The show can be viewed online at Harbortown Music’s Facebook page or YouTube channel. It may also be shared via the AcousticMusicScene.com group on Facebook. Although there is no set fee to view the livestream, tips for the artists would be most appreciated (suggested donation: $20) and may be made via paypalme.com/harbortownmusic.

About the Artists:

One of the most acclaimed voices in contemporary folk music, Amy Speace was discovered in 2006 by Judy Collins and signed to her record label. The Americana Music Association UK named the title track of her album Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne was named International Song of the Year in 2020. Speace’s latest release, 2021’s There Used To Be Horses Here. chronicles the year between the birth of her son and the death of her father. A new album, Tucson, is set for release this year. Collins, Red Molly, and Blues Hall of Famer Sid Selvidge among others, have also recorded her songs. Speace founded the East Nashville Song Salon in 2010 and teaches songwriting and performance at conferences, institutions, and privately. For more information, visit amyspeace.com.

Accompanying herself on piano, Kate Klim, whose songs mix her folk and pop sensibilities, was a winner of the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Competition in 2010, has been part of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase, and has been a finalist in the Mountain Stage Newsong Contest, the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest and the Telluride Troubadour Competition, among others. After a hiatus of a few years surrounding the birth of her two sons, she returned to the studio in early spring 2020 to begin recording her fourth album. Released earlier this month, Something Green is an album about hope, love, change, and new growth. For more information and to listen to some of her songs, visit kateklim.com.

Both artists also have YouTube channels. Here’s a link to view an official video of Amy Speace performing the title track of There Used To Be Horses There. And here’s a link to view the official lyric video for “Something Green,” the title track of Kate Klim’s new release.

About Your Hosts:

Michael Kornfeld, a veteran strategic communications and public relations professional – whose clients have included a number of independent recording artists and labels – launched AcousticMusicScene.com in 2007 to provide news, information and commentary for the folk, roots and singer-songwriter communities. The longtime president of the Folk Music Society of Huntington, a nonprofit presenting organization on Long Island, NY, Kornfeld also serves on the boards of Folk Alliance International and NERFA, curates the annual Huntington Folk Festival, emcees concerts, and hosts showcases and mentors artists at various music conferences and festivals.

Kathy Sands-Boehmer is an enthusiastic and tireless presenter, promoter and supporter of independent musicians. For years, she booked and promoted artists, new and old, at a well-respected 225-seat venue north of Boston, Massachusetts; was an active leader of the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA); and has also mentored and managed artists. She blogs about all kinds of great music for Everything Sundry and recently launched Harbortown Music as a resource for musicians and venues — building community, while promoting and presenting high-quality music. Sands-Boehmer works with Stephen Bach of The Digital Docs, who engineers all of Harbortown Music’s virtual shows and lends his technical expertise to the participating artists as well.

About the Artists:

Hailing from the countryside of rural Ontario, Benjamin Dakota Rogers is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist channels his penchant for starry nights and nostalgia into a stylized, hard-driving and powerful Americana sound full of heartbreak and grit featuring guitar, banjo, upright bass, and fiddle. He has released three full-length solo recordings, showcased his talents at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, among others, and has been a four-time international songwriting competition winner and a two-time Canadian Folk Music Awards nominee.

Here’s a link to view a few of Benjamin’s videos: benjamindakotarogers.com/videos.

Angela Saini is a Canadian prairie-raised, Toronto- based folk-pop Americana artist with a positive and uplifting outlook on life. She is all about second chances and empowering others. A 2020 Independent Music Award Nominee and 2017 Toronto Independent Music Award winner, she uplifts and inspires audiences with sing-alongs and storytelling about courage and finding joy in surprising places. Angela has five Canadian tours under her belt, as well as several treks across Germany, The Netherlands and the UK. Best known for her sunshine-soaked song “Living on the Bright Side,” she has showcased her talents at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and at a number of Canadian music festivals. Her ability to combine humanistic and honest themes laden with catchy hooks and memorable melodies make her entertaining as well as relatable.

Here’s a link to view a few of Angela’s videos: angelasaini.com/videos.

The Young Novelists create contemporary folk songs that marry effortless harmonies with darkly poetic lyrics, exquisitely crafted hooks, and the unique sound of bowed glockenspiel. The award-winning Toronto-based husband-and-wife folk-roots duo of Graydon James and Laura Spink share a passion for confessional storytelling and sing songs about small towns, redemption, love and loss. The duo has toured across Canada, the U.S. and Europe and has released three studio albums and a live recording. In 2015, The Young Novelists were named New/Emerging Artist of the Year in the Canadian Folk Music Awards and took first place in the Grassy Hill-CT Folk Songwriting Competition during the 10th annual Connecticut Folk Festival, while James won the Ontario Arts Council’s Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award for “Couldn’t Be Any Worse.” The duo has also played coveted juried official showcases during the Folk Alliance International conference and those of its northeast and southeast regional affiliates (NERFA and SERFA).

To view a few videos, visit youngnovelists.com/videos.

About Your Hosts:

The livestream marks a renewed partnership of sorts for Michael Kornfeld and Kathy Sands-Boehmer, who served as president and vice president, respectively, of the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) for several years and also co-coordinated one-day conferences and a series of showcases. Kornfeld, a veteran strategic communications and public relations professional – whose clients have included a number of independent recording artists and labels – launched AcousticMusicScene.com in 2007 to provide news, information and commentary for the folk, roots and singer-songwriter communities. The longtime president of the Folk Music Society of Huntington, a nonprofit presenting organization on Long Island, NY, Kornfeld also serves on the board of Folk Alliance International, curates the annual Huntington Folk Festival, and hosts showcases at various music conferences and festivals. Sands-Boehmer, who served as the booking and publicity manager for Me & Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, MA for many years, was an active leader in the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA), and has also served as an artist manager, recently launched Harbortown Music as a resource for musicians and venues — building community, while promoting and presenting high-quality music. She works with Stephen Bach of The Digital Docs, who engineers all of Harbortown Music’s virtual shows and lends his technical expertise to the participating artists as well.

NERFA fosters and promotes member initiatives primarily in the following U.S. states and Canadian Provinces: Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Greenland, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Rhode Island, and Vermont, as well as three counties in northern Virginia.

Kornfeld also is president of the Folk Music Society of Huntington, a presenting organization on suburban Long Island, New York, and forged a locally heralded partnership between FMSH and LI’s Cinema Arts Centre. He also coordinates the annual Huntington Folk Festival that the Society presents each summer in partnership with the Huntington Arts Council. An award-winning strategic communications and public relations professional, Kornfeld launched AcousticMusicScene.com, an online publication for the folk, roots and singer-songwriter communities, in January 2007, and arranges and hosts artist showcases and song swaps under its banner during various music conferences and festivals.

For the 10th consecutive year at the NERFA Conference that drew nearly 800 people, Kornfeld hosted a popular AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot featuring several singing folk DJs and 40 independent recording artists from throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as late-night music showcases. He also moderated a panel discussion on The Folk Revival of the 1960s that featured acclaimed artists David Amram and Tom Paxton, participated in one on strengthening artist bios and news releases, and promoted a few singer-songwriters and groups.

I knew it could be dangerous to interview Vance Gilbert. He’s an outspoken person on and off the stage. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram got it right: “….the voice of an angel, the wit of a devil, and the guitar playing of a god.” That sums up Vance Gilbert.. I attempted to ask some questions about race relations below and I admit . . . I come off looking like a naive and stupid white woman who has been living in a cave. Forgive me but heed what Vance has to say. If you’re not familiar with his catalog, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Do you have any favorite songs that you’ve written? If so, what is it about those songs that make you feel so attached to them?

I’ve never sung, played, or written better than I am doing right now. It’s odd to think that such improvement can happen in the span of five years or so, and for a post-50 individual. But I guess I’m simply a better student of songwriting and performing than I’ve ever been. So the past few years, the last song is always the one I’m closest to, and, I guess, the best — for that moment anyway. I have been writing in such a way that I constantly dare myself to place one of my songs up against one of most anyone else’s work that I admire — Richard Thompson’s, Joni Mitchell’s, Tom Waits’, Smokey Robinson’s, to extract from a monstrously long list. And I arrogantly expect to at least not look foolish. That’s where my songwriting currently has to live to come off of the notebook pages. And I think I’m wicked close. I rewrote Patty Griffins “Let Him Fly” with a second lyric from the guy’s point of view, and many have asked for the recording. I wrote an extra verse to Richard Thompson’s “Dimming of the Day” — and absolutely no one — has noticed.

Why shoot low? To close that gap between humility and “gosh, I’ll never quite be there,” is worth my potentially being seen as arrogant. So be it. If you throw no line you get no pickerel.

That said, “Unfamiliar Moon” seems to be sort of omnipresent on my and many other Vance fan lists.

You recently wrote a song called “26 Reasons” in response to the Newtown tragedy. It’s a very poignant story-song about a parent wanting to hold their child close because of the dangers outside their home. Have you gotten much reaction to this song since you released it on YouTube?

I’ve gotten some reaction. “Much reaction?” I’m not sure how relevant that question is. Did I get a lot of hits? Well, no, not like some other similarly posted yet far more amateur songs and tributes, some of which garnered ten times the “views” that mine did. I remind us all that that sort of tribute is not a contest. . . .

Did those who viewed “26 Reasons” and commented on it find it as poignant as you did, and, hopefully, healing? Yes, many, and still never ever enough.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video of Vance singing “26 Reasons”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY2ThyNzshA

I’m interested in the back story of “Old White Men.” Is it a true story about your friendships with some old white men when you were a kid?

Of course it is, and, of course, it isn’t. I made the song up. It’s poetry to express an idea in my brain. It would be pretty plebeian to answer whether it was real or not — simplistic really. It’s a movie put to a big poem. To honor our mentors is something we should all do at some point. To wonder whether there was an alpha situation that inspired the song is irrelevant reductionism. Look, I don’t mean to be any more acerbic about this than I am, but do we ask if “Millworker” actually happened to James Taylor?

What’s your favorite road story about touring with comedian George Carlin?

It was an education watching George work an audience. Particularly from behind him — from the stage curtain. You can see what he sees, and it was a true schooling. He was a tireless writer, a vociferous exploiter of the First Amendment, a genius adjudicator and distiller of human experience, and he was utterly unafraid of failure. Road stories? None. There was no time. What with looking at timing, the vocal diphthong, when to growl, rhythm, collapsing time (a technique where the artist does the exact same material but manages to tweak timing in such a way that a 60-minute show ends up 48 minutes and you don’t notice), school was always in session.

Vance, you were highlighted in many news stories in 2011 because your experience with racial profiling was an eye-opening experience. How did your experience on that flight affect your mindset about race relations in this country? [Writer’s Note: if you don’t know about the back-story here, do a search for Vance Gilbert airline incident.)

Eye opening to whom? I’d respectfully ask where that person has been.

See, many would view what happened as business as usual, black President or no. That’s pretty much me. Many people also think that because President Obama is in office means that woo hoo, racism is gone.

Driving from the airport in DC that afternoon in an impromptu rental car, where I couldn’t board that next flight because they had so delayed the connecting flight that I was “questioned” on, I saw a huge billboard, in southern Pa. — someone or some group spent a lot of money — questioning Obama’s citizenship, with “Show us a birth certificate.” A whole frigging billboard. How insulting is that? And please, anyone reading this, please don’t tell me that that’s not race relevant. OK, here comes a stretch, but Eisenhower is a pretty German name, you know, post WW2. No problem, no Sieg Heil worries as he went about offering help to the Middle East through the Eisenhower Doctrine, or worries about him instituting the Marshall Plan. But Obama?

The elephant in the room is dressed all Oooga Booga with Secret Muslim Spears and loin cloths. “What will happen to our women?” And if even saying that makes us all a little uncomfortable, then good.

Look, I’m not a total cynic. Look at what I do for a living. Things are terrifically different than they were just 20 years ago. But there’s no overnight flick switch from White Hoods to a Benneton all-colors commercial. We’re not there yet, I don’t care who’s in office. And I’m sure the other people of color you’ve spoken to have said the same, right? Do I see a colorblind world one day? Hell, I hope not. We all bring so much different good stuff to the table for the Big Life Meal. Problem is it’s the good stuff that gets overlooked.

Ellis Paul and You: There’s a seemingly unerring, ever sustained friendship. I have asked him about you. Now it’s your turn.

He is my litmus test. I judge what I do by what he has and hasn’t done, and divide by at least two.. Then you have my career. Superior poet, a true melodicist (I made that word up for him; he is it), an unendingly exploratory guitarist. And now you’ll see the true cynic in me — not about color, race, or any of that. The point is, I should have a very, very famous friend. It’s about timing. The “folk scene” didn’t really exist when Tracy Chapman or Suzanne Vega plied their trade at their beginnings. Then here we all come in a rush after them, mid-80s, and we create the loving little ghetto we are, many of us carving out broader careers than others, but getting by, with Ellis at the forefront. Dan Fogelberg (RIP), Jackson Browne, Stephen Bishop, none of them from the 70s could hold a candle to the package that is Ellis Paul. His songs are better stories than anyone who has done this — erudite, wry, wrenching. Right up there with the other underground noted writers who are at best “barely rich,” like Tom Waits and Loudon Wainwright III. There I go with the arrogant song placement thing again. Heed me here, he should be rich. But now there’s the Monsters of Folk and their albums. Know who these kids are? Most over 35 don’t. Spare me. They don’t hold a candle to Ellis Paul. I gleefully occupy his shadow.

And I hate him.

And as for friendship, he is the only one in the world I have ever told absolutely everything about me. Bar nothing.

Rogers, who lives on a horse farm in Ontario, began his career just after completing high school, working with and arranging music for his late brother, Stan. Influenced by a wide array of musical styles, Garnet has taken a much more contemporary approach to his own music than his older brother did. His songs are literate, sensitive and often cinematic in detail — presenting slices of life infused with humor and social commentary. Among his best known compositions are “All That Is,” “Frankie & Johnny,” “Night Drive,” “Small Victories” “Summer Lightning” and “The Outside Track.”

Kathy Sands-Boehmer posed a few questions to Rogers recently.

Garnet Rogers asked me to edit this to make him more human and likable. Whoa! This man is one of the most human and likable musician I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, and I told him that there was no need for editing.

Garnet Rogers is a presence. He’s a skyscraper of a man; his baritone voice is a mighty instrument, and his guitar playing is impeccably pure. He sings and plays with conviction. It’s impossible not to be moved by his music. Give it a listen. Click here to see and hear Garnet perform “The Lost Ones,” the first song he ever wrote.

We understand that you’re writing a book about your life as a musician. Can we assume that there’s a large portion of your book that is devoted to “on the road” tales of you and your brother, Stan?

Yeah, the book is largely about life as we knew it on the road back in the 70s and 80s . . . how naive and stupid we were, trying to play folk music — as we understood the term — in places where it was never played and for people who didn’t want to hear it . . . the only thing that saved us was the fact that we were both large and were able to beat up on members of the audience who objected. We were young and scared and foolish . . . bad business model.

Are there any similarities between writing non-fiction narrative and songwriting?

There are differences and similarities between the two forms of writing. All writing needs to have a rhythm which is part of the reason I have been reading bits of the book out loud. It helps with the editing process and allows me to determine if the thing has what an Irish friend of mine calls “skip and flit.”

As Mark Twain said, the only difference between fiction and history is that fiction has to be believable. My memoir, I think, is hard to believe sometimes, but it is all true.

Stan’s songs were more traditional Canadian Maritime type songs. Did you make a deliberate attempt not to copy his style? Or did you just naturally gravitate to a more soulful bluesy rock and roll style?

I basically just write whatever comes along. I listened to a lot more varied music than Stan did, I think. He was not a big fan of electric music, but the Maritime traditional sound we developed was a response to partly the market and partly simply due to the commissions we were given by the CBC. We did a lot of soundtrack work for radio dramas and a lot of it was in Halifax. It just got out of control.

After the first record came out, we were largely pigeonholed into being Maritime artists, and that was not what we sounded like before the first album. We were a lot closer to Elton John and Dan Fogelberg, if you can believe it. . . .Stan really wanted to explore different styles. Had he lived, I think he would have gone in a very different direction with his writing.

Is it true that after Stan’s passing, that you were unable to come to the United State to tour and that Odetta came to your aid? Tell us how that all came about.

Yeah, Odetta did help. Bless her. She was approached by Widdie Hall at the Folkway when my visa was turned down, and she stepped in to add gravitas to the petition. God help the State Department official who tried to say no to Odetta. She was a force of nature.

Do you have any favorite new musicians you’ve discovered lately?

I haven’t heard much lately that made me sit up and take notice and swoon. I find, within the folk world, that a lot of stuff gets recycled every six to ten years, and I have been around a long time. I have kind of heard it all before.

I’m always impressed by anything that sounds like it would exist whether people are listening or not and not being made with an eye to the market. Some stuff sounds a wee bit on the calculated side to me sometimes . . . but that’s just me There are lots of people whose music just kills me, but they have largely been around for at least a couple years. Susan Werner consistently makes me swoon. I love Natalia Zukerman, Chris Smither, Greg Brown, Ani Difranco. There is a lovely trio from Newfoundland called The Once. I like them a lot — beautiful harmonies and arrangements. I like Dave Gunning a lot — both musically and personally. He is the real deal on every level.

Any plans for a new recording any time soon?

No plans for a new record beyond perhaps a book CD interspersed with music. I have been getting requests for that. But that is a long way away . . . maybe 2014. I continue to write songs but time has been in short supply of late. The last two years have been largely taken up with helping my parents. It’s only been in the last couple of months that things have loosened up, and I am exhausted. I hope to get back to it on a more regular basis soon.

Pleasants also established and directs Summer Acoustic Music Week, a music camp for adults, on Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire, during which folks are immersed in folk music — with classes and workshops during the day and evenings filled with concerts, jam sessions, open mics and folk dancing. Produced by WUMB Radio and entering its 16th season in 2011, Summer Acoustic Music Week is slated for July 17-23 and Aug. 21-27.

“Dick Pleasants has been one of the stalwarts of folk and semi-folk since 1970 and one of the primary reasons that the Boston-Cambridge folk scene has been thriving for so long,” says Robin Batteau, a singer-songwriter, violinist and guitarist who will perform in the Jan. 7 tribute concert along with his longtime musical partner David Buskin (singer-songwriter, keyboardist and guitarist) and percussionist Marshal Rosenberg. “Without Dick Pleasants, there wouldn’t be the folk scene that there is now and has been for 40 years,” Batteau continues. “We heard he was retiring and we thought let’s acknowledge his career.” He notes that Pleasants “listened to everything and played what he loved so you really got an idea of what mattered to him.”

Echoing his musical partner’s sentiments, Buskin, reportedly the first artist whom Pleasants ever interviewed as a radio disk jockey, says: “He’s been fortunate to really make a career out of something he loves. The guy has been a champion for folkies like us. He’s always been supportive and friendly, and we’re sure going to miss him on the air.”

So, too, will the folks who book the venues in the Greater Boston area at which artists whose careers the longtime radio announcer and program host has touched perform. “Dick Pleasants is one of the most influential and knowledgeable DJs in the business,” says Kathy Sands-Boehmer, who books artists for Marblehead’s Me & Thee Coffeehouse and is vice president of the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA): “He has added many, many bits of music trivia to my own musical education. We’ve been blessed to have him as such an integral part of the music scene here in Boston.”

In addition to Buskin & Batteau, featured performers during “A Pleasant(s) Evening at Sanders” include Jonatha Brooke, Brother Sun (Greg Greenway, Joe Jencks, Pat Wictor), Antje Duvekot, Jonathan Edwards, Patty Larkin, Lori McKenna, Ellis Paul and Tom Rush, whom Pleasants acknowledges influenced him a lot in the 60s when he saw him at Cambridge’s Club 47 and The Unicorn coffeehouse. If available, tickets, priced at $50, can be ordered by calling the Harvard Box Office at (617) 496-2222 or logging-on to www.boxoffice.harvard.edu.

A nonprofit organization for those professionally engaged in traditional, contemporary and multicultural folk music, NERFA is the regional arm of Folk Alliance International that seeks to strengthen and advance organizational and individual initiatives through education, networking, advocacy, and professional and field development. NERFA’s recent conference drew a record attendance of nearly 750 performers, presenters, promoters and others for three jam-packed days and nights of juried and guerilla music showcases, open mics and song circles, informative panel discussions and workshops, mentoring sessions, an exhibit hall, communal meals, and lots of informal conversation, networking and late-night jamming. More information can be found at www.nerfa.org

Formerly known as the Boston Folk Festival and held in the early fall, the festival has adopted a new moniker bearing the name of its radio station presenter, and now, in its 13th year, will be held at a new location on the UMass Boston Campus.

The WUMB Music Fest, running from noon to 7 p.m., will feature performances on three stages: a covered outdoor stage and two indoor ones, including a Coffeehouse Stage produced by the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA).

Crafts and food vendors will be on the premises throughout the day, and children’s activities also are planned.

Ticket prices rise on June 1. They can be ordered online by logging-on to www.wumbmusicfest.org or by calling (617) 287-6911.