Larkin Poe: BottleRock gives Napa a blazing double-shot of Southern Roots Rock
Georgia-born sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell are Larkin Poe, a Grammy-winning, guitar-driven blues/rock/Americana duo currently based in Nashville. With their back-up musicians—Lucas Pettee on keyboards, Tarka Layman on bass and Ben Satterlee on drums—they rocked the house at the Uptown Theatre last Thursday, then the main stage at the Napa Valley Exposition on Sunday at BottleRock ’26.
First, what about their unusual band name? According to the sisters, it honors their great-great-great-great grandfather, whose name was Larkin Poe. He, they’ve said, was a cousin of Edgar Allen Poe.
Their music, for want of a short label, is southern roots rock. It’s a fair analogy to think of them as the “Allman Sisters,” powerhouse dual guitars, blues-drenched lead vocals by Rebecca with harmonies by Megan. Rebecca plays a standard six-string, Megan a shoulder-hung slide. They are both brilliant lead players, often in harmonizing unison, again Allman-style. Jessica, the legendary dual guitar Allman Brothers instrumental, is a regular cover in the Larkin Poe repertoire.
After five years as an acoustic duo, the sisters plugged in and emerged as Larkin Poe in 2010. Over the past 16 years, they’ve recorded nine albums — the most recent is 2025’s Bloom — and toured extensively. Their albums have received three Grammy nominations, with 2024’s Blood Harmony winning for Best Contemporary Blues Album. They’ve also twice been nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Duo/Group of the Year Award, winning in 2024.
At the Uptown Theatre in Napa last Thursday evening they roared through a 16-song set prominently featuring material from Bloom and Blood Harmony. To huge approval, Jessica made its way in early as the fourth song among the originals.
As great as they are instrumentally and vocally, these two bring a whole other dimension in live performance. They are in joyful perpetual motion, bopping around the stage, especially Rebecca, while turning out one killer guitar lick after another. The audience eats it up, and it builds throughout the performance. They are great, and they are fun.
At BottleRock on Sunday afternoon on the main stage, it was more of the same, but this time before a much larger audience, with more volume and, unfortunately, a shorter set because of their one-hour time limit. That big stage, including a spacious center extension projecting out into a surrounding crowd, suited their music-in-motion style. These sisters are not frozen behind their microphones.
Like at the Uptown, the setlist was dominated by Bloom and Blood Harmony originals, but three covers were very well received—the aforementioned and brilliantly executed Jessica, a slow fierce delivery of Son House’s Preachin’ Blues, and their very bouncy rendition of guitarist Mike Seal’s instrumental Royal Express, which they had recorded with him.
Whatever we choose to call it—roots, blues, southern, Americana, even gospel— Larkin Poe plays real rock and roll with superior musicianship and uncamouflaged joy. See them if you can, and, if possible, for more than one hour.
