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The Austin 100: Devon Gilfillian

Devon Gilfillian.
Andile Buka
/
Courtesy of the artist
Devon Gilfillian.

Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee

Genre: Soul

Why We're Excited: Devon Gilfillian's glittering, soulful sound intersects with everything from vintage R&B to ragged folk-rock, but there's one constant on his debut album Black Hole Rainbow: a rangy, wonderfully expressive, sandy-smooth voice. Equally suited to forlorn blues and the rousing, anthemic, roof-raising uplift of "Unchained," Gilfillian appears poised for — and well-suited to — ubiquity.

Listen to Devon Gilfillian's "Unchained"

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Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)