Harvard Square has long been considered an epicenter of critical thinking and social and political reform. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the Folk Music scene that had its inception in the mid-1950s at Club 47.   Club 47, located on Mount Auburn Street, was a coffeehouse where students and residents were regaled with socially conscious yarns by up and coming artists such as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. In 1963, the venue, now called Passim, moved to its current location on Palmer Street. In addition to holding over 400 concerts a year, this non-profit organization also operates as the Club Passim School of Music, teaching a variety of classes and workshops in everything from songwriting to voice to numerous acoustic instruments.

 

October 27th - BOB DYLAN IN AMERICA – a prelude to Folk Music Month
Cambridge Forum hosts Princeton historian and cultural commentator, Sean Wilentz, discussing his new book, BOB DYLAN IN AMERICA.  Written through unprecedented access to tapes, notes and photos, this critically acclaimed, bestselling biography, is now in paperback.

How is Dylan the product of a particular time and place?   How was Dylan influenced by America’s oldest religious music, founded in New England and preserved in the South, the shape-note hymnal, The Sacred Harp?   Would civil rights and anti-Vietnam War marchers have stayed at home without Dylan’s 60's stirring protest songs that inspired a generation of activists?  What are the roots of his continuing influence?
   
Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University.  He is the author of The Rise of American Democracy, which received the coveted Bancroft Award and, most recently, of The Age of Reagan.  The historian-in-residence for Bob Dylan’s official website, he has also received a Deems Taylor Award for musical commentary and a Grammy nomination for his liner notes to Bootleg Series, Vol 6:Bob Dylan, Live 1964: The Concert at Philharmonic Hall.

Scott Alarik, writer, folk singer and songwriter, will moderate the discussion.  His most recent book is Revival: A Folk Music Novel. Books will be available to purchase, courtesy of Harvard Book Store.

Throughout the Month of November - Forever Young Community Gallery Window Show
“Forever Young: Bringing the Legacy to Life” presents photographs and graphic memorabilia from the folk revival of the 1960’s to today, crossing the generations.  Music posters, album art, unique event calendars and photographs bear witness to some of New England folk music’s most important cultural moments.

 

The exhibition features the works of photographic artists of the folk scene including Dick Waterman’s pictures of blues musicians; Boston’s long-time editorial and arts photographer Don West; rare festival and club images by Bob Morey; an extensive selection of contemporary folk photography; together with the artistic renderings of Eric Von Schmidt and Byron Lord Linardos.

 

Peek in the following Harvard Square windows in the weeks to come to see these artifacts:  The Tannery – 93 Brattle Street (‘Contemporary Folk’ – colors photos by Rich Gastwirt), Mint Julep - Church Street (‘Folk Women’ from the NEFMA collection with select photos by Bob Morey), JP Licks – 1312 Massachusetts Avenue (‘The Old Vienna Kaffeehaus’, photos by Chris Yeager), Harvard COOP – 1400 Massachusetts Avenue (‘Classic Folk, circa 1967’ photos by Bob Morey - beginning November 3rd), and Irving House at Harvard – 24 Irving Street (NEFMA Collection)

 

To celebrate Folk Music Month in Harvard Square, the New England Folk Music Archives (NEFMA) will be displaying 50 years’ worth of photographs of musicians who helped create the vibrant folk scene in Cambridge. Highlighting the exhibit will be photographs of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Joan Baez amongst others. The Gallery space is located in the former location of the Globe Corner Book Store. The NEFMA wishes to thank Harvard Real Estate Services and The Harvard Square Business Association for its assistance in securing this location. Gallery hours: 2pm – 6pm, daily.

 

Throughout the Month of November - Exploring Folk Music with Scott Alarik
Tuesdays [6:30 pm – 7:45 pm] Nov. 8, 15, 22, 29, Dec. 6, 13
What does the term folk music mean in the 21st century? What connects the blues guitarist to the Irish fiddler, the urban songwriter to the Cajun band, the folk-rocker to the cowboy singer? What is the difference between a folk song and a pop song? How was folk music used in the lives of ordinary people, back when it was passed from singer to singer, generation to generation? What does the modern folk musician share with the composers of the great ballads, fiddle tunes, and songs? How did those ancient folk traditions transform into today's folk world?

Using live, recorded, and rare archival music, sprinkled with colorful tales about folk music, author, journalist and folksinger Scott Alarik takes us on a vibrant journey down the ancient tributaries of tradition, to see how they shaped our modern musical landscape, and how folk music filled people’s lives, then and now. This is a new kind of class for the Passim School, meant for the entire folk community, fans and musicians, newcomers and aficionados, aimed at deepening everyone's enjoyment of folk music.
Passim, 47 Palmer Street, (617) 492-7679, www.passim.org

November 2nd - Harvard Square in the ‘60s: Tinderbox of the Folk Revival

The first in a series of Folk Music Salons at the Harvard COOP. 7pm. Free
In the Sixties, it was said, “If you want to get famous, go to New York. If you want to play music, come to Cambridge.” What was Harvard Square like when a barefoot Joan Baez sang aching Scottish ballads for rapt audiences of Harvard students and beatniks? What else was going on? Why did the square become so important to that moment when folk music became part of the commercial music mainstream?

Hosted by Scott Alarik, author of Revival: A Folk Music Novel
Ken Irwin, co-founder, Rounder Records
Betsy Siggins, Club 47, New England Folk Music Archives
John Cooke, Charles River Valley Boys 1961-67, Janis Joplin road manager, writer, photographer, actor, filmmaker
Byron Linardos, manager, Club 47.

 

Please join us from 6pm – 8pm to celebrate the opening of the New England Folk Music Archives Gallery. Wine and cheese will be served. Please RSVP Betsy Siggins, Founder of NEFMA, at betsysiggins@gmail.com. 

 

 

The Unitarian Universalist is pleased to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of the Nameless Coffeehouse on Saturday, November 5th at 8pm with a performance by New England balladeer Terry Kitchen. Terry will be joined by Nashville songwriter Angela Kasset. The concert will be held in the warmth of the Halverson Palor at the First Parish. Suggested donation $10.

 

November 9th - Harvard University and Folk Music
The second in a series of Folk Music Salons at the Harvard COOP. 7pm. Free Harvard has played a surprisingly prominent role in folk music history, since a 19th-century professor named Francis James Child ignited the modern folklore movement with his epic collection of traditional ballads. At the same time, he created Harvard’s first modern English department, and guided the transformation into the nation’s most storied liberal arts university. Pete Seeger studied there in the 1940s, and campus hootenannies in the 1950s helped ignite the great commercial folk revival. Find out why this great university has always had a soft spot for folk music.

Hosted by Scott Alarik, author or Revival: A Folk Music Novel
Joseph Harris, Harvard Professor of English Literature
Forrest O’Connor, folk musician, CEO of Concert Windows, founder of The Harvard College American Music Club
Deborah Foster, Senior Lecturer, Head Tutor, Dept. of Folklore & Mythology

 

 

7:30pm - doors at 7:00pm

Tickets: General Admission $40/Premium $60, includes pre-concert reception with artist meet and greet 5–6:30 PM at the Blacksmith Shop, Cambridge Center for Adult Education 56 Brattle St., plus preferred seating. To purchase tickets, please visit http://brattlefilm.org/2011/11/14/new-england-folk-music-archives-benefit-concert/

 

Alt-country singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier exploded onto the scene in 1999 following her self-released sophomore effort, Drag Queens in Limousines. The album, which garnered her a Crossroads Silver Star and a four-star rating in Rolling Stone, had critics comparing her self-described "country noir" to the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, John Prine, and, not surprisingly, Lucinda Williams. The success of Drag Queens led to main-stage shows at festivals around the country and multiple tours in Europe. Embraced by critics, folkies, and No Depression fans alike, Gauthier's warmly candid treatment of her fringe-dwelling subjects rings true, as it never verges on sentimental; her characters' downtrodden lives are never coldly exploited. Instead, these are people she knows, who she met after dropping out of her Louisiana high school and stealing the family car at the age of 15, only to find herself in detox at 16 and jailed in Kansas City at 18. Her own wayward path led her to culinary school and, eventually, she opened a successful restaurant in Boston's Back Bay -- Dixie Kitchen -- which she sold after her music career started to take off. Filth & Fire, Gauthier's third album, was produced by former Lucinda Williams’s sidekick Gurf Morlix and released in July 2002. Mercy Now was issued in 2005 by Lost Highway, followed by the Joe Henry-produced Between Daylight and Dark in 2007. Gauthier newest release, the autobiographical The Foundling, produced by Mike Timmons of the Cowboy Junkies, is the product of two year’s work, and is quite simply the best collection of songs she’s ever recorded. 

 

 

Antje Duvekot has solidified her reputation as one of Boston's top singer songwriters with "Big Dream Boulevard" her debut studio release and "the Near Demise of the Highwire Dancer" her follow-up CD. The debut CD was produced by Seamus Egan, founder of the Irish super group, SOLAS. The project was released on acclaimed songwriter Ellis Paul's label, Black Wolf Records and quickly attracted international attention for Antje. It was voted "#1 Folk Release of 2006" by the Boston Globe and was named to the "Top10 Releases of the Year" by National Public Radio's, Folk Alley. Her follow up album "The Near Demise of the Highwire Dancer" was produced by Richard Shindell and alongside with Richard features other "folk royalty" such as John Gorka, Lucy Kaplancky and Mark Erelli. It was voted #1 album of the year 2009 by WUMB 91.9FM in Boston.   Antje has won some of the top songwriting awards including the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the prestigious, Kerrville (TX) "Best New Folk Award" and in one of the nation's top music markets, she won the Boston Music Award for "Outstanding Folk Act", three of the top prizes in the singer songwriter world.

 

 

The Boston-area folk music scene is a vibrant one, boasting a variety of diverse artists. But if pressed to name the region's defining musician, it would have to be singer-songwriter Catie Curtis, who has called it home for nearly all of her twenty-year music career. Since the release of her last album in 2009, Curtis has toured extensively, playing a number of diverse venues ranging from Chicago's legendary Old Town School of Folk Music to the White House. She's also spent that time writing and testing out new material, developing a collection of masterfully written lyrics that serve as the heart of her newest record, Stretch Limousine on Fire (released 2011).

 

On the new album, Curtis, a Lilith Fair alum who's been dubbed a "folk-rock goddess" by The New Yorker, delivers some of the finest material of her career: ten original songs that push at her own musical boundaries and explore "the difficult edges of passing events" in life, harsh realities that are tempered with moments of fleeting beauty. This temporary nature of life is a theme that pervades the album from the first notes. Opening song "Let It Last”, which features folk powerhouse and former tour mate Mary Chapin Carpenter singing harmony, finds Curtis pleading "I know it can't last/And all I ask is let it last a little longer."

 

The New England Folk Music Archives is focused on the contributions of traditional, roots, blues and contemporary music and their role as a continuation of our oral traditions and a part of America’s cultural history

 

 

November 16th - Cambridge Today: Still Folky After All These Years
The third in a series of Folk Music Salons at the Harvard COOP. 7pm Free

It’s not a coincidence that the first novel set entirely in the modern folk world is also set in Cambridge. What is it about this town that makes it such a haven for all things folk? How is the scene different today than in the glory days of the ‘60s? Author Scott Alarik explores why he set his acclaimed new novel, Revival, in Cambridge, and hosts a lively conversation about why this area remains such a historic hotbed for folk music.

Hosted by Scott Alarik, author or Revival: A Folk Music Novel
Matt Smith, Manager,  Passim
Sean Staples, musician, Session Americana, Resophonics
Paul Rishell & Annie Raines, blues musicians
Tom Bianchi, songwriter, host of Lizard Lounge Open Mic Challenge
The Harvard COOP, 1400 Massachusetts Avenue, (617) 499- 2000, www.coop.com

 

November 19th - Folk Music and Politics: Broadsides to Baez, Woody Guthrie to Ellis Paul Class
Is folk music political? That's certainly the impression left by the 60s, when folk music and progressive politics seemed to be the twin engines of social change. But what do the old songs tell us, from the days when songs were passed from singer to singer, and generation to generation? Using live, archival, and recorded music, writer-musician Scott Alarik leads an exploration of the tumultuous marriage of folk music and politics -- from 16th-century ballads to the coded sedition of slave spirituals, from the "singing strikes" of the labor movement to the singer-songwriters of today. What is the thread that binds politics to folk music? Is it stitched within the most ancient fabric of folk tradition -- or is it a product of the modern imagination? Limited to 20.
Sec. 01: 1 Saturday, 1:00-3:30 pm. Nov. 19, 42 Brattle St. | $53 NOT LISTED IN PRINT CATALOG
Cambridge Center for Adult Education, 42 Brattle Street, (617) 547- 6789, www.ccae.org

 

8pm – tickets $20. Boston singer-songwriter Alastair Moock first started putting together Pastures of Plenty shows almost ten years ago. The idea was to bridge some of the gaps he saw in the Boston music scene — between the folk and roots rock crowds, between the contemporary and traditional scenes, and between younger and older players. But what it really came down to was bringing together some of the region's best songwriters and musicians to swap tunes on a stage.

The list of guests over the years reads like a who's who of New England roots musicians: Bill Morrissey, Lori McKenna, Ronnie Earl, Kris Delmhorst, Tracy Grammer, Barrence Whitfield, Sarah Borges, Catie Curtis, Dennis Brennan, Rani Arbo, Mark Erelli, The Resophonics, and The Silver Leaf Gospel Singers, to name just a few.

Past shows have taken place at premier venues and events throughout the northeast, including the Newport and Boston Folk Festivals. But in 2008, Moock brought Pastures back to its original home at Passim in Harvard Square for a series of bi-monthly shows. November's Tenth Anniversary Show marks the end of the era of regular performances, but Pastures will continue to happen at Passim and elsewhere from time to time going forward.

 

November 23th – Devon Sproule at Passim
It seems Devon Sproule (pronounced like “rock ‘n ROLL”) inhabits a hall of 1,000 people just as gracefully as she does a dive bar. Live in London, the 28-year-old’s first live record, includes a 10-song CD and 8-song DVD: 18 performances that
showcase Sproule’s equally powerful and nuanced style. “Sproule’s songs ooze the atmosphere of balmy Virginia days,” wrote The Observer. “She grew up in a commune in the state – and her sunny outlook is infectious.” Scattered between songs on the DVD are video clips of Devon and the band in their tour van, backstage goofing off, dancing, drinking, ribbing, & lamenting petrol put in a diesel tank.

 

Sproule’s previous UK release, Keep Your Silver Shined, proved an indie hit for her
Coventry-based label Tin Angel Records (Black Carrot, Danny Schmidt, Baby Dee,
Mantler, Polarbear, DON’T MOVE!, and more). The album topped year-end lists, &
landed her a spot on Later…with Jools Holland. Paste Magazine called it “The
sexiest, sultriest southern album since Lucinda’s Car Wheels on A Gravel Road.”

 

8pm, $20. Bob Franke (it rhymes with “Yankee”) is at the peak of his considerable craft; brimming with the wise and spiritually generous songs for which he is best known, along with wrenchingly convincing topical songs and sugared with the hilarious. His are the kind of songs that really do have the power to change the world by being taken into the lives of people. They come to you, these songs.

Franke began his career as a singer-songwriter in 1965 while a student at the University of Michigan. He was one of the first people to perform at the now famous Ark Coffeehouse in Ann Arbor. Upon graduation in 1969 with an A.B. in English Literature, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has since made New England his home.

Bob's songs are considered classics, fueled by his deep faith and the real-life lessons taught him by his 30-odd years of playing everywhere from concert halls to street corners. Bob has appeared in concert at coffeehouses, colleges, festivals, bars, streets, homes and churches in 33 states, four Canadian provinces and England. His concerts have appeared in lists of the top five musical events of the year chosen by critics in the Boston and San Francisco Bay areas.

 

 

  

For updates on Folk Music Month and other events in Harvard Square, please visit