David Bromberg

GNP proudly presents an evening with The David Bromberg Quartet and Loudon Wainwright III at the Somerville Theatre for one show only Thursday, June 14 at 8PM. Reserved seat tickets are $37.50, $34.50 (plus $1 facility fee) and go on sale Friday, February 24th at 10am on the web at feitheatres.com/somerville-theatre/events and without service fees starting at 4pm at the Somerville Theatre box office (55 Davis Sq. on the Red Line) open daily 4pm-8pm (except holidays). For assistance with handicapped accessible seating please call the Somerville Theatre at 617-625-4088 between 4pm – 8pm.

“The reason man created stringed instruments. David touched them with a lover’s fingers and they moaned that true love right back at him. Wood and wire and flesh spoke.” – Jerry Jeff Walker on David Bromberg

Born in Philadelphia in 1945 and raised in Tarrytown, NY, “as a kid I listened to rock ’n’ roll and whatever else was on the radio,” says Bromberg. “I discovered Pete Seeger and The Weavers and, through them, Reverend Gary Davis. I then discovered Big Bill Broonzy, who led me to Muddy Waters and the Chicago blues. This was more or less the same time I discovered Flatt and Scruggs, which led to Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.”

Bromberg began studying guitar-playing when he was 13 and eventually enrolled in Columbia University as a musicology major. The call of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the mid-’60s drew David to the downtown clubs and coffeehouses, where he could watch and learn from the best performers, including primary sources such as his inspiration and teacher, the Reverend Gary Davis.

Bromberg’s range of material, based in the folk and blues idioms, continually expanded with each new album to encompass bluegrass, ragtime, country and ethnic music, and his touring band grew apace. Despite jubilant, loose-limbed concerts and a string of acclaimed albums on the Fantasy label, Bromberg found himself exhausted by the logistics of the music business. “I decided to change the direction of my life,” he explains. So David dissolved his band in 1980, and he and his artist/musician wife, Nancy Josephson, moved from Northern California to Chicago, where David attended the Kenneth Warren School of Violin Making. Though he still toured periodically, the recordings slowed to a trickle and then stopped. As 2010 drew to a close, David is completing an ambitious new album entittled Use Me, which features David collaborating with friends like John Hiatt, Levon Helm, Los Lobos, Tim O’Brien, Vince Gill, Widespread Panic, Dr. John, Keb’ Mo’ and others.

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright III started playing the guitar around 1960 and after seeing Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival in 1962 acquired a brand new musical role model. He worked a variety of jobs – movie house janitor, boatyard barnacle scraper, and cashier-cook-dishwasher at New York’s first macrobiotic restaurant, the Paradox on East 7th Street. This was also the time I started to write my own songs. Male singer-songwriters were a happening commodity in the 1960’s and was signed to Atlantic Records in 1969. The first album came out in 1970 and the career’s been up and down ever since.

Career accomplishments include1972′s “Dead Skunk” (#1 in Little Rock Arkansas for six weeks) and my 3 appearances on the M*A*S*H TV show in 1975 as Capt. Calvin Spaulding, the singing surgeon. Hopefully you’d mention my two Grammy nominations for the albums I’m Alright (1985) and More Love Songs (1986). The late great Johnny Cash recorded Mr Wainwright’s song “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry” for his highly acclaimed 1994 album American Recordings. BBC II TV hosted the show, Loudon And Co. and the topical songs he has been writing for N.P.R. and Ted Koppel’s Nightline on ABC and recorded and released 15 albums.

At 65, Loudon Wainwright III is older than his father ever was, and it’s got him thinking, and writing, and singing. His new album ‘Older Than My Old Man Now’ (April 17/2nd Story Sound Records) is a collection of fifteen original songs in which Loudon sizes up his own tangled life and family history and mortality in general with unflinching candor and humor.

His latest release, ‘Older Than My Old Man Now’ features contributions from all four of Loudon’s children – Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche and Lexie Kelly Wainwright – as well as two of their three mothers, Suzzy Roche and Ritamarie Kelly. Also included are recitations of passages written by Loudon Wainwright Jr., Loudon’s father and famous LIFE Magazine columnist, and a recording of “Over The Hill,” the only song Loudon co-wrote with his first wife, the late great Kate McGarrigle.

“Contemporaries of mine have recently taken to writing memoirs and autobiographies. I decided I would try to tell the story of my swinging life in a 3 and a ½ minute song,” says Loudon of “The Here & the Now,” the album’s first track.

Loudon was awarded a GRAMMY for his 2009 release, ‘High Wide & Handsome – The Charlie Poole Project.’ He is also an accomplished actor and has appeared in films directed by Martin Scorsese, Judd Apatow, Tim Burton, and Cameron Crowe.

Links: David Bromberg – Loudon Wainwright – Tickets – Somerville Theatre – Theater Directions

Bonnie Raitt

GNP & Eastern Artists welcome Bonnie Raitt with very special guest Marc Cohn to the Palace Theatre for one show only Saturday, June 2 at 8PM. Reserved seat tickets are $62 & $52 (includes $3 facility fee, $.50 donation to charity) and are on sale now without service fees at the Palace Theatre box office located at 19 Clinton Ave. (on the Clinton Avenue Side of the theatre) open Mon – Fri from 10am-5pm and Saturdays from 10am-2pm. Tickets may also be purchased on the web at www.ticketmaster.com by phone at (800) 745-3000 and all Ticketmaster outlets. For special benefit seating, visit www.bonnieraitt.com.

With the release of her nineteenth album, Slipstream, Bonnie Raitt is starting anew. The album marks her return to studio recording after seven years; it’s coming out as the launch of her own label, Redwing Records; and it delivers some of the most surprising and rewarding music of her remarkable career, thanks in part to some experimental sessions with celebrated producer Joe Henry. The album’s title is very significant for Bonnie —Slipstream isn’t just a beautiful sounding word, but an indication of her place in the music community. “I’m in the slipstream of all these styles of music,” she says. “I’m so inspired and so proud to continue these traditions, whether it’s reggae or soul or blues. I’m in the slipstream of those who came before me, and I’m leaving one for those behind me. I’m holding up the traditions of the music that I love.”

The years before and after Raitt’s last album, 2005′s acclaimed Souls Alike, weren’t an easy time for her, with the passing of parents, her brother, and a best friend. So after following that album with her usual long run of touring—winding up with the “dream come true” of the “BonTaj Roulet” revue with Taj Mahal in 2009 and a triumphant appearance at the all-star Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concerts the same year— she decided to step back and recharge for a while.

“I took a hiatus from touring and recording to get back in touch with the other part of my life,” she says. “On the road, under stress, it’s hard to stay in balance and move forward.” “I didn’t have to be the professional version of myself for a long time,” she says. “It wasn’t so much a vacation as a chance to take care of a lot of neglected areas of my life, a lot of processing after all that loss and activity.”

More than just a best-selling artist, respected guitarist, expressive singer, and accomplished songwriter, Bonnie Raitt has become an institution in American music. “I’m certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who’ve ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages, and talked to their kids,” she says. “I was especially lucky as so many of them are no longer with us.”

In between sessions, when not burning highways on tour with her band, she devoted herself to playing benefits and speaking out in support of an array of worthy causes, campaigning to stop the war in Central America; participating in the Sun City anti-apartheid project; performing at the historic 1980 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden; co-founding MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy); and working for environmental protection and for the rights of women and Native Americans.

After all the awards and honors and decades of virtually non-stop touring under her belt, Bonnie continued her activism and guesting on numerous friends’ records, including Ruth Brown, Charles Brown, Keb’ Mo, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Bruce Cockburn, as well as tribute records for Richard Thompson, Lowell George, and Pete Seeger. In the years in and around the release of Souls Alike, she co-headlined with Jackson Browne and Keb Mo’ part of the historic “Vote For Change” tour leading up to the 2004 Presidential election, and then again for the 2008 election, staged a series of benefit concerts and fundraising receptions to help get out the vote and encourage voting in key Democratic Senate races. In 2007, Bonnie joined her MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) friends Jackson Browne and Graham Nash to launch a campaign to prevent the legislative bailout of the nuclear industry and developed www.nukefree.org, a website that serves as an information and networking hub for safe energy activists. In August 2011, MUSE mounted a very successful benefit concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre to raise funds for Japan disaster relief (following the devastating earthquake, tsunami and meltdown of the Daichi-Fukushima nuclear reactors earlier in the year,) as well as non-nuclear organizations worldwide.

Bonnie continues to use her influence to affect the way music is perceived and appreciated in the world. In 1988, she co-founded the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which works to improve royalties, financial conditions, and recognition for a whole generation of R&B pioneers to whom she feels we owe so much. In 1995, she initiated the Bonnie Raitt Guitar Project with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, currently running in 200 clubs around the world, to encourage underprivileged youth to play music as budgets for music instruction in the schools run dry. Bonnie currently sits on the Advisory or Honorary Boards of a number of organizations, including Little Kids Rock, Rainforest Action Network, Music Maker Relief Foundation and the Arhoolie Foundation.

Her commitment to the redemptive power of music is expressed in the foreword she wrote to American Roots, the book based on 2001′s PBS series of the same name. “I feel strongly that this appreciation needs to be out there so that black, Latino and all kids can understand the roots of their own musical heritage,” she explains. “The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.”

As a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, Marc Cohn combines the precision of a brilliant tunesmith with the passion of a great soul man. He’s a natural storyteller, balancing the exuberant with the poignant, and able to distill universal truth out of his often romantic, drawn-from-life tales. Cohn’s own career took off at the turn of another decade, in 1990, with the recording of his critically acclaimed, self-titled debut disc, which yielded such classics in their own right as “Walking In Memphis,” “Silver Thunderbird,” and the lovely “True Companion.” Just as a consumer and a total music fan, if I saw a sequence on a record that had songs by Paul Simon, Badfinger, John Lennon, Cat Stevens, The Grateful Dead and Bread, I would immediately be intrigued, and I’d probably buy it just to find out how badly the artist had lost the plot! But somehow all those disparate styles and approaches to songwriting seem like they belong together.”

Now, Listening Booth:1970 ultimately brings Cohn back to where he began– writing songs like ‘Walking In Memphis’ which spoke so eloquently about the transformative, healing power of music. Like that hit single, Listening Booth: 1970 is really the soundtrack to his life. As Cohn reflects, “It seemed like such a natural progression for me to do a record like this because, if you’ve been following my records from my first single, I have been paying tribute to musicians through my writing all along, from Al Green to Elvis to Levon Helm to Charlie Christian, It’s really been a touchstone for me. Now I’m just repaying a debt of gratitude to the artists who’ve changed my life and taught me how to do what I do.”

Collaborating with longtime producer-arranger-multi-instrumentalist and fellow Grammy Award winner John Leventhal, Cohn doesn’t merely recreate the sounds of this storied time. On Listening Booth:1970, he transforms songs from such artists as Cat Stevens, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison, Smokey Robinson, Creedence Clearwater Revival and even Bread into tracks that are warm, soulful, more than a little sexy and full of easy-going charm. These highly personal interpretations say as much about Cohn’s own history – his experiences, his memories, his inspirations – as about the legacy of these songs. They’ve been so creatively and confidently re-imagined, and sung with such feeling, they practically feel brand new.

Links: Bonnie Raitt – Marc Cohn – Tickets – Palace Box Office – Palace Theatre – Directions

Bonnie Raitt

GNP welcomes Bonnie Raitt with very special guest Marc Cohn to Merrill Auditorium for one show only May 31, 2012 at 8PM. Tickets are sold out for this performance. Tickets may be available closer to the date of the show. Contact the Porttix box office (located at 20 Myrtle St. Portland) open Mon – Sat. Noon-6pm for more info at 207-842-0800. For special benefit seating, visit www.bonnieraitt.com.

With the release of her nineteenth album, Slipstream, Bonnie Raitt is starting anew. The album marks her return to studio recording after seven years; it’s coming out as the launch of her own label, Redwing Records; and it delivers some of the most surprising and rewarding music of her remarkable career, thanks in part to some experimental sessions with celebrated producer Joe Henry. The album’s title is very significant for Bonnie —Slipstream isn’t just a beautiful sounding word, but an indication of her place in the music community. “I’m in the slipstream of all these styles of music,” she says. “I’m so inspired and so proud to continue these traditions, whether it’s reggae or soul or blues. I’m in the slipstream of those who came before me, and I’m leaving one for those behind me. I’m holding up the traditions of the music that I love.”

The years before and after Raitt’s last album, 2005′s acclaimed Souls Alike, weren’t an easy time for her, with the passing of parents, her brother, and a best friend. So after following that album with her usual long run of touring—winding up with the “dream come true” of the “BonTaj Roulet” revue with Taj Mahal in 2009 and a triumphant appearance at the all-star Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concerts the same year— she decided to step back and recharge for a while.

“I took a hiatus from touring and recording to get back in touch with the other part of my life,” she says. “On the road, under stress, it’s hard to stay in balance and move forward.” “I didn’t have to be the professional version of myself for a long time,” she says. “It wasn’t so much a vacation as a chance to take care of a lot of neglected areas of my life, a lot of processing after all that loss and activity.”

More than just a best-selling artist, respected guitarist, expressive singer, and accomplished songwriter, Bonnie Raitt has become an institution in American music. “I’m certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who’ve ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages, and talked to their kids,” she says. “I was especially lucky as so many of them are no longer with us.”

In between sessions, when not burning highways on tour with her band, she devoted herself to playing benefits and speaking out in support of an array of worthy causes, campaigning to stop the war in Central America; participating in the Sun City anti-apartheid project; performing at the historic 1980 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden; co-founding MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy); and working for environmental protection and for the rights of women and Native Americans.

After all the awards and honors and decades of virtually non-stop touring under her belt, Bonnie continued her activism and guesting on numerous friends’ records, including Ruth Brown, Charles Brown, Keb’ Mo, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Bruce Cockburn, as well as tribute records for Richard Thompson, Lowell George, and Pete Seeger. In the years in and around the release of Souls Alike, she co-headlined with Jackson Browne and Keb Mo’ part of the historic “Vote For Change” tour leading up to the 2004 Presidential election, and then again for the 2008 election, staged a series of benefit concerts and fundraising receptions to help get out the vote and encourage voting in key Democratic Senate races. In 2007, Bonnie joined her MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) friends Jackson Browne and Graham Nash to launch a campaign to prevent the legislative bailout of the nuclear industry and developed www.nukefree.org, a website that serves as an information and networking hub for safe energy activists. In August 2011, MUSE mounted a very successful benefit concert at Shoreline Amphitheatre to raise funds for Japan disaster relief (following the devastating earthquake, tsunami and meltdown of the Daichi-Fukushima nuclear reactors earlier in the year,) as well as non-nuclear organizations worldwide.

Bonnie continues to use her influence to affect the way music is perceived and appreciated in the world. In 1988, she co-founded the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which works to improve royalties, financial conditions, and recognition for a whole generation of R&B pioneers to whom she feels we owe so much. In 1995, she initiated the Bonnie Raitt Guitar Project with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, currently running in 200 clubs around the world, to encourage underprivileged youth to play music as budgets for music instruction in the schools run dry. Bonnie currently sits on the Advisory or Honorary Boards of a number of organizations, including Little Kids Rock, Rainforest Action Network, Music Maker Relief Foundation and the Arhoolie Foundation.

Her commitment to the redemptive power of music is expressed in the foreword she wrote to American Roots, the book based on 2001′s PBS series of the same name. “I feel strongly that this appreciation needs to be out there so that black, Latino and all kids can understand the roots of their own musical heritage,” she explains. “The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.”

As a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, Marc Cohn combines the precision of a brilliant tunesmith with the passion of a great soul man. He’s a natural storyteller, balancing the exuberant with the poignant, and able to distill universal truth out of his often romantic, drawn-from-life tales. Cohn’s own career took off at the turn of another decade, in 1990, with the recording of his critically acclaimed, self-titled debut disc, which yielded such classics in their own right as “Walking In Memphis,” “Silver Thunderbird,” and the lovely “True Companion.” Just as a consumer and a total music fan, if I saw a sequence on a record that had songs by Paul Simon, Badfinger, John Lennon, Cat Stevens, The Grateful Dead and Bread, I would immediately be intrigued, and I’d probably buy it just to find out how badly the artist had lost the plot! But somehow all those disparate styles and approaches to songwriting seem like they belong together.”

Now, Listening Booth:1970 ultimately brings Cohn back to where he began– writing songs like ‘Walking In Memphis’ which spoke so eloquently about the transformative, healing power of music. Like that hit single, Listening Booth: 1970 is really the soundtrack to his life. As Cohn reflects, “It seemed like such a natural progression for me to do a record like this because, if you’ve been following my records from my first single, I have been paying tribute to musicians through my writing all along, from Al Green to Elvis to Levon Helm to Charlie Christian, It’s really been a touchstone for me. Now I’m just repaying a debt of gratitude to the artists who’ve changed my life and taught me how to do what I do.”

Collaborating with longtime producer-arranger-multi-instrumentalist and fellow Grammy Award winner John Leventhal, Cohn doesn’t merely recreate the sounds of this storied time. On Listening Booth:1970, he transforms songs from such artists as Cat Stevens, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Van Morrison, Smokey Robinson, Creedence Clearwater Revival and even Bread into tracks that are warm, soulful, more than a little sexy and full of easy-going charm. These highly personal interpretations say as much about Cohn’s own history – his experiences, his memories, his inspirations – as about the legacy of these songs. They’ve been so creatively and confidently re-imagined, and sung with such feeling, they practically feel brand new.

Links: Bonnie Raitt – Marc Cohn – Tickets – Merrill Auditorium – Directions

Cowboy Junkies

GNP welcomes Cowboy Junkies with very special guest Joe Purdy to Somerville Theatre for one show only March 8, 2012 at 7:30PM. Reserved seat tickets are $40, $35 & $25 (plus $1 facility fee) and go on sale FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18th without service fees at the Somerville Theatre box office (55 Davis Sq. on the Red Line) open daily 4pm-8pm (except holidays). Tickets may be purchased on the web at feitheatres.com/somerville-theatre/events. For assistance with handicapped accessible seating please call the Somerville Theatre at 617-625-4088 between 4pm – 8pm.

For more than 20 years, Cowboy Junkies have remained true to their unique artistic vision and to the introspective, quiet intensity that is their musical signature, creating a critically acclaimed body of original work that has endeared them to an audience unwavering in its loyalty. Three of the band’s members – singer Margo Timmins; songwriter, producer and guitarist Michael Timmins; and drummer Peter Timmins – are siblings, and bassist Alan Anton has been a member since the group formed in Toronto in 1985. Few bands have lasted nearly as long with their original line-up intact, and fewer still have created as consistently satisfying a body of work.

In an interview Margot Timmons she describes how she evolved as the Cowboy Junkies front woman. “And, out of all of us kids, I was never the one who wanted to be famous; my siblings did. When I was a kid, I was the one who wanted to stay at home and make the beds and get married and have six kids like my mom did. So I just wasn’t very comfortable onstage — it was like I didn’t feel like I had the ‘right’ to be a singer or something. “John Prine helped me change my thinking on that (when the group went out on tour with Prine in 1990). He told me to just have fun, that it was ‘okay for me to be a singer,’ to go out and relax, and if you fall down, who cares?’ That was a big turning point for me.”

Cowboy Junkies continue an ambitious schedule of four releases over an 18 month period, collectively titled “The Nomad Series.” Sing In My Meadow is a collection of songs recorded over a four day period that evokes the psychedelic, blues-inspired forays the band is fond of exploring on stage. Michael Timmins says “I’m the father of three young kids, and I’ve got aging parents, so that’s obviously a big part of my life. But I found that what was going on in the outside world was affecting my writing. These times are extremely trying. What sort of world is being set up for my kids? All of that began to brew together.” The result is an album that takes family as a starting point, but goes on to look at the vast range of people’s responsibilities to and for each other.

Joe Purdy is an independent musician. His records are self-released and he likes it that way. By cultivating a world-wide audience, gaining commercial recognition, and selling his music direct to fans, Joe has positioned himself at the forefront of a new movement of successful independent artists. His fans include music tastemakers and early adopters, as well as followers of mainstreams acts such as Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen. His music has been featured on TV in such programs as Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and House, MD and the feature film The Secret Life of Bees featuring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long.

Links: Cowboyjunkies.com – Joepurdy.com – Tickets – Somerville Theatre – Directions

Tickets: ON SALE NOW

Aimee Mann

GNP welcomes the return of Aimee Mann to Somerville Theatre on Thursday, January 19th at 8PM with special guest Ivan & Alyosha. Reserved seat tickets are $42.50 & $38.50 (includes $1 facility fee) and are on sale now without service fees at the Somerville Theatre box office (55 Davis Sq. on the Red Line) open daily 4pm-8pm (except holidays). Tickets may be purchased on the web at feitheatres.com/somerville-theatre/events/. For assistance with handicapped accessible seating please call the Somerville Theatre at 617-625-4088 between 4pm – 8pm.

“There are few artists who have the panache to pull off an evening of ‘the melancholy’, yet leave the audience smiling and laughing along with her from start to finish. Then again, there are few artists like Aimee Mann. From her work in the 80’s with MTV favorite Til Tuesday through her acclaimed solo discs “Whatever” and “I’m With Stupid” in the 90s, Aimee Mann has always been at the forefront of contemporary songwriters. The close of the millennium brought her great success, with the simultaneous releases of Bachelor No. 2 and the soundtrack to the film Magnolia, which garnered nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and three Grammys. After a decade in which her music often took a backseat to corporate mergers and contractual obligations, the message was clear: Aimee Mann is here to stay.

From “Voices Carry” to the Oscar-nominated “Save Me,” Mann has always been known for her clever, literate, and dryly witty takes on emotional sabotage and self-destruction. Though happily married to Michael Penn (with whom she has toured extensively in a double-billed “Acoustic Vaudeville”), her fascination continues with “the freaks who could never love anyone.” With a song craft often compared with the Beatles and Badfinger, Mann frequently pairs the bleakest of poetry with soaring, infectious melodies.

“I’ve always been fascinated with eccentric personalities,” says the Los Angeles based singer songwriter. On Smilers, her seventh solo CD, Mann presented thirteen exquisitely-crafted songs about the inner life of people living far from the bright lights of success or fame. Some of them are wanderers searching for meaning on the road, others look for it in a shot glass or by losing themselves in the blue trance of a TVset, and still others believe their deliverance will come through money. From the punch-drunk characters haunting the twilight world of a dusty downtown boxing gym, to a onetime financial big-shot who’s returned home after taking a tumble, Mann paints spare, vivid portraits of people who seem to always wind up with the smallest slice of American pie. The songs are soulful, empathetic and somehow ultimately hopeful and optimistic. Says Mann, “When I write about them — the narcissists, performers, eccentrics, know-it-alls – it helps me recognize some truths about the world and about myself.”

Aimee Mann is currently in the studio recording her next, as yet untitled CD scheduled for release in the Spring of 2012. Simultaneously, she is writing a musical. Expect new songs from both to be premiered on January 19^th.

– —

Ivan & Aloysha

There’s a scene in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov where the main characters Ivan and Alyosha discuss the existence of God. Ivan, in particular, questions the idea of God. Alyosha, on the other hand, is a monk, a believer, some may say, a holy fool.

Talk of faith and exalted things is rare in indie rock today. Enter Seattle band Ivan & Alyosha. Throughout their second release, the five song Fathers Be Kind EP, the band chart their own course between divinity and disbelief.

Ivan & Alyosha began as the solo outlet for Tim Wilson but in spring 2007 the band formed after Tim met Ryan Carbary through a former band mate and mutual friend. Ryan and Tim began playing and recording together and a trip to Los Angeles to work with Eli Thompson (Richard Swift, Delta Spirit) spawned the name Ivan & Alyosha. According to Tim, Thompson is a huge Dostoevsky fan and the name stuck. With that, Wilson and Carbary released The Verse, The Chorus, their debut EP on Cheap Lullaby Records (Joan as Police Woman, The Silver Seas, Teitur). The stand out track “Easy To Love” earned NPR Song of the Day honors as “a propulsive, sweetly booming ode to love as a feat of endurance.”

The name Ivan & Alyosha is apt for a band cutting its teeth. As Ivan in Brothers Karamazov moves through the novel with doubts, Ivan & Alyosha navigate the indie rock world contemplating their path as a band. Tim says he writes songs about what’s current in his life. Despite the uncertainty, Ivan & Alyosha’s soulful folk tunes suggest a band inspired, hopeful and longing; a band unafraid to probe their collective faith and doubts.

Tim and Ryan are joined by two others – Tim Kim and Pete Wilson, Tim’s brother. Seattle’s Ivan & Alyosha are not nihilist indie rockers but a new brand of tender dreamers. And non-believers be damned! God, or no God – these guys are no holy fools. They have their music to prove it.

Links: Aimeemann.com – Ivan & Alyosha – Tickets – Somerville Theatre – Directions

PATTY LARKIN AND DAVID JOHANSEN A/K/A BUSTER POINDEXTER JOIN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE TO THE LATE SINGER-SONGWRITER BILL MORRISSEY
NOVEMBER 17TH AT SOMERVILLE THEATRE
TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
PROFITS TO BENEFIT MUSICARES

Bill Morrissey

Patty Larkin, David Johansen, Shawn Colvin, Barry Crimmins, John Gorka, Peter Case, Cormac McCarthy, Peter Keane, Fred Koller, Pete Nelson, and Mark Erelli will share the stage with hosts Cliff Eberhardt and David Dye (host of nationally syndicated NPR radio show, World Cafe) at Somerville Theatre on Thursday, November 17th to pay tribute to friend, mentor, and fellow troubadour Bill Morrissey who passed away from heart failure on July 23rd.

Reserved seat tickets to “Friend of Mine: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert” are $37.50 and are on sale now at the Somerville Theater box office (55 Davis Sq. Somerville on the Red Line) open daily 4pm-8pm except holidays. Tickets may also be purchased on the web HERE. A limited number of “Friend of Mine” tickets will be available for $75 and include preferred orchestra seating plus a signed poster commemorating this very special gathering.

Bill Morrissey was a songwriters’ songwriter. He was loved by many of his peers as a truly literate writer whose hard scrabble characters and fast wit won him critical acclaim from such national media outlets as Rolling Stone Magazine, National Public Radio and The New York Times. Stephen Holden, for the New York Times, once wrote, “Mr. Morrissey’s songs have the force of poetry…a terseness, precision of detail and a tone of laconic understatement that relate his lyrics to the stories of writers like Raymond Carver and Richard Ford.”

Between 1984 and 2007 Morrissey released 12 highly acclaimed albums and published the novel, “Edson” (Knopf). His live performance schedule took him from small coffeehouses to major concert venues like Carnegie Hall to prestigious festivals including Newport and Kerrville.

“Friend of Mine: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert” is co-produced by Great Northeast Productions, Inc. and Ellen Karas. Profits from the event will be donated to MusiCares, a not-for profit division of the National Academy Of the Recording Arts and Sciences. MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies.

Links: Billmorrisey.com – Tickets – Somerville Theatre – Directions – MusiCares

Over the Rhine

GNP is proud to present Over the Rhine with very special guest The Milk Carton Kids for one show only on Friday, Decemeber 2nd at 8:00PM at the Berklee Performance Center. Reserved seats are $22.50 and $19.50 (plus $1 theater restoration fee) and are on sale now without service charge at the Berklee Box Office (136 Mass Ave. Boston) open Mon-Sat 10am-6pm. Tickets may also be charged by phone at 617-747-3161 or purchase online at berkleebpc.com. For more information or questions call the Berklee Box Office at 617-747-2261.

Over the Rhine, the southern Ohio-based husband-and-wife team of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Linford Detweiler and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Karin Bergquist, is something rare and wondrous. OtR made its first handful of recordings in the Spring of 1989. Originally a quartet, the band has toured and recorded in one form or another ever since. The band draws its name from a downtown neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the band got its start. “The phrase evoked images of going Over the Rainbow, being drunk with joy, getting high on leaving home or whatever was keeping us up at night. We were young. We were free to do anything or be anybody. We needed to pick a new favorite dilemma. We needed a name. We were Over the Rhine.”

Linford has always viewed his job description as “creating spaces where good things can happen.” He continues, “Karin and I write songs that allow her voice to bloom, and we find musicians who know how to take what we do and make it spark and breathe, twitch and moan. We try to work with musicians who inspire us, people whose company we enjoy. And we try to write music that in little ways helps to heal the wounds that life has dealt us or the wounds we’ve dealt ourselves. We try to write songs that can hum joyfully at the stars when something good goes down. We try to write tunes capable of whispering to a sleeping child that in spite of everything, somehow, all is well. We try to write words that help us learn to tell the truth to ourselves and others. That’s a big part of all this. Music is a wonderful platform for discovering what we believe is true. But Over the Rhine is ultimately the music that Karin and I find within and without for her to sing.”

The fan-funded record, The Long Surrender, released on OtR’s own Great Speckled Dog label (named after the couple’s Great Dane, Elroy), saw the light of day 20 years after their 1991 debut. Even more than their earlier records, The Long Surrender seamlessly interweaves the disparate idiosyncratic strains that form the many-colored crazy quilt of American music. “We’re really only reflecting what we’ve already heard,” Linford explains, “a mix of all the music we grew up with and were drawn to: old gospel hymns, the country and western music on WWVA, the rock ’n’ roll records the kids at school passed around, the symphonic music that my father brought home, the jazz musicians we discovered in college, the Great American Songbook performers that Karin’s mother loved, and of course the various singer-songwriters that eventually knocked the roof off our world. But when this music is reflected back to the listener through the filter of our own particular lives, hopefully it becomes a much different experience (maybe even somewhat unique) for those with ears to hear.”

This special December 2nd, Berklee Performance Center concert, kicks off Over the Rhine’s annual holiday tour and will include selections from the band’s critically-acclaimed, quirky and lovely holiday releases, “The Darkest Night of the Year” and “Snow Angels” in addition to fan favorites from their entire catalog.

The young, wise and sincere Los Angeles, CA duo The Milk Carton Kids will kick off the night with their Appalachian folk-tinged Americana.

Links: OvertheRhine.com – Themilkcartonkids.com -  Tickets -  BPC Box Office – Venue Area Map – Directions to BPC

Joan Baez and Kris Kristofferson

Tickets: ON SALE NOW

GNP is proud to present two legendary performers, Joan Baez and Kris Kristofferson for one show only on Sunday, November 6th at 7:30 PM at Boston’s Symphony Hall. Reserved seats are $85, $69.50, $54.50, and $39.50 (includes $1 facility fee) and are on sale now at Symphony Hall Box Office located at 301 Massachusetts Ave. Boston (*Symphony Hall SUMMER Box Office hours are Monday – Friday 10AM – 5PM.  *Beginning Tuesday September 6th, the Symphony Hall Box Office hours will be Monday – Friday 10AM – 6PM and Saturdays, 12PM – 6PM). Tickets may also be purchased online at www.bostonsymphonyhall.org or charged by phone by calling SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200.

Tickets will be exclusively available in support of WGBH television during the August 5-14 pledge drive. A limited number of preferred seats may be purchased through WGBH prior to the public on sale.

Three years after marking the 50th anniversary of her legendary residency at Boston’s famed Club 47 and two years after celebrating the 50th anniversary of her 1959 debut at the Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez remains a musical force of nature whose influence is incalculable – from marching on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, Jr. to inspiring Vaclav Haval in his fight for a Czech Repblic to singing on the first Amnesty International tour and standing alongside Nelson Mandela when the world celebrated his 90th birthday in London’s Hyde Park. She brought the Free Speech Movement into the spotlight, and was recently honored by Amnesty International as the recipient of the first annual Joan Baez Award for Outstanding Inspirational Service in the Global Fight for Human Rights. Her earliest recordings fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular before she unselfconsciously introduced Bob Dylan to the world in 1963 and focused awareness on songwriters ranging from Woody Gutherie to Kris Kristofferson and many, many more. The Boston Globe proclaimed, “A half century into her career, folk icon Joan Baez is making a return of sorts–not to vintage material, but to songs that evoke the spirit and message of her defining early work…Baez has never sounded wiser, or more deeply human.” The prolific singer songwriter was recently profiled in Public Television’s American Masters documentary, Joan Baez: How Sweet The Sound.

Kris Kristofferson’s distinguished career has encompassed the authorship of such classic American songs as “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night”; stardom in several feature films (Kris has appeared in over 50 films); honors including three Grammy Awards and Best Actor Golden Globe Award (“A Star is Born”); and years of outspoken political and social activism. He received several awards as a member of the Highwaymen (with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings) and most recently the American Veteran’s Association “Veteran of the Year.”

Kristofferson has released eighteen solo albums, plus three with Rita Coolidge and three with the Highwaymen. This November, he will be feted as a BMI Icon at the performing rights organization’s Country Awards. Kristofferson is currently a member of the Songwriter Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. In the last decade the now 73-year-old Kristofferson has been on a vigorous schedule of international solo appearances.
 Kristofferson says, “Something was making a direct communication with the audience,” he adds, “and I guess it must be down to the essence of the songs. Because God knows, there’s better guitar players and singers. But it seems to be working with my material — just me and the song. I’ve been really surprised at selling out the shows everywhere. People are filling up the houses.” Kris Kristofferson’s first recording in almost a dozen years – was hailed by critics as “one of the finest albums of his storied career” (Rolling Stone), “a stripped-down stunner” (Esquire), and “a return to his best work” (Q). Kristofferson says, “I like the intimacy of the new album. It has a general mood of reflecting on where we all are at this end of life.”

Links: JoanBaez.com – KrisKristofferson.com – Bostonsymphonyhall.org – Venue Area info – American Masters: Joan Baez – How Sweet the Sound

featuring two nights with moe.

March 25-27, 2011 | Killington & Rutland, VT

Snoe.down, the all-ages winter music & sports festival hosted by moe., returns to central Vermont and Vermont’s most popular and dynamic ski and snowboard destination, Killington Resort in Killington and Spartan Arena in neighboring Rutland for a weekend of winter fun and music March 25-27.

moe. will headline both Friday and Saturday nights at Spartan Arena. One-man-band Keller Williams will join moe. on Friday and live instrumental dance rock band Lotus joins moe. on Saturday night.

Tickets are on sale now at the Flynn Regional box office located at 153 Main St. in Burlington, Vermont. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.flynntix.org and by phone at 802.863.5966. All ticket prices include 7% Vermont tax, $1.00 box office service charge and $1.00 charity donation. Tier III tickets will only be available while supplies last. Ticket prices are subject to change without notice.

Several afternoon performances by a variety of artists including gypsy flavored Caravan of Thieves, Brooklyn based rock trio The London Souls, roots rockers Dangermuffin, Albany’s Timbre Coup and Sonicbids winner Frank Viele & The Manhattan Project will take place throughout the weekend at the K1 and Bear Mountain lodges at Killington Resort.

On Saturday afternoon, March 26, moe. and special guests Ryan Montbleau Band will perform on the Swany Stage outdoors at the base of Killington Resort’s Bear Mountain. As parking at Bear Mountain is limited, fans should carpool and plan to arrive early. Parking lots will open at 7 a.m. and will fill up fast. Complimentary shuttle bus service will run from the Skyeship and Snowshed Base Areas to Bear Mountain starting at 11 a.m.

A special, separately ticketed kick-off party will take place in Killington on Thursday, March 24th, at the Wobbly Barn featuring The Brew with special guest Lucid and at the Pickle Barrel featuring the jam-heavy, progressive foursome, Twiddle. Vermont natives Assembly of Dust will perform a separately ticketed after party at the Pickle Barrel on Sunday, March 27th.

A portion of all ticket purchases are being donated to Vermont Adaptive the only year round sports and recreation organization in the state empowering individuals with disabilities.

Festival attendees will be able to take advantage of a myriad of world-class winter activities available at Killington Resort including a very special Snoe.down learn to ski/board program. Attendees may purchase reduced price lift tickets for Killington Resort with their Snoe.down ticket and be eligible to choose from a variety of discounted Killington lodging options. The Snoe.down winter music & sports festival is sponsored in part by the Town of Killington Economic Development and Tourism Office (EDT). The EDT is working with Killington Resort to arrange for bus shuttle service to/from Killington and Spartan Arena for those choosing to lodge in Killington.

The EDT and Killington Resort arranged bus shuttle service to/from Killington and Spartan Arena for those choosing to lodge in Killington. Tickets are available for $10 round trip and can only be pre-purchased at http://www.killington.com/winter/activities/mountain_events/snoe_down

For more information visit: www.snoedown.com

Links: moe. – Snoe.down – FlynnTix – Killington Resort – EDT – Swany – Magic Hat – Sonicbids – Equal Exchange

Bruce Cockburn

Tickets: ON SALE 10AM MON, NOV 29

GNP is proud to present Bruce Cockburn (with band) and special guest Jenny Scheinman for one show only on Saturday, May 14th at 8:00 PM at the Berklee Performance Center. Reserved seats are $39.50 and $36.50 (includes $1 theater restoration fee) and go on sale Monday, November 29th at 10AM at the Berklee Box Office (136 Mass Ave. Boston) open Mon-Sat 10am-6pm and all Ticketmaster locations. Tickets may be charged by phone at 800-745-3000 or online at Ticketmaster.com. For more information or questions call the Berklee Box Office at 617-747-2261.

Over 35 years, the Ottawa-born musician has recorded almost as many albums while earning respect for his charitable and activist work. “My job is to try and trap the spirit of things in the scratches of pen on paper, in the pulling of notes out of metal,” Cockburn said when he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2001. He was also made an Officer of the Order of Canada and has been the recipient of honorary degrees in Letters and Music from several North American universities, including Berklee [School of Music] and Toronto’s York University. His many other awards have included the Tenco Award for Lifetime Achievement in Italy and 20 gold and platinum awards in Canada.

Cockburn has often cited the influence of the blues on his music, especially the work of country-blues pioneers like Mississippi John Hurt. As a songwriter, Cockburn is revered by fans and musicians alike. His songs have been covered by such diverse artists as Elbow, Jimmy Buffett, Judy Collins, the Skydiggers, Anne Murray, Third World, Chet Atkins, k.d. lang, Barenaked Ladies, Maria Muldaur and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. As a guitarist, he is considered among the world’s best. ‘The New York Times’ called Cockburn a “virtuoso on guitar,” while ‘Acoustic Guitar’ magazine placed him in the esteemed company of Andrés Segovia, Bill Frisell and Django Reinhardt.

“The whole point of writing songs is to share experiences with people,” says Bruce Cockburn, looking back on a career that includes 26 albums, numerous international awards, including the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Tenco Award for Lifetime Achievement in Italy, 20 gold and platinum records in Canada, and countless concert performances since he released his first solo work in 1970. Cockburn’s collected work is a journey-both moody and revelatory-into the dark night and the sweet laughter of the soul, around the world with vivid imagery and unflinching observations of human cruelty, greed, courage, and survival through faith, and back home to the peaceful forests and vibrant cities of his native Canada.

“It’s the wheel going around,” he says. “The stuff from the ’70s was a product of inward-looking exercises, and then it got very much outward directed through the 80s, and started to swing back so that you get some of both in the ’90s, and by the end of the ’90s, it’s back to internal again, but in what I hope is a deeper way. It’s not my idea that love is at the center of everything, but I believe it is, and I understand a lot more about that than I did in the ’70s.”

Bruce Cockburn’s latest release “Small Source of Comfort” is due for release in the US on March 8 via True North Records.

Jenny Scheinman

Jenny Scheinman is a singer, violin player, composer and arranger. She grew up in the sticks playing folk music with her family, went on to study at Oberlin Conservatory, and has been performing as a violinist/fiddler since she was a teenager. She has taken the #1 Rising Star Violinist title in the Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and has been listed as one of their Top Ten Overall Violinists for the last five years. In addition, she has garnered numerous high-profile arranging credits with artists such as Lucinda Williams, Bono, Lou Reed and Sean Lennon, and has toured and recorded with Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Nels Cline, Vinicius Cantuaria, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Mark Ribot.

Links: Bruce Cockburn – Jenny Scheinman - Ticketmaster.com – BPC Box Office
Venue Area Map – Directions to BPC