If you enjoyed roots musician Martha Redbone’s semi-autobiographical tour through her multi-racial past during her Bone Hill show at the Hopkins Center last fall, you’ll probably love Carolina Chocolate Drops co-founder Rhiannon Giddens’ Freedom Highway concert at Spaulding Auditorium on Wednesday night.
And you don’t have to take my word for it.
“Can I be her when I grow up?” Redbone wrote on her Facebook page in 2015, after seeing Giddens sing and play fiddle in New York City.
“That’s so nice,” Giddens said of that compliment during a telephone interview Saturday, before joining her current band for a concert in California. “I haven’t had a chance to see her project, but it’s so great that there’s so much interest in this kind of music.
“There’s a lot of different ways of telling your story, of reaching people.”
Giddens, an Oberlin-trained opera singer whose genetic heritage, like Redbone’s, is a blend of African Americans, Native Americans and European Americans from below the Mason-Dixon line, rose to prominence while exploring and adapting the wide range of music arising and evolving from those cultures with the Grammy Award-wnning ensemble The Carolina Chocolate Drops.
In recent years, with guidance from the likes of roots-music producer T-Bone Burnett, Giddens has been making her own voyages of discovery, including writing music to go with newly-discovered Bob Dylan lyrics for Burnett’s Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes project.
Now she’s touring her new album, Freedom Highway, which mixes nine original songs, some evoking the darkest days of slavery, with the civil rights anthems Birmingham Sunday and Freedom Highway. Her team on the tour, including fellow Chocolate Drops co-founder Hubby Jenkins on guitar, at shares her conviction that the recent revival of roots music is especially urgent, given the current realities of race relations in the United States.
“Wherever we go, we’re finding audiences who need to hear what we have to say,” Giddens said. “People want to learn. They want to know the history. They want something rooted in reality.”
Rhiannon Giddens performs at Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover on Wednesday night at 8. To reserve tickets ($15 to $40) and learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Best Bets
Among the agricultural exhibits, the livestock judging, the oxen- and tractor-pulls, the baking contests and the carnival rides, make time during this weekend’s North Haverhill Fair to check out the musical acts on the Thayer stage. The North Haverhill’s Got Talent Contest starts at 6 tonight, and the Foreigner tribute band Hot Blooded plays Friday night at 8:30. Recycled Percussion performs on Saturday night starting at 8, as a warm-up act for the fireworks show, and on Sunday afternoon at 2, the Mark Shelton Band plays tribute to Elvis Presley. To learn more about the fair, visit nohaverhillfair.com.
Pianist Sonny Saul hosts two sets of jazz at his store, Pleasant Street Books, in Woodstock tonight at 7 and at 8:15, as a kickoff to this weekend’s Bookstock literary festival. Joining him will be drummer Pete Michelinie, bass player Bill Martin and electric bassist Lukas Saul. Admission is free.
The Hot Club of Cowtown swings through the Skinny Pancake in Hanover with its jazzy country vibe tonight at 8. Tickets cost $25 in advance and $27 at the door. To reserve seats and learn more, visit skinnypancake.com or call 603-277-9115.
The New Jersey-based Ducktails, aka psychedelic rocker Matt Mondanile, headlines the second annual Thetfest in Thetford Center on Friday and Saturday. This year’s parade of musicians, including Windsor-based rapper Jarv, is up to 20 from the nine that performed in 2016, organizer Tyler Griffin said last week.
Other psychedelic ensembles include Apartment 3, from Burlington, and Pigeons, from New York City. A food truck, campsites and swimming are available in the field to the left of Route 113 on the way to Post Mills. Two parking lots will be available, with volunteers directing traffic at the entrance. Admission is $25 in advance and $28 at the door. To reserve tickets and learn more, visit thetfest.com.
In support of the North Country homeless shelter named for the late Enfield resident Tyler Blain, bands such as Time Out Timmy, the Jonee Earthquake Band and Strawberry Cheesecake perform a Home is Where We Come Together concert all day Saturday at the Littleton, N.H., Opera House. The music starts at 9 in the morning. Admission is by donation of $12 or more to the 12-bed shelter, a program of the Tri-County CAP agency that in 2016 served 59 individuals and four families from around Coos, Grafton and Carroll Counties. To learn more, visit the Facebook page of the Tyler Blain House.
Enfield-native singer-songwriter Brooks Hubbard leads his Nashville-based band into the Engine Room in White River Junction on Friday night at 8. Admission costs $20 in advance and $25 at the door. To reserve seats, visit engineroomvt.com.
As a benefit for its arts programs for young people in the Lake Sunapee region, the Center for the Arts stages a Vaudeville-style show at Whipple Hall in New London on Saturday night at 7. Tickets cost $6 to $12 in advance and $7 to $14 at the doors. To reserve seats, visit centerforthearts.org.
Opera North kicks off its Summerfest this weekend with a performance of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate at Lebanon Opera House on Saturday night at 7:30. Next over the coming week comes the company’s first staging of Offenbach’s La Belle Helene on Tuesday night at 7:30 and another round of Kiss Me, Kate on Wednesday night at 7:30, before the opening night for Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on Aug. 4. In all, Opera North will perform Kiss Me, Kate six times and the other shows four times each before Summerfest ends on Aug. 13. Tickets for individual shows cost $20 to $90. To reserve seats and learn more about package deals and about the series, visit operanorth.org.
The Americana trio Cold Chocolate performs the next Rock Farmer Roadshow concert at the West Newbury Hall in Newbury, Vt., on Sunday afternoon at 3. For tickets ($20) and more information, visit rockfarmerrecords.com.
Looking Ahead
Performers from the Newport Opera House Association’s summer camp will stage Schoolhouse Rock Live Jr. at Newport’s Richards Elementary School, on Aug. 4 at 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Tickets at the door cost $2.50 to $5. To learn more, call 603-863-2412.
Singer-songwriter Tom Pirozzoli will perform with guitarist Garry Putnam on Aug. 4 at 7 p.m., at the Harbor House Livery in Sunapee Harbor. Before the concert, Pirozzoli will show some of his paintings, in an exhibit that includes potter Jon Keenan and weaver David Stearns.
Theater/Performance Art
After a preview tonight at 7:30 at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction, Northern Stage’s teen ensemble performs the musical-theater spoof The Drowsy Chaperone on Friday night at 7:30, on Saturday afternoon at 2, on Saturday night at 7:30 and on Sunday afternoon at 2. To reserve tickets ($15 to $25) and learn more, visit northernstage.org or call 802-296-7000.
The New London Barn Playhouse continues its production of West Side Story with performances tonight, Friday night and Saturday night at 7:30, on Sunday afternoon at 5. For tickets ($20 to $40) and for more information about this and subsequent shows, visit nlbarn.org or call 603-526-6710.
Vermont Pride Theater lowers the curtain on its seventh annual Summer Pride Festival at the Chandler Music Hall in Randolph this weekend, with performances of Deborah Salem Smith’s drama Love Alone on Friday night at 7:30, of the DC Cathro comedy FamilyHoliday on Saturday night at 7:30, and of Out of the Closet, a compilation of eight short plays, on Sunday night at 7:30. Tickets cost $15 to $20 in advance and $17 to $22 at the door. To reserve seats and learn more, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
The Lincoln, N.H.-based IMPACT Theater Company performs
Momotaro, Ogre Hunter at Claremont Opera House on Monday morning at 10, in the venue’s weekly series of musical adaptations of fairy tales. General admission tickets cost $6.
Singers, actors and dancers from the BarnArts Summer Youth Theater program take over the mezzanine level of Woodstock’s Norman Williams Public Library on Tuesday afternoon, to stage a preview of BarnArts’ production of The Lion King Jr. The sneak preview starts at 3. The musical stampedes through Barnard Town Hall Aug. 4 and 5; to learn more, visit barnarts.org.
Music
Folk singer Hilde Ojibway performs at the Newberry Market in White River Junction this afternoon between 4:30 and 6:30.
Off the Rails serenades the Lebanon Farmers Market with blues, folk-rock and ballads between 4 and 7 this afternoon in Colburn Park.
Venezuelan musician Betsayada Machado performs during the weekly Feast and Field Market tonight starting at 5:30, at the former Clark Farm in Barnard.
The folk-rock ensemble Emish plays Irish-Americana rhythms at Lebanon’s Colburn Park tonight at 7.
About Gladys rocks the gazebo Newbury (N.H.) Harbor tonight at 7.
The Flames perform music from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s on the village green in Norwich on Friday night from 6 to 8, and on the bandstand at the Newport Town Common on Sunday night at 6.
The Tall Granite Big Band swings onto the Haddad Bandstand in New London on Friday night at 6:30.
Folk singer-songwriter Bill Staines appears at the Harbor House Livery in Sunapee Harbor on Friday night at 7. General admission costs $5 to $15. To learn more, visit sunapeecommunitycoffeehouse.org.
Bill Symonds leads Hankey Bannister onto the Flanders Stage at Sunapee Harbor for a set of rock on Saturday afternoon from 5 to 7.
Trumpeter Mark Harvey leads his Boston-based Aardvark Jazztet onto two Upper Valley stages this weekend to play up-tempo standards of the genre as well as his own compositions. The visit begins on Saturday night at 6:30, with a performance at the West Claremont Center for the Arts featuring hits such as Fat Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Harvey’s Claremont Suite, which he wrote for the city’s 250th anniversary in 2014. While admission is free, donations are welcome.
And on Sunday afternoon at 2, the ensemble plays at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, with performances ranging from George Gershwin’s Summertime to the world premiere of SGS, Harvey’s tribute to Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Admission is included in the entry fee to the historic site.
Singer-songwriter Chris Pierce and the acoustic pop duo Cloudland Road join forces for a concert at the Woodstock Town Hall Theatre on Saturday night at 7:30. For tickets ($15 to $20) and more information, visit pentanglearts.org or call 802-457-3981.
The Upper Valley Community Band plays big-band favorites at Colburn Park in Lebanon on Monday night at 7.
The Starline Rhythm Boys spread country and honky-tonk rhythms from the bandstand at the Fairlee Town Common on Tuesday night at 6:30. To learn more about the summer series, visit facebook.com/fairleeconcerts.
Chad Hollister rocks the bandstand at the Quechee Green on Wednesday night at 6:30.
The East Bay Jazz Ensemble performs on the Ben Mere Bandstand overlooking Sunapee Harbor on Wednesday night at 6:30.
Bar and Club Circuit
The Bob Dylan Tribute Band plays Bentley’s restaurant in Woodstock this afternoon at 5:30, and singer-songwriter Guy Burlage performs there on Friday night at 8.
Singer-songwriters Jim Yeager and Chris Powers pull into Windsor Station tonight at 7:30. Following them to the venue over the coming week are Faux in Love on Friday night at 9:30 and bluesman Adam McMahon on Tuesday night at 6.
Ethiopian singer-dancer Kiflu Kidane leads his New Nile Orchestra into the Skinny Pancake in Hanover on Friday night at 8:30. And on Saturday night at 7, the soul-music duo Mantis Toboggan performs.
Singer-songwriter Chris Powers kicks off the weekend of music at Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon tonight at 8.
Arthur James leads his trio into Salt hill Pub in Lebanon to play the blues on Friday night at 9. Juke Joynt visits the venue for a set of blues on Saturday night at 9.
Groove Sum appears at Salt hill Pub in Hanover, Friday night at 9.
Singer-songwriter Luke Johanson performs at Salt hill Pub in Newport on Friday night at 9 and at the Hanover Salt hill on Saturday at 9.
Jeff Przech makes his first appearance at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Friday night at 9.
The Davis Bradley Duo performs bluegrass in the tavern at Jesse’s in Hanover on Friday evening starting at 5.
Open Mics
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting 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 an open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern at 8:30 on Wednesday night.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.