Category: Nightlife

Sarah Lee Guthrie finds her own voice

Two New Year’s Days ago Sarah Lee Guthrie wrote on Instagram, “Good morning 2020, I love you already.” With a few West Coast shows booked ahead of playing in the band on her dad Arlo’s national tour, the future gleamed. But in early March, right after she got to Solvang, California, the world shut down.

Guthrie holed up there, releasing videos made in a culvert near the Santa Ynez River. Songs came from her life as “a link in a chain of folk singers,” starting with grandpa Woody Guthrie, with selections from Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs.

A pair of originals from the so-called Culvert Sessions — an aching ode to her late mother and the longing “Seven Sisters,” a performance inspired by a full moon — hinted at the core of her hejira.

“I hadn’t really stepped into what could be known as a Sarah Lee Guthrie solo career after breaking up with Johnny [Irion, her husband and musical partner since 2000],” she said in a recent phone interview. “I’ve been kind of dipping my toes in all kinds of different directions to determine how to capture me, my essence. How do I put it down there?”

Beyond that, isolation was a totally new feeling that sparked waves of energy.

“I hadn’t actually lived alone ever in my entire adult life, and it’s the first time I was actually in one place for two whole months,” she said. “Then I found this amazing little portal of creativity. … I loved it.”

After lockdown was lifted, Guthrie found her way to Austin, Texas, where her sister Cathy now lives. The move sparked her latest creative flowering. The Guthrie Girls & the Stage Door Johnnies is a honky tonk band that holds down a weekly residency at Sam’s Town Point, a no-nonsense, music-forward bar located at the city’s southern tip.

The new effort took shape when Guthrie reluctantly agreed to play a folk jam.

“I’ve played listening rooms, theaters and schools, libraries and coffee houses all over the world, but bars … I’m just not good at them,” she said. But her sister wasn’t buying it, telling her, “just get over yourself and play.”

Her first night, “all these guys started to join me on stage, kind of uninvited, but really funny,” she said. “It was like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go grab my guitar, I’m going to grab my bass, let’s jam. I’m going to go find a drummer,’ [and] all of a sudden I have a band. … This place sucked me in and I have not left because it is so fun. My entire view of how to make music, why we make music, my relationship to music, just totally shifted.”

The nature of her employment also changed. The two sisters work behind the bar at Sam’s when they’re not performing, a situation necessitated by her father’s retirement from touring and live shows.

“I’m laid off and she’s laid off in a sense. She was working for my dad, and also making music with Amy Nelson in Folk Uke,” she said.

Cathy’s ex, Ramsey Millwood — the two share a child — is a singer-songwriter who owns and runs the bar.

Guthrie rapidly assimilated into Austin life.

“It’s really its own country,” she said, “and the coolest thing is that there’s so many great musicians, living a very unpretentious lifestyle going around from club to club. Our favorite people are always there, Charlie Sexton or Charley Crockett or Paul Cousin….”

Her uncle, folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, stopped by recently.

“This is a haven for people like Jack. There’s old cars in the back. We have one of my dad’s buses there that we’ve been fixing up and the guys all love to sit around and talk about what needs to be done to it. And a bunch of singing cowboys; I was like, ‘Jack, you gotta come hang out with us.’”

Leading a band is exhilarating, liberating, she said.

“Playing with Arlo and my brother, I’m just a little sister, a daughter,” she said. “Coming into a territory where I’m actually driving is feeling really good; I’m empowered. These guys have great taste, there’s great music. I’m inspired, and I love singing with Cathy. Having a band that loves coming to play your songs! It’s just like, oh man, feeling that for my own self. … It’s been life-changing.”

Looking back at her long-ago ’gram post now fills Guthrie with regret’s opposite.

“I did love it,” she said. “I know that it’s been a hard year, but … we spend so much time trying to decide whether it’s good or bad; I’m just over it. I just want to experience. I’m an optimist, so I saw the good in 2020 like you wouldn’t believe. … I’m so much happier.”

Sarah Lee Guthrie w/ Tristan Omand
When: Saturday, Aug. 14, 2 p.m.
Where: Stone Church, 5 Granite St., Newmarket
Tickets: $25 at stonechurchrocks.com ($30 at the door)

Also Friday, Aug. 13, 7:30 p.m. at Brewbakers, 48 Emerald St., Keene ($25 at novarts.org) with Charlie Chronopoulos.

Featured photo: Sarah Lee Guthrie. Courtesy photo.

Ace Aceto brings the funny to Chunky’s

Ace Aceto thinks that right now is a great time to be a comedian —‌ even hecklers are deferential.

“At one show, someone was yelling stuff out, just excited to be there,” he said by phone recently. “I shut him down [by] making light of it. He came up to me after, saying, ‘Man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mess with you. I was having a good time.’ I’m like, ‘I get it; you weren’t yelling ‘Boo,’ or ‘This guy sucks,’ or anything like that.’”

Aceto’s standup career started in another golden age. In the 1980s, the Boston comedy scene, led by standups like Steven Wright, Lenny Clarke and Barry Crimmins, haloed its way through New England and to his home state of Rhode Island. Mixing a catalog of impressions with stories of his Catholic upbringing, he found his footing at Periwinkles comedy club in Providence.

In 1991 the Comedy Channel, later to merge with Ha! and become Comedy Central, held a contest at Periwinkles, with a dozen winners getting time on the network, including Aceto. Seeing himself on television made him euphoric.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is a real thing,’” he said.

He hasn’t looked back; in 2015, Aceto was inducted into the Rhode Island Comedy Hall of Fame.

The past year presented many challenges for Aceto and his brethren, and he adapted even when it seemed a bit crazy.

“If someone two or three years ago said, ‘I’ve got this great show —‌ you’re going to be up on a platform in a parking lot and people are going to be in their cars,’ you’d be like, there is no freaking way I’m doing that,” he said. “Or ‘Hey, we’re going to be outside at a vineyard with Christmas lights up all over the place.’ I’ve done a couple of vineyards with maybe 80 people in a little courtyard, and everyone is just there to have fun.”

While agreeing that the pent-up need to laugh is causing a spike in its appeal, “comedy constantly ebbs and flows,” Aceto said. “I don’t know if anything will come close to that Big Eighties boom, because there’s also a million people calling themselves comics these days, and none of the late night shows have comics on anymore.”

Back in the day, “that was your goal, to get on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or Leno or Letterman; you used to chase that TV credit,” he said. “Now it matters how many followers you have on YouTube or TikTok or social media. Because from a club owner’s point of view, they’re trying to put [butts] in the seats.”

This mindset can backfire, Aceto said.

“There’s a guy on TikTok guy who always does Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Mark Wahlberg, the same three guys, in different scenarios. ‘Here’s Mark Wahlberg and Vince Vaughn fighting over who’s going to pay the bill at the restaurant.’ He does an amazing job, but could that carry a 45-minute standup set?”

Even though the clock can’t be totally turned back, “I think we’re going to see another boom in live comedy,” Aceto said. “People have been sick of watching it on Netflix and Zoom. They want to see that live aspect to it. I’ve got a lot of friends in bands who have seen more fans come out than ever, as people are starting to appreciate what they took for granted.”

With fellow standup Scott Higgins, Aceto hosts Behind The Funny, a podcast focused on the craft now in its fifth year.

Aceto appears Aug. 7 at Chunky’s Pub and Cinema in Manchester, a show booked by comedy impresario Rob Steen.

“I’ve known Ace since we were 19 or so doing comedy,” Steen said. “He has worked hard and is super funny and mostly he is squeaky clean, which is rare in comedy. I’m excited to have him on my shows; he is a consummate professional.”

Ace Aceto
When: Saturday, Aug. 7, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Chunky’s Pub & Cinema, 707 Huse Road, Manchester
Tickets: $20 at chunkys.com

Featured photo: Ace Aceto. Courtesy photo.

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.