Amadou & Mariam

As you may remember from the past couple of years, "Summerstage" now encompasses more than just Central Park, but Central Park Summerstage will still always be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the series. Here's the 2012 schedule. Check it out below...

Continue reading "Central Park Summerstage 2012 schedule (Alabama Shakes, Dawes, Kurt Vile, Gary Clark Jr, Amadou & Mariam & more)"

by Andrew Sacher

Mountain Goats at Bowery Ballroom in March (more by Ryan Barkan)

Michael Dorf's (founder of Knitting Factory) series of tribute concerts to benefit music education programs for underprivileged youth (which last paid tribute to Neil Young in February) will continue on March 13, 2012 at Carnegie Hall, when 21 different artists will perform the 21 songs from The Rolling Stones' massive document of the early part of their long withstanding career, Hot Rocks 1964-1971. The compilation was released at the tail end of 1971, and was filled with the bluesy cuts that they used to leave their stamp on popular music (though notably includes no tracks from the psychedelic trip they took on Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967) before putting together the colossal double album Exile On Main St. a few months later.

So far the artists that will be participating in the show include The Mountain Goats, Glen Hansard, Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, Rich Robinson, and Carolina Chocolate Drops. More TBA soon. Tickets for the show are on sale now.

Meanwhile, Steve Earle will be kicking off a residency at Michael Dorf's venue City Winery with Allison Moorer and friends in January. The residency will take place every monday over the five week period of January 9 through February 6. Tickets for all five shows are on sale now. The Carnegie Hall show in March won't be the first time Steve has covered the Stones. He's been known to cover "Dead Flowers" at his shows. You can listen to a version recorded live in Calgary that appeared on the deluxe edition of his 1988 album Copperhead Road below.

The Mountain Goats, who also play at the Stones tribute, will be sticking around after the Carnegie Hall show to play NYC's Ecstatic Music Festival later that month. They'll be performing material with vocal quartet Anonymous 4 that frontman John Darnielle wrote for his new project Transcendental Youth, with arrangements by Owen Pallett. They play on March 24 at Merkin Concert Hall. Tickets for the show are still on sale. John Darnielle also just announced a bunch more 2012 dates, all of which are listed below.

All Mountain Goats & Steve Earle dates and the above-mentioned song stream, below...

Continue reading "a Rolling Stones tribute @ Carnegie Hall, Steve Earle & Allison Moorer residency, and more Mountain Goats dates"

photos by Jim Brueckner

Emmylou Harris

Day two (7/31) of Newport Folk Festival featured performances by The Cave Singers, Wanda Jackson, Justin Townes Earle, Middle Brother, Elvis Costello, M. Ward, Emmylou Harris and others. If you missed the fest, you can listen to archives of the sets at NPR.

Like they've done in the past, Emmylou Harris and Elvis Costello performed together on one of Elvis's songs. She performed guest vocals with him and The Imposters on "Scarlet Tide."

Mountain Man also played day two of the fest. Pictures of their set are HERE. Pictures from the first day are HERE. The rest from day two, below...

Continue reading "Newport Folk Fest 2011 - belated Day 2 pics & audio (Emmylou Harris, Middle Brother, M Ward, Elvis Costello & more)"

Tinariwen will release a new album called Tassili on August 30 via Anti- Records (pictured above). The album was recorded entirely acoustic with contributions from Tunde Adebimpe & Kyp Malone of TV on the Radio, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and Nels Cline of Wilco (who plays a show with Marc Ribot at LPR on June 15th).

Tinariwen will head out on a short North American tour in July which will hit the Winnipeg Folk Festival and the previously mentioned Highline Ballroom on July 20. Tickets are still on sale for that NYC show.

Tinariwen also play the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival on July 21 at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds in Trumansburg, NY (which runs from July 21-24). There they share a bill with Donna the Buffalo, Court Yard Hounds, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, Balkan Beat Box, Sammy Kershaw, Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited, John Brown's Body, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, and many others.

For Seun Kuti, the Trumansburg date is one day after he plays a free show at the Prospect Park Bandshell. Seun recently sent out an updated list of tour dates too, and a new video you can watch below.

Tinariwen collaborators TV on the Radio also recently expanded their upcoming tour dates, many of which are with Broken Social Scene who they play with at the Williamsburg Waterfront They also have a new video, as does BSS

The videos with all Seun & Tinariwen & TVOTR dates, below...

Continue reading "new Tinariwen LP & dates, Trumansburg Grassrooots Fest, Seun Kuti, Nels Cline, Marc Ribot & TV on the Radio too"

"An exciting mix of folk music's founding voices and modern favorites highlights the 52nd edition of the Newport Folk Festival® when it returns to Newport's Fort Adams State Park July 30-31, it was announced today by the Newport Festivals Foundation, the recently-formed 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization which produces the event.

Tickets go on sale worldwide on Thursday, March 31, at 10:00 am at www.newportfolkfest.net.

Continue reading "Newport Folk Festival 2011 lineup announced, tickets too"

photos by Chris La Putt

Emmylou Harris & the Low Anthem

The Low Anthem opened for, and performed with (see above), Emmylou Harris at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, NJ on November 13th. A set of pictures from that show is in this post. And:

On February 22, The Low Anthem will release Smart Flesh, the self-produced follow up to their critically lauded 2009 release Oh My God, Charlie Darwin on Nonesuch. The majority of Smart Flesh's eleven tracks were recorded in a cavernous, vacant pasta sauce factory in Central Falls, RI. Additional tracking was done in a Providence garage, dubbed the "gator pit." Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Monsters of Folk) mixed the record in Omaha with additional mixing by engineer Jesse Lauter (Elvis Perkins) in New York. The Low Anthem is four multi-instrumentalists - Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky, Jocie Adams, and newest member Mat Davidson.

All Low Anthem tour dates and more pictures from the Wellmont, below...

Continue reading "The Low Anthem played Wellmont Theater w/ Emmylou Harris, releasing new album, touring (dates)"

My Brightest Diamond @ LPR in 2008 (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)

Lincoln Center's acclaimed series American Songbook returns in January for its thirteenth season celebrating the diversity of American popular song. For 16 nights of pop, folk, cabaret, country, rock, and show tunes, the series will explore the best of the golden age of musical standards through to today's most dynamic songwriting. The 2011 season - January 12 through February 20 - will bring to the stage some of today's most gifted interpreters of song, starting with the luminous legend Barbara Cook, the multi-faceted Joan Osborne, as well as the newest toast of Broadway, Kate Baldwin. It will feature opportunities to hear the acclaimed opera star
Pfizer is a proud sponsor of Lincoln Center's American Songbook 2011.

Stephanie Blythe and stage and film actress Anika Noni Rose who make their solo pop concert debuts, and the enduring influence of Latin music in the American Songbook canon will be represented by the modern bossa nova of Bebel Gilberto and the Cuban rhythms of Broadway star Raul Esparza. Arguably the greatest songwriting team in American Songbook history are the brothers George and Ira Gershwin, and they will be the subject of a Rob Fisher tribute with an array of dazzling voices.

After a hectic day of updating the constantly updating Bonnaroo lineup page, the entire thing has been announced. Gwar, Norah Jones, and the rest of the lineup below...

Continue reading "the complete 2010 Bonnaroo lineup (Stevie Wonder, The Melvins, Kings of Leon, Isis, Local Natives & many more) "