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.

Kornfeld is also president of the Folk Music Society of Huntington, a nonprofit presenting organization on suburban Log 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 is presented 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. He arranges and hosts artist showcases and song swaps under its banner during various music conferences and festivals.

For the 12th consecutive year at the NERFA Conference that drew some 730 people, Kornfeld hosted a popular AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot featuring several singing folk DJs and 40 independent recording artists/acts from throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as an O Canada celebration featuring nearly 20 Canadian artists/acts. He also moderated a panel discussion on online presence for artists and offered some one-on-one mentoring during the conference.

Led by Kornfeld, current and past board members paid tribute to Dianne Tankle, NERFA’s founder and conference director since its inception, who stepped down from her leadership role following 24 years at the helm of the conference. “My board colleagues and I are grateful to Dianne for all of her efforts on behalf of our organization and community over the years,” wrote Kornfeld in a letter published in the printed conference program & directory. “She and her team have devoted countless hours and put considerable thought into conscientiously designing our conference to help [attendees] forge connections and build community, while also providing learning opportunities that can help enhance [their] professional and personal lives.”

Named as interim conference director for 2019 is Courtney Rodland, who has been assisting NERFA with social media, served as associate director for the 2018 NERFA Conference and coordinated its mentoring program. A new NERFA logo was also unveiled during the conference.

Re-elected as NERFA board officers, along with Kornfeld, were secretary Ethan Baird of Pesky J. Nixon and Tribal Mischief Productions and treasurer Justin Nordell, executive director of the Philadelphia Folksong Society. The board’s new vice president is Barbara Shiller, co-president of CT Folk, who succeeds Kathy Sands-Boehmer of the Me & Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, MA, who opted not to seek re-election to the nine-member board.

NERFA’s volunteer board of directors has been engaged in efforts to make it more of a year-round organization in order to best meet the needs and serve the interests of Folk Alliance International members in its region. The Mid-Winter FolkFest at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA that was also streamed online via Concert Window in late January is an examples of this. So, too, are the NERFA Presents Young Folk showcases that have bee presented over the past several summers in partnership with a few music festivals in the U.S. and Canada, as well as several NERFA Showcase concerts co-presented with several venues and presenting organizations in the region. A Spring FolkFest, another one-day online music festival emanating from Club Passim; is slated for Saturday, March 23, from 12-4 p.m. EST. Coordinated by Sands-Boehmer, it will feature a number of artists who had official juried showcases during the recent NERFA conference and who have never played the famed Harvard Square folk club.

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.

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

David Francey is one of Canada’s most revered folk poet-singers. His songs and stories resonate with audiences from all over the world. To find out more about David, go to his website. A video of “Come Rain or Come Shine,” which displays David’s easy way with his fans and the melodic songs, for which he’s so famous, can be found on YouTube.

Your latest CD, Seaway, was inspired by a two-week voyage on a large carrier which went from Montreal to Thunder Bay along the St. Lawrence Seaway. How did that adventure come about?

I have always been fascinated with the Seaway from its construction to its role in the life of both our countries today. I have been lucky enough to have lived near the Seaway and I was always curious about the life on board a lake boat and that other view of the familiar, from the water itself. My wife Beth Girdler and I came up with a concept for a Canada Council Grant that involved me taking passage through the system on an ore-carrier, chronicling the trip in song and presenting them to certain Ontario schools along the route at a later date.

We were supported by the Seaway Corp. and Algoma Central Marine and myself and fellow musician Mike Ford took passage on the M.S. Algoville, an Algoma bulk carrier. Our trip took us from Montreal on the St. Lawrence River to Defasco Steel Mill in Hamilton harbor, to off load of taconite ore, and on to Thunder Bay in ballast. The return trip took us back to Montreal with a cargo of wheat from the prairies. As suspected there was a wealth of stories to be found on board and on shore, from the sailors to lock workers to the relatively near past and living history we were sailing through.

The fact that you have received numerous awards in Canada makes you somewhat of a musical ambassador down here in the United States. Do you feel that the impression you give to those down here as opposed to at home in Canada is different? Do you have to alter your show a bit to explain the back stories of your songs more here than you do while playing in Canada?

Although there are certainly many differences between our countries, I have always found American audiences receptive and understanding. We share some common traits, kindness and openness among them, as well as a border. It is found in equal measure on either side of the borderline. As in most things, mutual tolerance and willingness to meet half way usually rules the day.

I love that your song “Skating Rink” is the official song of Hockey Day in Canada. Are you a hockey fan?

The song “Skating Rink” has been used to promote “Hockey Day in Canada” since the event was first presented. Beth called the producers and informed them of the CD Skating Rink, which had just won a Juno award, and they decided to use it. It is a tremendous thrill for me, being an avid hockey fan and until recently an avid player. Thanks to that song I have played goal with the NHL old-timers at the Juno Cup, and met many players I have admired and cheered on for years. Also a few that I have singularly not been a fan of. All were wonderful to meet, to a man, and they are an exceptionally happy and fit bunch of retirees. Their skills are barely diminished from their playing days, which makes warm-ups before the game a fairly sobering experience in the nets.

I understand that your songs are being taught to school children in Canada. What songs are they and what kind of reception do you get from these young fans?

Two songs in particular are taught in schools, both from the first CD. “Torn Screen Door” a 1:38 second-long a capella piece about farm foreclosure, and “Red Winged,” Blackbird,” a song with a simple and strong chorus about the coming of spring, a greatly anticipated event north of the 49th parallel. I think they are both very easy to sing, and both have strong images running throughout. It is a wonderful gift made manifest when kids from 4 to 14 come up and request them by name at shows. We always perform them when requested.

What is up next for you? Any new recordings or other projects in the works?

I hope to keep recording and producing CDs in the future, with a new release in the fall. I have also become a painter of sorts over the years and would like to continue to develop that field of creativity as well.

Like many of us, Kathy Sands-Boehmer wears many hats. An editor by profession, she also operates Harbortown Music and books artists for the Me and Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, Massachusetts. In her spare time, Kathy can be found at local music haunts all over New England. This and many of her previous Q & A interviews with artists are archived at www.meandthee.org/blog, as well as in the Features section of AcousticMusicScene.com.