With the arrival of spring, come join us to meet some amazing owl and raptor species up close while learning all about them thanks to the wonderful Tailwinds educators.
What adaptations are needed for some of our raptor neighbors to make it through our long, cold winters? How do things change with the onset of the warmer months? What can we do to help them?
This program illuminates some of the many amazing adaptations that allow the animals here to not only survive but thrive!
Come and meet our Tailwinds educators and team of education raptors for this wonderful winter event!
You'll enjoy a talk about their ecology and adaptations, importance to our ecosystem, and how YOU can help them.
And, you’ll learn how to spot signs of wild owls and raptors in the area, what to look for, and how easy and accessible these experiences can be.
This is not a youth program, but super family friendly and children are most welcome (and will surely be fascinated, inspired, and learn lots). Children under 10 are free, but are required to register given capacity limitations.
Each ticket includes a complimentary beer or cider from our sponsors.
Proceeds from this program will support the Tailwinds education efforts, and The Word Barn!
As acclaimed indie folk band The Ballroom Thieves wrote and recorded their upcoming album, one central question emerged as the theme: “What if we could all just be a little more tender?” The duo – Calin Peters (vocals, cello, bass) and Martin Earley (vocals, guitar) – started to ponder what they could do to be more self-aware of their mental health and of those around them in a world oversaturated by social media, pop-culture, and digital consumption. The result is a personal, lush, 10-track collection of thoughts on the human experience called Sundust.
For more than a decade, Earley and Peters have been combining their thoughts and musical abilities. They’ve toured the US dozens of times, ventured into Europe, Canada, and even managed a journey from Maine to Hawaii to Alaska in one trip, all to play their music for the dedicated fanbase they’ve been steadily growing, person by person. The two have played beautiful theaters like Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, well-loved festivals like Newport Folk, and legendary rooms like LA’s Troubadour. They’ve been known to power slide across stages on bloody knees with their full band and silence packed rooms for 90 minutes with their lyrics and harmonies, accompanied only by a cello and an acoustic guitar during their more intimate duo shows.
Their most personal album to date, Sundust is about self-awareness, breaking down walls that trauma creates, and healing from harshness, but it's also about finding the glimmers, the striking beauty of being a person, and a longing for connection with healthy people. Sundust will be released on April 12 via Nettwerk.
As acclaimed indie folk band The Ballroom Thieves wrote and recorded their upcoming album, one central question emerged as the theme: “What if we could all just be a little more tender?” The duo – Calin Peters (vocals, cello, bass) and Martin Earley (vocals, guitar) – started to ponder what they could do to be more self-aware of their mental health and of those around them in a world oversaturated by social media, pop-culture, and digital consumption. The result is a personal, lush, 10-track collection of thoughts on the human experience called Sundust.
For more than a decade, Earley and Peters have been combining their thoughts and musical abilities. They’ve toured the US dozens of times, ventured into Europe, Canada, and even managed a journey from Maine to Hawaii to Alaska in one trip, all to play their music for the dedicated fanbase they’ve been steadily growing, person by person. The two have played beautiful theaters like Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, well-loved festivals like Newport Folk, and legendary rooms like LA’s Troubadour. They’ve been known to power slide across stages on bloody knees with their full band and silence packed rooms for 90 minutes with their lyrics and harmonies, accompanied only by a cello and an acoustic guitar during their more intimate duo shows.
Their most personal album to date, Sundust is about self-awareness, breaking down walls that trauma creates, and healing from harshness, but it's also about finding the glimmers, the striking beauty of being a person, and a longing for connection with healthy people. Sundust will be released on April 12 via Nettwerk.
Can something be wry, aching, hysterical, evocative, provocative, fun, beautifully sung and consummately played all at once? That would be Vance Gilbert. While he has released 13 albums thus far, Vance truly happens live.
He has made his mark on the folk and acoustic music scenes over the course of a prolific career that extends back to the early ’90s during which he has shared stages worldwide with Aretha Franklin, Shawn Colvin, Arlo Guthrie, the Milk Carton Kids, George Carlin (150+ shows), Anita Baker, The Subdudes, Paul Reiser and any number of others.
He has also made a prominent presence at some of the world’s most prestigious gatherings, among them the Newport, Winnipeg, Rocky Mountain, Calgary, Ottawa, and Falcon Ridge folk festivals, the Kate Wolf Music Festival, and Australia’s Woodford Folk Festival and Mullum Music Festival.
Over the course of his career, he has carved out a singular niche with songs that have resonated with his fans and drawn in new listeners. His classic compositions — Old White Men, Charlene and Unfamiliar Moon, Goodbye Pluto, and Waiting for Gilligan — are emotive and profound, offering certain truths in ways that make a meaningful impact in the most enduring and evocative ways.
Gilbert posses a wide palette and perspective, from a co-write with Grammy Winner Lori McKenna, House of Prayer, to a song on a Grammy-nominated children’s record by the duo Trout Fishing in America. Likewise, after alt-rock star Mike Posner heard Gilbert perform on a podcast, he invited him to take part in co-writing sessions and subsequently to sing on his recent single, Noah’s Ark. Posner reciprocated with a haunting background vocal on Flyby, a song featured on Gilbert’s forthcoming album.
“How rounded is that?”, Gilbert may quip. Truth is, ultimately, it’s the impact that he has on his audiences that matters to him the most. “People take away from these songs what they decide they’re going to take away,” he reflects. “I would hope they walk away thinking. If that’s the case, then I’ve done my job successfully.”
Are you looking for a fun and creative way to pay respect to Mother Earth for Earth Day this year? Spend the eve of Earth Day creating pressed flower art in the shape of a peace sign!
When you sign up, you will be able to choose which frame you would like to use. As part of the workshop, all participants will be provided the necessary tools, a variety of botanicals and a stencil to place on the photo backing to help you place and arrange the blooms.
Once you take the stencil away, you will be impressed with how perfect (or how perfectly imperfect) your flower peace sign comes out.
Because we will be creating a shape, absolutely zero creative skills or past experience is needed to participate in this workshop and learn this technique. And, you will walk away loving your new art piece.
Please note, there is a 20 year-old age minimum due to the delicacy of the flowers and the sharpness of some of the tools we will be using.
SPACE IS LIMITED!
Kentucky musician and composer Ben Sollee, has been blurring boundaries with his musical style and career for nearly two decades – his latest album, Long Haul (2024) is no exception. Drawing on tonal influences from the American and global south, Sollee’s vocals and unique cello style thread through each track binding seemingly disparate chapters of his journey – the Long Haul.
Sollee has distinguished himself as multi-faceted creative, blurring the lines between music, tech, and activism. A graduate of the Univeristy of Louisville School of Music, he holds a BFA in cello performance.
Since his debut record in 2008, Mr. Sollee has released 7 studio records and nearly 10 EPs garnering praise from the New York Times and NPR. His music has been featured in tv shows such as Weeds and Parenthood.
In addition, Sollee has a growing career as a composer for film, tv, and interactive media earning a Emmy Award in 2018 for his score on the ABC special Base Ballet.
Beyond music, Mr. Sollee is known for his social and environmental advocacy working with organizations like Oxfam America, The Nature Conservancy, and Canopy KY to protect people and the land. He currently lives in Louisville, KY with his wife and three children.
Matthew and the Atlas is the project of U.K’s Matt Hegarty and his songwriting style that marries a subtle melodic sensibility with lyrics full of natural imagery and dark emotional heft - all delivered in his striking and distinctive vocal.
When it came time for fifth full-length 'Many Times,' Matt Hegarty needed to try something different. The Aldershot songwriter, better known as Matthew and The Atlas, was keen to follow up 2023's 'This Place We Live' quickly, jumping straight back into the studio at the end of that same year. Tapping up Bear's Den member and producer Kev Jones for the challenge, they approached 'Many Times' with a production style antithetical to its title: each song was to be recorded in as few takes as possible, stripped-back and direct-to-tape, with no overdubs.
This process, the pair explain, was intended to capture Matt's songwriting in its purest form. Recorded over just two days at the iconic Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, "the idea was just to capture a moment in time that is very, very honest and open," Jones says. Inspired in part by Nick Drake's 'Pink Moon' (which was itself captured over just two nights).
"We said to ourselves that I shouldn't rehearse too much," says Matt. "It's a balancing act – you have to write the songs, and know the melody and the lyrics, and how you're going to perform it. But only up to a point – you're still trying to capture something a bit truer to its original form; something you haven't over-rehearsed or refined down."
It's an approach that was taken to avoid the slow gestation process and over-thinking that Matt openly admits led to the four-year gap between his previous two albums. "I definitely tend to disappear into my studio space," he says of previous records, "There's definitely been a lot of overthinking in my home studio, and working on things, and taking a lot longer than I thought."
For 'Many Times,' then, it was a total about-face in terms of approach. "I really wanted to do the complete opposite of that," Matt explains, "and not think about instrumentation – just think about songwriting."
Capturing those songs in their rawest form led to some of 'Many Times'' most stunning moments coming from the most unlikely of places. From the engineer running around the studio mid-take, to re-position microphones while Matt was still 'in the zone,' to rhythmic thigh slaps from Kev during the recording of 'Standing Here' adding one of the record's only embellishments – and taking the track to a new dimension in the process – it's a record that thrives on its simplicity. "It's because the elements are so simple, the minutiae is massive," says Matt.
"There was always an element of uncertainty about it, which I think was a good thing," he continues of the recording process. Recording to tape – an expensive method in an increasingly digital age – "gave it an element of pressure," he admits. But despite the pressure Matt might have felt, 'Many Times' feels like Matthew and The Atlas' most effortless release in a decade.
"You've got nowhere to hide, the songs have to speak for themselves," says Kev of the approach, and it's something Matt agrees with. The result is a record which houses some of Matthew and The Atlas' most brilliant songs to date.
GoldenOak’s music is rooted in the natural landscape- their songs move like a stream, meandering and weaving in an original yet grounding direction. Fronted by siblings Zak and Lena Kendall GoldenOak’s music calmly excites its listeners while nestled in rich folk-influenced sibling harmony.
On October 18th, Twisted Pine releases its joyous third LP, Love Your Mind, on Signature Sounds Recordings. The title represents the quartet landing on a more expansive sound than ever, after years of touring, serious introspection, bouts of self-doubt, glorious bursts of creativity, and many after-hour festival jam sessions and pickin’ till dawn.
Co-produced by the band and longtime-collaborator Dan Cardinal at his studio Dimension Sound in Boston, the record is loaded with experimental production, fearless songwriting featuring input from each member, finely-crafted collaborative arrangements, playing that’s virtuosic and visceral. It's a reflection of what the band listens to. It’s buoyant pop and delicate folk, raging old-time energy, and old-school r&b grooves.
On vinyl and on stage, the sound of Twisted Pine is unmistakable, exuberant, daring.
What started as a (semi-)traditional bluegrass band in the trenches of the storied folk, bluegrass, and Americana scene in Boston a decade ago has bloomed into an ensemble of players who shapeshift across genres. Even the expansive “progressive bluegrass” label doesn’t come close to capturing their musical scope.
Chris Sartori's upright bass anchors everything with an undeniable, articulate groove. Dan Bui's mandolin is thick, crisp, and propulsive.
Kathleen Parks' fiddle and Anh Phung's flute are at constant play, often augmented with effects pedals for layered musical textures, psychedelic sounds, and wild solo trading, somewhere in the territory between bluegrass and jazz.
Out in front of the ensemble, Parks’ lead vocals are an instrument unto herself: equal parts mystery, power, haunt, and a search for the edges. And she's surrounded on all sides by the voices of her bandmates, who bring on whatever harmonies, unities, whistles, and howls the night requires.
In a world that needs TLC more than ever, Twisted Pine offers a night of exultant travels across genres, across time, to mountains, cities, roadhouses, and back porches where songs bring tenderness, love and relief. All in all, this album and this tour bring the sound of a band that invites you to Love Your Mind.
ABOUT JAKE SWAMP & THE PINE
At the end of a long day traversing the White Mountains, when the sun has laid down behind the horizon and the shush of the forest descends, you sit by the campfire and crack open the cold beverage of your choice. Surrounded by those you love, you realize this is the best possible place you could be right now.
This is the feeling that Jake Swamp and the Pine captures with their music. The name Jake Swamp and the Pine provides that context, as it was inspired by the Jake Swamp pine tree - the tallest tree in MA and is honoring Jake Swamp - a prominent environmentalist.
At the end of 2022, JSATP released their debut album, Simpson and Banks, named after the cross streets in Somerville, MA where the band was formed. Within those cross streets, hours and hours of practice, laughing, writing, struggling with creating social content had been held.
There were many moments of life that were revisited because of the writing and reflecting that happened there, so it felt only fitting to honor that with the album name. Those beautiful and confusing moments of life are captured and distilled into each song on the album.
Simpson and Banks received praise from many prestigious publications including Americana UK, who noted that a "Gloriously atmospheric vocals carry a set of passionate, emotive and classy songs.”
Jake Swamp and the Pine songs range from powerful acoustic anthems to knee-slapping hoedowns to slow and somber waltzes, drawing on diverse influences from the Americana, folk, singer-songwriter, bluegrass, and pop. Country 102.5 said “Jake Swamp and the Pine was born to be heard live. You can feel the emotion in his guitar, and his vocals take you on winding journey, up and around bends of inflection. There’s sheer joy that resounds in the making of his craft. You can get all that just from listening to one song.” See for yourself, and come out to a show!
The Resonant Rogues’ dark Appalachian folk paints a picture of their lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina and on the road. Anchored by the songwriting duo of Sparrow (banjo, accordion) and Keith Josiah Smith (guitar), they are joined by Joe Macheret (fiddle) and June Youngblood (upright bass). Sparrow and Smith have traveled the byways and highways of America and crossed the oceans with instruments in tow. From riding freight trains to building their own homestead, the pair are no strangers to blazing unconventional trails.
On their fourth album, Western North Carolina-based outfit The Resonant Rogues have finally decided to self-title a project. It’s a bold move — rather like staking a claim on a sound that is both new for them and distinctly their own. From the opening notes of lead track “Sun in Winter,” the eponymous record finesses the line between country and soul. The keening of the fiddle and the sway of the pedal steel are classic sounds; the vocals — sung by Sparrow who fronts the band with her partner Keith Josiah Smith — are poetic and wistful, yet unfussy. “I miss you like the sun in winter / laying in the yard / in the snow / trying to catch that glow / before it goes,” she sings. It’s a moment encapsulated; something as lovely as it is fleeting.
Sparrow and Keith share a passion for movement and sound. Both traveled extensively throughout the U.S. — Keith by hopping freight trains, Sparrow with a circus troupe. When the two met by chance in Asheville 10 years ago, they combined their talents and The Resonant Rogues were born. While the band has explored musical styles from across genres and around the globe, current influences for Resonant Rogues, and especially this album, are classic country, Appalachian old-time, and vintage soul.
For all the far-flung touchstones and travels shared by The Resonant Rogues, their namesake album speaks to laying down roots. “Finding peace in a small town / is like watching a doe at sundown,” Keith sings on “Slow Burn.” The song nods to country poets like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. This is a personal musing, its cozy folk flickering with Sparrow’s jaunty accordion. It’s worth noting that Keith and Sparrow recently settled on a piece of land in the Western North Carolina mountains — acreage Sparrow says she hopes never to leave.
Tour still calls The Resonant Rogues to the road regularly, as did a two-week stint in Nashville to record The Resonant Rogues at the Bomb Shelter with producer Andrija Tokic. Many of Sparrow’s favorite albums came from that studio (including work by The Deslondes and Hurray for the Riff Raff), and with Tokic, The Resonant Rogues were able to discover the sonic thread that pulled their album together. Less all over the map than previous projects, there’s a distinct sense of place within string band music, and within a modern interpretation of the classic styles that inspire Sparrow and Keith. It’s still as folky as ever, but with a confident embrace of rock ’n’ roll energy.
“93,500 Miles” features Cajun-inspired accordion, fiery fiddle, and guest vocals by Sierra Ferrell, and reminds listeners of the Rogues’ love of a good dance song. With its haunting harmonica and driving percussion, “Leave the Path” could be the soundtrack to a Spaghetti Western set in the Appalachian mountains. “Show Me” is a sultry love song with serious doo-wop feel, showcasing Sparrow’s range and soulful timbre. The bittersweet “What Happened to That Feeling” may just be the most relatable long-term-relationship song ever written. The 12 tracks are a comprehensive collection of stories, journeys, memories, and landscapes.
The Resonant Rogues was recorded analog, direct to tape, giving it warmth and a live-in-the-room sound. That immediacy feels right for musicians who cut their teeth as buskers, playing street corners across the U.S. and Europe. Special guests on the recording include The Resonant Rogues’ long-time friends and collaborators, such as Sierra Ferrell and Benjamin Tod (background vocals); John James Tourville (pedal and lap steel, 12 string guitar, butter knives, guzheng); Jason Dea West (harmonica); Kristen Harris (fiddle); and Landon George (upright bass, drums, baritone guitar).
This album is a homecoming for a band that’s put in its 10,000 hours. The Resonant Rogues is rendered in big, bold strokes — but it’s also every bit honed and precise as an X on a map.
For over 25 years, Catie toured full-time in the US and Europe, releasing 14 recordings and selling over 250,000 CDs (not to mention streaming and downloads). She has recorded for major (EMI Guardian) and independent (Rykodisc, Vanguard and Compass) labels, collaborating with some of the finest musicians and producers in the country. Before the pandemic, she continued to play shows for a legion of fans who shared stories with her at the merch table night after night. Her songs have been featured in films and tv shows, and she performed several times at the White House during the Obama administration. She’s intensely grateful for those years and honored to know that her music has been an integral part of so many people’s lives.
Catie has been making the transition to working as a community mental health counselor over the past three years. Her job as a therapist, while incredibly fulfilling, does not feed the artist in her! “I still need and want to create music. It can be hard to find the time, but writing is still how I make sense of my life and the world around me. Writing a song is like putting together a puzzle using the head, heart, hands and a guitar.” Fortunately, it’s important to her fans, too.
“Have you ever been to a show where you feel an invisible wall between you and the performer? Catie Curtis pulls the walls down.” – Mary Chapin Carpenter (Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter)
When Matt Andersen steps on stage, he brings a lifetime of music to every note he plays. His latest album, The Big Bottle of Joy, is all about hard-won celebration; a dozen songs infused with raw blues-rock, rollicking Americana, thoughtful folk, and ecstatic gospel. Andersen’s stage presence is informed by decades of cutting his teeth in dusty clubs, dim-lit bars, and grand theatres all over the world, delivering soulful performances that run the gamut from intimate to wall-shaking. In the studio, he’s always brought the same attention to detail and commitment to craft as he has to his live show, and the result - a multi-faceted and poignant body of work - has led him to amass over 31 million streams on Spotify and 30 million views on YouTube.
In addition to headlining major festivals, clubs and theatres throughout North America, Europe, and Australia, he has shared the stage and toured with Marcus King, Beth Hart, Marty Stuart, Greg Allman, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Randy Bachman, Serena Ryder, Tab Benoit, and more. Andersen nabbed the 2013 and 2016 European Blues Awards for Best Solo/Acoustic Act, was the first ever Canadian to take home top honours in the solo category at the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, won the CIMA Road Gold award in 2015, and has won multiple Maple Blues Awards. Matt Andersen & The Big Bottle of Joy was nominated for a Juno Award in 2024.
Award-winning Toronto-based Julian Taylor joins as special guest.
Come be part of The Word Barn's monthly old-time jam session!
All levels and all instruments are welcome.
Bring your banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin - or whatever old-time acoustic instrument you have - and spend a few hours playing along with fellow musicians of all skill levels and backgrounds.
Held every third Tuesday of the month. On warm evenings, we’ll circle up in the Meadow around the campfire; on cooler evenings, we’ll be cozy inside The Word Barn itself.
Don’t play an instrument? Come on over, kick back, and enjoy the tunes!
Free admission for all, donations accepted. Registration requested (space is limited).
After catching up, sharing a pint (or two), and choosing a key, the music will begin, with a last call for tunes coming around 8:45pm.
Sessions are led by uber talented fiddler, Betsy Heron.
**Please note and watch the calendar - Old-Time Jam session dates are subject to shift from the 3rd Tuesday as needed due to holidays and conflicts.
Get ready for a wildly fun evening featuring the rock and roll, Americana sounds of The Mallett Brothers Band in The Word Barn - all as a special album release run!
"Founded in 2009, The Mallett Brothers Band have had multiple lineup changes and stylistic shifts over the years, but they’ve remained steadfast in delivering heatfelt songs with emotional lyricism, vivid imagery, and dynamic musical tones…” - No Depression
The Mallett Brothers Band is an independent rock and roll / Americana / country band from Maine. Their busy tour schedule since forming in 2009 has helped them to build a dedicated fanbase across the U.S. and beyond while still calling the state of Maine their home. With a style that ranges from alt-country to Americana, country, jam and roots rock, theirs is a musical melting pot that's influenced equally by the singer/songwriter tradition as by harder rock, classic country and psychedelic sounds.
Please note this show features standing (dancing!) on the main level, and seating in the balcony.
Prepare for a sonic explosion of positivity as Barnstar! gears up to release their highly anticipated third album, "Furious Kindness," carries on with the release of their highly anticipated third album, "Furious Kindness". Unapologetically shouting in your face about how awesome you are, Barnstar! delivers an aggressively joyful and passionately positive musical experience that reflects the true mission statement of these mischievous music makers – a beacon of joy in a world that could use a bit more kindness.
The brainchild of bassist and impresario Zachariah Hickman, Barnstar! features some of the Boston area’s most dynamic seasoned musicians: Mark Erelli (vocals, guitar), Charlie Rose (banjo, vocals), Taylor Armerding (mandolin, vocals), and Jake Armerding (fiddle, vocals). Their music resonates with audiences who appreciate the artistry of traditional bluegrass as well as those who are drawn to the band's innovative and boundary-pushing approach. The band continues to record and perform, while navigating solo careers and high profile side-person gigs (with the likes of Josh Ritter, Rodney Crowell, Lori McKenna, Elephant Revival, Ray LaMontange, ROSIN, and many more).
Building off the success of their previous efforts “C’mon” (2011) and “Sit Down! Get Up! Get Out!” (2015), "Furious Kindness" showcases the diverse songwriting talents within Barnstar! Featuring original compositions such as Jake's soulful and plaintive "Anybody Got A Light?" and the collaborative effort "Believer" by Mark, Zachariah, and Charlie, there is a sense of hope and rebirth that underlies the whole project. Noteworthy co-writes with Chuck Prophet and Dinty Child add an extra layer of depth and creativity to the album.
Influenced by their musical peers, the band draws inspiration from the likes of Elizabeth and the Catapult, Dennis Brennan, and Dave Talmage, especially Taylor’s powerful reinvention of Brennan’s “Boulder On My Back.” The covers on the album pay homage to musical legends, with reinterpretations of songs by Elliot Smith and Van Morrison adding some unexpected new contributions to the contemporary bluegrass landscape.
"Furious Kindness" is poised to be a musical manifesto, seamlessly blending originality, collaboration, and a touch of nostalgia into an unforgettable experience. Barnstar! invites both dedicated fans and newcomers alike to brace themselves for the powerful and uplifting dose of "Furious Kindness" that awaits.
Sharing and gifting experiences together is so much better than gifting “things” so why not gift your mom and yourself the experience of creating flower art together this Mother’s Day?
When you reserve your seats, you’ll choose a frame for yourself and one for your mom (or vice versa). A large variety of pressed flowers and all of the supplies will be provided for you at the event.
You will leave how to create designs like wildflower fields, hearts, peace signs, and more - and there will be many examples on display that can help get your creative wheels turning.
Because of the delicacy of the flowers and the sharpness of some of the tools, this is a grown child / mother event with a minimum age of 20.
SPACE IS LIMITED!
Get ready for some swirling border pipes, raging fiddle, thunderous guitar and three rich voices that blend to create a sound energetic enough to tear the roof off!
Come enjoy a spring afternoon of poetry and camaraderie in The Word Barn.
Come take in their powerful words and celebrate these poets, their books, and spring all at once!
The event is free ($5/person suggested donation), but we ask that you register to save yourself a spot.
Abbie Kiefer is the author of Certain Shelter (June Road Press, 2024) and the chapbook Brief Histories (Whittle, 2024). Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Image, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and other places. She lives in New Hampshire and is a poetry editor for The Adroit Journal. Find her online at abbiekieferpoet.com.
Theresa Monteiro lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children and holds an MFA from the University of New Hampshire. Her first book of poems, Under This Roof, was published by Fernwood Press in 2024. Her poems appear in various magazines and journals including The American Journal of Poetry, On the Seawall, River Heron Review, Cutleaf, The Banyan Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Poetry South. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Matt W Miller is the author of Tender the River (Texas Review Press), finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Provocateur Award, and a finalist for the Jacar Press Julie Suk Award, the New Hampshire Poetry Society Book Award, and the Poetry by the Sea Book Award. Other books include the The Wounded for the Water (Salmon Poetry), Club Icarus (University of North Texas Press), selected by Major Jackson as the 2012 Vassar Miller Poetry Prize winner, and Cameo Diner: Poems (Loom). He has published work previously in Narrative, Rhino Poetry, Harvard Review, Notre Dame Review, Southwest Review, Florida Review, Third Coast, Adroit Journal, and Poetry Daily, among other journals and was a winner of Nimrod International's Pablo Neruda Prize, the Poetry by The Sea Sonnet Sequence Contest, the River Styx Micro-fiction Prize, the Iron Horse Review's Trifecta Poetry Prize. Matt is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry and a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in Poetry from the Sewanee Writers' Conference.
If you don’t already, this is an artist you need to know.
“Melissa is one of the greatest classic golden era country singers and composers of this generation,” says Saving Country Music.
“I DON’T THINK YOU CAN GET THIS SOUND UNLESS IT’S BORNED IN YA.” said bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, when asked about what he called “old-time mountain music.” When Melissa Carper heard those words, something jumped inside her. While staying in the country with a friend, she found an old DVD of Down From the Mountain, the documentary and concert film of the “O, Brother Where Art Thou'' soundtrack that featured this particular Stanley interview. She immediately jotted down “borned in ya” on a piece of paper. “I knew I had to write that song,” she recalls.
In the Spring of 2023, Carper went back to East Nashville’s Bomb Shelter – the same “analog wonderland” where she’d recorded Ramblin’ Soul and its predecessor, Daddy’s Country Gold, and enlisted the help of her trusted co-producers – Dennis Crouch and Andrija Tokic. “Borned In Ya” would become the title track of the new album, out July 19th via Mae Music/Thirty Tigers.
Like much of her writing, the song applies a homespun sensibility – and a bit of humor – to questions about life’s journeys. “I was turning over in my mind what it means to have something ‘borned in ya’,” she said. “The song evolved as I was writing it to be more about having your soul 'borned it ya,' and the more life experience you have, you hopefully grow to embody the highest version of yourself that you can be.” “Borned In Ya” could certainly stand as a reflection on Carper’s life in music. “Authentic” might be an over- used word to describe an artist’s appeal, but there’s something so natural and true about Carper’s musicality that she must have been born with it: An easy sway to her singing, a precise, but laid back sense of timing. A feel. And, lyrically, she has an instinctive sense for storytelling, both observant and intuitive.
Toronto songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Abigail Lapell returns with Anniversary, an evocative collection of original love songs.
Over the past five years and three spellbinding albums, Lapell has garnered three Canadian Folk Music Awards (Songwriter of the Year and Contemporary Album of the Year), hit number one on Canadian folk radio, and reached a staggering 40 million+ streams on Spotify alone while touring widely across Canada, the U.S. and Europe.
The Soggy Po’ Boys are a New England-based septet that offers an unforgettable experience of traditional New Orleans music - and are headed to The Word Barn Meadow for what will be a fun-filled summer Friday night!!
Part of the beauty of New Orleans music is that it’s celebrated and appreciated wherever it goes, from the street to the theater. The Po’ Boys are doing their part to spread the greatest music on earth around their home in New England and when touring, throughout the rest of the country.
Come enjoy the unforgettable experience of this brass fueled swinging jazz band in the Word Barn.
Please note this show will have both standing (dancing!) room and seating.
Antje has extensive touring experience, criss-crossing the US and Europe many times. She is a compelling live performer and has been invited to play some of the top festivals including The Newport Folk Festival as well as the Mountain Stage, Philadelphia and Kerrville Festivals. Internationally, she’s headlined the The Celtic Connections Festival in Scotland and the Tonder Festival in Denmark. She’s the winner of some of the top songwriting awards, including the Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, the prestigious, Kerrville (TX) “Best New Folk Award” and, in one of the nation’s top music markets, the Boston Music Award for “Outstanding Folk Act”, three of the top prizes in the singer songwriter world.
“On the ground level of an apartment building in Manhattan’s Chinatown, multiple lithium batteries combusted in an e-bike shop. It was just after midnight when songwriter Allegra Krieger awoke to a banging on her door. She made it out, fleeing down eight flights of stairs and a “wall of grey smoke,” which she recalls in her song, “One or the Other.” Throughout the song, Krieger cradles gratitude and conjures a universe in which she responded differently to the fire. Ultimately, she leaves us with two questions: “What do we know about living? What do we know about dying?”
It was in the months following the fire that Krieger wrote much of Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine, her second full-length album with Double Double Whammy, a collection of 12 songs that pick at the fragile membrane between life and death.
Krieger’s previous album, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane, hewed more closely to the domestic spaces of city and mind. Rolling Stone regarded the album as “ten songs of heady philosophical meanderings packed with emotional dynamite,” and likened her “finely phrased lyrics” to those of “Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, [and] David Berman.” Krieger’s existential meditations remain on Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine, however her meandering melodies have taken on a stronger sense of direction. She narrates candidly and assertively; the full-band arrangements never overpower, only offer a robust platform on which Krieger’s voice reaches new heights.
The full band brings a heightened sense of drama to the album’s arrangements, which contrasts the quieter approach of Krieger’s previous LP. There are noisy interludes, jazz-inflected discursions, impactful stops and starts, and occasional spaces for Krieger to stretch out her impressive vocal range (most prominently at the dazzling climax of album stand out “Came”).
Lead single “Never Arriving,” from which the album’s title is derived, is thrilling in its compactness. Alluding to biology, sex and death in a series of sharp phrases, the song manages to address a whole worldview in a few short lines.
“Into Eternity” introduces a new stylistic wrinkle, taking on a sprechgesang narration over an uneasy guitar motif. In a stream of consciousness delivery, Krieger presents a series of seemingly disparate vignettes - the chaos of a New York street, a memory of an interaction with a grieving ex-boyfriend, a homeless woman, a butterfly - and pulls at the common threads that connect them. Like much of the album, the song is invested in transfiguring the commonplace; examining events big and small and in doing so trying to take hold of their significance.
In Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine, Krieger invites us to a place where transfiguration is not only possible but actively happening. From this place, the beautiful and the banal and the terrible are all laid out before us. And Krieger asks us not to look away. Instead, she invites us to stare down the beautiful and terrible in the world, and to realize that sometimes the only way out is through.”
Join us for a special AJA Music presentation as The Lost River Fleet makes their debut performance in The Word Barn Meadow this summer.
The Wolff Sisters - the gritty and raw folk-rock outfit and two-time Boston Music Award winners (Americana Artist of the Year) - bring their electrifying live performance and unique sound to The Word Barn Meadow!
This band is one of our favorites and always sell-out; don’t miss out.
“On their breezy third album [Queendom of Nothing], Rebecca, Rachael, and Kat Wolff — actual sisters, raised just outside the city — live comfily at the crossroads of Americana, roots, and ’60s rock ‘n’ roll, where The Band might meet Brandi Carlile and take her out for a beer.” -- The Boston Globe
The Wolff Sisters Band’s latest album, Queendom of Nothing, picks up right where they left off with their sophomore album, Cahoon Hollow, serving up the right amount of grit, moodiness, and wild rock n’ roll to reflect on the summer’s slow burnout and what comes next. Both albums were recorded at Dirt Floor Studio in Chester, CT, and produced by Eric Michael Lichter.
The Wolff Sisters is fronted by three sisters -- Rebecca on acoustic guitar, Kat on the keys, Rachael on electric guitar, and all three on lead vocals and harmonies. Raised on Bob Dylan, The Band, and Little Feat, the sisters crafted their sound around a honky tonk piano in the living room of their childhood home. With a talented cast of rotating drummers and bass players, The Wolff Sisters are a rag tag group of hardworking individuals that bring a big sound and timeless songs. Their music is honest and genre defying, but still rooted in traditional rock and americana storytelling.
Boston Music Award winner for Americana Artist of the Year 2020 and Folk Artist of the Year nominee both 2018 and 2019, the band’s electrifying live performance and unique sound continues to gain momentum and recognition from their hometown of Boston and beyond.
Queendom of Nothing landed a spot on The Boston Globe’s top 15 albums for Fall following its release in October 2019, while their previous album Cahoon Hollow was nominated for New England Music Award’s Album of The Year 2018. The Wolff Sisters continue to work tirelessly at honing their sound and touring the U.S while paying homage to their roots in New England.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit are an award-winning, energetic, charming, and technically jaw-dropping band quickly rising on the national roots music scene. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the group met as teenagers, picking and jamming together as kids at local bluegrass festivals until one day, they decided they would be a band.
Currently made up of AJ Lee on mandolin, fiddler Jan Purat, and guitarists Scott Gates and Sullivan Tuttle, the band carries that youthful, festival-parking-lot energy with them still today, but at the same time there’s a genuine ease and confidence to their music making. As they ready their third studio album, City of Glass – their first label release, out July 19th via Signature Sounds – their product feels mature and fully realized, while deep in the Blue Summit pocket.
City of Glass is a slow burn album, remarkable when considered alongside records released by their peers in recent years. Lee & Blue Summit seem unconcerned with mimicking or emulating other successful groups in their scenes. Instead, they’re most interested in discovering themselves, their own music, and sonics and textures truly their own. And, they’re most interested in doing so with their musical and Californian communities.
City of Glass, as a result, is an album that’s just as much country soul and gritty, bluesy Americana as it is rock club and festival-ready string band fare, all framed through a California folk lens while clearly primed for a much wider audience.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit are an exemplary band so unconcerned with being remembered, with being enshrined, that they have gone about making a set of songs that will surely be held onto and cherished forever. City of Glass may one day crumble, but this music will never fade away.
Jake Xerxes Fussell is a singer, guitarist, and composer based in Durham, NC. His intuitive creative process often draws from traditional music and archival field recordings - incorporating elements of songs from the past into new work. He is, according to Ann Powers of NPR, "maybe the leading interpreter of American folk music right now..."
Fussell’s album When I’m Called was released to critical acclaim by Fat Possum Records in the summer of 2024. The album was produced by James Elkington and features Blake Mills (guitars), Ben Whiteley (bass), and Joe Westerlund (drums), along with additional vocals from Joan Shelley and Robin Holcomb.
His most recent recording “Close My Eyes” (a song by the late American composer/cellist/singer Arthur Russell) was released in March of 2025 as a digital single.
Fussell and Elkington also wrote and recorded the music for Rebuilding, a new feature film directed by Max Walker-Silverman that premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
“Fussell’s music often comes with complex citations; he is a folksinger in the truest sense, collecting ideas and melodies and lyrics from distant and disparate traditions, looking for the things that unite us in our humanity.” - The New Yorker
“(Fussell) is one of the great magpies of American song, collecting forgotten, tarnished gems with a folklorist’s zeal… his renditions aren’t so much cover versions as composites…” – The Guardian
Join us for an acoustic celebration of The Grateful Dead featuring Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, Jefferson Hamer, Steve Roy, and Wendy Sassafras Ramsay!
Dead to the Core is a collective of singer-songwriters and acoustic musicians with a shared love of the Grateful Dead. In intimate concerts, the musicians celebrate the band's music not through note-for-note re-creations but by playing the songs their own way—letting them grow and evolve collaboratively in the true spirit of the Dead.
Interspersed with the music are clips from Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers’ own interviews with Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, in which they reflect on the roots and evolution of the music.
Join award-winning poet and songwriter Todd Hearon for a special concert in The Word Barn Meadow with special guests, Big Sweetie.
While on tour together in 2022, Durham based folk duo Viv & Riley, and Nashville-based singer/songwriter Rachel Baiman talked about the recent records that they had enjoyed. Each time one person would bring up a beloved album or song, another would chime in with enthusiastic agreement, and with hours in the van to daydream, and hours on stage to enjoy harmonizing together, the three began to scheme about recording some covers together.
In June of 2023, producer Greg Griffith (Amy Ray, Vitapup, The Butchies) invited the newly imagined trio to spend a week in Connecticut at his home and studio. The idea was to explore some cover songs and see what the sound of the project might be, with no expectation of a finished product.
As the three began working out an arrangement for Lennon Stella’s “Kissing Other People”, sitting cross legged on the floor in Griffith’s living room, Griffith stealthily placed microphones, as well as a vintage camcorder in the room. What emerged was a completely live take of the song, organic and full of magic. The recording set the tone for what followed, an 8 track album of covers ranging from cult favorites like Magnolia Electric Company, Dr. Dog and Joan Armatrading, to modern but lesser-known writers like Waylon Payne.
With Griffith’s influence, the project explored more analog, indie and grunge sounds than any of the individual artist’s previous work. The recording captures the beautifully uncaged feeling of the collaboration in real-time, as Leva switches to playing drums for “Hold on Magnolia”, and Baiman plays a wildly dissonant guitar solo on “Easy Rider”. Every idea was attempted, and every song was captured in real time.
Kissing Other PPL is a project about openness to exploration, collaboration, and creativity above technicality. It finds a trio of accomplished musicians that seeks to unlearn boundaries of perfection and find the best sound for the given song in the given moment.
Four-time JUNO (Canada’s Grammy) Award winner, David Francey is a Scottish-born Canadian carpenter-turned-songwriter, who has become known as “one of Canada’s most revered folk poets and singers” (Toronto Star).
David Francey is a Scottish-born Canadian carpenter-turned-songwriter, who has become known as “one of Canada’s most revered folk poets and singers” (Toronto Star). Born in Ayrshire, Scotland to parents who were factory workers, he moved to Canada when he was twelve. For decades, he worked across Canada in rail yards, construction sites, and in the Yukon bush, all the while writing poetry, setting it to melodies in his head and singing it to himself as he worked.
A truly authentic folk singer, Francey is a documentarian of the working person who never imagined earning a living from his music. But when he was in his 40s, his wife, artist Beth Girdler, encouraged him to share his songs and sing in public. The reaction was instant. His first album Torn Screen Door came out in 1999 and was a hit in Canada. Since then, he has released eleven albums, won three Juno Awards and has had his songs covered by such artists as The Del McCoury Band, The Rankin Family, James Keelaghan and Tracy Grammer.
Francey also had the honour of receiving the prestigious SOCAN Folk Music Award as well as taking home the Grand Prize in both the International Acoustic Music Award and in the Folk category for the John Lennon Songwriting Award.
"David’s straightforward songs tell honest stories of real people and real places. Poetic perception and a keen eye for the heart of the matter are trademarks of the man and his music. His songs and stories are a direct connection for audiences seeking depth and meaning in the day-to-day." Shelter Valley Folk Festival
David Francey was born in Ayrshire, Scotland where he got his first taste of the working life as a paperboy. At age 10 he was devouring the newspapers he delivered, establishing a life-long interest in politics and world events while developing the social conscience that forms the backdrop of his songs.
He was twelve when his family immigrated to Toronto. He says he can trace his love of the land, the history, and the people of his adopted country to weekend family drives exploring southern Ontario. Music played a large part in these family outings. They sang traditional Scottish tunes as they drove through the Canadian countryside. Dad and sister Muriel sang melody, while mother and David sang harmonies.
His attachment to Canada grew with travel. He hitched across the country three times, then thumbed his way to the Yukon. This attachment surfaces in his songs of rail lines, farms, and the St. Lawrence Seaway. He grew to understand the people while working in Toronto train yards, the Yukon bush, and as a carpenter in the Eastern Townships. These experiences colour his first CD, Torn Screen Door, with songs like Hard Steel Mill, Gypsy Boys, and Working Poor and his second, Far End of Summer, with Highway, Flowers of Saskatchewan and February Morning Drive.
In concert David is a singer and a storyteller. His wry humour and astute observations combined with his openhearted singing style have earned him a loyal following.
David lives with his wife, artist Beth Girdler in the quiet but charming Lanark Highlands in southern Ontario. They are visited often by their son Colin, daughters Amy and Julia and grandkids Tristan, Alice and Millicent.
