Back at it with the winter Lamplighter Series, done in the half round with three to four musicians, one of them usualbeing Peter Mulvey, rotating songs & stories and musicianifying and magicianifying together. Please go to the LAMPLIGHTER BURNS AGAIN POST for more details.

Peter explains it thus:

“People, this is the heart of what I do. I love to get musicians together and to play music in its raw, conversational form. To listen, to jump in without knowing exactly what comes next, to be surprised and enlivened. This is the holy grail for me: to play music as though it’s happening offstage, for pure joy and discovery and communication between friends and strangers. And over the past decade or so, first in the winter at my hometown Cafe Carpe, and then over the past three years at my home-away-from-hometown ClubPassim, I’ve found a way to tease this kind of offstage music into an onstage situation: The Lamplighter Sessions. It changes every year, but then, don’t we all? Trust me, you should get to one of these shows if you can. Lightning will strike.”

PETER MULVEY – “master guitar wizard, erudite song writer and just all around great guy.  The depth in any Mulvey song is incredible from the mastery of tune & rhythm, to the lyrics, even down to the concept of his albums”. Whitney Luckett

Some new Lamplighter fuel tonight with MARK ERELLI.  Mark has tackled everything from western swing and protest songs to lullabies and murder ballads, all in a richly expressive voice that Twangville.com heralds as “the male counterpart to Neko Case.” It is a journey that has taken him from church basement coffeehouses to the main stage of the Newport Folk Festival, stopping briefly along the way to sing the national anthem at Fenway Park.  Erelli still indulges his teenage fascination with guitar solos, though it has evolved into a career as an in-demand multi-instrumentalist sideman. These days, fans are just as likely to find Erelli backing up Lori McKenna at the Grand Ole Opry, or Josh Ritter at London’s Royal Albert Hall, as they are to see a solo acoustic performance at venerable listening rooms like Harvard Square’s Club Passim. 

“Erelli’s beautiful new thematic album, Delivered, is an important release…(he) articulates his topics so well and his characters are so engrossing that it is worth the emotional investment. (A) soul-stirring endeavor…” – Huffington Post.com

“Mark Erelli made me forget that I was reviewing his new cd, “Delivered”…it’s that good. (It’s a) Certified Desert Island Disc, and is a must to own.”  Wildy’s World

RANDY SABIEN is no stranger to our stage, and no stranger than anyone else who has graced it.  He regularly steps beyond the boundaries of what many think of as jazz, forging headlong into the worlds of rock, blues and funk. His career began with classical violin lessons, he soon picked up fiddling and from there it was only natural he would find himself playing along with his favorite rock tunes. Then at age 19 he was reborn with the discovery that you could play jazz on the violin. The resulting sound is swinging, rocking, rhythmic and bluesy with a fiddle that often plays more like a saxophone than a violin. There are shades of Duke and Miles and you can certainly hear the echoes of the great jazz violinists from the swing era but above all, Randy is a product of his time – someone who grew up playing the violin while immersed in the music of the 60s and 70s.

“Jazz violinists usually draw from one of two traditions. The best of both can be found in the superb Randy Sabien… he combines classical technique and folk energy in a program that’s still strictly jazz. ”  USA TODAY

BILL CAMPLIN is no stranger to our stage or to Peter or to Randy, who has admitted in weaker moments to enjoying accompanying Bill.  Bill is a  fine lad with a fine voice,  but give him JimBeam instead of djembe.