09/10/2026
More music announcements for our Barefoot Hootenanny Music Festival coming your wayyyyy! ๐๐ผ
Melissa Joiner & The Travel Cats will be bringing their ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ to our River Stage on Saturday night! ๐ถ
Melissa Joiner & the Travel Cats bring together five musicians with wildly different backgrounds, influences, and musical journeys โ all connected by a shared love of live music, storytelling, improvisation, and the kind of chemistry that can only happen onstage.
Fronting the group is internationally touring singer-songwriter Melissa Joiner, a Gulf Coast
Alabama native whose sound blends formal opera training with the raw influence of Delta Blues. Melissa grew up singing in a legendary roadhouse on the Alabama/Florida state line
and later cut her teeth in some of Mississippiโs last remaining juke joints. After performing in 30 countries by the age of 30, she made the East Coast home. Her career includes a #1 song in Norway, the release of her album Changing, and multiple songs recorded by signed artists. She is also the Founder and Director of the Songs That Save Foundation and the Myrtle Beach Songwriters Festival.
Drew Jacobs brings a lifetime of musical influences ranging from Motown, Otis Redding,Joe Tex, and The Drifters to country, gospel, blues, pop, and punk rock. Growing up feeling a little like he had been born out of time, Drew found a home in oldies radio before discovering punk and its DIY spirit. Years spent playing in bands around Myrtle Beach eventually led him deeper into songwriting. His music remains rooted in the traditional sounds he grew up with, while still carrying a trace of the rebellious energy of those early punk-rock days.
Multi-instrumentalist Cody Sachs, originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin, brings an entirely different musical vocabulary to the group. A performance graduate of Coastal Carolina
University, Cody began playing cello in middle school and quickly expanded his repertoire to include saxophones, flutes, clarinets, and other instruments. His experience ranges from orchestral and classical performance to contemporary music, including serving as
Principal Clarinet with the Florence Symphony Orchestra, performing internationally, and
appearing as a soloist at St. James Square in England.
Behind the kit, Tina Marie Racer is a self-described happy hippie mountain momma from West Virginia whose heartbeat is the drum. Influenced by everyone from the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan to Rush and Black Sabbath, Tina brings energy, instinct, and an eclectic musical perspective to the band. She performs on drum kit and auxiliary percussion with The Goofy Footers and several other projects throughout the Grand Strand.
Rounding out the group is Alondra Johnson, a Sony Music Group Global Scholar and 2026 graduate of Coastal Carolina University with a Bachelor of Arts in Music, concentrating in Commercial Music and Jazz. A Truman Scholarship Finalist and participant in the CountryMusic Association Leadership Academy, Alondra has been recognized for both musical excellence and leadership. Her experiences, including studying music and culture in Vienna, Austria, have helped shape her passion for bringing together performance, education, and community engagement.
Together, Melissa Joiner & the Travel Cats pull from blues, soul, jazz, Americana, rock, country, classical music, and a little bit of everything in between. Rather than trying to fit neatly into one genre, the band leans into what each member brings to the table โ creating a live sound that is soulful, dynamic, spontaneous, and deeply rooted in musicianship.
Five musicians. Five very different roads. One band built around the joy of making music together.
www.melissajoinermusic.com
๐๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ฅ:โฃ
โฃ
October 23-25, 2026โฃ
๐ River Island Adventures
1249 Vera Rd. | Longs, SCโฃ
Hosted by RIA + The Goofy Footers
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๐๏ธ Tix on sale now + we've got something for everyone: โฃ
๐ 3-Day Weekend Passes for $100
๐๏ธ Variety of Weekend Admission + Camping Packages available.โฃ
๐จโ๐ฉโ๐งโ๐ฆ Family friendly (16 and under are free. Must be accompanied by an adult) โฃ
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See you in October! ๐ฆ
