Date | Tickets | Performers | | Saturday, Sept. 10 - 8:00PM | $12 advance; $15 at door |  Sparky and Rhonda Rucker - Sparky and Rhonda weave music, humor, tall tales, and history into an uplifting presentation ranging from poignant stories of slavery and war to amusing renditions of Brer Rabbit tales and commentaries on current events. Their music includes a variety of old-time blues, slave songs, Appalachian music, spirituals, ballads, work songs, Civil War music, cowboy music, railroad songs, and a few of their own original compositions. Over forty years of performing, Sparky and Rhonda have performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival as well as NPR's On Point, Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, and Morning Edition. | | Saturday, Oct. 1 - 8:00PM | $15 advance; $17 at door |  Ginny Hawker and Tracy Schwarz - Their strong, soul-stirring singing wraps songs in stoies of the people and the places of the music, transporting audiences to a time when life was more real and families were held close. Their harmonies are hair-raising and representative of the finest American traditional music. The music of the rural south is Ginny’s birthright and Tracy’s lifetime devotion. Their performances include examples from the beautiful unaccompanied ballads of the south to early Bluegrass duets to the songs of The Carter Family. You'll hear fiddle tunes, gospel songs as done in rural families, even some classic country songs. What their performances lack is "fillers." Every song they do means something special to them and will invite you to join them in the celebration of your heritage. | | Saturday, November 5 - 8:00 PM | $10 advance; $12 at door |  Tricky Britches- Tricky Britches is a young, up-and-coming, high-energy string band hailing from Portland, Maine. From their roots of playing heel-stomping old-time fiddle tunes they have progressed into a fusion of classic bluegrass, country, and folk rock. The band consists of Tyler Lienhardt on Fiddle, Seth Doyle on Mandolin, Jed Bresette on Bass, Ryan “Bear” Wilkinson on Banjo, and Nick Wallace on Guitar. They have all the drive and energy of bands like Old Crow Medicine Show. | | Saturday, December 3 - 8:00 PM | $20 advance; $22 at door |  John Gorka- Rolling Stone has called John Gorka "the "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of what has been dubbed the New Folk Movement." Since taking first place at the Kerville Folk Festival in 1984, John has been touring nationally and internationally to audience and critical acclaim. Though he has come a long way from his beginnings as an opening act at Godfrey Daniels, John Gorka is still honored to be a part of the folk tradition — energetic acoustic music that is not a trend, not a fad, but an expression of everyday life. And his music continues to be an embodiment of that expression - where his rich baritone voice and unique songcraft weave together in a way that can only be described as “Gorka.” | | Saturday, January 14 - 8:00 PM | $10 advance; $12 at door |  Karen Trump, Jackie Frost, and Josh Bearman - Karen Trump and Jackie Frost have both performed multiple times at SGCH; this will mark their first appearance together, and their first appearance with multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Josh Bearman. Karen is a singer-songwriter with four CDs two her credit; Jackie is know for her work with the Jackie Frost Ensemble, The Jackie Frost Group, and Among Friends; Josh is the host of "Edge of Americana," a roots based radio program on WRIR, and plays mandolin, banjo, and upright bass in The Hot Seats, a Richmond-based, internationally touring, bluegrass and jug band. | | Saturday, February 11 - 8:00 PM | $12 advance; $15 at door |  Bill Staines - For more than forty years, Bill has traveled back and forth across North America, singing his songs and delighting audiences at festivals, folksong societies, colleges, concerts, clubs, and coffeehouses. A New England native, Bill became involved with the Boston-Cambridge folk scene in the early 1960's and for a time, emceed the Sunday Hootenanny at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge. Bill quickly became a popular performer in the Boston area. From the time in 1971 when a reviewer from the Boston Phoenix stated that he was "simply Boston's best performer", Bill has continually appeared on folk music radio listener polls as one of the top all time favorite folk artists. Now, well into his fifth decade as a folk performer, he has gained an international reputation as a gifted songwriter and performer. | | Saturday, March 10 - 8:00 PM | $20 advance; $22 at door |  Ellis Paul - Ellis Paul is one of the leading voices in American songwriting and one of the top songwriters to emerge out of the fertile Boston folk scene. He helped create a movement that revitalized the national acoustic circuit with an urban, literate, folk rock style that helped renew interest in the genre in the 90's. His charismatic, personally authentic performance style has influenced a generation of artists away from the artifice of pop, and closer towards the realness of folk. Though he remains among the most pop-friendly of today's singer-songwriters - his songs regularly appear in hit movie and TV soundtracks - he has bridged the gulf between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. | | Saturday, April 21 - 8:00 PM | $17 advance; $20 at door |  Molasses Creek - Molasses Creek’s humble beginnings arose amidst exotic fig trees and rich tidewater marshes of isolated Ocracoke Island, NC. This high-energy acoustic group continues to win loyal followings with a captivating stage presence, elegant harmonies, blazing instrumentals, and a quirky sense of humor. Award winners from Garrison Keillor's “Prairie Home Companion,” Molasses Creek has recorded 11 albums over the past 18 years. Its members have been featured in Warner Brothers’ movie "Nights in Rodanthe," have performed at presidential receptions, and include a graduate from Boston's own Berklee College of Music. Molasses Creek’s roster includes Gary Mitchell (guitar & vocals), Fiddler Dave Tweedie (fiddle & vocals), Lou Castro (dobro, bass, & vocals), Marcy Brenner (mandolin, bass, vocals), and Gerald Hampton (mandolin & bass). | | Saturday, May 5 - 8:00 PM | $12 advance; $15 at door |  Whitetop Mountaineers - The Whitetop Mountaineers are a young, high-energy duo - Martha Spencer and Jackson Cunningham - who are rising stars in the world of traditional Appalachian music. They both live in Whitetop, VA, at the highest mountains in Virginia. Their shows feature old time country duet singing, up-tempo old time fiddle, clawhammer banjo, bluegrass mandolin and guitar instrumentals as well as high energy Appalachian dancing. Jackson and Martha have played concerts, festivals, workshops, and dances throughout the United States, UK, Ireland and Australia including such venues as: Merlefest, Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC, National Folk Festival in Richmond, Cornish Bluegrass Festival in England, Tamworth Country Music Festival in NSW, Australia, Open House Festival in Belfast Ireland, and Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia, among many others. | | Saturday, June 9 - 8:00 PM | $22 advance; $25 at door |  Cheryl Wheeler - It has always seemed as if there were two Cheryl Wheelers, with fans of the New England songwriter relishing watching the two tussle for control of the mic. There is poet-Cheryl, writer of some of the prettiest, most alluring and intelligent ballads on the modern folk scene. And there is her evil twin, comic-Cheryl, a militant trend defier and savagely funny social critic. The result is a delightful contrast between poet and comic. Poet-Cheryl writes achingly honest songs of love and loss. Contrasting the prosaic landscapes of her native small-town America with the hopelessly rootless life of the traveling performer, she touches the common chords with any who feel the tug between our busy, noisome times and the timeless longing for simplicity and silence. Comic-Cheryl comes on like Groucho-in-a-housecoat; a fiercely everyday woman with a barbed-wire tongue. Shredding the mores of our gossipy, greedy, trend-obsessed culture, Wheeler always aims enough darts at herself to never seem sanctimonious. |
info@shadygrovecoffeehouse.com | |