Newsletters
March 19 – 26
GRAMMY-nominee Bruce Molsky and Scots harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist (Silk Road Ensemble) create sheer joy when they play together. Molsky, described as an “absolute master” (No Depression), creates intimacy & warmth on fiddle, banjo and guitar. Grounded in the Irish & Scottish tradition, Maeve’s total command of the harp is entrancing . . .
March 6 – 12
Guy Davis, coming Friday night, is a 2-time GRAMMY nominee for Best Traditional Blues album. Whether he’s playing the six or twelve string guitar, the five-string banjo or harmonica, Davis uses music to confront social injustice, historical events and common life struggles with songs that are timeless, and storytelling that’s earthy, warm and bold.
Feb 27 – March 5
Ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant-garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes and a highly innovative guitarist who deploys spidery riffs. Sunny War is poised to be a major break-out artist in 2023.
February 20 – 26
Grace Pettis (Thursday) uses her powerful, beautiful voice like a fine artist to color and craft her songs, blurring lines between country, Americana and folk. Her dad is Caffe Lena veteran Pierce Pettis. Her fabulous new album is an activist statement as well as an artistic one. “Her soulful delivery of calculated lyric lines helps her tell stories for all generations.” – American Songwriter Magazine
February 13 – 19
You can’t go wrong with jazz if you’re looking for a cozy evening with someone special. Chuck Lamb’s JAZZ at Caffe Lena series brings the best of NYC to Saratoga every month, and lucky are we that he’s bringing Eric Person to sit in with the band on Valentine’s Day. . . .
Feb 6 – 12
Honeysuckle’s lyrics are haunting, mesmerizing, and their stage banter is deliciously witty. It’s a winning combination that has won them major festival slots and top awards in their hometown of Boston. Their show on Friday is one of a rich array of events that range from a pre-Valentine’s performance of Shakespeare scenes, to a children’s show, to open mics and superb headline concerts . . .
Jan 30 – Feb 5
Singer-songwriter, troubadour and musical alchemist Kris Delmhorst likes to write songs from the inside out. Songs that she doesn’t know the answer to, and sometimes doesn’t even know what the question is yet. Her soulful, thoughtful and richly entertaining music is called “bold and brilliant” by the Boston Globe and “transcendent” by the LA Times. She’s been compared to Anaïs Mitchell, Lucinda Williams, and Juana Molina – though she cites Rickie Lee Jones, in all her fearless joy and complexity, as an artistic north star.
January 23 – 29
Think about this: we start this week’s schedule with a master of Llanero–the music of herders and plains people in Venezuela. We close our weekend on Sunday with the music of herders and plains people in Tuva, a rural corner of the Russian Federation near Mongolia. These deeply rooted traditions grew from the same hard, exciting work. You can hear . . .
Jan 9 – 15
Canadian singer-songwriter Julian Taylor is a major label veteran, Toronto music scene staple, and musical chameleon. Newly reborn as a singer-songwriter, he’s enjoying a surge of popularity. His acoustic album, The Ridge, earned 1 million plays on Spotify, airplay from America to Australia to the U.K. and earned Taylor Solo Artist of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. Raised on soul, hip-hop, blues, Americana and ‘90s alternative, Taylor has embraced his identity as a Black man of Mohawk and West Indian roots. In his warm, charismatic way, he explores themes of identity, loss, struggle, spirituality and connection.
December 19 – 25
She’s an award-winning banjo player and songwriter from Glens Falls, NY whose sound is rooted in the old songs of Appalachia. She blends tradition with her own unique, sultry flavor to create honest music that feeds the soul like a good home-cooked meal. Carolyn will be joined by her band featuring Connor Armbruster on the fiddle, James Gascoyne on guitar and Oona Grady on bass . . .