Meetinghouse Café Concerts
A series of Folk Music Nights offered at the Meetinghouse starting. Dates and performers are listed below. All concerts are at 8 p.m. For more information, call the Fellowship at (802) 440-9816.
The Meetinghouse Café is an intimate setting with a maximum of 100 seats. Advance purchase tickets are available by calling 802-440-9816 and leaving a reservation request, name and phone number or by emailing info@uubennington.org. Doors open 1 hour before each concert.
Upcoming Concerts:
Annie
and the Hedonists
September 19. $15
A band with a great lead singer and tight
harmonies, covering an eclectic mix of acoustic folk, torchy blues,
standards, bluegrass, gospel, labor ballads, early jazz, Annie & the
Hedonists features: Annie Rosen on lead vocals; Jonny Rosen on guitar and
vocals; Steve Fry on guitar, mandolin, trumpet, keyboard, and vocals; and
Betsy Fry on bass and vocals. In 2005 the Albany Times Union, December
2005: "ranked “Moonglow on the Midway" as one of the top ten "Best Local
CDs" in 2005." Metroland, in August 2001 said of Annie & the Hedonists:
“The sultry, blues-tinged singing of Annie Rosen and tight group harmonies
are framed by a variety of knockout lead instruments including guitar,
mandolin, trumpet, keyboards and dobro on an eclectic mix of blues, jazz,
swing, folk, and country.” The group has performed throughout the
northeast, including at Lake Paran, Caffe Lena, Eighth Step Coffeehouse
and First Nights in Saratoga Springs,
Albany and Johnstown, NY.
Nightingale
October 10, $15
Nightingale was formed in 1993 by Jeremiah McLane (accordion, piano), Keith Murphy (voice, guitar, mandolin, piano, foot percussion), and Becky Tracy (fiddle). The nightingale bird is a poetic figure that appears in
traditional songs from many places including parts of Northern Europe,
Canada and the United States. So the nightingale was an appropriate emblem
for a band commited to drawing inspiration from a wide musical territory
that includes Ireland, France, Scandinavia, Newfoundland and Quebec.
McLane, Murphy and Tracy were all established players in the traditional New England contra dance scene when they met and Nightingale quickly became a highly sought after New England dance band. But from its inception, Nightingale explored music outside the bounds of New England contra dance and could never be pigeon holed as simply a dance band. Songs of Quebec and Newfoundland were a staple of their repertoire and in their concerts they stretched the format of traditional dance music. Still, their experience as dance musicians generated an obsession with rhythmic integrity and the sustaining pulse that is the essence of dance music. The listener could never miss the underlying drive of much of Nightingale's music.
Nightingale has performed on CBC radio in Canada and was recently chosen for the Meet the Composer series in Saranac, New York. The band continues to perform at festivals, performing arts centers, folk clubs, and major dance events everywhere.
Bill
Staines
November 14, $15
Anyone not familiar with the music of Bill Staines is in for a special treat.
For over thirty five years, Bill has traveled back and forth across
North America, singing his songs and delighting audiences at festivals,
folksong societies, colleges, concerts, clubs and coffeehouses. A New
England native, Bill became involved with the Boston- Cambridge folk scene
in the early 1960's and, for a time, emceed the Sunday hootenanny at the
renowned Club 47 in Cambridge. Bill quickly became a popular performer in
the Boston area. In 1971, after one of his performances, a reviewer for
The Phoenix stated that Bill was "simply Boston's best performer." A
decade later, both in 1980 and 1981, the annual Reader's Poll of The
Boston Globe selected him as a favorite performer. In 1991 , Bill entered
his forth decade as a folk performer with an international reputation as
an artist.
Singing mostly his own songs, he has become one of the most popular singers on the folk music circuit today and averages around 200 concert dates a year.
Bill weaves a magical blend of wit and gentle humor into his performances, and as one reviewer wrote, "he has a sense of timing to match the best stand-up comic." His music is a slice of Americana, reflecting with the same ease, his feelings about the prairie people of the Midwest or the adventurers of the Yukon.
Interspersed between original songs, Bill also includes songs ranging from traditional folk tunes to more contemporary country ballads and delights in having the audience participate in many of the numbers. He may even do a yodeling tune or two- having won the National Yodeling Championship in 1975 at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville Texas.
A number of Bill's songs have been recorded by other artists including, Peter, Paul, & Mary, Makem and Clancy, Nanci Griffith, Mason Williams, The Highwaymen, Glen Yarborough, Jerry Jeff Walker, Grandpa Jones, Priscilla Herdman and others. Bill has recorded twenty-two of his own albums, fifteen of which are still in print. Additionally, Bill's songs have been published in four songbooks, If I Were A Word, Then I'd Be A Song, River, Music To Me, The Songs of Bill Staines, and All God's Critters Got A Place In The Choir. Two of the books contain nearly one hundred of Bill's songs.
Wintergreen
December 5, $15
Alice and Larry Spatz perform throughout the Northeast,
appearing on television, radio, at folk festivals, in concert and at
clubs, schools and colleges. Active folk musicians since the 1960s, they
have performed internationally and recorded several albums and tapes as
soloists and with other performers. They may play as many as eight
instruments during a performance, including double bass, autoharp,
psaltery, guitar, mountain dulcimer, recorder, banjo, and percussion.
Their appeal is wide, from audiences of pre-schoolers to senior citizens.
As members of the folk trio October Mountain, along with Anson Olds, they
appeared monthly on a live radio show broadcast on WAMC, "The Northeast
Folk Festival." Alice has recorded as a vocalist and bassist with Cindy
Mangsen and Bernice Lewis.
Jared Polens plays hammer dulcimer solo and with others throughout
the Northeast. He was a member of the contradance band, Southwind, and
also sings with the a capella vocal quartet Northern Spy which has opened
for Maura O'Connell and Tom Paxton. Jared has recorded as a vocalist with
Alouette Iselin of Nelson, NH and with Ed Kohn of Windsor, MA. For several
years he organized weekly music nights on the summit of Mount Greylock and
he has frequently performed at the Acoustic Brew in Williamstown, MA.
Pete and Karen Sutherland
January 16, $15
Champlain Valley born-and-raised, are
twenty-five-year-plus veterans of the New England and national folk
scenes. They are known for their wide knowledge of traditional music and
music-making styles, their songwriting talents and their joy of performing
for and with listening and dancing audiences of every description. At
schools, libraries, dances, festivals and celebrations and in their
commitment to rooting out the best of the old and injecting their own
sensibilities as well, the Sutherlands represent the living folk tradition
-- links in the endless chain of people making music that breathes and
dances in their own rhythm, that tells their own stories.