For the first time in three years, I attended the Folk Alliance International conference in Kansas City. Though not as busy as in some years past, it was robustly attended by a couple thousand artists, presenters, media, and music lovers of various stripes, who were delighted to embrace the folk community again in person.
Read MoreRoger Street Friedman took a 25-year hiatus from music to work in the family business. When he returned in 2014 with his debut album, The Waiting Sky, it was clear that he was a solid songwriter. In the time since, the Long Island resident has released three increasingly strong albums. With the latest, Love Hope Trust, he seems to have hit his stride.
Read MoreI first heard John Fullbright playing acoustic guitar and harmonica in a Memphis hotel room in 2009 at the International Folk Alliance conference, and I was blown away.
Read MoreLong Island troubadour Roger Street Friedman came out of the pandemic with a compassionate collection of songs that matter, about democracy, history, and family, that he's titled Love Hope Trust.
Read MoreNearly 20 years ago I first encountered Pat Wictor and was immediately struck by his supple vocals and guitar playing, his well-crafted songs, and astute choice of covers. He shared those gifts with kindred spirits Greg Greenway and Joe Jencks during their seven-year tenure as the trio Brother Sun. Those elements are all in evidence on his brilliant seventh solo album, Flare.
Read MoreTom Stoppard is regarded by some as the greatest living English playwright. Ironically, like Joseph Conrad, English wasn’t his first language. He was born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslovakia, but left in 1939 at the age of 2 as the Nazis were invading, first to Singapore, then India.Tom Stoppard is regarded by some as the greatest living English playwright.
Read MoreA Wisconsin native, Peter Mulvey became a respected member of the fertile Boston music scene in the mid-90’s. Over the past 30 years, he’s followed his own path, with 19 albums, full of his well-crafted songs and occasionally unconventional covers.
Read MoreIt had been a while since I saw a Broadway production with unbridled enthusiasm until seeing the revival of Into the Woods at the St. James Theatre.
Read MoreLucy Kaplansky has always seemed like one of folk’s most approachable and down-to-earth, as well as gifted, musicians, with a pure, unaffected voice as a singer and songwriter. Her new album, Last Days of Summer, her ninth as a solo artist, is one of her most personal…
Read MoreMary Gauthier has been known for her honest but sometimes downbeat songs…So the first thing you notice on her new album, Dark Enough to See the Stars, is a shift in tone. No more “the lesbian Leonard Cohen,” as she once described herself. Now she’s Ms. Happy!
Read MoreThe multi-talented Irish expat Larry Kirwan has been a force in NYC culture for decades. He’s probably best known as the leader of the Celtic rock group Black 47, but he’s also been a novelist, an Irish Echo columnist, a Sirius XM radio host, a political activist, and a playwright with 17 plays and musicals to his credit.
Read MoreWillie Nelson is music’s Energizer bunny. Now just past 89 years old, he’s got a summer tour planned, in spite of some pulmonary issues (all that pot smoking will do that)…Now he’s released A Beautiful Time, and it is, in fact, beautiful, one of his best albums in a while, and the New Folk Spotlight of the month.
Read MoreMinneapolis-based Sarah Morris has been called a "country-leaning Norah Jones."
Read MoreWhile Bob Dylan has been committed to his Never-Ending Concert Tour for almost 35 years, the Broadway show featuring his music, Girl from the North Country, faced all kinds of challenges getting untracked.
Read MoreThe Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has one of the theater’s most singular voices: perhaps Pinteresque in its menacing tone, but often funnier and with a larger cast.
Read MoreInitially it’s confusing that Amy Speace, who grew up in Baltimore and lived in New York before settling in Nashville, should title her new seven-song EP Tucson. Further explanation reveals that she spent part of the summer of 2020 at Cottonwood de Tucson, a treatment center for “trauma, complicated grief and depression.”
Read MoreTracy Letts, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Tony Award-winning actor, displays both his talents in his new play, The Minutes, now at Studio 54 on Broadway. Using just one set and one scene, The Minutes, describes a city council meeting during a stormy night in the small town of Big Cherry.
Read MoreFor many years Christine Lavin was close friends with the songwriter Ervin Drake ("Good Morning Heartache," "It Was a Very Good Year") and his wife Edith.
Read MoreHaving missed spotlighting an album in the short month of February, I’m doubling down with two Spotlight Albums for March: Anais Mitchell and Aoife O’Donovan.
Read Morehe New Folk Initiative is proud to offer this exclusive video premiere of "After the Flood" and to invite you to hear Karen, along with Side Pony and Billy Woodward, as part of On Your Radar at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 on Tuesday from 7-9 p.m.
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