Dear Jean recording released

Jean Ritchie’s music has been honored with this two-disk set of CDs featuring her songs and some of the songs she made famous, performed by the “folk” luminaries. Yes, Pete Seeger is on it, and Judy Collins. Our cut is Brightest and Best, the little German Christmas song that happens to be Jean’s favorite. You can get a copy from us.

Rockport First Night, December 31st

I think this is the best of all the First Night venues. Our favorite, anyway! Rockport is way the heck out on Cape Ann. You cannot get there by accident, so everyone  who IS there  wants to be there. No bustling pub or restaurant trade right in Rockport, though, and sit-down dinner may be hard to find.  Bring  some snack food and a flagon of hot coffee along. Also I’m not sure when we go on. Check the Rockport site in November or December for the schedule.

Rockport, MA, First Night Celebration

Lorraine and Bennett with Claude at the Old Manse

Playing stringed instruments outside is generally… uncomfortable, let’s call it, in any thing but the most perfectly still, cool and dry weather. But some venues are in a tent with a very long extension cord, so that no beating sun nor pounding rain, nothing short of hurricanes, waterspouts and tornadoes can spoil the fun. Such is the Old Manse Summer Music Series, where we will join our friend and colleague Claude Galinsky for some sweet singin’ and wicked pickin’. It’s free and there’s lots of parking, so to speak.

The Old Manse, 269 Monument Street Concord MA

SAMW 2

Ah, the wilderness were Paradise enow! as the ol’ tentmaker ‘Omar used to say. This is Summer camping of a comfy kind, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, with three square a day and a dry bed and all the guitars, mandolins, banjos and harmonicas you can stand. The lake is deep and the mountain is high; the loons are loud; life is good.

 

 

www.wumb.org/samw/

Week 1 of SAMW 2014

SAMW is Summer Acoustic Music Week, an adult Summer camp for people who like or would like to sing and play the  roots-based alternate popular music of America, sometimes called “folk music,” and – as it turns out – for singer/songwriters who wish to hone their craft in the company of peers. Lorraine is one of the co-founders of SAMW. She  became Musical Director when the Founding All-Father Dick Pleasants retired.

One guiding principle at SAMW is that teaching staff will always be active performers whose  art is steeped in tradition. Another is that too much work -work makes artists run and hide whenever they can. SAMW campers get to spend hours with the stars, not only in class but at the beach, at meals, on the porch, no one is working too hard and everyone’s having fun.

Week 1 July 13 – 19, 2014

www.wumb.org/samw/

Lorraine and Bennett @ First Parish Quincy Pete Seeger Service

David Johnson was our minister at 1st Parish in Brookline until his “retirement.” Now he interims here and there, raising the tone and the consciousness at every parish lucky enough to get him. In his early days, David was marching in Selma and in Washington, DC. He knows right from wrong – and he ain’t afraid to preach it out loud. Unitarian fire and brimstone! We’ll help provide the music for the service, which will feature Pete Seeger – another truth-telling old favorite.

 

April 6, 10:30 a.m.