Black Horse Motel

Philadelphia's Black Horse Motel crafts its genre-fluid sound by taking traditional folk instrumentation and lyrics, blending them with Americana roots, rock, blues, and country influences and tying it all together with rich vocal harmonies. The resulting sound is foot-stomping, heart-breaking, familiar and new.

In 2012, Black Horse Motel offered their first recording; a self-titled EP. They followed up with their debut full-length LP, Red Summer Spirit. The record released on March 1, 2013 to a sold-out crowd at Kung Fu Necktie in Philadelphia.

The next three years brought several lineup changes while the group continued to hone their sound and expand their fan base. The current 4-piece group is made up of Desiree Haney (cello/keys/vocals), Megan Manning (drums/percussion, vocals), Galen Fitzpatrick (guitar/dobro/vocals), and Ryann Lynch (fiddle/vocals).
In April of 2016, armed with a batch of fresh songs, the group headed into the famed Studio 4 in Conshohocken, PA. Teamed again with producer/engineer Ron DiSilvestro, the band recorded major tracks in 2 days. Overdubs and additional recordings were also done at Forge Recording in Oreland, PA. Finally, the finished product was mastered by the one and only Phil Nicolo.

After a successful PledgeMusic campaign, the band released their new 5-song EP, Parable, to major online outlets on January 13, 2017.

Black Horse Motel has performed at the Dewey Beach Music Conference and Dewey Beach Americana Festival in Dewey Beach, DE, Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA, Xtreme Folk Festival in Telford, PA, and the famed Philadelphia Folk Festival in Schwenksville, PA. The group has also performed at many of Philadelphia’s popular venues, including World Cafe Live, Kung Fu Necktie, Tin Angel, and Boot & Saddle. The group has begun spreading their sound to the greater Philadelphia area, with performances in Jenkintown, King of Prussia, Phoenixville, New Hope, and Wilkes-Barre, as well as at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Union Hall in Brooklyn. Black Horse Motel has been featured as live performers on several radio programs, including Delaware’s WSTW Hometown Heroes show, The Folk Show on WXPN, Folkadelphia on XPN2, and Y-Not Radio.