Local artists And the Echo and Eric Deaton Trio will perform tonight at Proud Larry’s as part of New Year’s Eve celebration taking place on the Square. Music begins at 8 p.m.

Deaton moved from North Carolina to Mississippi straight out of high school and entered a higher education program of moonshine-fueled hill country blues at the world-renowned Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint in the mid to late 90’s.

Apprenticing under the late trance-blues masters Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside (and various other members of their extended families), Deaton was thoroughly immersed in the North Mississippi blues tradition. He played, lived and toured with other Mississippi blues artists such as T-Model Ford, Paul ‘Wine’ Jones and Big Bad Smitty. Eric’s sound is firmly rooted in the electric juke joint style, with dashes of influence from early Funkadelic, East Indian sitar drones, and a nod to the blues’ West African roots.

Based out of Oxford, And The Echo is a project born out of a mutual love of ambient, electronic pop between Winn McElroy and Morgan Pennington.

Begun in March 2014, a 45 was released in mid-fall 2014, and the duo is working on an EP to be released in fall 2015 and playing shows throughout the Southeast.