BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts are refurbishing their first-floor bathroom with an estimated completion date of mid-July. Until those renovations are complete, the only available bathrooms will be up the main staircase which is equivalent to climbing two normal flights of stairs given the very high ceilings. There is no elevator in the building, so those who have difficulties with stairs may wish to take this into consideration.
The Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series™
Time: 7:30 PM unless otherwise noted. 2nd Fridays are usually Open Stage/audition night. (Check the schedule for rare exceptions.)
Location: Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ, a smoke & alcohol free environment. DIRECTIONS
Admission: Unless otherwise noted, $10 on your way in plus the balance of what you think the show was really worth on your way out. All exit donations go directly to the Headline Act. Vaccinated children 12 and under may attend free, but must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Until such time that children under 5 may be safely vaccinated, alas they will not be admitted.
Streaming: All Troubadour concerts may be viewed in person or live-streamed, except as noted.
For More Information: Email troubadour@folkproject.org or call 973-335-9489.
Buy Troubadour tickets online: You may purchase tickets in advance for Troubadour Acoustic Concert Series shows by clicking on the Live Tickets link in the show listing below. Online sales cease a bit before midnight on the day before the event. Tickets will still be available at the door on the day of the show unless the event is completely sold out, in which case there will be a prominent notice posted on this website. Some events accept admissions payment only at the door, with no advance sales.
Dana Cooper is known for insightful storytelling & songwriting, as well as his impressive guitar playing. And oh, that driving, relentless guitar playing! During his years as a troubadour, Dana has received many Accolades including the Nashville Music Award Nomination Best Pop Album. With his Latest CD Release “I Can Face The Truth”, Dana faces hard truths head on with humor and heartfelt expression.
Circle Round the Sun is an acoustic/Americana band comprised of vocalists Marie Trontell and Jay Wilensky, Chris Bukata and Joe Brice on guitars, and George LaVecchia on bass. This Folk Project – based quintet brings rich vocal harmonies and agile instrumentals to a mix of creative originals and well-chosen covers.
BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship are renovating their first floor bathroom and it is possible that renovations will still be in progress on the date of this show. If so, the only access to toilets will be up the main staircase that is about as long as two normal flights of stairs. If you have difficulty climbing stairs, please plan accordingly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring up echoes of the Canadian group “Finest Kind”, Windborne is a harmony-driven quartet of 20-somethings who revel in the vocal traditions of the British Isles and early American folk song. To this they add vocal harmony traditions around the world from the Balkans to South Africa. They sing either acapella, or with spare accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, and percussion.
Ken & Pat Rolston (Key figures in the Folk Project favorite quartet, WSAGNBSCALRME) hark back to the founding days of the Project. Their voices blend with the ease of two natural singers who have been singing together most of their lives. Their material ranges from acapella traditional ballads to swing to Corsican field hollers Randy Newman to whatever else suits their wide-ranging musical tastes. And the charming blend of Ken’s mad-wizard personna levened by Patsy’s tolerant sanity makes them a joy to experience onstage.
Note: This show was originally scheduled on March 4, but had been canceled due to COVID
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: This opening act of Carla Ulbrich is just a sneak preview of her headline appearance at the Troubadour coming up on August 26!
$12 admission tonight includes refreshments, including birthday cake.
We celebrate The Folk Project’s first show back in July of 1975 with one our most fun, wonderful, and diabolical shows of the year: our annual Birthday Show. Random duos and trios of musicians and singers were chosen on July 4th, and they’ve spent the month coming up with new songs. The synergy of the surprise pairings of friends (old and new) with varied styles always results in a great show.
You may have caught a sneak preview of Grover Kemble, opening for Reeds Rhythm, and All That Brass back in June. Now he’s back for a full night of his own, backed by a new band. Grover is a local legend. Since the ’70’s when his band Za Zu Zaz toured nationally, Grover, his guitar, and distinctive approach to jazz, Latin, and American standards have wowed his Morris County neighbors. His guitar and vocal chops and consummate musicality are reinforced by a great sense of style, showmanship, and a rubber face that never fails to charm. Accompanying Grover will be renowned local jazz pianist Jerry Vezza, Juilliard bassist Hal Slapin and versatile drummer John Vourtsis. This performance will include smooth jazz, originals, swing, latin ,and ballads.
Arielle Silver is a consummate storyteller whose rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her many homes, tours, and travels across the American heartland. The daughter of a guitar-strumming architect and a bookworm religious educator, Arielle was raised in folk festival fields and synagogue pews. Her fourth album, A Thousand Tiny Torches (2020), is luminous, literate, and alive, with songs that crosscut exacting details of the seismic heartbreaks of ordinary life. Music Connection writes of her, “…a born communicator… exudes intelligence and humanity.”
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Note: You may have seen a sneak preview of Carla Ulbrich when she opened for Trout Fishing in America at the Troubadour on July 22.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Dana Cooper is known for insightful storytelling & songwriting, as well as his impressive guitar playing. And oh, that driving, relentless guitar playing! During his years as a troubadour, Dana has received many Accolades including the Nashville Music Award Nomination Best Pop Album. With his Latest CD Release “I Can Face The Truth”, Dana faces hard truths head on with humor and heartfelt expression.
Circle Round the Sun is an acoustic/Americana band comprised of vocalists Marie Trontell and Jay Wilensky, Chris Bukata and Joe Brice on guitars, and George LaVecchia on bass. This Folk Project – based quintet brings rich vocal harmonies and agile instrumentals to a mix of creative originals and well-chosen covers.
BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship are renovating their first floor bathroom and it is possible that renovations will still be in progress on the date of this show. If so, the only access to toilets will be up the main staircase that is about as long as two normal flights of stairs. If you have difficulty climbing stairs, please plan accordingly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring up echoes of the Canadian group “Finest Kind”, Windborne is a harmony-driven quartet of 20-somethings who revel in the vocal traditions of the British Isles and early American folk song. To this they add vocal harmony traditions around the world from the Balkans to South Africa. They sing either acapella, or with spare accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, and percussion.
Ken & Pat Rolston (Key figures in the Folk Project favorite quartet, WSAGNBSCALRME) hark back to the founding days of the Project. Their voices blend with the ease of two natural singers who have been singing together most of their lives. Their material ranges from acapella traditional ballads to swing to Corsican field hollers Randy Newman to whatever else suits their wide-ranging musical tastes. And the charming blend of Ken’s mad-wizard personna levened by Patsy’s tolerant sanity makes them a joy to experience onstage.
Note: This show was originally scheduled on March 4, but had been canceled due to COVID
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: This opening act of Carla Ulbrich is just a sneak preview of her headline appearance at the Troubadour coming up on August 26!
$12 admission tonight includes refreshments, including birthday cake.
We celebrate The Folk Project’s first show back in July of 1975 with one our most fun, wonderful, and diabolical shows of the year: our annual Birthday Show. Random duos and trios of musicians and singers were chosen on July 4th, and they’ve spent the month coming up with new songs. The synergy of the surprise pairings of friends (old and new) with varied styles always results in a great show.
You may have caught a sneak preview of Grover Kemble, opening for Reeds Rhythm, and All That Brass back in June. Now he’s back for a full night of his own, backed by a new band. Grover is a local legend. Since the ’70’s when his band Za Zu Zaz toured nationally, Grover, his guitar, and distinctive approach to jazz, Latin, and American standards have wowed his Morris County neighbors. His guitar and vocal chops and consummate musicality are reinforced by a great sense of style, showmanship, and a rubber face that never fails to charm. Accompanying Grover will be renowned local jazz pianist Jerry Vezza, Juilliard bassist Hal Slapin and versatile drummer John Vourtsis. This performance will include smooth jazz, originals, swing, latin ,and ballads.
Arielle Silver is a consummate storyteller whose rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her many homes, tours, and travels across the American heartland. The daughter of a guitar-strumming architect and a bookworm religious educator, Arielle was raised in folk festival fields and synagogue pews. Her fourth album, A Thousand Tiny Torches (2020), is luminous, literate, and alive, with songs that crosscut exacting details of the seismic heartbreaks of ordinary life. Music Connection writes of her, “…a born communicator… exudes intelligence and humanity.”
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Note: You may have seen a sneak preview of Carla Ulbrich when she opened for Trout Fishing in America at the Troubadour on July 22.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Dana Cooper is known for insightful storytelling & songwriting, as well as his impressive guitar playing. And oh, that driving, relentless guitar playing! During his years as a troubadour, Dana has received many Accolades including the Nashville Music Award Nomination Best Pop Album. With his Latest CD Release “I Can Face The Truth”, Dana faces hard truths head on with humor and heartfelt expression.
Circle Round the Sun is an acoustic/Americana band comprised of vocalists Marie Trontell and Jay Wilensky, Chris Bukata and Joe Brice on guitars, and George LaVecchia on bass. This Folk Project – based quintet brings rich vocal harmonies and agile instrumentals to a mix of creative originals and well-chosen covers.
BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship are renovating their first floor bathroom and it is possible that renovations will still be in progress on the date of this show. If so, the only access to toilets will be up the main staircase that is about as long as two normal flights of stairs. If you have difficulty climbing stairs, please plan accordingly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring up echoes of the Canadian group “Finest Kind”, Windborne is a harmony-driven quartet of 20-somethings who revel in the vocal traditions of the British Isles and early American folk song. To this they add vocal harmony traditions around the world from the Balkans to South Africa. They sing either acapella, or with spare accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, and percussion.
Ken & Pat Rolston (Key figures in the Folk Project favorite quartet, WSAGNBSCALRME) hark back to the founding days of the Project. Their voices blend with the ease of two natural singers who have been singing together most of their lives. Their material ranges from acapella traditional ballads to swing to Corsican field hollers Randy Newman to whatever else suits their wide-ranging musical tastes. And the charming blend of Ken’s mad-wizard personna levened by Patsy’s tolerant sanity makes them a joy to experience onstage.
Note: This show was originally scheduled on March 4, but had been canceled due to COVID
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: This opening act of Carla Ulbrich is just a sneak preview of her headline appearance at the Troubadour coming up on August 26!
$12 admission tonight includes refreshments, including birthday cake.
We celebrate The Folk Project’s first show back in July of 1975 with one our most fun, wonderful, and diabolical shows of the year: our annual Birthday Show. Random duos and trios of musicians and singers were chosen on July 4th, and they’ve spent the month coming up with new songs. The synergy of the surprise pairings of friends (old and new) with varied styles always results in a great show.
You may have caught a sneak preview of Grover Kemble, opening for Reeds Rhythm, and All That Brass back in June. Now he’s back for a full night of his own, backed by a new band. Grover is a local legend. Since the ’70’s when his band Za Zu Zaz toured nationally, Grover, his guitar, and distinctive approach to jazz, Latin, and American standards have wowed his Morris County neighbors. His guitar and vocal chops and consummate musicality are reinforced by a great sense of style, showmanship, and a rubber face that never fails to charm. Accompanying Grover will be renowned local jazz pianist Jerry Vezza, Juilliard bassist Hal Slapin and versatile drummer John Vourtsis. This performance will include smooth jazz, originals, swing, latin ,and ballads.
Arielle Silver is a consummate storyteller whose rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her many homes, tours, and travels across the American heartland. The daughter of a guitar-strumming architect and a bookworm religious educator, Arielle was raised in folk festival fields and synagogue pews. Her fourth album, A Thousand Tiny Torches (2020), is luminous, literate, and alive, with songs that crosscut exacting details of the seismic heartbreaks of ordinary life. Music Connection writes of her, “…a born communicator… exudes intelligence and humanity.”
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Note: You may have seen a sneak preview of Carla Ulbrich when she opened for Trout Fishing in America at the Troubadour on July 22.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
Rupert Wates is a transplanted Englishman who writes, sings, and plays witty wordy and quirky songs on unlikely subjects. A writer who makes you think while he entertains.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Dana Cooper is known for insightful storytelling & songwriting, as well as his impressive guitar playing. And oh, that driving, relentless guitar playing! During his years as a troubadour, Dana has received many Accolades including the Nashville Music Award Nomination Best Pop Album. With his Latest CD Release “I Can Face The Truth”, Dana faces hard truths head on with humor and heartfelt expression.
Circle Round the Sun is an acoustic/Americana band comprised of vocalists Marie Trontell and Jay Wilensky, Chris Bukata and Joe Brice on guitars, and George LaVecchia on bass. This Folk Project – based quintet brings rich vocal harmonies and agile instrumentals to a mix of creative originals and well-chosen covers.
BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship are renovating their first floor bathroom and it is possible that renovations will still be in progress on the date of this show. If so, the only access to toilets will be up the main staircase that is about as long as two normal flights of stairs. If you have difficulty climbing stairs, please plan accordingly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring up echoes of the Canadian group “Finest Kind”, Windborne is a harmony-driven quartet of 20-somethings who revel in the vocal traditions of the British Isles and early American folk song. To this they add vocal harmony traditions around the world from the Balkans to South Africa. They sing either acapella, or with spare accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, and percussion.
Ken & Pat Rolston (Key figures in the Folk Project favorite quartet, WSAGNBSCALRME) hark back to the founding days of the Project. Their voices blend with the ease of two natural singers who have been singing together most of their lives. Their material ranges from acapella traditional ballads to swing to Corsican field hollers Randy Newman to whatever else suits their wide-ranging musical tastes. And the charming blend of Ken’s mad-wizard personna levened by Patsy’s tolerant sanity makes them a joy to experience onstage.
Note: This show was originally scheduled on March 4, but had been canceled due to COVID
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: This opening act of Carla Ulbrich is just a sneak preview of her headline appearance at the Troubadour coming up on August 26!
$12 admission tonight includes refreshments, including birthday cake.
We celebrate The Folk Project’s first show back in July of 1975 with one our most fun, wonderful, and diabolical shows of the year: our annual Birthday Show. Random duos and trios of musicians and singers were chosen on July 4th, and they’ve spent the month coming up with new songs. The synergy of the surprise pairings of friends (old and new) with varied styles always results in a great show.
You may have caught a sneak preview of Grover Kemble, opening for Reeds Rhythm, and All That Brass back in June. Now he’s back for a full night of his own, backed by a new band. Grover is a local legend. Since the ’70’s when his band Za Zu Zaz toured nationally, Grover, his guitar, and distinctive approach to jazz, Latin, and American standards have wowed his Morris County neighbors. His guitar and vocal chops and consummate musicality are reinforced by a great sense of style, showmanship, and a rubber face that never fails to charm. Accompanying Grover will be renowned local jazz pianist Jerry Vezza, Juilliard bassist Hal Slapin and versatile drummer John Vourtsis. This performance will include smooth jazz, originals, swing, latin ,and ballads.
Arielle Silver is a consummate storyteller whose rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her many homes, tours, and travels across the American heartland. The daughter of a guitar-strumming architect and a bookworm religious educator, Arielle was raised in folk festival fields and synagogue pews. Her fourth album, A Thousand Tiny Torches (2020), is luminous, literate, and alive, with songs that crosscut exacting details of the seismic heartbreaks of ordinary life. Music Connection writes of her, “…a born communicator… exudes intelligence and humanity.”
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Note: You may have seen a sneak preview of Carla Ulbrich when she opened for Trout Fishing in America at the Troubadour on July 22.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
Rupert Wates is a transplanted Englishman who writes, sings, and plays witty wordy and quirky songs on unlikely subjects. A writer who makes you think while he entertains.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.
Dana Cooper is known for insightful storytelling & songwriting, as well as his impressive guitar playing. And oh, that driving, relentless guitar playing! During his years as a troubadour, Dana has received many Accolades including the Nashville Music Award Nomination Best Pop Album. With his Latest CD Release “I Can Face The Truth”, Dana faces hard truths head on with humor and heartfelt expression.
Circle Round the Sun is an acoustic/Americana band comprised of vocalists Marie Trontell and Jay Wilensky, Chris Bukata and Joe Brice on guitars, and George LaVecchia on bass. This Folk Project – based quintet brings rich vocal harmonies and agile instrumentals to a mix of creative originals and well-chosen covers.
BATHROOM SITUATION: Our hosts at the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship are renovating their first floor bathroom and it is possible that renovations will still be in progress on the date of this show. If so, the only access to toilets will be up the main staircase that is about as long as two normal flights of stairs. If you have difficulty climbing stairs, please plan accordingly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring up echoes of the Canadian group “Finest Kind”, Windborne is a harmony-driven quartet of 20-somethings who revel in the vocal traditions of the British Isles and early American folk song. To this they add vocal harmony traditions around the world from the Balkans to South Africa. They sing either acapella, or with spare accompaniment on banjo, fiddle, and percussion.
Ken & Pat Rolston (Key figures in the Folk Project favorite quartet, WSAGNBSCALRME) hark back to the founding days of the Project. Their voices blend with the ease of two natural singers who have been singing together most of their lives. Their material ranges from acapella traditional ballads to swing to Corsican field hollers Randy Newman to whatever else suits their wide-ranging musical tastes. And the charming blend of Ken’s mad-wizard personna levened by Patsy’s tolerant sanity makes them a joy to experience onstage.
Note: This show was originally scheduled on March 4, but had been canceled due to COVID
Trout Fishing in America is the long-standing, and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet. As individuals, they are about as different as one could imagine. But together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured audiences of all ages for over three decades. A willingness to at once make fun of our most annoying daily habits, and then to touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life is what makes the connection between the Trouts and their audiences so compelling and poignant.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
NOTE: This opening act of Carla Ulbrich is just a sneak preview of her headline appearance at the Troubadour coming up on August 26!
$12 admission tonight includes refreshments, including birthday cake.
We celebrate The Folk Project’s first show back in July of 1975 with one our most fun, wonderful, and diabolical shows of the year: our annual Birthday Show. Random duos and trios of musicians and singers were chosen on July 4th, and they’ve spent the month coming up with new songs. The synergy of the surprise pairings of friends (old and new) with varied styles always results in a great show.
You may have caught a sneak preview of Grover Kemble, opening for Reeds Rhythm, and All That Brass back in June. Now he’s back for a full night of his own, backed by a new band. Grover is a local legend. Since the ’70’s when his band Za Zu Zaz toured nationally, Grover, his guitar, and distinctive approach to jazz, Latin, and American standards have wowed his Morris County neighbors. His guitar and vocal chops and consummate musicality are reinforced by a great sense of style, showmanship, and a rubber face that never fails to charm. Accompanying Grover will be renowned local jazz pianist Jerry Vezza, Juilliard bassist Hal Slapin and versatile drummer John Vourtsis. This performance will include smooth jazz, originals, swing, latin ,and ballads.
Arielle Silver is a consummate storyteller whose rich, expressive voice and acoustic guitar frame expansive melodies that echo her many homes, tours, and travels across the American heartland. The daughter of a guitar-strumming architect and a bookworm religious educator, Arielle was raised in folk festival fields and synagogue pews. Her fourth album, A Thousand Tiny Torches (2020), is luminous, literate, and alive, with songs that crosscut exacting details of the seismic heartbreaks of ordinary life. Music Connection writes of her, “…a born communicator… exudes intelligence and humanity.”
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging genres. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose ttraditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Note: You may have seen a sneak preview of Carla Ulbrich when she opened for Trout Fishing in America at the Troubadour on July 22.
Carla Ulbrich is a comical singer-songwriter and guitarist with a rapier wit and a keen observational eye for the absurdities of everyday living. With a love of wordplay and some pretty fancy guitar chops, she creates songs on topics as diverse as wedgies, Waffle House, Klingons, and how rich she would be if she had the copyright on the ‘F’ Word. She is a longtime favorite on the Dr. Demento show, and puts on an utterly hilarious live show.
Sam Robbins plays a nice mix of originals and interesting covers. He is possessed of a lovely voice, good guitar chops, and an engaging stage personna. One might call him a “Sensitive Singer-Songwriter”, but if so, he wears it well and proudly.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Happy Traum, together with his late brother Artie, raised and set the standard of finger-style guitar playing in the great heyday of the Folk Revival in the 60’s and 70’s. He has performed in virtually every major folk festival in the US and abroad, taught in every guitar camp from Swannanoa to Merlefest to the Fur Piece Ranch, and played with virtually every legendary acoustic guitarist in the world over the past 40 years, and released many instructional books and videos on the subject. He still plays great, and has some wonderful stories to tell about the era of the Great Folk Scare.
John Forster obviously fell asleep one too many times as a child to the sound of his Tom Lehrer albums. This is evidenced by his twisted sense of humor, his delightfully skewed view of the human condition, and his prodigious skills as a pianist. His songs have a knack for taking the plausible but improbable, and leading that to its implausible but inevitable conclusion by way of unlikely rhymes, horrible puns, and ironic satire. John is a very funny man.
Ken Galipeau is a storyteller, and a gleaner of good songs. He is constantly on the lookout for lesser-known material that ought to be better known. He will intersperse humor with poignency to great effect. He plays guitar, piano, and water-jug, and will sometimes sing unaccompanied. He’s also well known locally as a superb storyteller for adults as well as children.
Rescheduled from their canceled date in February
Tom Chapin‘s music spans generations from the heady Greenwich Village days when he performed with his brothers Harry, and Steve, and dad Jim, through to today. He serves up a tasty mix of story songs, ballads, comedic and political songs, family music, sing-alongs, old-time folk classics and a favorite song or two of his late brother Harry’s. With an agile fingerstyle guitar, gentle humor, audience inclusiveness, and a concern for the Earth and its resources, Tom puts on a memorable show.
Folk Project member Tina Ross is a Singer/Songwriter who combines evocative, inventive guitar playing with superb poetry that weaves colorful, emotional imagery around her beautifully sung, gorgeous melodies.
Beppe Gambetta, the Italian bluegrass flatpicking champion. Sounds like an ethnic joke, but Beppe is no joke. Early in life he was captured by the music of such greats as Doc Watson and Tony Rice, and soon got to the point where he was sharing festival stages as an equal with his heroes. Equally adroit on mandolin, he can blaze through a hot bluegrass tune or croon a lovely Italian traditional ballad. And all with an elegant continental charm that is a joy to witness.
The Fermenters Trio show every sign of having spent endless hours in their youth grooving on their Grateful Dead albums. Drawn from sources both old and new, their music offers up a heady mix of Alt folk, bluegrass, gospel, country, and eclectic originals. It’s stomp and holler with all the blended vocal harmonies of the Americana musical tradition. Their sound embraces the dynamics of bluegrass and gospel, the fire indie folk, and the passion of the blues.
Trio is Chris Lelli on guitar, Seth Mandel on fiddle and mandolin, and Larry Ghiorsi on upright bass.
Gadan is the new project created by four experienced musicians from Italy playing Celtic and Old Timey music, with the occasional departure into regional folk ballads of Northern Italy. They deliver a powerful repertoire with a sound comparable to new-trad acts such as Talisk, WeBanjo3, The East Pointers or Rura. The band explores the deep connection between emigrating people from different part of Europe, such as Ireland and Italy, to the United States, through a reinvigorating and modern musical approach. Fiddle, banjos, mandolin, bouzouki and guitar for a “strings-only” sound with a hint of electronics, and a powerful rhythmic pulse.
Folk Project member musicians celebrate Halloween in song, story, and costume. Details to follow.
Some of you may remember Don White from his split-bill appearance with Christine Lavin in 2014. Don is a blue collar intellectual and a true old-school troubadour. He is a comedian-author-singer-songwriter-raconteur, whose introductions to his songs are wonderfully crafted tales that are as hilarious as the songs themselves. He is such a beloved character in his hometown of Lynn, MA that last year the mayor proclaimed an official Don White Day and gave him the key to the city.
Rupert Wates is a transplanted Englishman who writes, sings, and plays witty wordy and quirky songs on unlikely subjects. A writer who makes you think while he entertains.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Chorus Song Night is an evening of songs for you, the audience to sing. A panel of four experienced songleaders will offer songs with choruses, some familiar, and others easily picked up, and songs that most folkies know already to one extent or the other. Raise your voices. Add your harmonies. If you like to sing, this is the night for you.
More details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians perform songs of the holidays. All proceeds go to the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
Folk Project member musicians regale you with songs of love in all its aspects. Details to follow.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
The Folk Project Open Stage, North Jersey’s premier open stage, is back live on the second Friday of every month. The Main Stage features two-song (or ten minutes, whichever is shorter) sign-up slots for our audience. To sign up to perform email Chairman Todd at openstage@folkproject.org.
Admission: $5 at the door only (tickets for the live show not available online.) Vaccinated children 12 and under free but must be accompanied by parent or guardian.
When not serving as Nanci Griffith’s backup band, The Kennedys have been joyfully rocking the folk world with their own unique brand of high-energy performance. It’s more than the powerful close-harmony singing. It’s more than the hot guitar work. It’s more than the driving rhythms and power chords. It’s the obvious chemistry between Pete and Maura Kennedy that is so charming and so contagious that the listener can’t help but grin and join in their fun.