Singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman is coming to town. The Hickman, Kentucky, native is making two stops in the Commonwealth this week. She’s appearing at the Bourbon & Beyond festival this Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Highland Festival Grounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center before making her way north to Newport to play the Southgate House Revival on Friday, Sept. 25.

Goodman’s current tour spans the South, a sure nod to her commitment to place-making, honoring of home, and love of the spaces that made her. Her third solo album, Planting by the Signs, was released in 2025 and pays homage both to the sound of folk tradition and to Appalachia’s movements through life as guided by the moon and stars.

The Southgate House Revival (SGHR) show takes place in the stunning Sanctuary room, which houses the original organ from when it was a church and is flanked by magnificent stained-glass windows. While the SGHR was formerly a Methodist Episcopal church, its repurposed space also holds true to the spiritual influence that erected its walls.

Goodman’s Southern Baptist upbringing is apparent in her music, and in many ways, reclaimed in her unique sound. The artist, an up-and-coming queer icon in her own right, was named the 2023 Emerging Act of the Year by the Americana Music Association. But more than that, she gives voice and name to many Southern queers who found a love for music in the church and have grown up to find their identity at odds with the values they were raised with.

By marrying the spirit of her faith tradition with a raw and fresh sound in the folk genre, she honors her home while making listeners across the region feel that their space, too, can be held. Goodman seamlessly balances the complexity of rural, Southern, queer identity in a fashion that is so familiar to many, and offers a representation outside the region that makes us proud.

She’s surely one to continue watching, and this series of shows is an opportunity for folks to have their “I was there when…” moment with an artist who graced the cover of Queer Kentucky’s very last print issue in 2025.

Bourbon & Beyond is the annual music festival celebrating Kentucky’s famous spirit with dozens of musical acts on each of its four days. Both weekend and day passes are still available for purchase.

Goodman is joined in Newport by opener Abby Hamilton, whose debut album, #1 Zookeeper (of the San Diego Zoo), is a musical match made in heaven. Hamilton is a Kentuckian too, hailing from Nicholasville.

The Southgate House Revival hosts live music seven nights a week across three spaces within the venue. S.G. Goodman goes on at 8 p.m.; doors open at 7 p.m.