Talking about his generation, Roger McGuinn refuses to dwell on the steady stream of deaths of such icons of popular music as David Bowie (at 69) and Glenn Frey (at 67) in the first three months of 2016.
“It’s part of life,” the 74-year-old co-founder of the folk-rock supergroup The Byrds said last week in a telephone interview from his home in Florida. “I don’t really focus on it. It’s going to happen when it happens.”
And so the veteran singer-guitarist isn’t sitting around waiting for the Grim Reaper to knock on his door. With his one-man show of songs and stories, which he’ll perform at the Woodstock Town Hall Theatre next Thursday night, he’s still touring the world.
After spending the late summer of 2015 in Hawaii and mid-autumn on the West Coast, he performed twice in Japan in November. And after a winter break and a few early-March shows down South, the Chicago-born McGuinn and his 12-string Rickenbacker are hitting the road again starting Friday night in Tennessee, on an East Coast swing through mid-May in support of the 20th-anniversary edition of The Folk Den Project, a four-CD box set of his 100 favorite songs that just came out this week.
“Retirement is the precursor to death,” McGuinn said. “I’ve seen it happen a lot of times. I have no desire or plans to retire.
“I love what I do.”
What he does now feels light years away from The Byrds’ run from 1964 to 1973, during which the band — including, in the first three years, David Crosby — followed up on the British Invasion of popular music with the “jingle-jangle” sound of such hits as Mr. Tambourine Man, Turn Turn Turn and So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n Roll Star.
“I’m my own boss now,” McGuinn said. “I’m not beholden to any companies who tell me what to do. There was a certain comfort zone in the studio system; they set up the tours and the recording dates and took care of publicity and everything else. … As time went on, I found that it’s really fun to design album covers and write liner notes.
“It’s a lot more fun now. We call the shots. We tour when we want to. It’s a really great time.”
The time includes the weaving of story through the music, a formula with which McGuinn started experimenting in the late 1980s while opening shows for John Prine.
“I don’t just do a program of folk songs,” he said. “It’s sort of like the life of Will Rogers, only I’m not Will Rogers. … Back in my time with The Byrds, it wasn’t cool to talk onstage. … Now we’ve got all these diffrent modules of stories that interchange with the music. … Other artists, they tell jokes. Tom Rush is great at that. He gets a laugh every 10 seconds. I’m happy to get laughs, too, but mine is also historical.”
If his health continues to allow, McGuinn wouldn’t mind taking to the stage into his 90s, as did such role models as classical guitarist Andres Segovia, Turn Turn Turn composer and folk ambassador Pete Seeger and sitar master Ravi Shankar.
“I’m having fun working,” McGuinn said. “I’m not going to think about the end.”
Roger McGuinn performs at Woodstock’s Town Hall Theatre next Thursday night at 7:30. To reserve tickets ($35 to $45) and learn more, visit pentanglearts.org or call 802-457-3981.
AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon resumes its storytelling series, The Mudroom, tonight with a session of tales on the theme of “Going Home.” The doors open at 6:30, accompanied by music from the Etna Old Time Association, and the serving of cajun food and beer. The storytelling begins at 7. Admission, for adults only, is $5. To reserve tickets and learn more, visit avagallery.org.
Folk singer-songwriter-guitarist Cliff Eberhardt performs at Flying Goose Brewpub and Grill tonight at 8. Reservations are required. For tickets ($25) and more information, visit flyinggoose.com or call 603-526-6899.
During Opera North’s “Spring Fling Soiree” on Friday night at the Quechee Club, company performers sing a medley of Broadway favorites from Rodgers and Hart, excerpts from Menotti’s The Telephone and selections from the operas that the company will stage at the Lebanon Opera House this summer: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita, Puccini’s Tosca and Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment. The soiree starts at 6. For tickets ($35) and more information, visit operanorth.org or email info@operanorth.org
The Kamikaze Comedy improvisational troupe performs at Chandler Music Hall in Randolph on Friday night at 7:30. The Vermont-based ensemble uses prompts from the audience to create wacky characters, tell wild tales and draw spectators into hilarious games. General admission costs $5 to $15. For advance tickets and more information, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
The spring season of live theater at Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center begins Friday and Saturday nights, with performances of Red-Eye to Havre de Grace, a re-imagining of author Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious final days. Stagings at the Moore Theater in Hanover are scheduled for both nights at 8, followed by discussions of the show. For tickets ($17 to $35) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
The New Black Eagle Jazz Band fills Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall with the rhythms of New Orleans on Sunday afternoon at 2. For tickets ($5 to $20) and more information, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
Before the Sunday matinee of the production of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop at Northern Stage’s Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction, (see accompanying review) Dartmouth professor Derrick White will lead a discussion of the historical and cultural context behind the play, which reimagines the last night of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, through a conversation with a maid at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. The discussion begins at 3:30, on the eve of the 48th anniversary of King’s assassination at the hotel. The play runs through April 9. For tickets ($30 to $55) and more information, visit northernstage.org or call 802-296-7000.
City Center Ballet stages two narrated, 25-minute performances of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf at Lebanon Opera House on Sunday afternoon at 4 and 5:30. Admission is by donation of at least $5. To learn more, email dance@citycenterballet.org or call 603-448-9710 or 603-448-0400.
The seven-member Swingle Singers ensemble will bring its Grammy-winning a cappella sound to Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover next Thursday night at 7. For tickets ($17 to $30) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
The ensemble We’re Acting to End Violence (WAEV) will perform Unedited Voices of the Upper Valley: The Rising next Thursday night at 7:30 at the Lebanon Opera House. The show, sponsored by the WISE social service agency, features valley residents reading, dancing and singing to share their personal stories of surviving domestic and sexual violence. There will also be presentations from two Vermont police officers and a nurse-examiner specializing in sexual assault. While admission is free, donations are welcome. To learn more or to volunteer in the production, call Abby Tassel at 603-448-5922, extension 102, or email abby.tassel@WISEoftheuppervalley.org.
Under the direction of M. Carl Kaufman, the Parish Players will perform Nora and Delia Ephron’s comedy Love, Loss and What I Wore at the Eclipse Grange on Thetford Hill for three weekends starting April 8. Opening-weekend shows are scheduled for April 8 and 9 at 7:30 p.m. and April 10 at 3 p.m. For tickets ($12 to $15) and more information, visit parishplayers.org or call 802-785-4344.
The Brazilian Companhia Urbana de Danca will cap a week’s residency at Dartmouth College with three performances of street and contemporary dance over the second weekend of April. In addition to shows in Moore Theater at 8 the nights of April 8 and 9, the ensemble will give a free HopStop performance, in the college’s Alumni Hall, for kids and families at 11 the morning of the 9th. For tickets ($17 to $40) to the night performances, and for more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
The Newport Opera House Association will stage the musical Oliver! at the opera house April 8 to 10. Shows of the adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist are scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. on the 8th and the 9th and at 2 p.m. on the 10th. To reserve tickets ($15 to $20) and learn more, visit newportoperahouse.com or call 603-863-2412.
As a benefit for the nonprofit Safeline Inc.’s programs for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, the comedy ensemble Divas Do Good will perform at the Lake Morey Inn and Resort in Fairlee on April 9 at 8 p.m. For tickets ($20) and more information, call 802-685-7900 or email amy@safeline.org.
Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield continues its three-weekend run of Sarah Treem’s The How and the Why (see accompanying review) with 7:30 stagings tonight, Friday night and Saturday night and at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. The drama runs through April 10. For tickets ($16 to $32) and more information, visit shakerbridgetheatre.org or call 603-448-3750.
For its July production of Raggedy And, the Vermont Pride Festival will audition actors at the Chandler Music Hall in Randolph on Saturday afternoon from 1 to 3 and on Sunday evening from 5 to 7. The David Valdes Greenwood comedy follows the trials of a transgender woman chosen to recite a poem at the inauguration of the United States’ first woman president. To schedule an audition, email Joanne Greenberg jogreenvermont@gmail.com or call her at 802-734-1013.
The David Bindman Sextet plays jazz at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret on Saturday night at 7. To reserve tickets ($20) and learn more, visit artistreevt.org or call 802-457-3500 or email info@artistreevt.org.
The a cappella ensemble Hyannis Sound performs at the North Universalist Chapel in Woodstock on Saturday night at 7:30. For more information, call 802-457-1919.
In advance of their Hopkins Center concert next Thursday night (see Looking Ahead, above), the Swingle Singers will lead a master class in a cappella performance on Wednesday night at 5:30, in the Hop’s Faulkner Recital Hall. Admission is free to the session, at which the troupe will coach the North Country Chordsmen barbershop group and Dartmouth’s The Cords and The Dodecaphonics.
The New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival begins a run of five films in Hanover tonight at 7, with a screening of the documentary Rock in the Red Zone in room 013 of Dartmouth College’s Carpenter Hall. The movie follows a troupe of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, struggling to make their music amid rocket attacks from Hamas on Sderot, an Israeli city on the border with the Gaza Strip. While admission is free, donations are welcome. Four subsequent movies are scheduled through April 10. For more information on the festival offerings at Dartmouth, call 603-646-0460. For more information about festival screenings elsewhere in the state, visit nhjewishfilmfestival.org.
Pianist Bob Lucier plays jazz at the Canoe Club in Hanover tonight at 6:30. Following him to the microphone with 6:30 to 9:30 shows over the coming week are pianist Gillian Joy on Friday, pianist Jonathan Kaplan on Sunday, guitarist Steve Ellis on Wednesday and acoustic chameleon Joseph Stallsmith next Thursday.
The Professor Gall ensemble pulls into Windsor Station for a set of “junkyard funk and steampunk jazz” tonight from 7 to 10. Next up in the coming week are the roots-rocking Andy Lugo and The Dirty Boost on Saturday night at 9:30 and folk singer-songwriter Joice Marie on Tuesday night at 6.
Singer-songwriter Clay Canfield plays an acoustic set of country and blues at Bentley’s restaurant in Woodstock tonight at 8.
Sensible Shoes performs at The Public House in Quechee on Friday night at 7.
Roots singer-guitarist Andrew McKnight plays the Sunapee Community Coffeehouse in the basement of the Sunapee Methodist Church on Friday night at 7. While admission is free, donations are welcome.
Bassist Peter Concilio, saxophonist Michael Zsoldos, keyboardist Bruce Sklar and drummer Rich Greenblatt play jazz at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night from 8 to 11.
Guitarist Billy Rosen, tenor saxophonist Michael Parker and bassist Peter Concilio join forces for a set of jazz at Carpenter and Main in Norwich, on Tuesday night from 7 to 11.
Jim Yeager hosts an open-mic at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret tonight from 7 to 9. No registration is required.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights starting at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
The Seven Barrel Brewery in West Lebanon runs an open mic on Tuesday nights, beginning at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern, at 8:30 on Wednesday nights.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.