Honeysuckle Switches in 2023, and this year’s Transmissions: Hoagiemouth. Oct. 24 at Music Hall at World Cafe Live.

Life’s Still Perfect..., the debut album by Philly band Cadre Noir, may not actually be perfect, but it is an accomplished debut, full of woozy grooves that draw from Native Tongues-era hip-hop, rock, jazz, and R&B. It’s dreamy, intoxicating stuff. The band kicks off a five-act bill topped by Lee, that also features Anna Shoemaker, Cosmic Guilt, and Super Infinity, the project of the Districts’ Rob Grote. Oct. 24 at the Lounge at World Cafe Live.

Philly ska band Catbite are road warriors. Their PMF show follows German tour dates this month, and precedes shows in the western U.S. in November. Brittany Luna, Tom Hildebrand, Ben Parry, and Chris Pires’ high energy attack takes inspiration from late 1970s British bands like the Selecter, the Specials, and the English Beat with their own Catbite snarl. Oct. 25 at MilkBoy.

What is the “Sound of Philadelphia”? Among other things, It’s a 2005 song by West Philly rapper Reef The Lost Cauze that, despite Eagles references to Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens, resonates today as Reef rhymes “City of Brotherly Love” with “brothers covered in blood” and “youth dreams cut short, swept under the rug.” The rapper who’s also a brand ambassador for Shibe Vintage Sports released his sixth album, The Triumphant, earlier this year. Oct. 25 at MilkBoy.

The final night of the fest was scheduled to be a bill with percussionist-poet Angelo Outlaw and Lansdowne-raised guitarist Steve Gunn’s Glass Band. But Gunn canceled, and look who stepped in: 100-year-old miracle worker Marshall Allen, the Sun Ra Arkestra leader who will perform in his Ghost Horizons configuration. Allen was a guest of Low Cut Connie in 2022, but this is the centenarian’s debut as a PMF headliner. Oct. 27 at Solar Myth.