Events Calendar

October Monthly Concert with Moonfruits

Friday, October 18, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

Get your tickets here!

FREE for Members *While Supplies Last* | $10 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Moonfruits

Fronted by partners Alex Millaire and Kaitlin Milroy, Ottawa-based Moonfruits are makers of art-folk bilingue. In a forest of banjo, guitar, kalimba and glockenspiel, their voices burrow and soar. Here is a reverie, tender and powerful, beckoning listeners to elevate the stuff of everyday life.

Four-time 2019 Trille Or nominees¹, Moonfruits have toured Canada coast to coast, moving audiences with a live show that mixes French and English organically, playfully, intentionally. Their début full-length Ste-Quequepart(2017) \saint-kehk-pahr or Saint Somewhere\ is an elaborate small town fiction that explores the faces of gentrification, isolation and community.

What grows in the forest of Moonfruits’ imagination is a songcraft that is elastic and never fails to transport. Moonfruits have toured extensively as a duo and performed accompanied by double bass, drums, keys and chamber instruments. Whether as a larger ensemble or with naught but their log and lamp, changes of scenery inspire Moonfruits, for they are as at home in your living room as they are in a concert hall.

Notable past performances include the NAC Fourth Stage, Place des Arts, CityFolk, Festival of Small Halls Ontario, La Nuit sur l’Étang, Blue Skies Music Festival, FrancoFEST de Hamilton (with members of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra), Festival du Voyageur, Quality Block Party, Victoria Bicycle Music Festival and the first simultaneous bilingual CBC/Radio-Canada broadcast.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF MOONFRUITS

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO MOONFRUITS 

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MOONFRUITS 

**Ticketing Policy**

The Philadelphia Folksong Society is proud to offer its’ members one or two free tickets (depending on membership level) to our selected Monthly Member Concert and Monthly House Concert every month. Due to the large number of members and limited seating, we ask that members reserve tickets when they know they can attend. If a member has reserved a ticket and cannot make it to the member concert of their choosing, they must contact the PFS office by phone or email prior to the event to cancel. Failure to do so will result in an inability to reserve your free member ticket to the following member concert.

If you arrive at a PFS member concert and have not reserved a ticket, you will only be seated ten minutes before show time if seats are still available.

If a member concert is listed as “sold out,” please contact Molly Hebert-Wilsonl at mhebertwilson@pfs.org to secure your spot atop the waitlist. You will be notified prior to the concert if seats become available.

PFS asks that all members show respect to their fellow members and the Society through following this policy.

Joe Crookston in Concert
Steel City Coffeehouse
SATURDAY OCT 19  8pm
Phoenixville, PA

Venue Address: 203 Bridge St. Phoenixville, PA 19460
Doors open at 7:00 (for dinner. BYOB), Show starts at 8:00 pm
Tickets are $15 (Advance). $18 at the Door
http://www.steelcitycoffeehouse.com/

For more information about this show please call 484-686-7027 or email:
ed@steelcitycoffeehouse.com

www.joecrookston.com

PFS Presents Rev Sekou with Special Guests Bethlehem and Sad Patrick

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Doors 7:00pm | Music 730pm

$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

PLEASE NOTE: ONLY LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE FOR THIS SHOW

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

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CLICK HERE TO WATCH REV. SEKOU’S TINY DESK CONCERT

About Rev Sekou – Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou

Osagyefo (oh-sah-GEE-fo) Uhuru (ooh-WHO-roo) Sekou (SAY-koo)

Noted activist, theologian, author, documentary filmmaker, and musician, Reverend Osagyefo Sekou was born in St. Louis, Missouri and raised in the rural Arkansas Delta. Rev. Sekou’s music is an unique combination of North Mississippi Hill Country Music, Arkansas Delta Blues, Memphis Soul and Pentecostal steel guitar. In May 2017, he released “In Times Like These” produced the six-time Grammy nominated North Mississippi Allstars. AFROPUNK heralded the ”deep bone-marrow-level conviction” of his first album, “The Revolution Has Come”. The single, “We Comin’”–was named the new anthem for the modern Civil Rights movement by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A consummate entertainer, Paste Studio celebrated his barn-burning performance saying: “Rev. Sekou delivers the spiritual performance we need now.”

A leading public intellectual, Rev. Sekou is releasing 5 books with Chalice Press—a publisher of progressive religious thought. Chalice Press is republishing Rev. Sekou’s “Urbansouls: Meditations on Youth, Hip Hop, and Religion” and “Gods, Gays, and Guns: Essays on Religion and the Future of Democracy”. His new titles are “The Task of the Artist in the Time of Monsters”; “This Ain’t Yo’ Daddy’s Civil Rights Movement: Ferguson, Black Lives Matter and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr”; and “A Liberation Theology of Ferguson”; He has written widely on the 2011 killing of Mark Duggan by British police and the subsequent London riots, and is the author of the forthcoming “Riot Music: Race, Hip Hop and the Meaning of the London Riots 2011” (Hamilton Books).

Rev. Sekou was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Education and Research Institute at the time of Michael Brown Jr.’s killing, and traveled to Ferguson in mid-August 2014 on behalf of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (the country’s oldest interfaith peace organization) to organize alongside local and national groups. With the Deep Abiding Love Project, he has helped trained over five thousands activists in militant nonviolent civil disobedience through the United States. He spent 6 weeks on the ground in Charlotteville, VA training clergy in response to the Unite the Right rally.

Reverend Sekou is featured in Orlando de Guzman’s 2015 documentary film Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory. He was arrested multiple times during the Ferguson Uprising, including for ‘Praying while Black’ outside the Ferguson Police Department in September, alongside over 40 clergy, faith leaders and community members during the 500-strong Moral Monday protest during last year’s Ferguson October convergence, and, more recently, on Moral Monday 2015, as part of more than 50 people and faced federal charges following a sit-in at the Department of Justice. In February 2016, Reverend Sekou stood trial for his first arrest in Ferguson and was found not guilty. In May 2015, Reverend Sekou moved back to St. Louis to focus on organizing against police violence, predatory court systems, and economic and social injustice.

His documentary short film, Exiles in the Promised Land is based on his visit to a refugee camp and lecture in Beirut, Lebanon. It was selected for the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival (2009). Having studied continental philosophy at the New School, systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary, and religion at Harvard University, Rev. Sekou has lectured widely, including at Princeton University, Harvard Divinity School, the University of Virginia, University of Paris IV – La Sorbonne, and Vanderbilt University, and is a former Professor of Preaching in the Graduate Theological Urban Studies Program at the Seminary Consortium of Urban Pastoral Education, Chicago, IL. Rev. Sekou was selected by Ebony Magazine’s Power 100, NAACP History Makers (2015), and on the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 –list of creative thinkers. He received the Keeper of the Flame Award from the National Voting Rights Institute and Museum in Selma, AL, and was appointed a Associate Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies.

Reverend Sekou served as Pastor for Formation and Justice at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston. He was formerly Senior Pastor of Lemuel Haynes Congregational Church in Queens, served as Special Assistant on Social Justice to the Bishop for the Church of God in Christ, Senior Community Minister at New York’s Judson Memorial Church, and Social Justice Minister at Middle Collegiate Church, New York. He has been Fellow-in-Residence at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, and as Ella Baker Fellow at New York Theological Seminary’s Micah Institute, he served as a strategist organizing clergy for economic justice in New York City.

He is a founding national coordinator for Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq (CALC-I), which represented over 300 faith-based institutions and organizations working to end the war in Iraq. In 2006, CALC-I led a civil disobedience at the White House at which more than 350 people were arrested, including sixty religious leaders.

Reverend Sekou was a delegate to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010. was a member of the inaugural Dorothy Cotton Institute Palestinian/Israeli Non-Violence Project’s delegation of US Civil Rights leaders to the West Bank in 2012. Reverend Sekou served as Editor as Chief of Spare Change News, the nation’s oldest continuous street newspaper, from 2012-2013.

Reverend Sekou also served on the National Political Hip Hop Convention Platform Committee and was Senior Adviser the 2004 Kucinich Presidential campaign. Following Hurricane Katrina, Reverend Sekou moved to New Orleans, founding the local Interfaith Worker Justice Center. Rev. Sekou co-led an interfaith delegation to Haiti one month after the tragic earthquake. He built toilets alongside the Haitian people. Based on a Lecture he delivered in Beirut, Lebanon, his short documentary film, Exiles in the Promised Land: The Quest for Home focuses on the plights of Palestinians, Iraqi, and post-Katrina New Orleans. The film was accepted at the Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival. Rev. Sekou was a delegate to the People’s World Climate Change Conference in Bolivia. He was a delegate to the Interdependence Day Conferences in Istanbul, Turkey and Berlin, Germany.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO REV. SEKOU ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT REV. SEKOU

About Bethlehem and Sad Patrick

Bethlehem and Sad Patrick combine soul, jazz, folk, vocals, guitar and percussion to deliver powerful songs on universal themes – the struggles of modern society, life in the city, and love and heartbreak.

Hailed by WXPN’s John Vetesse for their “focused minimalism and poetic lyrics, slick guitar, soaring vocals and nuanced melodies”, the Philadelphia duo releases 2016’s “Did You Ever Do?”, a polished set showcasing their skills in the studio realm.

But they are best experienced in person, with raw energy, solitary guitar, hand and foot percussion, and direct, heartfelt vocals. This year that’s what they’ve been concentrating on, playing events like the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the State Street Blues Stroll, the Heartwood Music Festival, and the Ladybug Music Festival.

When not performing, they’ve been writing and polishing songs for a record they hope to record in the fall, tentatively titled “Love and Other Struggles”.

PFS Presents Benjamin Dakota Rogers

Saturday, October 26, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

About Benjamin Dakota Rogers

Benjamin Dakota Rogers makes his highly anticipated return to the folk world with his brand new single, Better by Now, stripping the genre down to its core and emotionally charging it with the raw human experience that can only be delivered from the honesty and grit of a farm boy’s hands. Hailing from the countryside of rural Ontario, Benjamin funnels his penchant for starry nights and nostalgia into his stylized folk sound, reaching far beyond to include influences of roots, blues and country music.

Benjamin found a passion and purpose in folk music after inheriting his Great-Grandfather’s violin at the tender age of seven. From budding musician to awe-inspiring performer, his love of creating meaningful music has taken the reins and garnered much attention from folk artists and enthusiasts alike. “Rogers’ unique voice,thought-provoking lyrics, energetic performances and dynamic fiddle techniques leave this up-and-coming musician in a class of his own.” – InSpades Magazine.

With the release of his new single, this singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist folk-phenom proves he’s at the top of his game in every way imaginable, grasping for the stars that light up his quaint hometown of Scotland, ON. As he prepares for the release of his most ambitious project to date, Benjamin Dakota Rogers continues to redefine the genre with an infinite sound evolution that promises to deepen the path he’s already carved for himself for years to come.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF BENJAMIN DAKOTA ROGERS

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO BENJAMIN DAKOTA ROGERS

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BENJAMIN DAKOTA ROGERS

October House Concert with Carolyn Robson and Moira Craig

Monday, October 28, 2019
Potluck/Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

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About Carolyn Robson and Moira Craig

Carolyn Robson is a professional singer and musician specializing in traditional folk song and dance. Her extensive repertoire consists mainly of songs from her native Northumberland and Scotland as well as from other parts of the British Isles. She has appeared in several groupings, recently as part of trio Dempsey, Robson, Tweed with Kevin Dempsey (guitar and voice) and Karen Tweed (accordion). Along with Moira Craig she was part of the a capella trio Craig Morgan Robson until the untimely passing of Sarah Morgan.

Moira Craig is from East Kilbride, where her family have lived for generations, her grandfather, father and brothers were all singers and musicians. At family parties she and her brothers took turns singing and entertaining. Everyone sang or played and it could be anything from the latest pop song, the old songs and ballads, to music hall or whatever anyone fancied singing. Moira moved to London in 1983 to work as a nurse and singing has taken up most of her life outside of work since that time. She has long been recognized by club and festival goers for her superb interpretations of Scottish, Irish and English songs and ballads. A former winner of the “Sidmouth Singer of the Year” award, Moira became more widely known through her contributions to the Pastimes albums. She also has a solo album, “On Ae Bonny Day”. Moira has appeared in Britain, Germany and the USA, charming audiences with her clear ringing voice and wonderful repertoire.

PFS and the hosts ask that guests act in a respectful manner and be considerate of the performers and other attendees–if you do not, you may be asked to leave by PFS staff or the hosts.

Advance registrations for this performance are REQUIRED.

Admission is free for PFS members and $10 for Advanced Tickets for non-members.

The event will be held in the Overbrook neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. You will receive the exact address upon registering.

Please bring something to share! Potluck at 7:30pm, music at 8pm.

PFS November Monthly Concert with Abigail Lapell

Friday, November 1, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

About Abigail Lapell

Call it prairie noir, or Canadiana desert rock: Abigail Lapell sings haunting, gorgeous modern folk songs, mapping epic natural landscapes and deeply intimate, personal territory. The Toronto vocalist, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist has released three acclaimed solo albums. Hide Nor Hair, her Chris Stringer-produced sophomore LP, won a Canadian Folk Music Award for Contemporary Album of the Year in 2017. Since then, Lapell has been on the road, touring across Canada, the U.S. and Europe, and playing at festivals like Pop Montreal, Mariposa, In The Dead Of Winter, Tiny Lights and Folk On The Rocks. Getaway, , Lapell’s ambitious third release, is out February 1st 2019 on Coax Records/Outside.

“Powerful, sweet voice and warm guitar sound.” — NOW Toronto

“Her pipes have a smoky smoothness that creeps into the memories of your heart and lingers gracefully.” — Exclaim!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ABIGAIL LAPELL

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ABIGAIL LAPELL

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ABIGAIL LAPELL

PFS Presents AJ Ghent

Saturday, November 2, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

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$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

About AJ Ghent

AJ Ghent [j-ent] and His Singing Guitar construct a musical sound that can be heard howling from the church to the streets to the clubs. His style can be defined as fresh, nostalgic, electrifying and roots rock, — fusing blues, funk, rock, and pop, mashing it into a genre he likes to call, NEO BLUES. The energy and passion which resonates from AJ’s music, from the strum of the guitar and the conviction of the vocals, the pounding rhythm of the drums, to the thought provoking lyrics, is sure to be felt by any crowd. AJ aims to create an unforgettable experience for music lovers, with the hopes of taking them to a musical paradise. A little hip-shaking, finger snapping, head nodding is all you need for this tuneful travel excursion. He calls James Brown, Prince, and his family heritage as influences. He can be heard picking, sliding and strumming all over those strings, whether it’s one of his custom built 6 or 8-string lap steel hybrids or his acoustic resonator. What is different from most lap steel players is AJ performs standing upright like a guitar player, using his over handed technique to play slide, so that he can dance, and have more mobility during his live shows. AJ was born to fly!

AJ Ghent [J-ent] is a musician hailing from Fort Pierce, Florida and growing up was all about the music. Music has truly been running through his family for generations; such as his great uncle Willie Eason, the creator of the “Sacred Steel Tradition,” and his grandfather Henry Nelson, the founder of the “Sacred Steel” rhythmic guitar style. This style is played by many names today, such as Robert Randolph, The Campbell Brothers, and more. “Forged in the congregational hotbox of the Southern Pentecostal House of God church, sacred steel music is an electrified rhythm, punctuated by sharp blasts of soaring solos, played on amplified lap steel guitar. It’s an open tuning, on an eight-stringed instrument, and sometimes it can sound like the roaring, whooping and hollering voice of God himself has joined the gospel fervor.” (reference Connect Savannah, 2013) So around 12 years old, the young AJ got a hold of something special; “it was one of the first sacred steel CDs, with my father, my grandfather and my great uncle on there. At that point, I became interested in the instrument, and I would listen to that thing until I broke it.” (reference: Connect Savannah August 2013) After High School, AJ traveled down to the West Palm Beach, FL area with his sister, Tiffany Ghent to explore the city’s range of genres, from hip-hop to R&B, while playing in Top 40 music bands. However, AJ was in search of something more, a style that was uniquely his own.

Something was bubbling…Fresh with his marriage to his bride MarLa, a singer herself, he set his eyes on Atlanta, GA. When he arrived in Atlanta, AJ took on sideman jobs, studio session work. Not long after, AJ met the legendary Colonel Bruce Hampton who began to mentor him; teaching him what mattered the most; “time – tone and space” for all his music and life journeys. AJ was invited to play in Hampton’s band, Pharaoh’s Kitchen, which he did for about a year — and like true Colonel Bruce style, the elder statesman always reminded AJ to be ‘true to himself.’

He has had a colorful career thus far playing and opening for such legendary acts like Zac Brown, The Allman Brothers Band, Derek Trucks, Robert Cray, and Gov’t Mule. He can be heard on various recordings with Zac Brown, Luther Dickinson, and featured on Zac Brown’s 2013 Grohl Sessions Vol. 1 alongside Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters). AJ’s band has had various formations, from a trio to a full-size live band with horns, playing small clubs to mid-large sized festivals and arenas; dazzling audiences everywhere. In 2015, he released a DVD/CD called LIVE AT TERMINAL WEST – recorded and filmed at the Terminal West venue in the old King Plow factory in Atlanta, GA. This was well-received by fans and critics praising the fearless leader! “The 11-song album is a relentless, high-energy romp through gospel, soul and funk-infused landscapes, with a couple of cool-down moments just so the audience can catch their collective breath.” (Relix, 2015)

At the age of 31, AJ Ghent [J-ent] knows where his talent comes from and isn’t afraid to explore other sounds. His new album titled The Neo Blues Project is something different: A musical fusion form that takes art and skill to master, something that AJ Ghent [J-ent] has spent his whole life perfecting. The album debuted #7 on the Billboard Blues Charts on its release week in March 2018.

PFS Presents Bruce Sudano

Sunday, November 3, 2019
Doors 7:00pm | Music 7:30pm

$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Bruce Sudano

Bruce Sudano lives in the now. His forthcoming EP Stories of Our Lives Vol. 1 marks the latest chapter in his ongoing exploration of the human condition. The ever evolving singer songwriter continues to musically blur the lines between folk, blues, pop and soul with a poetry that touches a nerve.

On the project’s first single “With Him”, Sudano writes about a failing relationship that underscores how love and heartbreak is a shared experience that transcends sexuality.

The song produced by Mike Montali, lead singer from roots rock band Hollis Brown, is premiered with a video directed by Norwegian filmmaker Erik Bergamini, who vividly renders “With Him” through a haunting storyline intercut with Sudano’s impassioned performance.

Splitting his time between Los Angeles and Europe, Sudano increasingly makes performing live a centerpiece of his musical expression. “Songs don’t really come to life until you sing them in front of an audience,” he says. Appearing in venues from folk clubs to rock halls and theatres, he recently joined The Zombies lead singer Colin Blunstone on a sold out tour of the UK as well as appearing at the legendary Philadelphia Folk Festival.

Two subsequent singles, “In the Garden of November” and “The Mountain” are slated for video and single release before the complete Stories of Our Lives Vol. 1 arrives in the spring of 2020.
“Life is tricky,” he says. “I’m here to spread as much light as I can.”

For more information go to brucesudano.com and Wikipedia.

​CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF BRUCE SUDANO

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO BRUCE SUDANO

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BRUCE SUDANO

November House Concert with Kalyna Rakel

Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Potluck/Doors 7:30pm | Music 8:00pm

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CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Kalyna Rakel

Kalyna Rakel has always done things her own way. After early success at 16 with a video on Much Music, she walked away from a pop record deal in Europe to teach herself guitar and play music on the street. Since then she has recorded four independent albums and played her songs for thousands of people all around the world.

Her songs come straight from the heart, sung with a voice that has been described as Amy Winehouse meets Janis Joplin. With her tour van, Daisy, and Handsome, her steel resonator guitar, the stories in her songs evoke the raw sound of the traveling blues. Her latest record, ‘Before & After You’, is a two-part concept album telling the story of love gone good and bad. Featuring some of Canada’s top musicians, including legendary guitarist Kevin Breit, the album ranges from distorted garage blues to dreamy ethereal folk. The record comes with a 24-page comic book of Kalyna’s original drawings, featuring the album’s lyrics to tell the stories of the songs.

Whether she is playing for tips on the street or on a festival main stage, Kalyna delivers her songs with an honesty that can move a crowd to tears. As her following continues to grow, she remains true to her music and grateful for the opportunity to share her stories.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF KALYNA RAKEL

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT KALYNA RAKEL

PFS and the hosts ask that guests act in a respectful manner and be considerate of the performers and other attendees–if you do not, you may be asked to leave by PFS staff or the hosts.

Advance registrations for this performance are REQUIRED.

Admission is free for PFS members and $10 for Advanced Tickets for non-members.

The event will be held in Philadelphia, PA. You will receive the exact address upon registering.

Please bring something to share! Potluck at 7:30pm, music at 8:00pm.

PFS Presents Alice Howe and Freebo

Thursday, November 14, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

About Alice Howe and Freebo

When Alice Howe wants to unlock a memory or understand an emotion, she steps outside. “There’s something about the stillness,” she says. “When I’m sitting with my guitar and looking out at a forest or the ocean, I have the space to reflect to on people and places. My muse strikes.”

Vistas and the faces and emotions they summon unfurl with compelling grace on Visions, Howe’s anticipated debut album. A modern love letter to 60s and 70s folk and timeless blues, Visions pays homage without succumbing to imitation, and offers an intimate snapshot of a young artist discovering her own power. Early praise for Visions has streamed in from gatekeepers such as American Blues Scene and smitten local press alike. “Sometimes we’re lucky enough to catch an up-and-coming artist as they fly into our radar,” critic JD Nash writes. “This is one of those times.”

Howe’s path to “up-and-coming” artist seems both fated and winding. She grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, in a home filled with music and art. Long outdoor walks were encouraged, and Howe would often disappear to wander through her grandmother’s garden next door or to journal and turn experiences into songs. “I can’t remember not singing,” she says with a laugh. Her mother always had a record to put on––Muddy Waters, Taj Mahal, and other blues giants were favorites. Howe sang with her brother and her dad, Sandy––a gifted painter turned successful architect––and sang alone to herself, improvising and composing constantly.

Howe left home to attend Smith College, graduated and moved to Seattle before finding her way back to Massachusetts. While music was always her companion, it didn’t become her profession until she decided to attend the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference in 2016. There, she met Freebo, Bonnie Raitt’s beloved bassist for a decade and veteran of performances and collaborations with Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Ringo Starr, Loudon Wainwright III, Neil Young, Dr. John, and more. Howe knew she’d found an ideal collaborator. “I feel like it all happened because I was open to it and ready for it to happen,” she says, then adds with a laugh, “I was ready, so the universe said yes to me.”

Freebo invited Howe to record in Southern California, and Bakersfield’s sun-bleached grit became a creative counterweight to Howe’s lush New England naturalism. American roots music became Howe’s playground: blues, bluegrass, folk, and pop––with celtic nods––take turns defining the sounds on Visions, anchored by her rich soprano. An ace band backed Howe like she’d never been backed before, and the resulting collection is polished but energized by a young artist’s hunger to prove herself.

Album opener “Twilight” is an intimate introduction to Howe’s use of pastoral vignettes to invite confessional introspection. Her vocal flutters conjure up memories of celtic storytelling over a bed of acoustic guitar, keys, and more.

When it comes to covers, Howe handpicked gems from masters. She saunters through Muddy Waters’ “Honey Bee” and gives Sam Cooke’s “Bring It on Home to Me” a slow blues-build that makes for an R&B lullaby. In her admiring care, Taj Mahal’s “Lovin’ in My Baby’s Eyes” shines like the classic it is. “Too Long at the Fair,” penned by Joel Zoss and made famous by Bonnie Raitt, could not have found a more suitable young interpreter, and Howe is also beautifully at home with Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” swollen with sad tenderness.

Howe cowrote most of the album’s originals with Freebo, excluding “What We Got is Gold,” which takes refuge in love that refuses to fade as an accordion blends wistfulness and warmth to lead the other instruments in a layered pop-folk stroll. Featuring a supporting cast buoyed by b3 organ and horns, “Getaway Car” is a blues-fueled romp, while “You Just Never Know” veers confidently into bluegrass territory as Howe traces the people and places that have come, gone, and shaped her.

As more and more listeners discover Howe, she is hopeful and thankful, not just for deeper connections, but for her life’s labor that has finally become her focus and brought her here. Reflecting on her time in Bakersfield with the incredible musicians who played on Visions, she cannot contain her joy. “I was so supported and given this space to do my best work, and now, I’m so happy,” she says, smiling. “I’m so excited for people to hear it.”

PFS Presents Front Country

Friday, November 15, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

$12 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $15 Not-Yet-Members | $18 Doors

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Front Country

One day in late February, the five members of Front Country were warming up for their record release show at the renowned bluegrass club the Station Inn, in their new home base of Nashville, Tenn. They’d never played most of these songs live before. It wasn’t a given that these musicians would wind up in anything remotely resembling a bluegrass band. Singer Melody Walker got into world music and belted out roots-rock. Bassist Jeremy Darrow studied jazz. Leif Karlstrom trained as a classical violinist, and still prefers that title to “fiddle player.” Mandolinist Adam Roszkiewicz studied classical guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

The actual guitarist in the band, Jacob Groopman, did his share of exploring after college, too. “I was in an Afrobeat group for about five years, touring around in this 10-piece kind of hippie Afrobeat band,” Groopman says. In the bluegrass world, musicians tend to define themselves by their relationships to tradition — specifically, the tradition of high-and-lonesome singing and a hard-driving sound. There are regional variations from Virginia to Colorado. The West Coast has its own freewheeling tradition, and that’s where Front Country started out: at a monthly jam in San Francisco. Then its members heard about a band contest at a bluegrass festival. “And we ended up winning that band competition,” Walker says. “The very next day, I made a website for the band because I thought maybe people will be Googling Front Country at that point, possibly.”

From that point on, Front Country was a serious band. The group made a mixtape reimagining songs by Don Henley, King Crimson and the indie-pop band tUnE-yArDs. Front Country does play traditional tunes on the new album, like the Carter Family’s “The Storms Are On The Ocean” — though Roszkiewicz admits their arrangement makes it sort of unrecognizable. “It’s not so much to ruin it on principle with the rock music,” he laughs. “We might be doing things differently, but at the heart of it, it’s just songs, good songs we like that we can get behind.” Most of the new material, though, is original. Walker is the band’s primary songwriter, and for the album, she submitted 20 songs to her bandmates for a vote. One, called “Good Looking Young People,” seemed an especially unlikely candidate. “When I wrote it, I had an iPad drum machine app that I was using,” she explains. “So I had this beat that was kind of this super 808-sounding thing… Like, very Phil Collins, ‘In the Air Tonight.’ ”

The group decided to keep the rhythmic ideas and ditch the drum machine. And while Front Country’s members are more than capable of using traditional techniques on their instruments, they often choose not to. “We’re always trying to do things we’ve never done before on our instruments,” Roszkiewicz says. “I’ll be listening to the song, we’ll be working on the song and I’ll hear a synth line.” All of the musicians in Front Country also actually listen to, and respect, music made with beats, samples and electronic effects. “I think sometimes, when people dismiss pop, one of the things they’re dismissing is the craft aspect of it. Because obviously bluegrass and string-band music requires an enormous amount of craftsmanship,” Darrow says. “I think one of the things that we put on display is [that] rather than an element to be dismissed, the craft of pop music is just as intricate as it is in any other style. And maybe that’s a little clearer to see when we’re playing it on wooden instruments.” At this point, they realize it’s probably a stretch to call what they’re doing bluegrass at all. String-band pop is more like it. [ from NPR All Things Considered, by Jewly Hight ]

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF FRONT COUNTRY

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PFS Presents Irish Mythen with Andrea Nardello

Saturday, November 16, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

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$14 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $17 Not-Yet-Members | $20 Doors

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About Irish Mythen

Irish Mythen was born in Ireland and now resides in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island Canada.

“This Island creates music and musicians, art and artists. I found a shift to take things more seriously when I moved here.” And she did just that. Her latest release, the self titled Irish Mythen, gained her recognition around the globe with nominations and wins coming from Music PEI, East Coast Music Association, Folk Alliance International and Socan. Write-ups in Australian Guitar Magazine, the Rolling Stone, and a plethora of online publications world wide have helped plant Irish firmly on the map of ‘Must See Artists’.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF IRISH MYTHEN

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OPENING ACT: ANDREA NARDELLO

Philly’s Andrea Nardello has garnered favorable comparisons to Melissa Etheridge and Shawn Colvin for melding pop songwriting smarts with a confessional and literate songwriting style, exploring relationships, romance, and her out family life. Nardello’s refined accessibility draws from folk, pop, rock, and even the swagger of hip-hop. She can tug at your heartstrings with her softer tunes and get you dancing on your feet with her upbeat songs and powerful voice. Fans ride an unforgettable emotional roller coaster during her live shows.

Nardello has been busy touring and has opened for well known artists like Colbie Caillat, Brandi Carlile, Tony Lucca, Gabe Dixon, Ron Pope, Emerson Hart of Tonic Fame, and Tim Reynolds of The Dave Matthews Band. After releasing ECHO, Nardello won the prestigious Philadelphia Songwriter’s Project Contest and won Tri-State Indie’s “Acoustic Artist Of The Year.” Her songs, “Leave The Light On” and “Home To Me” each won WSTW’s Award for Folk Song Of The Year.

Nardello also spends time fundraising for important causes like The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The MILE (Music Is Love Exchange). Nardello completed two service trips to Guatemala in support of the MILE. The MILE is a network of artists, musicians, and music lovers that bring positivity and change to the lives of disadvantaged and underserved children, strengthening families and communities both in the U.S. and abroad. Nardello is always willing to help, offer her time and believes that music is a universal language that helps heal and connects us all.

Nardello teamed up with long time friend and collaborator, Matt Duke, to produce her new EP, Human, which was released on Noble Steed Music, last year. This beautifully haunting EP was recorded in Nardello’s home. She is excited to share it with her fans and expects to tour in the fall.

“For me, “Human” is a collection of songs that explores vulnerable topics. Loving someone when they are broken. Striving to challenge yourself when you are stuck. The final stages of life and all that is unknown. It is truly a soundtrack of my life and the people in it. I always get nervous before releasing new music and my only hope is that anyone who listens can connect to these songs in some special way.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ANDREA NARDELLO

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ANDREA NARDELLO ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ANDREA NARDELLO

PFS Presents Irish Mythen with Andrea Nardello

Saturday, November 16, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

$14 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $17 Not-Yet-Members | $20 Doors

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

CLICK HERE TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK

About Irish Mythen

Irish Mythen was born in Ireland and now resides in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island Canada.

“This Island creates music and musicians, art and artists. I found a shift to take things more seriously when I moved here.” And she did just that. Her latest release, the self titled Irish Mythen, gained her recognition around the globe with nominations and wins coming from Music PEI, East Coast Music Association, Folk Alliance International and Socan. Write-ups in Australian Guitar Magazine, the Rolling Stone, and a plethora of online publications world wide have helped plant Irish firmly on the map of ‘Must See Artists’.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF IRISH MYTHEN

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO IRISH MYTHEN ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IRISH MYTHEN

OPENING ACT: ANDREA NARDELLO

Philly’s Andrea Nardello has garnered favorable comparisons to Melissa Etheridge and Shawn Colvin for melding pop songwriting smarts with a confessional and literate songwriting style, exploring relationships, romance, and her out family life. Nardello’s refined accessibility draws from folk, pop, rock, and even the swagger of hip-hop. She can tug at your heartstrings with her softer tunes and get you dancing on your feet with her upbeat songs and powerful voice. Fans ride an unforgettable emotional roller coaster during her live shows.

Nardello has been busy touring and has opened for well known artists like Colbie Caillat, Brandi Carlile, Tony Lucca, Gabe Dixon, Ron Pope, Emerson Hart of Tonic Fame, and Tim Reynolds of The Dave Matthews Band. After releasing ECHO, Nardello won the prestigious Philadelphia Songwriter’s Project Contest and won Tri-State Indie’s “Acoustic Artist Of The Year.” Her songs, “Leave The Light On” and “Home To Me” each won WSTW’s Award for Folk Song Of The Year.

Nardello also spends time fundraising for important causes like The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The MILE (Music Is Love Exchange). Nardello completed two service trips to Guatemala in support of the MILE. The MILE is a network of artists, musicians, and music lovers that bring positivity and change to the lives of disadvantaged and underserved children, strengthening families and communities both in the U.S. and abroad. Nardello is always willing to help, offer her time and believes that music is a universal language that helps heal and connects us all.

Nardello teamed up with long time friend and collaborator, Matt Duke, to produce her new EP, Human, which was released on Noble Steed Music, last year. This beautifully haunting EP was recorded in Nardello’s home. She is excited to share it with her fans and expects to tour in the fall.

“For me, “Human” is a collection of songs that explores vulnerable topics. Loving someone when they are broken. Striving to challenge yourself when you are stuck. The final stages of life and all that is unknown. It is truly a soundtrack of my life and the people in it. I always get nervous before releasing new music and my only hope is that anyone who listens can connect to these songs in some special way.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ANDREA NARDELLO

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO ANDREA NARDELLO ON SPOTIFY

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ANDREA NARDELLO

PFS Presents The River Drivers Big Oak Road Release Tour

Saturday, November 23, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

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$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

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About The River Drivers

Philadelphia-based Celtic-tinged folk rock collective River Drivers is a four-piece band whose unique passion-infused style of music draws from Celtic, Americana, and Appalachian influences and features powerful and distinctive vocals. Influenced by the likes of Billy Bragg, Christy Moore, Ewan MacColl, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, the Paul McKenna Band and Altan, among many others, their repertoire strikes a fine balance of original songs and more obscure folk songs, resurrected from deep folk vaults.

Anchored by Kevin McCloskey (vocals, guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass) and Mindy Murray (vocals, guitar, banjo, bass) with accompaniment by Marian Moran (tin whistle, low whistle, concertina, melodica) and Meagan Ratini (fiddle, Irish flute, tin whistle), their high energy music explores pervasive themes of hard-working people and social justice.

River Drivers’ distinct flavor of music is a sum of its parts. Kevin McCloskey’s passion for songs portraying the plight of working men and women was kindled by a childhood of performing Irish standards with his father, Irish tenor Tommy McCloskey. The intensity he brings to his music was shaped by years with the hardcore punk band Wrong Answer.

Mindy Murray’s works are infused with the music of the mountains and the miners, having witnessed firsthand the struggles of day-to-day life in Appalachia during medical school. Years later, she and daughter Meagan Ratini formed the duo Port Murray. Meagan herself fell into Irish music over many years of mastering instrument after instrument. She became further immersed while helping to run the New Jersey Folk Festival.

Marian’s roots lie in Ardara, County Donegal, an epicenter of Irish traditional music. Whenever she can break away, she steals back to the rugged coastline village to recharge at its nightly sessions and music festivals, eventually bringing River Drivers over to perform at its famous Cup of Tae festival.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THE RIVER DRIVERS

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Description

PFS Presents Molsky’s Mountain Drifters

Thursday, December 5, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

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$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

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About Molsky’s Mountain Drifters – Tradition steeped in possibility.

Bruce Molsky, “one of America’s premier fiddling talents” (Mother Jones) and Grammy-nominated artist on fiddle, banjo, guitar and song is delighted to present his new group already on tour in the US. Bruce’s previous collaborations, with Anonymous 4, 1865 – Songs of Hope and Home from the American Civil War, was released to rave reviews and was on the top 10 Billboard charts for weeks. He is also a special guest on legendary guitarist Mark Knopfler’s latest CD, Tracker and is working on his 3rd album with Andy Irvine & Donal Lunny’s supergroup Mozaik. You can also hear Bruce on BBC TV Transatlantic Sessions singing with Joan Osborne, Julie Fowlis and fiddling with Scottish legend Aly Bain and America’s great dobroist Jerry Douglas. Bruce is also Berklee College of Music’s Visiting Scholar in the American Roots Program.

Allison de Groot combines wide ranging virtuosity and passion for old-time music. With her own bands The Goodbye Girls and Oh My Darling, she has played Trafalgar Square in London, Newport Folk Festival, Stockholm Folk Festival, the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and Tønder Festival in Denmark. Like Bruce, Allison loves collaborating and bringing new ideas to old music, and brings a fresh approach to the trio.

Boston-based Stash Wyslouch is one of bluegrass’s great young genre-bending pioneers. He got his start as a guitarist in metal bands before immersing himself in roots music as a member of The Deadly Gentlemen. Stash is a veteran festival performer, having played at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Rockygrass, Merlefest, Savannah Music Festival and others. Coming over from the punk-metal world, Stash brings great sensitivity and real emotion to the trio, plus some superb guitar and vocal chops.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF MOLSKY’S MOUNTAIN DRIFTERS

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PFS Presents Hank, Pattie & The Current

Saturday, December 7, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

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$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

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About Hank, Pattie & The Current

Bluegrass ambassadors Hank Smith and Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw join forces once again with their original and energetic new soulgrass band, Hank and Pattie. Hank and Pattie take traditional bluegrass and infuse it with their own flair, drawing from a melting pot of styles including Latin and Jazz, which adds up to an authentic and unique reflection of American music. While some of the music sounds old school and some sounds fresh and new, their overall musicianship, vocal harmonies, impassioned delivery and innovative arrangements captivate all generations of music lovers.

Hank and Pattie are backed by an all-star band comprised of North Carolina musicians Jonah Freedman on Bass and vocals, Billie Feather on guitar, and Robert Thornhill on mandolin and vocals.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF HANK, PATTIE & THE CURRENT

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PFS Presents Zoe Mulford

Saturday, January 4, 2019
Doors 7:30pm | Music 8pm

$10 for Members *While Supplies Last* | $12 Not-Yet-Members | $15 Doors

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About Zoe Mulford

Zoe Mulford is becoming best known as the writer of “The President Sang Amazing Grace,” which Joan Baez covered on her album “Whistle Down the Wind” in 2018. An American songwriter now living in the north of England, Zoe backs her clear voice with guitar or claw-hammer banjo to deliver powerful, evocative songs that draw on the traditional music of the US and the British Isles to make sense of the modern world.

“supremely evocative and sometimes cheekily humorous” – fRoots Magazine

Zoe grew up just outside Philadelphia, in Swarthmore. She took up the guitar and fell in love with the banjo during a twelve-year stint in Durham, North Carolina. Four years in Washington, DC introduced her to the community of contemporary songwriters, including the Azalea City Recordings cooperative. In 2006, she moved to the north of England. She now divides her time between Pennsylvania and Manchester, UK and tours on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The President Sang Amazing Grace” first appeared on Zoe’s 2017 album “Small Brown Birds” (Folk-DJ #1 Album, February 2017 and #4 Album of the Year.) Joan Baez heard the song on KPFA while driving near her home in California.

“It’s an amazing little tune,” said Baez in an interview on NPR News. “When I first heard it, I had to pull the car over, because I started crying. And then for the first two weeks of trying to figure it out on the guitar, I kept crying. I was afraid that when I got in the studio, it wouldn’t be over. But I went into the studio, and then I just looked at the musicians and I said, “Let’s go to church.”

Thoroughly engaging as a solo performer, Zoe has also collaborated onstage with performers as diverse as slide guitarist Pat Wictor, saxophonist Brad Yoder, and English fiddler Tom Kitching.

Other artists who have performed Zoe’s work include Rhiannon Giddens (in a very early recording with the Irish band Gaelwynd), the Kronos Quartet, and John Roberts & Tony Barrand in their “Nowell Sing We Clear” Christmas review. She is a past Kerville Newfolk Finalist and Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist and has had work published in Sing Out! Magazine.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO OF ZOE MULFORD

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January House Concert with Mike Agranoff