Black Buttafly, Denison Witmer, John Faye Showcase Local Music Prowess At Homegrown Originals

WXPN Thursday night was packed with local music aficionados there to catch three standout artists who are featured on our limited-release, all-Philly vinyl album Homegrown Originals Volume 4: Black Buttafly, Denison Witmer, and John Faye.

Faye hit the stage first and was joined by Joey Di Tullio and Erin Fox. They opened with “Devil’s Diary,” the signature 1995 hit from Faye’s band The Caulfields. DiTullio accompanied Faye on lead guitar and vocals, with Fox also jumping in to create excellent three-part vocal harmonies as they all sang, “I’m bigger than Jesus now.”

“No more songs from 30 years ago,” Faye told the crowd before going into a new song titled “Puzzle Pieces,” then a song by DiTullio called “Your Front Porch,” which had DiTullio singing lead vocals and ripping a guitar solo.

Fox grabbed a guitar and performed her own original song “Uprooting,” which featured some lovely fingerpicking work and a bit of a dissonance that resolved beautifully as she moved through the song’s chord progression. The song closed out with Faye and DiTullio providing harmonies that seemed to swirl around the room, creating an etherial and hypnotic effect.

Faye took the lead again and belted out a new song, “The Hill,” for which Fox broke out the viola to give the song an orchestral feel as it closed out.

“Asking For A Friend” from Faye’s 2024 album The Long Game came next, and fans rejoiced as it’s a regular track on the WXPN airwaves. Faye then played “Feng Shui” from the same album and closed his set with his most popular track, “Into Philadelphia.”

For the final song, Faye got the crowd singing along with him before a big finish.

Witmer was joined by the The Nielsen Family Band and his son Asa, who accompanied the band on xylophone and a floor tom with great success and to much fanfare from the audience, for his set.

He began with “Confessions” from his latest album, Anything At All, and after the song told the crowd it was good to be back in Philadelphia, saying that he lives among the Mennonites in Lancaster County.

He introduced Asa to the crowd, garnering a huge pop, then performed “Clockmaker,” from Anything At All, which saw Asa and his accompanying keyboardist playing complementary melodies alongside one another.

Then came “Focus Ring,” which features indie folk heavyweight Sufjan Stevens on the album version. Witmer said he’s spent a good amount of time in record stores recently, having played at both Main Street Music and A Day In The Life Records on Record Store Day and helping build the newly opened Echo Echo Records (he is a carpenter), then told a story about a dream he had.

In the dream, folk artists Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were at his house and wanted them to build items for them. Welch asked him about mosquito control, which led Witmer to ask: “Do you ever wear sweatpants?” Her answer was a cold “no,” then he woke up.

He played “A House With” next, which began with minimal instrumentation that eventually crescendoed into a massive wall of sound before cutting off abruptly, leaving Witmer as the lone musician performing at the song’s close.

The song “Making Love” brought drummer Kate Seifarth up to the mic alongside Kathryn Joy Nellis and Jes Plain for a wonderful harmonic vocal performance.

Witmer’s final song was “Shade I’ll Never See,” which also featured Stevens on the album version. Asa stole the show with his xylophone performance on this final song, and ended the set with his dad by playing a solo himself.

Black Buttafly, real name Kayla Childs, was the final act of the night and brought the house down with her funky, soulful tunes. Grammy-nominated drummer Steve McKie, guitarist Anthony DeCarlo, and saxophonist and vocalist Yesseh Furaha-Ali, formerly of SNACKTIME, supported her throughout her set.

She kicked it off with her hit 2024 single “Everybody Needs Love,” and after told the crowd she appreciated being “homegrown” in her hometown.

Childs played a new song titled “Stay,” that she said was written specifically for an engagement that happened at the venue. She dedicated the song to all the lovers out there.

“Tell Me If You Still Care” came next, and before the song Childs said it was written in the vein of the late, great D’Angelo, who died from pancreatic cancer at just 51 years old in October 2025. The song featured some slick electric piano and saxophone solos that followed the same melodies simultaneously, as well as some punchy staccato chords from Childs while Furaha-Ali tore through a solo.

The final song, “I Just Want to Be Alive,” was a pure jam. All four musicians on stage were deep in the pocket, with DeCarlo throwing down some intricate chord changes while providing groovy low end riffs to underline the song.

Furaha-Ali’s mastery of the sax was also on full display, with him mimicking the warble of an organ with his instrument before launching into another fiery solo. McKie got his own time in the spotlight with a drum break that had him pounding on the skins while Childs and Furaha-Ali belted out lyrics.

The song, and show as a whole, ended with a massive crescendo from Childs and her band.