Right there in black and white

Congrats to Susan Forbes Hansen.

One of her beautiful photographs has been accepted into a juried photography exhibit at the West Hartford Art League running through February 22 in the Clubhouse Gallery, 37 Buena Vista Road.

You can see many of her prints (she shoots on film, and develops the prints herself), in a show entitled, The Black and White Season, on display at the Roaring Brook Nature Center, 70 Gracey Road, in Canton.

As Susan reminded me, they have several good folk shows coming up, so you can take in a concert and see the photos, too.

Feb 7: Erica Wheeler, songwriter and Land Trust spokesperson
Feb 14: Ed Gerhard, brilliant guitarist
Feb 21: Paul Rishell and Annie Raines: excellent blues vocalists and instrumentalists
Feb 28: Anais Mitchell & Meg Hutchinson, fine young songwriters
Mar 7: Stan Sullivan & Jim Mercik

Concert of the Week

Mark Erelli
Saturday February 9, 7:30 pm
Roaring Brook Nature Center

Mark Erelli hasn't shied away from political commentary in his songs. Almost immediately after the attacks of 9/11, he released a single called The Only Way, which reflected the we're-in-it-together sense that we all had at the time, and the sense that living well, and fearlessly was the best response to terror (the song appears now on his most recent album, Hope and Other Casaulties). More recently, he home-recorded a song about the men and women caught in the political morass, and desperation of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The song, Volunteers, appeared first as a free monthly download on his website, and more recently as a video (featured here), recorded by legendary producer Don Was for his internet TV channel (Erelli relates the story of the recording on his website). I've played the song on my radio show, and have had callers tell me it has brought them to tears. If the world were a fair place, Erelli would be far better known than he is, but if that were so, you wouldn't have the opportunity to hear him at the Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton.

Concerts of the week

John McCutcheon
Saturday December 1, 8pm
Sounding Board, West Hartford, CT

If you've listened at all to folk music radio over the past 20 years, it's unlikely you haven't heard the song that can be considered McCutcheon's "hit." Called, Christmas In the Trenches, it's the unlikely, but true, story of opposing soldiers in WWI's "no man's land," calling a Christmas truce, and nearly putting an end to fighting, until the generals rearranged the troops so they would continue to fight. It's an amazing holiday, anti-war song that works. I know more than one person who has told me that its moved them to tears. But McCutcheon is not a one-hit wonder. He's an amazing hammer dulcimer player, and guitarist, banjo-player, fiddler, etc. He writes songs of conscience and commitment, and he's recordered more than two dozen albums.

Bill Morrissey
Saturday Dec. 1, 7:30 pm
Roaring Brook Nature Center Canton, CT

Bill Morrissey writes songs the way Richard Russo writes novels. They're stories of endurance in a life that is unfair, unreliable and filled with injustice. In that world, Morrissey finds reason to hope, reason to love, and reason to remember. Morrissey's ability to ferret out details of ordinary life, and elevate them to the plane of art are what give his songs their resonance. He sings in a pinched, craggy style which fits the subject of his songs. A true American treasure, Morrissey has been touring less of late, and it's great to see he'll be back in Connecticut this weekend.