Concerts & Comedy Calendar

Eddie Griffin

Oct. 4, Johnny Mercer Theatre. "Comedians are very serious people," the acerbic comic told us in 2012, before he almost played the Johnny Mercer (the show was canceled). "You have to be, because you're serious about making people laugh." Best known as the star of Undercover Brother, Griffin has an observational urban wit somewhere between Richard Pryor and D.L. Hughley.

Loretta Lynn

Oct. 6, Johnny Mercer Theatre. You gotta hand it to the Queen of Country Music. She's 81, her health ain't all that great, and she's still out there pitching us "Coal Miner's Daughter" every night. Lynn had a career resurgence a few years back; she got some hipster cred when unabashed fan Jack White produced her Van Lear Rose album.

JJ Grey & Mofro

Oct. 10, Lucas Theatre. Florida's gritty bluesboy is back with a smoking new record, This River. Whether you call it blues, blues/rock, funk, soul or whatever (pick a label), Mofro is hot stuff, and JJ and the boys have been welcome visitors to Savannah stages for over a decade.

Hunter Hayes

Oct. 11, Johnny Mercer Theatre. Louisiana-born country hitmaker who's nailed two singles ("Wanted," "Somebody's Heartbreak") to the top of the Billboard charts. With opening act Ashley Monroe.

Peter Yarrow

Oct. 13, Grayson Stadium. The Savannah Folk Festival is three days of acoustic reverie culminates with a Sunday afternoon concert with the Waymores and others — this year's headliner is folk legend Peter Yarrow (he'll be arrivin' on a jet plane), who'll play two sets.

Vienna Boys Choir

Oct. 18, Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Savannah welcomes the original boy band, Austrian trebles and altos who make a glorious sound. The acoustics in the (spectacularly beautiful) Cathedral of St. John the Baptist are great. "The choir's repertoire includes everything from medieval to contemporary and experimental music. Motets and lieder for boys' choir form the core of the touring repertoire, as do the choir's own arrangements of quintessentially Viennese music, waltzes and polkas."

Savannah Philharmonic: Fauvre's Requiem

Oct. 20, Lucas Theatre. Peter Shannon and company return with a program that includes Bizet's Symphony in C, written when the French composer was just 17 years old.

Mike Epps

Nov. 9, Johnny Mercer Theatre. Standup comic (a Def Jam vet) whose movie appearances have included Next Friday, All About the Benjamins, The Hangover, Jumping the Broom and Sparkle.

Jim Brickman

Nov. 11, Lucas Theatre. Adult contemporary piano star and PBS fund-drive favorite whose Picture This album (featuring "Valentine," with vocals by Martina McBride) sold 4 million copies.

Joe Bonamassa

Nov. 13, Johnny Mercer Theatre. Favorite quote from our 2012 interview with this astonishingly powerful electric blues guitarist: "Bonnie Raitt said to me one time, to make it you've gotta be good, or good looking. And I looked at myself in the mirror and said 'I've got to be good.'"

Big Band Pops

Nov. 21, Lucas Theatre. Peter Shannon and the Savannah Philharmonic "dumb it down" (in a manner of speaking) for their always-popular evening of non-classical tunes.

Holiday Pops

Dec. 13 and 14, Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. This might be the most well-attended concert all year, every year in Savannah. It ALWAYS sells out (yes, it's conductor Shannon and the Phil's Christmas-era showcase).