Author: Michael Witthaus

The Music Roundup 25/02/27

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

•• Welcome back: The show never ends as Carl Palmer hosts An Evening With Emerson, Lake & Palmer that’s a virtual concert from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame prog rock band. Video from a 1992 Royal Albert Hall performance brings back Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, who both passed away in 2016, while Palmer plays along on drums to evoke the masterful power trio. Thursday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $55 and up at tupelohall.com.

• Hard rocking: Check out three distinct flavors of female-fronted metal with Dystopica, a Connecticut-based band led by singer Becky Brideau, who recently released the revved-up single “Freewheel Burning,” local favorites Sepsiss, hot on the heels of their latest, “Play the Game,” an indictment of industry success syndrome, and riffy duo the Saturn Cycle. Hollow Virtue opens. Friday, Feb. 28, 8 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, $10 at the door, 21+, @KineticCityEvents.

• Bag boys: Boasting they’re “the most famous bagpipe band on the planet,” the Red Hot Chilli Pipers have a pair of area appearances to kick off the Celtic-centric month. The nine-piece group is known for its rock ’n trad “bag rock,” which includes covers of everything from “Amazing Grace” to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Saturday, March 1, 8 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, and Sunday, March 2, 7 p.m., Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia. $29 and up at etix.com.

• Forthright folk: The rootsy trio Low Lily — married couple Liz Simmons and Flynn Cohen, and fiddler Natalie Padilla — decided to be bold on their latest, Angels in the Wreckage. The a capella anthem “What’ll You Do” is punchy, political and ready-made for a march, while “One Wild World” covers similar territory more tenderly. Sunday, March 2, 6 p.m., Andres Institute of Art, 106 Route 13, Brookline, $25 at andresinstitute.org.

• Neighbor loving: It’s legend that The Rough & Tumble was born when Mallory Graham met Scott Tyler on a double decker bus in 2011 while spying on his notebook. Their latest, Hymns for My Atheist Sister & Her Friends to Sing Along To, is a hopeful album focused on the nature of faith in a corrosive world. The energetic chorale piece “Love Them, Too” is a standout. Tuesday, March 4, 2 p.m., Taylor Community Center, 435 Union Ave., Wolfeboro, bandsintown.com.

Latitude adjustment

Easygoing Escape to Margaritaville hits Palace

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

New England spent most of February waking up to single-digit temperatures and the sound of snowplows in the street, so the latest musical at the Palace Theatre couldn’t arrive at a better time. Set in a sunny resort somewhere near the equator, Escape to Margaritaville is a frothy, guilty pleasure that’s packed with Jimmy Buffet songs.

With a book from a pair of sitcom veterans, the jukebox musical’s mood is best summed up by Tully (Matt McCloskey), who sings at the hotel bar and is modeled after the writer of “Changes in Latitudes” and the show’s title song. “The deeper you go,” Tully says, “the less interesting it gets.”

To paraphrase the Bard of the Keys, this evening comes with a license to chill.

The plot centers on a bachelorette getaway. Tammy (Megan Quinn) is finding some respite from her boorish fiance ahead of her wedding. Rachel (Jen Fogarty-Morgan) cares more about getting a soil sample from an island volcano for an energy venture that apparently involves potatoes, but falls quickly in a fling with the one-week-stand specialist Tully.

While that’s happening, Tammy is warming to the polar opposite of her husband-to-be, a genial bartender named Brick (Adam Fields). With those parts in place, and a few colorful denizens like hotel owner Marley (Nakiiya Coleman), old-timer J.D. (Jacob Medich) and handyman Jamal (Tyler Price Robinson), the Parrothead-pleasing songfest moves forward.

Though Escape to Margaritaville is aimed at the people who instinctively know the last two words in the chorus of “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” it’s also fun for folks who are new to Buffett’s brand of trop rock. In fact, the Palace company had little awareness of him before rehearsals, one of which was canceled due to a foot of snow falling.

That would change.

“Now I get it; I’m kind of a converted Parrothead,” Director Carl Rajotte said by phone recently. “We’re having a blast teaching this show. There’s a lot of stylized dancing, a Caribbean feel, and then just all the puns. The show is written for people who enjoy puns, and all of the actors are laughing during rehearsal.”

In a joint interview, Fogarty-Morgan and Quinn discussed the cast’s mood as a Feb. 28 opening night approached.

“It’s a really nice, easy story,” Fogarty-Morgan said. “It’s fun, it’s goofy and silly. The music is amazing and wonderful and you get to hear it in a new way, which will be fun for the fans. They put together a phenomenal cast, and everyone’s really going to have a good time.”

Quinn, a Palace favorite who also runs their Youth Theatre Company, is pleased to see many fresh faces in Margaritaville. “Besides Jen and one other person, I have not worked with any of these people before,” she said. “They are all so good, so talented and very funny. We’ve been having such a good time with them, so that’s been a nice experience.”

Early on, both Quinn and Rajotte were certain “for an embarrassingly long time” that Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” was a Buffett tune, but they since have come far. Everyone has a favorite now — “Cheeseburger in Paradise” is Quinn’s go-to, and Fogarty-Morgan is a fan of “Five O’clock Somewhere,” which began as an Alan Jackson tune with a guest vocal before Buffett took sole ownership by making it a staple at his concerts.

Rajotte selected the new work with an eye on the schedule, and the Palace will keep the tropical vibe alive by handing out leis to audience members. No word yet on whether blenders will be whirring with the show’s signature drink, though. The show is a great way to clear thoughts of frigid temperatures and seasonal stress, if only for a couple of hours.

“We always strive to do at least two brand new shows per season,” he said. “It’s the perfect time to do it, with the cold and snow … I keep on falling on the ice, but then I get to come in here and have a good time with this music and this show, and I know the audience will, too.”

Escape to Margaritaville

When: Fridays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 2
& 7:30 p.m., and Sundays, 2 p.m. through
March 23. Also Thursday, March 20, 7:30
p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St.,
Manchester
Tickets: $39 and up at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: The cast of Escape to Margaritaville. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 25/02/20

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

• Family affair: With their reputation as Canada’s first couple of music set, Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy bring their children Mary Frances and Michael Leahy on stage for an evening of Cape Breton’s finest mix of Celtic and traditional sounds. The show exudes youthful energy, while highlighting MacMaster and the elder Leahy’s fiddling talent. Thursday, Feb. 20, 7:30 p.m., Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester, $43 and up at palacetheatre.org.

• Rock coda: Formed by Dokken’s principal songwriter George Lynch after the band broke up in 1989, Lynch Mob long outlasted its predecessor. Its first album went gold, and a dozen more followed in a 30-plus-year career that’s now wrapping up with a farewell tour called The Final Ride. The current lineup is Lynch on guitar, singer Gabriel Colon, with a rhythm section of Jaron Gulino and Jimmy D’Anda. Friday, Feb. 21, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $55 at tupelohall.com

• Mule man: Million Voices Whisper, the first solo effort in nine years from Warren Haynes, has the Gov’t Mule leader and former Allman Brothers guitarist in town for a show. The new disc reflects the soul music that inspired Haynes early on and includes a collaboration with fellow Brother Derek Trucks, “Real, Real Love,” that was begun by Gregg Allman before his death. Friday, Feb. 21, 8 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, $55 and up at ccanh.com.

• Ski jam: The house band for monthly jams at BNH Stage, Andrew North & the Rangers, play an apres-ski trio set. The local favorites have a new live album, Thanks for the Warning, Vol. 2, recorded at Feathered Friend Brewery in early December 2023. Their Bandcamp page has even more, like a 24-song show from early January show at Penuche’s Ale House in Concord. Saturday, Feb. 22, 6 p.m., Pats Peak, 686 Flanders Road, Henniker. Visit andrewnorthandtherangers.com.

• Twin bill: A solid rock ’n’ roll show has true believers Dr. G & Lee topping the bill. Louisiana-born Brandon Gauthier fell in love with a 100-watt Fender amp as a teenager and has kept it loud since, while managing at the same time to earn a doctorate in history. Lee Durham is a veteran guitarist. All-female trio Catwolf opens. Saturday, Feb. 22, 6:30 p.m., Milk St. Studios, 6 Milk St., Dover, $15 at portsmouthnhtickets.com.• Shake it: A group of Boston area musicians with a love for funk, Booty Vortex play an early Valentine’s Day show at a romantic spot. Break out the dancing shoes and get out to get down for an evening of throwback dance music from bands like Earth, Wind & Fire and Wild Cherry. Along with winery selections will be a full bar with themed cocktails, beer and non-alcoholic drinks. Thursday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m., LaBelle Winery, 14 Route 111, Derry, $40 at labellewinerey.com.

• Dy-no-mite: Before he hit it big playing J.J. on the ’70s sitcom Good Times, Jimmie Walker worked as a standup comic at Black Panther gatherings in Harlem and toured with Motown revues. Friday, Feb. 14, 6 p.m., Newfound Lake Inn, 1030 Mayhew Turnpike, Bridgewater, $25 and up at eventbrite.com.

• Song man: After his band Ghost of Paul Revere parted ways in 2022, Griffin William Sherry began a solo career; his first record, Hundred Mile Wilderness, dropped last fall. Recorded in Nashville with an engineer who’s worked with Sierra Hull and Brandi Carlile, the album’s title is a reference to the stretch of the Appalachian Trail that passes through Sherry’s home state of Maine. Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $33 at palacetheatre.org.

• Light show: Beginning with the landmark album Dark Side of the Moon, Floydian Trip recreates Pink Floyd’s touring years before Roger Waters and David Gilmour began feuding. The tribute act combed through countless audio and video clips culled between 1973 and 1981 for an authentic concert experience that includes lights, projections, lasers and a very convincing psychedelic sound. Sunday, Feb. 16, 7 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $40 at tupelohall.com.

• Plus one: Spontaneity defines the live experience of Session Americana, a musical collective begun over a decade ago that draws from the rich Boston Americana community. For an upcoming show, they’re joined by singer, songwriter and fiddle player Eleanor Buckland, who got her start with the trio Lula Wiles. She recently accompanied the group on a tour of Europe. Sunday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m., Word Barn Meadow, 66 Newfields Road, Exeter, $28 at portsmouthnhtickets.com.

Here’s Johnny

The Man In Black is a convincing Cash

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Shawn Barker walked into auditions for the rock ’n’ roll origin musical Million Dollar Quartet sporting a rockabilly haircut with his eyes on the Elvis Presley role. The show’s director had a different idea, however, and his decision pointed Barker down a new path, and a multi-decade career starring in his tribute act, The Man In Black.

“There’s a million guys that audition for doing Elvis for this play, and we can pick any of them,” Barker, in a recent phone interview, recalled being told. “There’s nobody that we can pick that would do Johnny Cash except for you. You’re the one guy that we found that was like, this is the guy.”

Once that was settled, the musical’s producers encouraged Barker to take an immersive approach for his role.

“I went to where he was buried, to his house — anything I could do to associate myself with Cash,” he said. His efforts ultimately benefited The Man In Black. “It ended up getting so popular that I never took stage with the Million Dollar Quartet; I got too busy and I had to drop out of the Broadway production.”

Barker’s show begins in the Sun Records studio where Cash cut his first songs, and continues chronologically through the ups and downs of a career that found him at one point banned from the Grand Ole Opry for kicking out stage lights in an intoxicated rage, and welcomed back a few years later to host a weekly television show from the Ryman Auditorium stage.

The Johnny Cash Show, which ran for two seasons from 1969 to 1971, was an incubator for the crossover genre of music now called Americana, and Barker takes time to focus on it during his show.

“We talk about how groundbreaking it was,” he said. “He had people like Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Linda Ronstadt … it was a very eclectic group he brought to his show. And he was doing the folk festivals and stuff like that at the time when the whole hippie movement was going on. He was a pretty diverse cat, man.”

It concludes with the series of American Recordings albums that Rick Rubin began producing in 1994. Covers of songs like Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” and “Rusty Cage” from Soundgarden helped bring Cash to a new, younger audience, driven by his music and stark, moving videos played on MTV and VH1.

“He’s one of the only stars that I can think of that had that far-reaching of a fan base,” Barker said, adding he sees evidence of this whenever he performs. “We get little kids at the show sometimes and then we’ll get the people that were there when he was at Sun Records. Eight to 80 years old is our crowd age;it’s pretty wild.”

Barker took a winding road to becoming a convincing doppelgänger for the country legend. Growing up in Missouri, he sang in the church choir and joined school band in fifth grade. When he started playing with friends in the basement, it was lots of rock music, from Skid Row and other popular groups.

After high school, he was in a working band called Nothing Yet, doing everything from early Stones to Rage Against the Machine — not exactly Pentecostal fare.

“Oh, yeah, it was a total departure,” he said. “Church was one of the things I grew up in as a kid, and probably went about as far from as you can, and then came back to as an adult.”

To hear Barker tell it, becoming Johnny Cash was bound to happen.

“My dad and his family are all from Arkansas like Cash, and grew up doing the same things,” he said. “Even as a kid, my dad worked on a cotton farm and pulled the big sacks. He’d talk about how his hands would be cut up from reaching in and popping the cotton off the plants.”

The Cash look was a gift from above, but the rest came naturally, and since launching the act in 2003, Barker’s come to see it as his destiny. Fans clearly love it. “The accent was something I already had in genetic makeup,” he said. “I didn’t really think it was going to be that long-lasting … but it turns out that this is probably what I’m going to do until I die.”

The Man In Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash
When: Sunday, Feb. 23, 7 p.m.
Where: Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua
Tickets: $29 and up at etix.com

Featured Photo: Shawn Barker. Courtesy photo.

A priest, an atheist and a teacher walk onto a stage

Faithless is a fast-paced look at modern religion

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

A play with humor, intelligence, drama and the pacing of a West Wing episode, Jon Klein’s Faithless arrived on director Monique Peaslee Foote’s desk at an inconvenient time. New Hampshire Theatre Project head Sean Robinson gave her the script, asking if she’d give it a read, when “I was in no position, with no desire to do it,” she said by phone recently.

Then she dug into the story of a family crisis confronting Gus, an aging atheist, and his two grown stepchildren; Calvin, a minister, and Claire, who teaches comparative religion but is a skeptic until a head injury causes her to think she’s seen the divine. The cause of the conclave is Gus’s adopted teenage daughter Rosie, who’s decided she wants to become a nun.

“I was hooked after three pages,” Foote said. “Number one, it’s funny, and I think we’re at a time in life where that’s good. It’s witty, and it’s fast-paced…. I’m all about a 90-minute show, no intermission these days. Get me there, tell me the story, and then I’m going to peace out. And that’s what this piece does.”

Foote describes the play’s four actors as “whip smart” — Jim Sears playing Gus, Stephanie Lazenby as Claire, Matt Recine in the role of Calvin, with Michelle Levine playing Rosie. “Each of them, their comedic timing is everything,” she said. “I mean, I have to do little to no work, because they’re bringing all of it.”

Preparation began at a pace befitting the script. “I knew the rehearsal process wasn’t super long, so as a director, I set the scaffolding,” Foote said. “Sometimes you get those golden groups of people where they all kind of get it, and we started that way — everybody got it. We’re all on the same page at the same pace.”

Blocking done, the cast was ready, she continued. “Now we get to play. Let’s dig into the layers of these guys. The biggest problem for us in rehearsals is to stop them from laughing. I’m like, all right, guys, get [it] together, like, let’s go. Because they’re funny, they’re just hilarious people. So we’re all there just laughing our tails off. It’s great.”

Faithless is the first Klein work that Foote’s been involved with. “He’s pretty clever,” she said. “Quite frankly, I haven’t done a ton of research on Mr. Klein, but what he has right is the story, and the way people talk to each other. The banter, the way they just throw it back and forth is really wonderful and real.”

In a review of a Washington, D.C., production of the play, DC Theatre Arts writer Amy Kotkin agreed. “The playwright’s sure-fire dialogue combines lofty questions with very funny analogies to popular culture,” she wrote. “Watch how he references time-shares, dodgeballs, crowbars, and Little House on the Prairie as his all-too-human characters slug it out.”

Foote joined New Hampshire Theatre Project in 2009 as an actor. Directing “is fairly new to me, but I really think I love it,” she said, Collected Stories, a two-woman play she directed last year starring Genevieve Aichele and Amy Desrosiers, was nominated for multiple New Hampshire Theatre Alliance awards.

“We didn’t win, but it was nice to be seen,” she said, adding that the experience reinforced her commitment to NHTP.

“I have a personal passion for the organization because it does really smart theater, and it tells really smart stories,” she said. “The foundation of their work is starting a conversation [and] that’s what I’m here for. They want to bring the tough stuff out and get people talking about it, because that’s where community starts. That’s where we find our humanness, in the conversation.”

Faithless
When: Fridays, 7:30 p.m., Saturdays, 4 p.m. and Sundays, 2:30 p.m. through March 9
Where: New Hampshire Theatre Project, 959 Islington St., Portsmouth
Tickets: $28 and up at portsmouthnhtickets.com

Featured photo: Jim Sears, Stephanie Lazenby, Michelle Levine, and Matt Recine. Courtesy photo.

History and song

Guy Davis returns to Flying Goose

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

History through song and storytelling imbues the performance of Guy Davis. His 2024 album, The Legend of Sugarbelly, was inspired by a woman murdered in Georgia during the early 20th century, a tale Davis’s uncle would share every time he visited. Though the victim’s name was a mystery, everyone was aware of her killer’s identity.

“I knew the story by heart, it was like a ceremony between my uncle and I,” Davis said by phone recently. “Not only did my whole family know this man, that same man at one point was assigned by the Ku Klux Klan to kill my grandfather, because he was a Black man. I’ll just say that my grandfather’s death at his hands never did take place; a lot of mitigating circumstances that had to do with family looking out for each other, that kind of thing.”

The Legend of Sugarbelly began as a song and later became a play that debuted at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, N.J., in 2022. Davis will draw from the work at an upcoming New London show, and do a monologue from the theatrical version.

“That uncle who used to tell me the story, he died the day I finished writing the play,” Davis noted poignantly.

The son of actors and civil rights leaders Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Davis grew up with people like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Pointier stopping by his home.

“I remember my dad introducing me to Malcolm X and having to reach way up and him having to reach way down to shake my hand,” he said. Meeting boxer Joe Louis at a Harlem fair housing protest was another favorite memory.

Davis found music at a Vermont summer camp run by John Seeger, Pete’s brother, where he learned banjo, later adding six- and 12-string guitar to his repertoire. He grew so dedicated to banjo that one day on a hike that stopped at an estate auction, he bid all his money on an armless rocking chair. “I was 25 cents short, but then the guy running the auction looked at me and said, ‘Here, I’ll give you the quarter.’”

It was perfect for practicing, which the camp counselors let him do during rest time.

“They allowed me to take my rocking chair, sit it outside the cabin with my banjo, and just sit, rock and play,” he said. “I wasn’t any good … but I was trying to learn that basic baton stroke that Pete does.”

He’d meet the legendary folksinger a few years later, after seeing him in concert on a camp day trip. “I came home and I found Pete Seeger standing in my living room,” Davis recalled. “I didn’t know he knew my folks. He asked me a couple of questions, and then over the years, I got to go up to his cabin and meet his daughters…. His door always seemed to be open for the rest of his life to me. I was very grateful.”

In his 20s, Davis began playing with Seeger. “Pete made the mistake of never chasing anyone off the stage who came up to sing with him,” he said. “A bunch of us would just follow him around, and when he went on stage, we’d … back him up. If his guitar or banjo was on the floor of the stage while we sang, he seemed to not mind if I picked one of them up.”

Seeger figured prominently in the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and Davis was asked to comment on Edward Norton’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of the man he’d grown to call “Uncle Pete” — along with his wife, “Aunt Toshi” — as the interview wound down.

He enjoyed it, Davis began. “He captured something of Pete, and I can’t quite explain what it was, but there’s a sense of humility, a sense of decency, a sense of being a helping hand,” he said, then added his take on the film’s subject. “As far as Timothee Chalamet is concerned; after seeing the movie, I think I knew less about Bob Dylan after than I did before.”

Guy Davis

When: Thursday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Flying Goose Pub, 40 Andover Road, New London
Tickets: $30, call 526-6899 to reserve

Featured Photo: Guy Davis. Courtesy photo.

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!