Author: Michael Witthaus

Jonathan Edwards brings new album to Tupelo

Like many in his profession, Jonathan Edwards spent the past several months working on new music, due the a pandemic-induced break from live performing. The result is the wonderful Right Where I Am. His first studio album since 2015, it’s at turns reflective, introspective and celebratory, the latter best represented by “50 Years,” a thank-you note to fans written for a 2017 anniversary show.

“I figured going in I better write a song for this event,” Edwards said in a recent phone interview, “because it was turning out to be a big one. So I did, and the first time I played it was that night at the party.”

He was joined by Livingston Taylor and Jon Pousette-Dart, two friends from his early days on the New England music scene.

The party-hearty groover “Drop and Roll” is one of two co-writes on the LP with Edwards’ son-in-law Jerome Degey. Its sentiments will be familiar to anyone who sang along to “Shanty” from his debut album, when Edwards exhorted listeners to “put a good buzz on.”

This time, he sings “roll over and burn one down” on a tune written in the middle of the night. “It’s kind of a stream-of-consciousness,” he said. “I’m very proud of that song in that it’s kind of subtle but… ‘roll me up a fatty, Bob Marley be proud.’ You know, come on!”

The title track is a statement of purpose. “I’ve got a lot of songs within me still, stories left to tell,” he sings.

“It’s part of my DNA. I’ve always been a creative sort,” he said, quoting another line from the song. “I’ve always built stuff out of other stuff. I went to art school and four years of college and eventually the guitar and rock ’n’ roll took over. Since then, I have many, many outlets for my creativity, and it’s hard to focus often, but I think the introspection that we had during lockdown was really conducive to more creativity, and appreciation for being able to express oneself.” He also states boldly in the song, “I’m not afraid to take a stand and bleed upon the stage … pay the price to tell the truth.”

“Perhaps [that image is] maybe a little too colorful, but that’s what it feels like,” Edwards said, adding that as he approaches his 75th year, “my challenge now is mostly physical.”

He co-produced the new record with longtime friend and accompanist Don Campbell, with help from Todd Hutchinson at his Acadia Recording studio in Portland, Maine.

“I loved it there. … It looks like a yard sale, with all these vintage amps and guitars everywhere … a very creative place,” Edwards said, and it made the work easier. “It’s a corny thing to say, but we followed the songs where they led us, and I’m really, really happy with that destination.”

He’s also pleased with the positive response Right Where I Am is receiving.

“It’s great, because you never know,” he said. “You put [these songs] out there as children, and you never know how they’re going to be accepted by society,” he said.

Edwards was scheduled to return to the stage on his birthday, July 28, at Jonathan’s in Ogunquit, Maine. Two nights later, he’ll play one of the final shows at Tupelo Drive-In, as the venue prepares to return indoors in mid-August.

“I miss the crowd for sure, and I miss the energy that only they can provide,” he said. “I can sit around and play with my friends, which is also really nice, but boy, getting out in front of a crowd….”

He nods to the al fresco event in Derry.

“In this case, and it’s really apt, that’s where the rubber meets the parking lot,” he said.

Jonathan Edwards
When: Friday, July 30, 6 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Drive-In, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $22 per person, $75 per car at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Alli Beaudry. Courtesy photo.

Alli Beaudry hosts musical showcase at The Rex

When the Rex Theatre celebrated its grand reopening in late 2019, Alli Beaudry performed. As 2020 dawned, she played and sang for a wine tasting event there, and on March 6 she hosted a trivia night with her husband Bill Seney that would be one of the venue’s final nights before Covid-19 suspended live entertainment.

Being invited to christen The Rex was “the greatest honor in my city,” Beaudry said in a recent phone interview. Born and raised in Manchester, “I have stories of my grandmother and my mom going there when they were kids. It’s such a familial place … for me it is home, and God, it’s a gorgeous home to be dwelling in.”

Beaudry had one event planned that couldn’t happen, however — until now.

In the works since before the pandemic, Alli Beaudry Songfest will finally come to fruition on July 24. It will star Beaudry, fellow singer-songwriters Charlie Chronopoulos and Paul Nelson, and bassist Nick Phaneuf. The idea for the show came to her as she listened to NPR while driving to Berklee College of Music, where she’s an alumna and faculty member.

“Live From Here has been a really cool influence,” Beaudry said. She envisioned a hybrid of the Chris Thile hosted show and VHI Storytellers. “Behind the scenes of the songs and them as artists, and where they’ve stemmed from … I’ve always loved the history behind the music; hearing that just lets you connect so much more.”

There’s an element of a classic “song pull” to the evening, Beaudry said.

“We’re each going to individually play, but also come together as artists on each other’s music,” she said. “We’re kind of conspiring to decide what to sing, and it’s just like a kid in a candy shop.”

All of the performers are “more or less bandmates of mine,” said Beaudry, as well as close friends. Chronopoulos is like a brother to her.

“We know each other too well sometimes,” she said. “I don’t even have to speak to him, it just happens with music. I think for an audience to see that symbiotic relationship is so crazy powerful.”

She’s known Phaneuf since her days at Manchester High School Central.

“He went to [Manchester] West; we became friends through mutual musical things, and really just haven’t stopped playing with each other,” she said.

Nelson and Beaudry met at one of the monthly Java Jams she hosts at Café Le Reine in downtown Manchester.

“Another relationship that I’m just super grateful for,” she said. “He’s an incredible writer, really captivating sound and storytelling. Different parts of his life brought him all over the globe, but he’s rooted here.”

One thing all the performers share is parenthood, a theme that’s very much a part of their current music.

“Charlie calls this our Post-Youth Tour. … The things we sing about in our 30s are different than what we did during our coming of age,” she said, naming Brandi Carlile’s song “The Mother” as a good example. “She’s saying, ‘All my rowdy friends are out accomplishing their dreams, but I am the mother,’ of her daughter Evangeline. She just speaks of all the things that make her sure there’s nothing in the world that could compare to having that. It resonates so [strongly] with me.”

The show will be a celebration, Beaudry said brightly.

“The Rex is just such a special place to me now, and I can’t wait to continue our beautiful relationship,” she said. “Seeing live music is a part of our soul that I think was stripped from us, the artist and the listener. There’s such a healing nature to it. As a music therapist, I always respect that, but it’s beyond that at this point.”

Alli Beaudry Songfest
When: Saturday, July 24, 8 p.m..
Where: The Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $20 reserved at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Alli Beaudry. Courtesy photo.

Concord show celebrates new jazz album

Scott Solsky has been a fixture in the Capital City since releasing his eponymous debut album in 2003. He’s taught music at Shaker River School for nearly two decades and played in multiple bands and as a solo performer. His upcoming indoor concert at Concord’s Bank of New Hampshire Stage marks the release of the second record with his name on the cover, Home.

After laying down the basic tracks at Dover’s Noise Floor studio, Solsky finished the all-instrumental, ambient jazz album in his house in Concord. This was primarily due to the pandemic, but the record’s title was chosen pre-Covid, indicative of the many area musicians who played with him on the disc.

In a recent phone interview, Solsky spoke of a “this is your life” aspect to Home.

“That’s intentional,” he said. “I’ve been very fortunate to be surrounded by really amazing musicians. At the end of the day, they made this album what it is.”

Those include the members of his original soul group Trade — drummer George Laliotis, Chris Noyes on bass, Chris Sink behind the keys, and horn players Zack Jones and Jamie Boccia — along with Jared Steer and fellow Shaker Road staffer Mike Walsh on drums, and Chris Stambaugh on bass.

“He’s also the person that built my guitars,” Solsky said of the latter. “My son Nathan plays on one of the tracks and he has a Stambaugh guitar as well. So with the exception of one bass, all the stringed instruments were Stambaughs.”

Nick Phaneuf crafted the middle section of “Home Suite,” which opens the album.

“I recorded the first and second parts, and then I gave that to Nick; he took those and made that center section,” Solsky said. “I label the music as jazztronica, neo-soul and certainly some funk, but he definitely made the electronica part of that.”

The tracks alternate between Trade (“anything with horns is them”) and a guest band with Walsh, Sink and Stambaugh. For the Bank of New Hampshire Stage show, the new album will be played from start to finish, using all the musicians. After a break, everyone will return for an eclectic set to close the night.

Two drum kits will be on stage.

“The drummers have very specific sounds,” Solsky said. “At one point I thought they’d share a set, but I don’t think that’s going to do it justice. They should be up there expressing themselves with the sound that they feel comfortable with.”

Solsky channeled his inner Stevie Wonder on the new disc, playing flute, melodica, percussion, bass and keys in addition to guitar. That’s an outgrowth of his solo shows, where he does a lot of looping, including drums when Laliotis isn’t with him.

This also sparked an urge to make Home; at more than one gig, people have approached him asking to buy a CD.

“It happened frequently enough where I realized I really needed to actually have music available,” he said. “But a whole album of me just looping? That’s going to get really old, really fast. And why wouldn’t I include all these great musicians that I play with regularly? That was a catalyst for it.”

Fortunately, the guest players did their parts just in time, working at Noise Floor on a weekend just before lockdown.

“I was going to go back to the studio and do my parts on another weekend. Then the pandemic hit,” Solsky said.

So he bought a basic recording setup.

“I knew I wasn’t going to put it out until I could actually have a concert — that was really important to me,” he said. So, fine tuning went on for months. “I could take my time with it, which was a blessing but also a challenge. I had access to record it here, so I had a hard time stopping.”

Scott Solsky Album Release Party
When: Friday, July 16, 8 p.m.
Where: Bank of NH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $15 tickets, $10 livestream at ccanh.com

Featured photo: The Weight Band. Courtesy photo.

The Weight Band plays drive-in show

Though named after The Band’s most iconic song, with sets featuring “Up On Cripple Creek” and other gems from their catalog, The Weight Band is a flame keeper, not a tribute act.

Guitarist and singer Jim Weider cofounded the group after Levon Helm died in 2012, but prior to that he’d assumed the role Robbie Robertson famously quit in The Last Waltz, touring with a reunited Band for 15 years, and playing on their final three studio albums, Jericho, High on the Hog and Jubilation.

Weider’s ties go deeper than that, however. In the mid-1960s, he began bumping into Band members while working at a stereo store in his hometown of Woodstock, New York. Owner Kermit Schwartz, an oddball who’d smoke two cigarettes at a time and had a constant Maalox ring around his mouth, endeared himself to musicians with a generous credit policy.

“He would just give everything out; pay later, they loved it. They would bring in their newest record and stuff they were working on and play it on the Macs and Crowns,” Weider said in a recent phone interview — the latter reference not to computers but to high-end receivers made by McIntosh and Crown Audio. “I met Levon very early on back then.”

After the seismic impact of Music From Big Pink, the Woodstock scene dissipated as The Band hit the road and Weider began his professional music career. By the mid-’80s, everyone was back. The Band had reunited in 1983 with The Cate Brothers Band backing them, but by 1985 the four founding members were considering a lineup shuffle.

Weider, who’d been in Helm’s All Star Band post-Waltz, got a call.

“Levon said, ‘Come on down, the four of us are here at The Getaway playing,’” Weider said. “I sat in with them and we did a whole night of music with the original Band. … They realized they wanted to go back to five pieces after playing with me.”

His first gig was in front of 25,000 people, opening for Crosby, Stills & Nash.

“Dallas, Texas, no rehearsal, just boom,” he said, recalling an inebriated Richard Manuel being carried onstage by two roadies. “I got to kick off all the tunes. … They all have guitar intros, because the guitar player wrote most of them. It was pretty nerve-wracking.”

When Manuel died a year later, they continued to tour; the reunion ended when Danko succumbed to a heart attack in 1999. Later, Weider was part of Helm’s band The Midnight Ramblers during their legendary run of Rambles in his hand-built Catskills barn.

“Levon was in his glory there,” Weider said. “He loved having Allen Toussaint up with us, or John Hiatt or John Prine. Everybody wanted to come and take part. … It was like a big barn dance.”

The Weight Band now includes keyboard player Brian Mitchell, Albert Rogers and Michael Bram on bass and drums, and newest member Matt Zeiner on keyboards. Along with Weider, each brings a long list of credits to the mix, including Bob Dylan, Dicky Betts, Willie Nelson, B.B. King and Al Green.

The energy that moved The Band’s rebirth — honoring the past, while continuing to create new music — is alive with The Weight Band. In 2018, they released World Gone Mad: eight originals, with covers of Jericho’s “Remedy” and Grateful Dead’s “Deal.” In December they completed a follow-up, due later this year or in early 2022.

Shows still feature lots of Band songs, “but now it’s to pull people in,” Weider said. “I’m just carrying on some of the music, and we’ve got our whole catalog of our own sound.”

The night always ends with the song that gives them a name, one many call the national anthem of Americana. Why does “The Weight” endure?

“People can relate to it, they can sing it, and the melody — it’s just, help your brother, take a load off,” Weider said. “It’s just a good feel song, one that everybody wants to play and sing. Robbie wrote a good one.”

The Weight Band
When: Sunday, July 11, 3 & 6 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $75 per car, $22 per person at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: The Weight Band. Courtesy photo.

Regional acts gather for Fourth fest

Necessity breeds solutions, and last summer Justin Uhlig needed one in a big way. The founder of Barnstormers Music and Art, he presented his first show in 2015. It starred the pirate punk Jonee Earthquake Band and a bunch of local acts, including Uhlig’s own Yelloyüth.

He’s been at it ever since, often teaming up with Seacoast arts collective Wrong Brain to throw colorful all-day festivals at venues in New Hampshire and Maine. The semi-constant home is Stone Church in Newmarket, but Barnstormers shows have also happened in Manchester, at the now closed Bungalow Bar, and Penuche’s, when it was located on Hanover Street.

Barnstormers Music and Art was created with a goal of organizing a frequently disparate regional scene into something more distinct, Uhlig explained in a recent phone interview — and giving it a stamp.

“Local bands, a lot of them, come and go, change members and names, and have a hard time establishing a brand,” he said. “I incorporate music and art, and when people see the name Barnstormers, they know it’s going to be a good time.”

When the pandemic threatened to derail an outdoor event on a 70-acre lawn close to his home in Epping, Uhlig devised a clever workaround. He built an FM transmitter, then wired it through the soundboard, and staged a drive-in show. Unlike similar offerings at Tupelo Music Hall and Swanzey’s Drive-In Live, patrons listened to the music in their cars, through the vehicle sound system.

“I wanted to put on a show with a live feel where people felt safe, and if they chose to, they could commingle,” Uhlig said. “It went really well, with about 150 people spread out. Some of them camped, there were a bunch of bands, fireworks and a barbecue. We had a good time celebrating Independence Day.”

Though distancing restrictions are gone this year, the throwback technology remains — along with the name. Live at the Drive-In will feature a number of performers from the Concord/Manchester area, along with some Seacoast bands.

Strange Language is a progressive rock band based in Merrimack.

“Two guitarists, really fantastic,” Uhlig said, noting that they’re currently recording a new album at Blackheart Sound in Manchester. “Really fun band to watch, this is their first gig since before Covid.”

Odd Fellow’s Way has a new name, Saint Mary’s Vandals, but the same raucous sound.

“They’re a band of street punks,” Uhlig said, “that make you want to drink a beer and dance around, maybe bump into each other a little bit while you’re dancing.”

Sauce on the Side has a throwback punk vibe going.

“They’re young, but with a real Misfits style,” Uhlig said. “Definitely an up and comer, the next generation in my opinion, along with Take One; the guitarist in Sauce on the Side is their bass player. I had the pleasure of singing a cover of Fugazi’s ‘Waiting Room’ with them last year.”

Others on the bill include Felix Holt, Blind Drive, Dead Time, Andrew Polakow, Hansen Barlow Band, Slow Coyote, Brian Munger and ex-Catastrophic OK singer Madison West performing with a yet to be named group.

“Definitely something that people are going to want to check out,” Uhlig said of West’s band. He described their sound as “progressive rock mixed with some classic influences, but really an Alice in Chains kind of vibe. They definitely are some top-notch performers and instrumentalists.”

The event begins at noon and ends when the last note is played.

“We’re going to go till about midnight,” Uhlig said. “There’s a huge field and we’re going to have a big bonfire going all night and we’ll have some food, nice clean porta potties. It should be a really nice night to check out the stars and have a good time.”

Live at the Drive-In – An Independence Day Soiree
When: Saturday, July 3, 7:30 p.m.
Where: 25 Hedding Road, Epping
Tickets: $20 per carload at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Sauce on the Side. Courtesy photo.