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You could just as easily call it a “Valley Home Companion,” since he sold his apartment in Nashville two years ago and made his wife Carol Langstaff’s two-century-old farmhouse in Sharon his year-round base.
“It took a long time to make that move total,” Rooney said during an interview in West Lebanon last week. “Once I did, I needed to do something to give me a musical community here. The radio station has turned out to be that for me.”
As a thank-you, Rooney will lead Dave Richard’s Americana ensemble Turnip Truck onto the stage of the Seven Stars Center in Sharon on Saturday night to serenade the station’s fourth-anniversary Birthday Bash. Now in his late 70s, Rooney has been playing with Turnip Truck and other performers — including a cameo with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt during their acoustic show at Lebanon Opera House earlier this winter — around the Upper Valley the last few years, whenever the timing seems right and a community cause is involved.
While it all seems like a far cry from producing for and cultivating musicians such as Lovett, Nanci Griffith, John Prine and Merle Haggard, Rooney sees his local shows as both a throwback to his performing with rising banjo master Bill Keith in coffeehouses in and around Boston, where he grew up, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and a way to ease out of the pressures of finding and fine-tuning hit songs and records.
“I’m playing for the fun of it,” Rooney said, in an accent leaning closer to the mid-South of the country than to New England. “That’s good for me, to get back into that feeling again.”
Richard and Turnip Truck members Dan Ruddell, Andy Mueller, Peter O’Connor and Brian Carroll make it particularly fun for Rooney.
“Two of them are cabinet makers in their day jobs and one is a carpenter,” Rooney said. “They play music for fun, which is a great thing. That’s why people like this music.”
Todd Tyson, of Tunbridge, a co-founder of Royalton Community Radio, didn’t need to think twice when Rooney approached him about three years ago and offered to do a program mixing his reminiscences with the spinning of past and current music that tickles his fancy.
“Jim’s skills as a respected producer, raconteur, programmer, mentor and past board member of Folk Alliance have all proven invaluable to WFVR and our listenership,” Tyson wrote in an email this week. He added that Rooney settled here at a good moment for local practitioners and fans of roots music.
“There’s a deep musical talent and dedication ingrained here,” Tyson wrote, “often inspired by the connectedness of grassroots community across the arts, politics, the environment and the area’s history of independent thinkers and activists.”
Rooney said that interacting with musicians with a variety of outlooks on life continues to broaden his own horizons.
“It’s important for people not to retreat into their own little bubble, where everybody agrees with them,” Rooney said. “We just all play music together.”
Jim Rooney and Turnip Truck perform at the Seven Stars Center in Sharon on Saturday night, during Royalton Community Radio’s fourth anniversary Birthday Bash. The party, benefiting the nonprofit station, runs from 6 to 10. Admission is $20 at the door and $25 for partygoers renewing their station memberships. To learn more, visit royaltonradio.org or call 802-431-3433.
Best Bets
On the theme of “Protest,” AVA Gallery and Arts Center next Thursday night hosts The Mudroom, its monthly session of adult storytelling in the spirit of The Moth Radio Hour. After refreshments at 6:30, the session begins at 7 in the gallery space, with live music from Never Too Late. Advance tickets cost $5 for AVA members and $7.50 for others, and tickets at the door are $10. To reserve seats and learn more, visit avagallery.org or call 603-448-3117.
The No Strings Marionettes troupe performs Wasabi — A Dragon’s Tale at the Claremont Savings Bank Community Center in Claremont on Saturday afternoon at 3. Admission is free to the show, in which a princess saves her fiance and her domain from a fire-breathing dragon. The performers will open with an interactive sing-along and finish by demonstrating how the puppets work. No Strings also will perform the fairy tale at the Hopkins Center in Hanover on March 25.
Hal Sheeler conducts an open sing of Vivaldi’s Gloria and Morten Lauridsen’s Ubi Caritas at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon on Sunday afternoon at 3. Scores will be available, and pianist Henry Danaher will accompany the singers. Vocalists interested in singing should call Hal Sheeler at 603-398-2151 or emailhsheeler@gmail.com. To learn more, visit fccleb.org.
Northern Stage kicks off a three-week run of the George Brent play Grounded with 7:30 previews on Wednesday night, next Thursday night and the night of March 17. The one-woman show explores an Air Force pilot’s reactions to being transferred from her fighter jet to the controls of a drone after learning she is pregnant. The production continues through April 2. To reserve tickets ($14 to $54) and learn more, visit northernstage.org.
Looking Ahead
The Kearsarge Chorale is inviting singers to weekly rehearsals for its annual spring concert, which will take place on April 22 at Colby-Sawyer College in New London. Rehearsals are on Monday nights at Gordon Hall, next door to the college’s Sawyer Center Theater. The concert, on the theme of “Now Welcome Summer,” will range through a medley of show tunes by Stephen Sondheim. To learn more about joining the chorale, email director Donald R. Cox at coxdonaldr@gmail.com or call 603-526-9414.
Theatre/Performance Art
Shaker Bridge Theatre wraps its production of Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles at Whitney Hall in Enfield with performances at 7:30 tonight, Friday night and Saturday night and at 4 on Sunday afternoon. To reserve tickets ($16 to $32) and learn more, visit shakerbridgetheatre.org or call 603-448-3750.
BarnArts holds the final audition for its June performance of the Sarah Ruhl comedy Dead Man’s Cell Phone tonight from 5 to 7, at Barnard’s Danforth Library. Rehearsals begin in April. To learn more, visit barnarts.org or call 802-234-1645.
Music
Nine Woodstock-area pianists take turns in duets, trios and quartets at the keyboard on Saturday afternoon at 2 at the Norman Williams Public Library, in a recital of works ranging from Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach to Scott Joplin, to benefiting library programs. Admission is by donation.
Harold Ford channels “The Spirit of Johnny Cash” during a performance at Claremont Opera House on Saturday night at 7:30. Joining him will be Laura Lucy as June Carter Cash. For tickets ($20) and more information, visitclaremontoperahouse.org or the opera-house box office in City Hall, or call 603-542-4433.
The folk trio Lula Wiles plays at the West Newbury (Vt.) Hall on Sunday afternoon at 2, as part of the Rock Farmer Roadshow series of Americana concerts. To reserve tickets ($20) and learn more, visit patrickrossmusic.com.
The Upper Valley Music Center Chamber Orchestra is inviting violinists and other musicians to weekly rehearsals for a spring performance of von Weber’s Overture to Der Freischutz and Dvorak’s Czech Suite. The ensemble rehearses Wednesday nights at 7 at Lebanon Middle School. The participation fee for the year is $50. To learn more, call conductor Dave Wysocki at 802-299-8144.
Dance
Multi-instrumentalist Hollis Easter joins the Americana duo Turning Stile in setting the rhythm for the Muskeg Music contradance at Norwich’s Tracy Hall on Saturday night at 8. There will be a 7:45 walk-through for newcomers. All should bring clean, soft-soled shoes and snacks for the pot-luck break. Admission is $6 to $9. To learn more, visit uvdm.org
Bar and Club Circuit
Out on a Limb performs a set of newgrass in the tavern of the Lyme Inn tonight at 6:30.
Pianist Gillian Joy plays at the Canoe Club in Hanover tonight at 6. Following her to the venue with performances from 6 to 9 over the coming week are pianist William Ogmundson on Friday, pianist Jules Evens on Saturday, pianist Bob Lucier on Tuesday, acoustic chameleon Joseph Stallsmith on Wednesday and guitarist Ted Mortimer next Thursday night. And on Monday night between 5:30 and 8:30, Marko the Magician performs his tableside sleight-of-hand.
Tom Pirozzoli and Kit Creeger converse in guitar at Taverne on the Square in Claremont tonight starting at 6.
Stuart Ross and The Temp Agency pull into Windsor Station tonight at 7:30 for a set of jump and jive rhythms. Black Mountain Symphony plays “symphonic groove pop” on Friday night at 9:30. The funk-rock ensemble Dr. No plays Saturday night at 9:30 and the Americana duo Happy Folk appears Tuesday night at 6.
The Incognito Duo appears in the tavern at Jesse’s in Hanover on Friday night at 5.
The Party Crashers rock Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night at 8.
Riddim Vigil kicks off the weekend of music at Salt hill Pub in Lebanon with a set of reggae on Friday night starting at 9. And at the same hour on Saturday night, Wanda and the Sound Junkies rock the house.
Acoustic rocker Dave Bundza plays Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Friday night at 9, followed on Saturday night at 9 by the Conniption Fits.
The Sullivan Davis Hanscom Band performs at Newport’s Salt hill Pub on Friday night at 9. Indie rocker Seth Adam debuts at the venue on Saturday night at 9.
Sensible Shoes performs at SILO Distillery in Windsor on Sunday from noon to 2.
Bow Thayer plays his weekly set of Americana at the Skinny Pancake on Wednesday night at 7:30.
Open Mics
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic at 7:30 on Thursday nights. 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 at 6.
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic, Tuesday nights at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts open mics at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern, at 8:30 on Wednesday night and at ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret next Thursday night at 7.