Submitted by Anne-Marie Cannata McEwen
(January 1, 2023) — Upcoming events at The Buttonwood Tree, 605 Main Street, Middletown. Information on all shows is available at www.buttonwood.org or by calling 860-347-4957.
Saturday, January 7, 2023/Giosa-Varela Blues Band. Show starts at 7:00 p.m.. Admission is $15.Morgan Giosa is a blues guitarist and visual artist from Windsor. From an early age, Morgan was raised around music and the arts. His brother Alex is a professional drummer and a skilled visual artist. A self-described “old soul,” Morgan feels his music is most rooted in inspiration from the electric psychedelic blues of the 1960s (artists such as Michael Bloomfield and Jimi Hendrix are among his favorites), as well as influenced by the greatest electric bluesmen of all time (particularly B.B. King and Albert King, two of his favorite musicians). Morgan has been composing original music with the guidance and collaborative input of his mentor and friend and guitar teacher, Frank Varela. The two, alongside drummer Alex Giosa and bassist Bob Laramie and some special guests, recorded an album under the name Fake News Blues Band in late 2017. Their debut self-titled album was released in June of 2019 and is available on all major streaming platforms. Frank and Morgan are currently back in the studio working on a follow up album of original blues music, which will be released in 2023.
Friday, January 13, 2023/ Singer/Songwriter Duo Kat & Brad. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Currently residing in the Mystic area, Kat & Brad features Kathleen Parks (of Twisted Pine) on fiddle and vocals and Brad Bensko (of Bearded Cat Productions) on guitar and vocals. Having shared bills with Gordon Lightfoot, John Sebastian, and Sammy Rae & the Friends, Kat & Brad have spent the past several years performing at music venues across New England, always to enthusiastic audiences. Drawing from 50’s and 60’s pop to American Songbook standards, this vibrant duo from Connecticut fuses their influences to create new original songs that sound like old Stax records.
Saturday, January 14, 2023/ Bluegrass Band Sperry Creek. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Sperry Creek brings fresh harmonies and instrumentation that hold true to the bluegrass genre. This five-piece band from Connecticut formed after some local pickers spent the height of the pandemic keeping each other sane through socially distant backyard jam sessions. It didn’t take the group long to realize that good sounds were happening. They soon adopted the name of a nearby creek, and the band was officially formed in the summer of 2020. Sperry Creek is made up of longtime musicians Scott Freemantle (bass); Marilyn Toback-Reveley (guitar); Bill Reveley (fiddle); Corrie Folsom-O’Keefe (mandolin) and Dan O’Keefe (banjo), who all share a passion for bluegrass music.
Friday, January 20, 2023/ Blues Legends Slim & St. George Show starts at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Michael St. George is best known as a fiery blues guitarist, but accompanied by River City Slim on harp and vocals, the duo presents a diverse repertoire that runs the gamut from Bob Dylan to Bob Marley with several stops along the way for the blues. Michael is a graduate of Berklee who has played in a wide variety of settings. River City Slim has been playing drums since Junior High School. He later cut his teeth on the harmonica, playing and singing with The Blues Blasters throughout the 90’s. He has led two highly successful bands – River City Slim & The Zydeco Hogs and The Mighty Soul Drivers.
Saturday, February 4, 2023, Acoustic Duo Deep Ellum. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $15. The Deep Ellum acoustic duo is named for the historic and notorious red-light, musical entertainment, and recording district in Dallas that was immortalized in Blind Lemon Jefferson’s classic “Deep Ellum Blues.” Rich Johnson is a talented guitarist who plays six- and twelve-string guitar as well as Dobro (resophonic guitar) and lap steel, and he sings harmony vocals. Rich is also familiar to Connecticut listeners as a fine electric guitar and lap steel player with the roots-country band Lost Highway. Jon Swift was a founding member of the acclaimed acoustic bluegrass band, Traver Hollow, playing upright bass and singing lead and harmony vocals for live audiences in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, as well as radio and TV shows. His singing and guitar playing have been enjoyed in many Connecticut acoustic venues for years.
Saturday, February 11, 2023/Folk Singer-Songwriter Jake Swamp & The Pine and co-bill Riley Cotton. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Jake Swamp & The Pine is currently composed of Drew Zieff on guitar, vocals, and foot stomping percussion. Drew prides himself on bringing the ruckus and energy of a full band, while also being able to create an intimate space that is typically associated with a singer-songwriter and can seamlessly ebb and flow between the two. Jake Swamp and the Pine songs range from powerful acoustic anthems to knee-slapping hoedowns to slow and somber waltzes, drawing on diverse influences from the Americana, folk, singer-songwriter, bluegrass, and jam band traditions. Riley Cotton is a Connecticut-based singer/songwriter. While growing up in Texas, much of her musical taste was shaped by the voices of the women of country music: Shania Twain, Sarah Evans, Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks. These women so boldly embraced the power of their belt and divine femininity in the face of an industry that did not embrace them, and Riley was inspired. She continued to sing their songs through her childhood and teenage years, always finding comfort in the sounds of pedal steel, acoustic guitar and rich vocal harmonies.
February 17, 2023/Folk Fusion Group Cold Chocolate. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $15.Cold Chocolate is a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Featuring Ethan Robbins on guitar, Ariel Bernstein on percussion, and backed by some of the roots music scene’s finest players, this group from Boston is impressing audiences throughout New England and beyond. Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, and with a focus on songwriting, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows.
February 24, 2023/Folk Group Corner House. Show starts at 8:00 p.m.. Admission is $15.Corner House gets its name from an old Victorian home at the corner of Murdock and Mapleton in Brighton, Massachusetts. Here, Ethan Setiawan (mandolin), Louise Bichan (fiddle), Ethan Hawkins (guitar), and Casey Murray (cello), found musical family in one another. Graduates of the Berklee College of Music, together they’ve created a singular sound that incorporates old time, Scottish, progressive bluegrass, and folk. Rooted in a close interpersonal bond, Corner House has garnered attention for their energetic and intricate compositions. The quartet’s unique strength is in their openness to musical possibility. On their debut full length album, How Beautiful It’s Been, the band reveals the sublime result of that mindset.
Friday, March 10, 2023/ Singer-songwriter showcase of Anne Marie Menta and Fred Arcoleo. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Anne Marie Menta hails from New Haven, where she has been a long-time favorite singer/songwriter. She comes from a family of three brothers for whom playing and listening to music was their greatest passion. In 1998, she released her debut album “Untried & True”, followed by “When the Love Ran Deep” in 2004, and “Seven Secrets” in 2009. Her fourth collection, Sky Tonight” was released in December 2019. Sober, hard-hitting, and fiercely original, yet cradled in tenderness, Fred Arcoleo’s award-winning RALLY FOLK! music invites audiences to confront the difficult truths of the current state of our world with composure, optimism, and determination, for as the Hopi people remind us: “We are the ones we are waiting for.” His last CD, “TODAY AGAIN,” made its debut at #7 on the Folk DJ National Radio Charts and his newest album, “WE ARE MIGHTY: Sustenance for the Struggle” is just out!
Friday, March 14th at 8 PM/Electronic Artist Bernhard Wostheinrich. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $20. Bernhard Wöstheinrich (a.k.a. “The Redundant Rocker”) is a sound artist, improviser and painter living in Berlin, Germany. Bernhard elicits meaning from abstraction in electronic music and painting. He has studied graphic design and has created an eclectic body of work in both graphics and music. The alter ego “Redundant Rocker” was created around 2002, and it finally established itself with the release of “Collider.“ Since then, the moniker somehow co-existed with, and influenced, Bernhard’s Wöstheinrich’s other diverse projects. He is a composer, painter, graphic designer, performer, small town bohemian, failed control freak, and, finally, even a record label owner in Germany. His projects and albums have been released on a variety of labels and span different fields of electronic and ambient music.
Saturday, March 18, 2023/Folk/Traditional Band Merganser with an opening set by award-winning singer/songwriter Gracie Day. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Merganser is a modern folk project founded by Derrik Bosse and Taylor Warinsky in the summer of 2021. The group plays a modern style of traditional inspired tunes that border on post-punk and Irish Trad. Influences of Andean and Afro-Cuban folk music can also be heard. The band also features musicians Xavier Serrano (guitar), and William Minter (accordion/mandolin). The band is yet to be heard by the public, and their self-titled EP serves as their debut release. Gracie Day released her first EP in November of 2017 and quickly won attention for her songwriting, singing and performances, achieving “Best New Act” in 2017 and “Best in State for Connecticut” in 2018 at the New England Music Awards. Also, in 2018, Day was a semi-finalist in the international Unsigned Only Songwriting Contest and was nominated in the prestigious Boston Music Awards. Her song “Tennessee” gained tens of thousands of plays on Spotify and landed various radio placements.
Friday, March 24, 2023/ Eclectic singer/songwriter Keenan James Blood. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $15. Keegan James Blood is an eclectic singer/songwriter from New England, blending folk rock and sharp-tongued humor into a distinctive sonic style. A native Vermonter, Keegan has been writing and performing songs since the age of 12. In his teens, he performed in bars and clubs across Vermont, fronting the power pop group, Stag Line. The group’s single, “I’m Much Better,” was in regular rotation on local rock radio. For five years, he cut his teeth in the Boston music scene, leading the eclectic rock outfit, Red Mill. The group released two EPs, two LPs and a handful of singles, while giving high-energy performances around New England. Keegan graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2018.
Friday, April 7, 2023/Singer/Songwriters Caroline Cotter and Ben Cosgrove. Show starts at 8:00 p.m. They will each be performing solo sets. Admission is $25. Caroline Cotter sings in the title cut of the sparkling Home on the River, the second full-length major release from the sweetly expressive Americana artist who has found a true home on the road and on diverse musical stages throughout the world. Co-produced by Cotter and Jeff Oehler of Beehive Productions and recorded in scenic Saranac Lake, New York, as well as in Kansas City, Missouri, “Home on the River” emphasizes both the freedom of wanderlust and a sense of place. The album features 9 original songs plus Cotter’s hauntingly lovely a capella version of Woody Guthrie’s “My Peace.” Ben Cosgrove is a traveling composer-performer whose “compelling and beautiful” instrumental music explores themes of landscape, place and environment. He has performed in every U.S. state but Delaware, collaborated with groups ranging from rock bands to research scientists, and held residencies and fellowships with institutions including Acadia National Park, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, White Mountain National Forest, Harvard University, Middlebury College, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, the New England National Scenic Trail, NASA, and the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. Ben’s fourth studio album, “The Trouble With Wilderness,” an evocation of different expressions of nature and wildness within the built environment, was released in 2021.
Friday, April 21, 2023/Performance Artist Laurel Knight. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $15.Laurel Knight is an artist from Connecticut who uses taped musical and vocal recordings to make a “cacophony” effect soundscape to accompany her unique performance art that involves projecting video of live assemblage building, for an intimate and stimulating experience. Reiki and elements of ASMR are incorporated into the performance. The assemblage aspect of the act is a magical unveiling of small sacred spaces that are recorded and projected onto the wall so that viewers can get an up-close vantage point.
