Patty Larkin - Scott Alarik opens at the me & thee coffeehouse
me & thee coffeehouse Marblehead, MA
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Patty Larkin - Scott Alarik opens at the me & thee coffeehouse
25 YEARS 25 LOVE SONGS 25 FRIENDS
Acoustic Guitar hails her "soundscape experiments." Rolling Stone praises her "evocative sonic shading." She has been described as "riveting" (Chicago Tribune), "hypnotic" (Entertainment Weekly) and a "drop-dead brilliant" performer (Performing Songwriter).
Patty Larkin is part of the urban-folk/pop music phenomenon that spun off of the singer/songwriter explosion of the seventies, reinterpreting traditional folk melodies, rock, pop, bossa nova, drawing on anything from Dylan (Bob) to Dylan (Thomas). A self described "guitar driven songwriter," Larkin has wound her way through soundscapes of evocative vocals, inventive guitar wizardry and imaginative lyrics. Her songs run from impressionistic poetry to witty wordplay.
In 2010 Patty Larkin releases a collectible collection of 25 love songs in celebration of 25 years in the recording industry. Here Patty has reworked 25 of her favorite songs in an acoustic, "unplugged" release, joined by friends along the way.
A follow up to her critically acclaimed WATCH THE SKY (Critics Choice-NY Times, Brilliant-Billboard), "25" is a one of a kind project that is at once intimate and universal, the voice of a generation of songwriters, simple and direct, yet the touchstone of one woman's song. Over her 25 year career, Patty Larkin has worked with some of the brightest stars in American music, honing a reputation as a "musician's musician" along the way. On "25" Patty is joined by friends and cohorts, troubadours, renegades, humorists, folk philosophers, dreamers, realists, poets, bards. People who defined a generation of music that wove inside and outside of the box, and sprang from a grassroots love of song, pouring onto the airwaves in an organic, trickle down of musical styles.
This project evolved in much the same way, with Patty looking for a way to celebrate the quarter of a century anniversary of her first album with some friends. Each artist was contacted individually and asked to come on and sing with Patty's unplugged version of her most requested love songs. Some of the artists were on the road during the recording time and found recording studios wherever they landed, some were in the midst of new releases, some were in the studio working on their own projects, and some were just plain busy with the business of life. The fact that each of these gifted and talented artists found the time and space to lend such beauty to this collection speaks to the pull of friendship and music that has spanned the years.
Here is a moment, a pause, the snapshot of a career that continues to grow and evolve along a creative, adventuresome path. Here's to "25", and 25 more.
PATTY'S ROOTS
Patty Larkin grew up in a musical and artistic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Descended from a long line of Irish American singers and taletellers, her mother was a painter, her sisters both musicians. She learned at a young age to appreciate the beauty and magic of the arts. She began classical piano studies at age 7, and became swept up in the sounds of pop and folk in the 60s, teaching herself the guitar and experimenting with songwriting. An English major, Larkin sang throughout her high school and college career, starting out in coffeehouses in Oregon and San Francisco. Upon graduation, she moved to Boston and devoted herself to music, busking on the streets of Cambridge and studying jazz guitar at Berklee College of Music and with Boston area jazz guitarists.
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Scott Alarik will open for Patty, reading from his wonderful folk novel "Revival".
"The finest folk writer in the country." Dar Williams.
"One of the best writers in America" Pete Seeger
For the past 25 years, Scott Alarik has been arguably the most prolific and influential folk music writer in the country. He covered folk for the Boston Globe, contributed regularly to public radio, including seven years as correspondent for the national news show Here and Now, and wrote for many national magazines, including Sing Out, Billboard, and Performing Songwriter. From 1991-97, he was editor and principal writer for the New England Folk Almanac. In 2003, his first book, Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground, was published. Never before had the landscape of modern folk music been so comprehensively documented, prompting the Library Journal to call it "an essential primer to the continuing folk revival."
Now, Alarik has written Revival, the first novel set entirely in the folk world of the 21st century. Even before publication, the love story was earning raves from Booklist ("A joyous celebration of folk musicians and their world"), and from folk stars like Tom Paxton, Ellis Paul, Catie Curtis, John Gorka, Alison Brown, Mary Gauthier, and Gordon Bok, who called it "just about the warmest, most nourishing book I've read." "Music lifts us up," wrote songwriter, organizer, activist, and author Si Kahn. "So does Revival."
http://scottalarik.com/index.php?page=news
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Location
me & thee coffeehouse (View)
28 Mugford St.
Marblehead, MA 01945
United States
