A songwriter and performer based in New York’s Hudson Valley, Alex Castle’s songs pair sharp, observational writing with music that wanders freely through rock, country, soul, and folk with a pitch-black sense of humor.

Before moving upstate, Castle spent six years in San Francisco and more than a decade in New York City, where his parallel lives in music and comedy frequently overlapped. He founded the 10-piece NYC funk monster The Get It, created and produced The Paco Doubledown Variety Hour, and worked closely with the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know. His songwriting has won him trophies at the New York Funny Songs Festival (Judges Choice) and the Too Short To Suck Film Festival (Best Original Music). In 2023 he released “You Better Believe,” a Christmas collaboration with Marco Benevento, and his last album, PARSLEY, SAGE, ROSEMARY, END TIMES was released in 2024.

As a solo artist, Castle has continued to occupy the territory between songwriter and comic without quite belonging to either camp. WHITE SAUCE HOT SAUCE, his new ten-song album, arrived September 24, 2026.

If nerditude had a formal name, it would be Grace Morrison.

She’s a little bit of everything—pianist, accordion player, Renaissance Faire performer, cranberry grower, reader of historical nonfiction, coffee devotee (she sells her own coffee blend), and an unapologetic expert on all things New England. And somehow, all these quirks weave seamlessly into the fabric of her music, making her one of the most unique and endearing songwriters around.

Born and raised on the shores of Cape Cod, Grace Morrison has trademarked a sound she calls Saltwater Country. “I was always too pop for folk and too folk for country. Eventually, I started peeling back the layers of my music to find out what truly made it mine. At the heart of it all was my deep, undeniable connection to the Cape Cod coastline—it’s in my blood, in my voice, in every lyric I write. My music carries the storytelling of country, the twang, but also the raw, unshakable spirit of a Swamp Yankee. That’s Saltwater Country.”

Proudly unconventional, she’s never held what some would call a "real job." She says “it’s always been music and how lucky am I that music has given me this wild, unpredictable journey through the human experience. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

Her career started  when she was in high school playing at coffee shops, where she sang for tips—one of which came from none other than actor James Spader. “I still have the $20 he left me,” she laughs.

Not long after, she hit the road with Rock 4 Xmas, sharing the stage with legends like Eddie Money, Joey Molland (Badfinger), Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, writer of Da Ya Think I’m Sexy), and Greg Douglass (Steve Miller Band, co-writer of Jungle Love).

“I was 17, on a tour bus with rock icons. You can’t ask for a better crash course in rock ‘n’ roll than that. I could tell you some stories,” she says with a knowing grin. “It was Spinal Tap in real life—literally, someone from that movie was on the tour. But for me, the biggest thing was realizing that this life—touring, performing—was possible. All I’ve wanted since then was to get back on that bus.”

In those early years, she struggled to define her own sound. “My dad was convinced I should be a blues singer—like he hadn’t even heard my voice,” she jokes. “It took time, but I finally figured out who I am as an artist. And that’s Saltwater Country.”

One of the defining moments in her journey came when she collaborated with hit songwriter Lori McKenna. “I was eight months pregnant when Lori invited me to write with her. We wrote Just Loving You, and it was the most personal thing I had ever written. The way it connected with audiences—it was something I had never experienced before. I learned that the more personal and specific my songs are, the more they seem to resonate. You’ve got to write what you know.” Saltwater Country, the album, is a testament to that.

Saltwater Country takes the old adages of “3 chords and the truth” and “don’t bore us, get to the chorus”, wraps them up with a 90’s pop bow, and leaves the listener with a sound that is at once new and familiar.

Produced by Jon Evans (Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan), the album ranges from the gritty, swampy Poor Man’s Daughter—a raw reflection on growing up with nothing—to the fun, twang-filled Beer in a Teacup, an anthem about embracing imperfections and letting self-doubt roll off your shoulders.

It’s the sound of an artist who’s found her confidence, embraced her quirks, and learned that sometimes, when life gets messy, you just pour your beer in a teacup and move on.

“She is folk. She is pop. She’s unbelievably masterful behind the wheel of a guitar. Morrison’s vocal storytelling can make you cry; it can make you sing.”

— Emily Clark Old Colony Memorial

Philadelphia indie folk artist + fingerstyle guitarist Kristin Daelyn is rooted in the comfort and simplicity of folk while weaving intricate guitar with poetic, intimate storytelling to create a tender world of melancholy and warmth.” – NPR

Beyond the Break, the second full-length album by Kristin Daelyn, is a statement of rare tranquility and wisdom, atmosphere and grace. In these eight compositions, the Philadelphia songwriter takes influence from solo guitarists like Leo Kottke and John Fahey as well as writers like Mary Oliver, whose poem “Patience” inspired the early single “Patience Comes to the Bones.” Through instrumental pieces that highlight her virtuosity as a player and elegant folk songs that showcase her gifts for tender pop melodies and emotionally incisive lyrics, Daelyn’s voice feels both urgent and timeless. Like a well-loved paperback passed between friends, her songs are open to reflection and personal annotation, designed to be of use.

Recognizing the therapeutic power of her songs after honing her voice as a live performer, Daelyn sought an intimate approach to recording. Working with co-producer Jason Cupp, she worked in her old apartment, tracking vocals and guitar simultaneously to ensure each song had a live performance at its heart. From these intuitive takes, she incorporated subtle textures in appearances from guitarist Dan Knishkowy (Adeline Hotel, Jackie West) and multi-instrumentalist Danny Black (Good Old War, Gregory Alan Isakov) as well as string arrangements by Patrick Riley.

As a songwriter, Daelyn never shies away from heavy subject matter but her writing has a way of casting beauty around each phrase, summoning meaning that extends beyond language. “We all share similar heartaches and desires,” she reflects on her inspiration. “I started thinking about our relationship with longing. The further the distance between ourselves and the thing that we want, the greater the tension.” Tracing a general arc from weary acceptance to forward momentum, her songs tell stories of love and loss that feel cosmic in scope yet alluringly hushed in their delivery.

Since her debut album, 2022’s Gardens & Plantings, Daelyn has ventured beyond the ambient touches that made her work feel cloaked in cozy layers of fog. This time around, her soaring, spectral voice sits higher in the mix, and her lyrics take center stage, incorporating imagery based on her love of poetry and a creative practice that draws from philosophical texts and exploration of the natural world. The songs themselves, Daelyn explains, are often designed to create inhabitable landscapes for the listener, an approach noticeable in the open-ended language of “Longing.” “I don’t know what to call it now/That you’re waning in and out,” she sings before casting her gaze to the sky.

With this newly visceral approach, Daelyn brings to focus her evolution as a guitarist. Focused as much on melody as the texture of her playing, she favors chords that leave suggestive space between each note, dissonance that never quite resolves and adds a tender shadow to her major-key melodies. In the instrumental title track, she plays in collaboration with Knishkowy on guitar and Black on pedal steel, resulting in a mood that blends the open-road psychedelia of William Tyler with the dreamy travelogues of Julie Byrne.

“That’s the song where I realized what the record was about,” Daelyn says of the title track, drawing attention to the closing moments where all the instruments fade away, leaving only a hopeful motif that she plays alone on acoustic guitar. The result feels like emerging from the woods to see a familiar skyline, realizing you are closer to home than you thought. All throughout Beyond the Break, she creates landmarks from quiet moments like this: the layered, wordless refrain of “An Opening” that makes her imagery of a broken heart feel uniquely physical; the descending baritone guitar that gives “White Lilies” the gravity of an old country standard; the way she turns the title of “Wanted” into a multisyllabic, one-word hook. Speaking of her intentions as an artist, Daelyn explains, “I want people to feel cared for and connected… That’s all I want in the world, and I hope my music does that, too.” On Beyond the Break, she carves a path for us each to find our way home, knowing that the long, solitary journey is what we all share in common.

Ever since the Berkshire Folk Society started meeting at the Lodge on Wednesdays in the 1950s for hootenanny night, Wednesday has been the night for a community music share on the mountain!

The format for 2026:

Sign up at 6pm.

7-9pm: Slots for individual or groups. 10 mins or 2 songs ish.

9-close: Circle and Jam at the host’s discretion.

Regular Dinner Service.

and $10 for the entertainment till the wee hours.

8pm BENNY KOHN AND THE LUKEWARMS

10pm DJ BFG

The Sugar Hill Project is an original band from Western MA that encompasses rock, reggae, funk and blues

Ever since the Berkshire Folk Society started meeting at the Lodge on Wednesdays in the 1950s for hootenanny night, Wednesday has been the night for a community music share on the mountain!

The format for 2026:

Sign up at 6pm.

7-9pm: Slots for individual or groups. 10 mins or 2 songs ish.

9-close: Circle and Jam at the host’s discretion.

A songwriter and performer based in New York’s Hudson Valley, Alex Castle’s songs pair sharp, observational writing with music that wanders freely through rock, country, soul, and folk with a pitch-black sense of humor.

Before moving upstate, Castle spent six years in San Francisco and more than a decade in New York City, where his parallel lives in music and comedy frequently overlapped. He founded the 10-piece NYC funk monster The Get It, created and produced The Paco Doubledown Variety Hour, and worked closely with the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know. His songwriting has won him trophies at the New York Funny Songs Festival (Judges Choice) and the Too Short To Suck Film Festival (Best Original Music). In 2023 he released “You Better Believe,” a Christmas collaboration with Marco Benevento, and his last album, PARSLEY, SAGE, ROSEMARY, END TIMES was released in 2024.

As a solo artist, Castle has continued to occupy the territory between songwriter and comic without quite belonging to either camp. WHITE SAUCE HOT SAUCE, his new ten-song album, arrived September 24, 2026.

6:30: Julia Greenberg

Indie-folk artist Julia Greenberg released her 'Born Sentimental' EP this past June on Montclair's Magic Door Record Label. Co-produced with Bob Perry, it is a deeply personal record that blends the dust and edge of alternative country with the sharp lyricism and melodic elegance of classic American songwriting, creating something strikingly human — tender, weathered, and unguardedly sincere. "Rooted in an unhurried Americana sensibility... There is an understated literary intelligence to the songwriting, where humor, grief, memory, and resignation coexist in delicate balance, rewarding close listening with unexpected emotional depth" ~ The Spill Magazine on Born Sentimental

Greenberg has released two prior albums - 'Past Your Eyes' and 'Greenland' - both produced by James Mastro (The Bongos, Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter, Patti Smith, John Cale). Her music has been featured on 'This American Life' (including the ever-popular Dr. Phil episode, in which Phil Collins evaluates a breakup song she co-wrote), and Ronnie Spector also recorded one of her songs.Greenberg's award-winning  music documentary 'Dory Previn: On My Way to Where' can now be watched on PBS, having had its world premiere at the SXSW Film & TV Festival in 2024.  Apart from co-writing the hit off-Broadway rock opera 'People Are Wrong!' with Robin Goldwasser, she composed the music for the off-Broadway play 'Cavedweller' with "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" composer Stephen Trask. In her spare time, she is a health justice advocate and co-curates the music program at the Rock Valley Schoolhouse in the Catskills.

8-10ish: MILTON

A songwriter’s songwriter, known for his lyric craft, distinctive voice and soulful songs steeped in classic rhythm & blues, pop, jazz, folk and country, Milton first gained notoriety in his hometown New York City when his song “In The City” became a hit on New York’s WFUV radio. His live performances, which include material from every one of his albums, are praised for their wit, humor, and captivating charm.

Milton has toured extensively throughout the states since 2005, as a headliner and appearing as support for his hero and mentor Chris Smither, in addition to shows and tours with Joan Osborne, Steave Earle, Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore,  Sonny Landreth, Colin Hay, Kat Edmonson, Josh Ritter and many more.

In late 2019, Milton premiered his 5th and finest album Studio City with a sold out show at City Vineyard NYC.  The album, a veritable tour de force of songwriting and studio craft, features 12 ultra-catchy, concise tunes ranging in style from Sinatra-esque full orchestra swing, to Sgt. Pepper-like whimsical comedy to vintage country and New Orleans rhythm and blues.  In concert, Milton and his ultra-sharp band of NYC veteran session players deliver the songs seamlessly with Milton’s own graceful live arrangements.

The Glass Hours are American songwriters Megan Barbera and Brad Armstrong. Combining influences from Megan’s Colorado mountain roots and Brad’s Birmingham, AL southern roots, the Americana/Country Folk duo met in New York’s Hudson Valley in Summer 2022 and began writing and performing together immediately. They recorded their first album the following spring.

Their self-titled debut album was released by Cornelius Chapel Records in March 2024, and several songs from the album were featured by Americana UK, The Bluegrass Situation and Americana Highways. The duo was invited to play NYC’s Underwater Sunshine Festival, an annual music showcase curated by Adam Duritz, lead singer for Counting Crows. From there, they self-booked two national tours in 2024 and began writing their second album while on tour in the West.

The Glass Hours second album, Chapel Glass, was recorded in November 2024 at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, MS. Chapel Glass is set for release September 19, 2025. It was co-produced, engineered and mixed by Clay Jones (Al Green, Modest Mouse.) and includes Matt Patton (Drive-by Truckers, Laura Jane Grace) on bass, and Jason Lucia (Blue Mountain, Galactic Engineers) on drums.

Ever since the Berkshire Folk Society started meeting at the Lodge on Wednesdays in the 1950s for hootenanny night, Wednesday has been the night for a community music share on the mountain!

The format for 2026:

Sign up at 6pm.

7-9pm: Slots for individual or groups. 10 mins or 2 songs ish.

9-close: Circle and Jam at the host’s discretion.

Nicolás Emden is a Chilean singer-songwriter based in Boston, making music where South American folk roots meet Americana and rock. His songs are built for collective experience: audiences sing along, cross language and cultural lines, and become part of the show rather than just watching it. A three-time New England Music Award nominee, he won World Act of the Year in 2023. His second album, Coraje, is releasing song by song through 2026.

Sam is a lifelong singer, songwriter, everything else writer, comedian, and actor in New Jersey/New York. She released her debut album in January of 2017, and is currently working on her next release. She regularly sings with Joe McGinty’s Losers Lounge, Scotch Bonnet, and plays solo acoustic shows. Her love of old country, soul, and comes through in her songwriting and set lists.

She is an alumnus of Atlantic Acting School in NYC, and a recent graduate of Smith College with a dual degree in English and Psychology and Poetry Concentration.

In the summer of 2020, Meg Gehman, a 59-year-old, newly retired junior high school counselor, lifelong songwriter, and seasoned performer, decided to cross an item off her bucket list and head down to Nashville from her then-home-base of Western New York to record a few songs with some world-class cats. With the help of a Nashville friend in the music business, she found The Studio Nashville, contracted for a five-song EP, and sent 12 Garage Band demos, giving the producer, The Wood Brothers’ Jano Rix, free rein to pick five songs from that collection. Down she went, walking into an experience that was about to change her life.  

“I had no idea what to expect,” Gehman explains. “I just wanted to sing my songs with complete freedom and let the band paint the canvas for me. I knew that I’d be in the room with musicians who were in service to the song and not wanting to just demonstrate what they could do. I’d had years of battling with bandmates to play less, to play more quietly, to listen to each other, and to listen to what the words were saying. I stepped into that vocal booth and was immediately wrapped in the blanket of groove and warmth that these guys wove together. On the first take of the second song, I had to take a break and let out some of the emotion I was feeling. I’d never felt so supported before. It was literally like a dream was coming true. Drummer Derrek Phillips got up from the kit, met me in the center of the room where I was having a small come-apart, put his arm around me, and said, ‘Meg, this is what it’s all about.’ On the plane ride home, I made the decision to move to Nashville. I was never more sure of anything in my life.” 

After making the move, Meg decided to extend the 5-song EP to a full-length album, and, in 2022, she released The Way The World Knew Her, backed by an impressive line up of industry greats. Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist Rix played all manner of keyboards, percussion, and backing vocals (all of which he does simultaneously when playing live with The Wood Brothers). Incendiary guitarist JD Simo (Jack White, Dolly Parton, Stevie Nicks) brought an incredibly diverse palette of sounds to the record. Deeply accomplished and always original-sounding bassist Ted Pecchio (Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Shemekia Copeland) added to the vibe in so many unexpected ways. The aforementioned Grammy-winning Phillips (Sara Bareilles, Mumford and Sons, Alison Krauss) lent his minimalist but always original and tasty style on drums. Adding fully to the sound imagery of the album were the backing vocalists: the Grammy-nominated Maureen Murphy (Eric Church, Lucinda Williams, Zac Brown) and Wil Merrell (Elle King, Smashing Pumpkins, Sheryl Crow) contributed depth and soul.

The album met with critical acclaim. Americana Highways wrote of the release, “You seldom get this kind of vibrance from a novice. If this was sent to Motown in the ’60s, they would’ve signed her. No doubt.” The Alternate Root also had praise for the album, writing, “Gehman has a gift for bringing feelings center stage, and the fact that she bares her soul with such intense emotion is a credit to both her and The Wood Brothers’ Jano Rix, who produced the project. An auspicious introduction, The Way the World Knew Her has a title that tells all.” Pop Culture Classics shared, “Meg Gehman will hold you in her thrall from the opening notes until the final melody fades into the ether. Her emotion-drenched, spectacularly soulful voice deserves a wide audience.”

Gehman recalls jumping right into the deep end of independent album promotion, saying, “I had this great-sounding record - the thing I was most proud of to-date in my musical career - and I had no freakin’ idea what to do with it! I put it on the streaming platforms, made a homemade video for the first single, and kinda watched it disappear into the void. It was the start of a very lonely, self-doubting period where I started to see the reality of how difficult it is to break into the music scene and to question this gigantic change I had made.”

To battle that loneliness and self-doubt, Meg did what she thought everyone should do when they’re depressed: She started drinking after a 33-year period of sobriety. “I thought I was pretty confident in who I was as a musician and a human, after lots of therapy, of course, but Nashville is intimidating, I tell you,” she says. “So drinking again was actually really helpful at first, because it took the edge off my loneliness, and it lowered the walls of fear I had about going out to play open mics and to meet other musicians. But the addict in me doesn’t know how to stop, and I got dangerously close to the edge of that cliff. Luckily, I knew where to go - 12-Step meetings - to get my head right again.”  

Gehman toughed it out, forged solid relationships, found her ground, and is now emerging with her second Nashville-based album, LoveSister, bringing along four alums from the first record: Maureen Murphy (this time as producer, along with backing vocals), Wil Merrell (vocals), Derrek Phillips (drums), and The Studio Nashville’s engineer, Brook Sutton, who mixed the album. Ten of the album’s 11 tracks were recorded at the East Nashville studio, The Bomb Shelter (where Alabama Shakes cut their Grammy-nominated album, Boys and Girls), recorded to tape, and engineered by studio owner and analog wizard, Andrija Tokic.  

Gehman ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in October of 2024 to fund the production of LoveSister. Once the money was raised, she sent 60 - yes, 60 - songs to Murphy, all of which she had written and co-written in her time in Nashville. “I have so much faith in and respect for Maureen’s vocal and arranging talent, ear, and experience in the studio,” Gehman explains. “But maybe more than all this has been her belief in me - she’s been in my corner from day one and is always there to lift me up out of the lonely, dark, ‘what’s-the-point-ment’ times. We all need a champion, and Maureen has been that for me. When I told her I was sending her 60 songs, she didn’t bat an eye. She listened to every damn one. I will say, though, that is one of the upsides to having so much time alone - I had so much space to write. Plus, going to open mics around town connected me with a lot of great songwriters. That became my full-time focus.”   

From that collection of 60, Murphy and Gehman settled on 16 songs for the project, rounding out the band with another collection of Nashville’s finest.  Multi-instrumentalist Freddy Angelico (Brandy Clark, Uncle Kracker, Molly Tuttle), whom Nashville Scene calls “an ace of all things stringed,” lent his significant guitar prowess. Ryan Madora, bassist for such greats as ZAYN, Allison Russell, and Lamont Dozier, held down the pocket with drummer Phillips, with whom she shares a long-standing friendship and plenty of musical collaborations that stretch back years. One of the most notable instrumental shifts for Gehman was the strong use of the Hammond B3 on LoveSister. For this, she went to keyboardist Mike Hicks (Keb’ Mo’, Buddy Guy, Michael McDonald).  

Gehman says, "Every single person on this project was brought on not only because of their immense talent, but also because they are a group of beautiful humans. This wasn't a group of hired guns - although that is exactly who they are for so many of today's most accomplished artists. This was a group of brothers and sisters sharing decades of experiences with one another, and whom I knew would come to the studio without egos, with a deep respect for each other and the process, with the ears to listen to each other, and the talent on their instruments to make LoveSister come to life. And that is exactly what they did.”

LoveSister’s first single, “The Dawn,” was co-written with a salty ol’ cowboy by the name of LH Halliburton, who Meg met at one of her favorite open mics in East Nashville at a tucked-away-upstairs venue dedicated to the writer, The Bowery Vault. (Meg is now one of the hosts of that open mic.) “I thought I was always the oldest person in the room - and thatain't easy - ’til I met LH,” Gehman says, chuckling. Written on a couple acoustic guitars in Meg’s living room, the song transformed in the studio into a slow-building gospel anthem that encourages the listener not to give up five minutes before the miracle. The choir comes in after the lines: It gets harder and harder to cope / And sometimes faith / That’s a slippery slope / Trust feels like walking a tightrope / But at the end of the tunnel there’s hope. 

The record’s second single, “LoveSister Whisper,” was channeled by Meg in the living room of her rented East Nashville bungalow at the end of her first year in town. Guided that evening by a sacred psilocybin journey, she discovered something. “I’d been hearing and taking in what other people had to say about me since I’d made the move to Nashville,” she recalls.      “Really beautiful, complimentary things. Not just about my music, but also about the person that I am. That night, like it always does for better or worse, the medicine showed me the truth: I am who these people are telling me they see. I’m not the broken thing. That was the exact moment this song came through. It’s f*cking weird to write a song about yourself like that, but it’s the truth, and I’m not afraid of it any more." 

Then there’s “Get It Before It’s Gone,” a gritty, down-tempo, back-room blues track capturing the torture of addiction, a subject Gehman’s had a lifetime of experience with. “I started getting high when I was 11 years old,” she says. “I had a desperate need to numb the loneliness that consumed me. For the next 16 years, I stayed numb. Getting clean and sober at 27 saved my life, but the pull to want to check out is always hovering close by, seductive and hypnotic, like the snake, Kaa, from ‘The Jungle Book’ singing, ‘Trust in me.’” “Get It Before It’s Gone” throws a haunting spotlight on that seduction, with Hicks’ sizzling Hammond B3 undercurrent and Angelico’s searing guitar work. The chorus begins: There’s a flash of a match / Over there in the alley / A crackle, a hiss / So seductive and strong. But the song isn’t just about the pull, it’s really about seizing the moment to not be hypnotized by it, and the chorus ends with: But these pipe dreams ain’t real / And this moment is passing / Like that smoke disappearing / I got to get it before it’s gone.  

The album’s overall feel, song to song, is one of great storytelling, deeply pocketed grooves, and clear messages of hope for this very dark time we find ourselves in. LoveSister is an album that the listener will return to over and over to discover the lyrical Easter eggs, the messages, and the carefully crafted masterful musical performances. And, it’s entirely possible that one just might find and grab hold of the golden thread of hope that weaves itself through these songs and begin to believe, as Meg sings, that it’s always darkest before the dawn.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6oY87pDQIZOSafvlQCJhO4?si=R7v6squWS6aEEQGmZJePhw

Becket Athenaeum & The Dream Away present The Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling with Jezmina Von Thiele

Jezmina Von Thiele (they/she) is a writer, educator, performer, podcaster, and fortune teller of mixed Sinti Romani heritage. Raised in their family’s divinatory tradition, they read tarot, palms, and tea leaves in person and online, and teach workshops on divination, spirituality, and creative arts. Jezmina is co-author of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling and co-host of the Romanistan podcast with Paulina Stevens. Their next book, Secrets of Romani Tarot, and their tarot deck, Romanistan Tarot, are forthcoming from Weiser Books. Their poetry, fiction, and nonfiction appears in a number of publications, including Prairie Schooner, The Kenyon Review Online, and Narrative Magazine. Their debut poetry collection, Monster More Alive, is forthcoming from Lambhouse. Jezmina performs regularly with The Poetry Brothel and at literary, cultural, and spiritual events across the U.S. They host the bi-monthly reading series, Poetry After Hours at New Hampshire Art Association in Portsmouth, NH. 
​​

The term Roma refers to the diasporic ethnic group originally from India, also known by the slur/misnomer Gypsies. The Romani people are not the same as Romanian or Roman, though the words sound similar. Due to centuries of persecution after displacement from India, Roma have developed a number of survival trades, and fortune telling is just one of many. Roma and related groups are welcome to reclaim or use the word Gypsy as they wish, but non-Roma (gadje) are asked not to use or appropriate it.

Bio:
Autumn Phoenix (She/Her) is an award-winning singer-songwriter, guitarist, and pianist based in Pittsfield, MA. A 2017 graduate of Johnson State College (Now Northern Vermont University) with a bachelor’s degree in music, she performs in the styles of Jazz, Folk, Indie, and Pop (JFIP). In 2018, she won Berkshire County’s Got Talent. In May of 2026 she was an Artist Spotlight in the Berkshire Eagle.

Writing from personal life experiences, Autumn’s Music captures the unfiltered emotions of life’s difficulties while holding onto a sense of optimism. Her songwriting blends intimate storytelling with emotional performances, drawing inspiration from artists such as Jason Mraz and Matchbox Twenty. You can learn more about Autumn at APArtLLC.com

Ever since the Berkshire Folk Society started meeting at the Lodge on Wednesdays in the 1950s for hootenanny night, Wednesday has been the night for a community music share on the mountain!

The format for 2026:

Sign up at 6pm.

7-9pm: Slots for individual or groups. 10 mins or 2 songs ish.

9-close: Circle and Jam at the host’s discretion.

While attending art school in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 90’s Dan Blakeslee, a Maine native discovered that he had an equal and deeply rooted connection to music. He would sneak into the galleries to play his guitar through the late hours of the evening surrounded by easels and oil paintings. After four years in “Charm City,” he returned to his childhood home in the Tatnic Woods of South Berwick, ME. That summer he played street corners in New Hampshire and Maine while working at a lobster restaurant. His employer urged him to sever ties to manual labor for one of a more musical nature. A phone call from a friend offering him a room in Somerville, MA began his journey south in 1995. While settling into this artful community he began to practice his craft in the smoke-laden subways of Boston. He now has been making music and art in the New England region ever since, leading him to tour the U.S. He has performed with Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter, David Wax Museum, Lydia Loveless, The Lumineers, Deer Tick, The Low Anthem, Brown Bird, Sean Rowe, Jonah Tolchin, Old 97’s, Death Vessel, Kimya Dawson among others. In 2015 his dream of playing Newport Folk Festival became a reality, where Bob Dylan went electric 50 years earlier.

The hills and highways are made for wandering, this is forever rooted in Dan Blakeslee who performs an average of 160+ shows per year. In a gymnasium at Laconia Prison (NH) in 2005, a crowd of 150 inmates became hushed after hearing Blakeslee’s songs of hardship, hope, and true grit later released as a live album. In the late winter of 2006 brought him a string of 27 shows with Tiger Saw (Dylan Metrano, Alan Bull, Angel Deradoorian (Dirty Projectors)) to the southern US and straight up the Mississippi River igniting his passion to continue on this path for the years to come. In June of 2012 upon returning from the 120-mile journey by foot on the Massachusetts Walking Tour Blakeslee mapped out a tour of a different shape slated for the fall of that year. This venture spanned 7 states, with Blakeslee performing 31 shows in 25 days as his Halloween alter ego “Doctor Gasp” making a connect the dots Jack-O-Lantern face on a map of New England. 2013 brought him to Austin, TX in March for SXSW followed by a tour with his band “The Calabash Club” in late June of that year.

Blakeslee has released ten full-length albums to date. Two of them were recorded by long-time art school friend Ron Harrity (Peapod Recordings) the first “Lincoln Street Roughs” was recorded in a warehouse called The Map Room in Portland, Maine in 2007. The next was “Tatnic Tales” released on May 10, 2011. It is a collection of Blakeslee’s country folk songs most stemming from real life experiences. This album features his band The Calabash Club who formed in a Dover, NH basement in October of 2008. The members: Mike Effenberger – piano, Nick Phaneuf – bass, and Jim Rudolf – drums; are the essential ingredients in this acoustic folk outfit. “Tatnic Tales” was recorded in Dean Ludington’s barn in North Berwick, ME by the railroad as the friendship between the members of the band bloomed. “Tatnic Tales” is the first full-length album the band has recorded together to date. Blakeslee’s following album “Owed To The Tanglin’ Wind” was recorded at the Columbus Theatre in Providence, RI by Ben Knox Miller and Jeffrey Prystowsky (The Low Anthem). It was released on August 19th, 2014 with which Blakeslee did extensive touring in 2015. This album received “Album Of The Year” from Red Line Roots. Blakeslee was also awarded 2014 “Folk Artist Of The Year” at the Boston Music Awards, and “Male Performer of The Year” at the 2015 New England Music Awards. After a pause between full-band records his long awaited album “The Alley Walker” recorded by studio wizard Chris Chase (The Noise Floor) featuring his band The Calabash Club came out in 2017 to much acclaim. After touring the US a couple of times and much journeying it was time to get back in the studio. Blakeslee had been dreaming of making a full-length Christmas album for over a decade inspired by his retro music collection. So on a cold winter night in 2019 Blakeslee stepped into the studio for the first session of “Christmasland Jubilee”. This full-length album by Dan Blakeslee and the Calabash Club was revealed on December 1, 2020, and is their third release together.

A prolific artist, Dan Blakeslee has made over 600 rock posters in his career some of which are featured in the book “Art of Modern Rock” published by Chronicle Books. He has done album covers for dozens of bands including Assembly of Dust, Slaid Cleaves, The Tan Vampires, Jonah Tolchin, and many more. After seeing his posters, The Portsmouth Brewery (NH) asked Blakeslee to draft 8 beer label designs and the Northampton Brewery (MA) followed soon after commissioning him to make a label six-pack design. His beer label art has garnered national recognition with the Alchemist Brewery’s (VT) “Heady Topper” in 2012 and “Focal Banger” in 2014. His hand silk-screened posters have traveled the USA in the “National Poster Retrospecticus” in 2013 curated by the LAP Gallery and his own 100 piece Rock Poster Expo that has been exhibited numerous times through the years.

My name is Leo DiSanto, and I'm a song and story man and compulsive adventurer. A rural Pennsylvania yokel with a passport, a guitar, and a blog, I've hauled my wanderlust wagon everywhere from gypsy camps in Transylvania to monasteries in the high Himalaya to the wild interior of Alaska. I see this more or less as my existential mission: to inspire and be inspired.

This website is meant to be the nexus for my various musical endeavors, adventure chronicles, sporadic literary efforts, out-loud dreams, swashbuckling blunders, bungling philosophical considerations, and general windmill tilting. Information about and music by my original string band, Vinegar Creek Constituency, can be found at http://www.vinegarcreekconstituency.com, where you can name your price for downloads of all our albums. Our music can also be found on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Pandora, YouTube, and all the usual places; links to us on those sites are on the VCC homepage. 

I love to spend some of my time on this beautiful, ape-infested earthrock getting to know the people who connect in some way with the things I make, so please feel welcome to contact me through this website to give me feedback; share interesting factoids, daring recipes, or pictures of your dog; discuss weird metaphysics; or inquire about enlisting my services as a writer/ entertainer. 

If you take delight in my various deeds and creations, please keep this ramshackle human entertainment factory in production by making a pledge of as little as one measly buck on patreon.com- it's the most direct way to support my work, kind of like buying your cabbage from the farmer who grows it rather than the big distributors (or industry execs) who lowball him for it.

Berkshire greats Jordan Weller, Matt Downing, Kip Beacco and Dan Teichert!

Raybody (fka Katy Rea) writes classic singer-songwriter shit that gets weird. Her voice is endlessly dynamic—feral and tough in its nurturing. Backed by Andrew Forman (Guitar: Daryl Johns, Nick Hakim) and Ethan Kogan (Pinc Louds,) the trio moves between cinematic extremes. Her bandmates—jazz artists steeped in NYC’s experimental and indie rock scenes—interpret her songs with a range that’s both crushing and soaring. It’s the sound of a woman at work: maniacal, but warm. Past bills with: Little Wings, Mei Semones, Allegra Kreiger, Being Dead, Lily Seabird, Bartees Strange, You Bet, Florry, & more.

Jackie West

NYC <-> Hudson Valley – based musician. Released sophomore album Feb 27. 2026 “Silent Century” and debut album ‘Close To The Mystery’ via Ruination Records, May 2024.

“It’s me, baby, you”, Jackie West sings on the opening track of her new record, Silent Century.

Like a hall of mirrors, West’s sophomore record unfolds like a playful conversation between the artist and herself. Throughout the course of Silent Century, they confront head on “the ones that are telling us ‘don’t speak’, uncovering their voice, seductive and surprising, no longer silent.

Ever since the Berkshire Folk Society started meeting at the Lodge on Wednesdays in the 1950s for hootenanny night, Wednesday has been the night for a community music share on the mountain!

The format for 2026:

Sign up at 6pm.

7-9pm: Slots for individual or groups. 10 mins or 2 songs ish.

9-close: Circle and Jam at the host’s discretion.

Lisa Bastoni (Northampton, MA) is a 2022 & 2023 New England Music Award nominee (Roots), 2020 & 2019 Boston Music Award Nominee (Folk) and winner of 2019 New Folk at the esteemed Kerrville Folk Festival. Her songs are vivid and human-scaled, drawn from observation and experience. Lisa Bastoni has opened for/performed with Lori McKenna, Dar Williams, The Secret Sisters, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, and many more. She performs regularly around New England, and occasionally beyond.

“"On the Water" is a gem of an album. Melodic, thoughtful, with quotable lines in every song. These are the kind of songs every songwriter dreams of writing.”—Ellis Paul

"Bright, attactive and wonderfully poetic..." (Americana-UK)

"Expressive, well-crafted songs..." (Glide Magazine)

"A beautiful melancholia...real and human." (Red Line Roots)

"Americana of the highest order, along the lines of Patty Griffin or Gretchen Peters" (Maverick UK)

“Lisa Bastoni is a genuine artist. Her articulate songs come from the soul, and resonate in the heart. She debuted her new album and a few other gorgeous songs last night with her producer, consummate musician Sean Staples. How We Want To Live is a deep and powerful album, and an affirmation of her triumph in the 2019 Kerrville New Folk Festival contest.
When I hear Lisa perform, I can’t help but draw a parallel between her songs and those of another New England treasure, Lori McKenna. Bastoni masters the same narrative beauty and poignancy in her compositions, and similarly balances demands of motherhood and career gracefully. The song, “Beautiful Girl,“ written for her daughter, is reflective of that — and Lisa Bastoni herself.”

About On The Water:

From salt water to sink water, from a cup of tea to the whole entire ocean, Lisa Bastoni’s latest album, On The Water, is a cycle of twelve vivid songs exploring observations of daily life and memories washed ashore.

Produced by Sean Staples, On The Water was recorded live over the course of three days at Zachariah Hickman’s Greedy Beast Studios in Watertown MA. The album features Sean Staples, Rich Hinman, James Rohr, and Chris Anzalone, with special guest vocalists Mark Erelli, Kris Delmhorst, and Rose Cousins. On The Water is Bastoni's first full-length release since 2019's How We Want to Live.

Short bio for Lisa Bastoni with Sean Staples:

Lisa Bastoni (Northampton, MA) is an award-winning singer-songwriter who writes honest and heartfelt songs that resonate with listeners. Sean Staples is a multi-instrumentalist and producer who has worked with many renowned artists and has a rich and diverse musical background. Together, they create a harmonious blend of rootsy folk music that will touch your heart and soul.

Press Quotes:

"Bright, attactive and wonderfully poetic..." (Americana-UK)

"Expressive, well-crafted songs..." (Glide Magazine)

"A beautiful melancholia...real and human." (Red Line Roots)

"Americana of the highest order, along the lines of Patty Griffin or Gretchen Peters" (Maverick UK)

Berkshire-based bassist, composer, and bandleader Andy Wrba returns to the Dream Away Lodge with longtime collaborators Benny Kohn on piano, Conor Meehan on drums, Peter McEachern on trombone, and vocalist, Ed Moran. Drawing on more than two decades of making music together in different combinations, the group brings a deep musical connection and plenty of room for spontaneity. The evening will feature original compositions alongside jazz, blues, funk, soul, and other influences that have shaped the musicians over the years. Rooted in improvisation and unconstrained by genre, no two sets are quite the same. Expect the unexpected.

The Lucky 5 is a hard-swinging jazz band that blends 30’s and 40’s style swing with gypsy and Parisian flavors to create a unique blend of music that stands by itself. Combining originals and creative reworks of old standards, The Lucky 5 continues to be a favorite among music lovers young and old alike.

“Kiely’s songwriting is often restless, shifting between cosmic and dreamy shapes while incorporating hints of jazz, indie Americana, and light Laurel Canyon tones.” - Under The Radar

“One of those sublime and unassuming efforts that sneaks up on you until you find it won't let go.” - No Depression

Sean Kiely is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Jersey City, NJ. His music starts in folk and ends up somewhere harder to name: acoustic at its core, but restless enough to pull in Americana, jazz, and whatever else the song asks for. His lyrics are patient and precise, chasing ordinary moments to conclusions that feel both surprising and inevitable. An "alt-folksonger”, present for the cosmic joke. The new 9 song album Long Live The Low (Multiple Logo) finds Kiely backed up by an impressive group of collaborating musicians: expansive, genre-defying creative voices including Bobby Hawk (Phoebe Bridgers, Bleachers), Chris Morrissey (Norah Jones, Margaret Glaspy), Bill Campbell (Andrew Bird, Kurt Rosenwinkel), and Juno Award winning Canadian singer-songwriter and banjoist Kaia Kater. Long Live The Low is out everywhere on vinyl & streaming 10/16/26.

Ever since the Berkshire Folk Society started meeting at the Lodge on Wednesdays in the 1950s for hootenanny night, Wednesday has been the night for a community music share on the mountain!

The format for 2026:

Sign up at 6pm.

7-9pm: Slots for individual or groups. 10 mins or 2 songs ish.

9-close: Circle and Jam at the host’s discretion.