SAT. DEC. 14, 2019 at 7:30 pm (note early start time!)
Hosted by Kirsten Manville
Feature Performer: Peter Lehndorff, winner of last year’s Potpourri.
$5 minimum donation (Gently used coats, hats, and gloves accepted for Mission of Deeds)
The Linden Tree Coffeehouse continues its 35 year of acoustic music concerts on Dec. 14 at 7:30 pm. Join us for Winter Potpourri, 2019 an evening of discovering new talent! Eight local singer/songwriters will play two songs each, and one or more of these folks will be chosen to perform during next year’s season. Audience input will play a big part in the decision-making process, so please come help us make this choice while enjoying new music and new faces.
What is folk music these days? It can be traditional or contemporary with roots in bluegrass, country, jazz, gospel, and blues. Our contestants will provide a range of music in the genre we call Folk. Performing in this year’s potpourri are Bill Anderson, Mark Bishop Evans, John Ferullo, Kathleen Healy, Roberta Lamb, Rick Drost, Toast & Jam, and Wild Maple. Samples of their music can be found on their web and Facebook pages.
The evening will again be hosted by Wakefield singer/songwriter Kirsten Manville who will perform a few favorite songs from her album, Some People Sing and introduce a few new ones. Kirsten creates songs that feel like they may have come straight from journal entries – deceptively simple lyrics that paint pictures, tell stories, and evoke a range of emotions. Kirsten is a refreshing, straightforward folk-rock, country-singer-songwriter with stage presence audiences love.
Entertainment will include a 25-minute set by one of last year’s winners, Peter Lehndorff. He writes folk and jazz songs about everyday life. Peter is now mixing his humorous observations with the serious; the romantic with the eccentric. There are stories about cars; what he eats; and the places he has lived. His car-related songs have been on NPR’s CAR TALK radio show. Besides winning last year’s Linden Tree Coffeehouse’s Winter Potpourri, Lehndorff has been a finalist in the Boston Acoustic Underground competition. The Springfield Union wrote about his performance, “intelligent lyrical vignettes of everyday life and the comical trappings of suburbia, delivered with an acute sense of comedic timing.”
Bill Anderson is a former resident of Wakefield, Bill Anderson has been playing music all of his life, in bands and orchestras around the world! Trained as a classical oboist at the New England Conservatory as well as Boston University, Ten years ago to achieve his ambition of performing the songs he’d always written, as a singer/songwriter, he attended songwriting conferences around the US and workshopped with artists from John Gorka to Livingston Taylor to Kathy Mattea, constantly striving to put the truth and heart of the subject in his lyrics. His style is often described as telling a story, giving the listener a clear, mental picture of events and emotions common to us all.
Julie Charland is one-half of the duo Toast and Jam. She is playing solo this evening and writes and performs original bluegrass, modern folk, Americana, swing, and more. Toast ad Jam’s first (all original) CD, “Ten Slices”, was released in 2009. Their second full-length CD, “Heaven Knows” was released in 2015 and now working on a third album.
Rick Drost writes and sings songs with depth and heart, songs that repay repeated listening and convey a long love of classical music, natural wonders, and poetry. His songs treat life from varied angles – Jilted lovers, swans in the Public Garden, leftover lobsters, and meditations on meditation. Longtime inspiration came from Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen; recent influences include Vance Gilbert and David Wilcox, who covers Drost’s song “Turning the World” in live performances. Drost’s latest CD “Turning the World” continues to get airplay from Europe across America to New Zealand. Originally from Western New York, Rick travels from Cambridge, MA to sing at coffeehouses, house concerts, small festivals and Folk Alliance Events around the country.
Mark Bishop Evans grew up in southern California where his major musical influences outside of the church were Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Paul Simon, the Beach Boys and pretty much any folk, folk-rock or beach music. Listening and playing the folk and protest music of the ’60s inspired him to begin writing his own songs. Mark has a way with words and melodies, bringing them together in pleasant and poignant combinations that make you want to tap your feet and sing along. His music is an intriguing blend of Folk, folk-rock and ballads, lyrically rich in emotional content and melodically comfortable like a favorite jacket, like a close friend you want to sing along with. Mark relocated north of Boston, Massachusetts in the early ’90s and today considers himself and “Noreasta”.
John Ferullo is a songwriter and an open mike host from Massachusetts. with stories about regular people. He performs his own songs and other folk songs all around New England. His music has been described as “about important things with his stories about seemingly small things”. “johnferullo.com
Kathleen Healy is a hard-working musician & songwriter living on Cape Cod. She draws from her experience of living and raising a family near the beach for many of her songs. Some say saltwater runs through her veins. Kathleen writes from the heart and her honest lyrics and often poignant subject matter lend themselves to the unique quality of her voice. She admits to being a live music junkie but is currently not seeking treatment for her addiction.
Equally at home singing and playing in a quiet cafe or in front of a crowd, Roberta Lamb rocks to the beat of a variety of musical styles, from blues to rock, and Americana. She picked her first guitar as a child in Texas and took to singing folk songs, Spanish traditional tunes, and ballads. Roberta honed her vocal craft as a classical musician, exploring concert singing and opera in college and later in Vienna, Austria. Back home in the US, she took time to raise a family in Massachusetts and she eventually found her way back to her first love: American music. Once her children were launched, she picked up the guitar and started playing and singing covers while practicing and listening to whatever music came her way. Strongly influenced by the vibrant local music community, she started writing originals and rebranded herself as a singer-songwriter. She just recorded her first album of originals, Not Your Mama’s Blues, and performs across New England at a variety of venues from cafes, coffeehouses, and restaurants to small concert stages, porchfests, and farmers’ markets singing and playing her heart out. Kenny Selcer will accompany Roberta.
Wild Maple is Gary Dolinsky on guitar and vocals, Trish DeCaprio on violin and vocals, and Steve Straight on acoustic bass and vocals. The groups’ original songs are influenced by a variety of music genres: Americana/roots, blues, bluegrass, classic country, folk, Celtic, popular music of the past 60 years, and classical. Music critics have praised Wild Maple’s “appealing and polished sound” with both male and female lead vocals and “sensational vocal harmonies.” Recent performances include Club Passim in Cambridge, The Guilford Performing Arts Festival in Guilford, CT, and The Crane Estate in Ipswich. Wild Maple’s lively shows include a healthy dose of relaxed fun, humor and audience engagement. wildmapleband.com
The show begins early at 7:30 pm, doors open at 7:00. Homemade baked goods and beverages are available. Tickets at the door are specially priced, just a $5 minimum donation for this show to introduce the World of Folk and Acoustic Music to area residents. Clean and gently used condition coats, hats, and gloves will also be collected for Mission of Deeds Winter Coat Drive for men, women, and children in need.
The Linden Tree Coffeehouse is located in the social hall of Wakefield’s Unitarian Universalist Church, 326 Main St. Wakefield.MA 01880 Information and Reservations: 781 246 2836. LindenTreeCoffeehouse.org
