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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.
A host of singer-songwriters -- a number promoting new albums -- are performing in the region this coming week.
In only a few short years on the thriving Boston folk scene, Eastern Mass. folksinger Sean Staples has made a name for himself with his Neil Young-meets-Dan Fogleberg songwriting style and his dynamic guitar playing. The whispery-voiced singer was first introduced to new-folk lions such as Greg Brown and Bill Morrissey by his guitar- and banjo-playing father in the early-'80s. After some stints playing in rock bands in the early-'90s, Staples returned to acoustic-based music, and his song "Golden Fear" was featured on the acclaimed compilation "This Is Boston, Not Austin." You can catch Staples at North Adams State College on Tuesday at 8 in the campus center and on Wednesday at noon in Hoosac Harbor. Both shows are free.
Over at the Iron Horse in Northampton, singer-songwriter Annie Wenz will celebrate the release of her new CD, "Time Is Magic" (Gypsy Moon Rising), tomorrow night at 7. Wenz is a well-travelled musician whose journeys often wind up influencing her songs musically and lyrically. These influences are fully felt on the Northampton resident's new album, which merges Wenz's world-beat influenced, groove-oriented folk -- someone once called it "ethno-acoustic jazz" -- with a new- age sensibility.
The disk features guest artists including guitarists Brooks Williams and Duke Levine (these two guys show up on so many singer- songwriter albums they ought to try something as a duo), vocalist Annie Burns of the Burns Sisters, and percussionist Glen Velez of the Paul Winter Consort. Joining Wenz at the Iron Horse will be a full band including percussionist Jose Gonzalez, bassist Guy DeVito, pan pipes and charango player Eugenio Huanca, cellist Venon David and flutist Vin Rydebak. Burns will be on hand to sing backup with Wenz, and the Burns Sisters will warm up the crowd starting at 7.
On Tuesday, hometown hero Jonatha Brooke brings her group, The Story, back to the Iron Horse, where she first gained critical acclaim as one-half of the former duo Jonatha and Jennifer while she and Jennifer Kimball were still undergraduates at nearby Amherst College. Brooke's recent album, "Plumb" (Blue Thumb), solidified her singular role as voice and visionary of the group, along the way garnering her a larger following attracted to her poetry and her jazz- and world-beat-inflected folk-pop.
The group Poi Dog Pondering has been around for a while, but with its most recent album, "Pomegranate" (Bar/None), the band has finally, fully realized the symphonic musical vision of frontman Frank Orrall. The band's ever-changing lineup averages about a dozen instrumentalists, including strings, wind instruments and horns alongside the usual array of rock instruments. "Pomegranate" is the band's funkiest effort to date, absorbing the group's folk and world- beat leanings into a Talking Heads-like dance groove to match Orrall's David Byrne-like presence. Poi will play a rare gig at Pearl Street in Northampton on Thursday night.
The Berkshires' own, similarly-minded percussion-groove outfit, The Sambadees, are at Dos Amigos in Great Barrington tonight.
While not a singer-songwriter, guitarist Mike Stern speaks as eloquently as any song-poet on his chosen instrument. Stern is that rare player who is able to arrive at jazz from a foundation in blues- rock without mucking it up in the process. Nowhere is this more evident than on "Between The Lines" (Atlantic Jazz), the latest effort by this former Miles Davis sideman who also did stints with Blood, Sweat and Tears, Steps Ahead and the Brecker Brothers. Stern is a monster guitarist who burns the funk while remaining firmly planted in the idiom of Coltrane and Davis. He'll be joined tonight at the Iron Horse by bassist Jeff Andrews and drummer Dave Weckl.
Bob Dylan is playing a series of gigs around the Northeast next month, including New Haven on April 14, Providence on April 18, Portland on April 20-21 and Montreal and Toronto on April 24 and 25, respectively. Aimee Mann will reportedly be opening some or all of these shows. So far, the closest the Bobster is coming to the Berkshires is Springfield Symphony Hall on April 16; Jewel will warm up the crowd for that show.. (Tickets for the Springfield show go on sale Saturday morning at 10; call Ticketmaster or 413-733-2500). We'd sure like to report a Dylan date at the Night Shift, but it's unlikely on this swing of the tour -- perhaps he'll stop in for an outdoors show this summer....
Poet/drummer Clark Coolidge of Hancock and poet/guitarist David Meltzer of the San Francisco Bay Area will reunite as Mix, the jazz- poetry group, for a performance at the Front Street Gallery in Housatonic on Saturday, April 20 at 2.
Husband-and-wife folk duo Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen will return to the Bennington Center for the Arts in their hometown for a performance on May 11.
Look for Lollapalooza -- the traveling carnival of alternative rock -- to check into the Northampton Airport on July 9.
(This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 29, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.)
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