Real Good for FREE: Live! Folklife Concerts @ the Crandall Public Library

The popular Live! Folklife Concerts continue this fall with a half dozen free concerts hosted by the Folklife Center at the Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls.

The concerts all take place at 7pm on Thursdays, beginning on September 26 with old-school country music favorites Al & Kathy Bain and running through November 21.

Here’s the line-up of Live! Folklife Concerts for 2013:

SEPTEMBER 26
AL & KATHY BAIN with GARY BLODGETT
The husband-and-wife team is well known for their old-school country, authentic bluegrass and spirited gospel that preserves the upstate traditions, from the Champlain Canal to the Adirondacks. Members of the NYS Country Hall of Fame at Cortland and multiple North East CMA award winners, the Bains have also played extensively throughout the South and as far west as Las Vegas. Splendid solo and harmony vocals are backed by Al’s thumb-picking guitar and banjo, with Kathy on the upright bass.

OCTOBER 3
TOM AKSTENS & NEIL ROSSI
Tom and Neil have explored the nooks and crannies of old-time country music, country blues and honky-tonk for four decades. Their first album, All Around the Mountain, was recorded live at four concerts throughout the Adirondacks. These two friends came out of the Cambridge and Newport folk revival of the 1960s and have rightly been called “masters of their craft.”

OCTOBER 10
THE BOB WARREN TRIO
Bob Warren, Joy Mackenzie and Tony Markellis share a love for singing and playing music. Bob is from the mountains of New York; Joy, from the mountains of northern California; and Tony from the mountains of Montana. The strength of their musical partnership rises from the diversity of their individual experience, and grows in the union of their musical voices.

NOVEMBER 7
SHADY RILL
Shady Rill is Tom MacKenzie and Patti Casey (once two-thirds of national touring band the Woods Tea Company). Everything from French Canadian dance tunes to Tin Pan Alley and from old-timey country to their impressive originals is likely to be on the musical menu. Great harmonies and wonderful instrumentation are the hallmark of these two much-traveled musicians.

NOVEMBER 14
THE SKY BLUE BOYS
Banjo Dan & Willy Lindner (once members of the bluegrass band Banjo Dan & the Mid-nite Plowboys) are now two fellows with a mandolin and guitar reviving the country music tradition of “brothers duets” popular during the 1930s and ‘40s. They’ve built up a large repertoire of wonderful old ballads, parlor songs, heart songs and sacred numbers, expanded the instrumentation and added their own compositions.

NOVEMBER 21
THE ANDREW & NOAH BAND
Their core material, written by brothers Andrew and Noah VanNorstrand, might best be described as American Groove – a mix of Appalachian, Celtic, classic country and bluegrass, jazz and swing, Cajun/zydeco, alt-folk, roots-rock and more. The full seven-piece band features fiddle, accordion, mandolin, saxophone, guitars, bass, drums and three-part harmony vocals. Together, they serve up powerful songwriting, explosive improvisation, deep dance grooves and a unique vision for the future of American roots music.

ADDITIONAL REAL GOOD FOR FREE EVENTS FOR 2013
PearlPalooza @ North Pearl Street, Albany (Saturday, September 28)
StoryHarvest @ Freedom Square, Troy (Saturday, September 28)
Matt Durfee and Music Matters @ Albany Public Library, Albany (Mondays through October 22)
September in the City Art Fair @ Tricentennial Park, Albany (Wednesdays through September 25)