Join us for exceptional music, coffee, and dessert in an intimate setting at one of our Friday night Green Wood Coffee Houses.
Doors open one half hour before each performance. Performances begin at 8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Seating is unassigned. Reservations are highly recommended!
Snail Mail method: Call 734-665-8558 and leave a message with your name, number of tickets desired, and performance. Then (if there is time between your call and the performance date) send a check for the total (payable to "FUMC") to: FUMC Green Wood, 1001 Green Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Include name, address, and phone number. Your name will be on a list at the door.
New! We have begun accepting ticket payment via PayPal. Please use the link next to the concert date below to order tickets for that concert, and note that there is a $1.00 fee to use online ticketing in this way.
Tickets are also available at the door. Kids 10 and under are 2-for-1.
Group discounts available — call 734-665-8558 for details.
2012 Spring Schedule ...
Friday, January 13, Michael On Fire, $12
His career spanning four decades, Michael on Fire has forged an eclectic path, having traveled millions of miles, playing original music all over the country, in every kind of venue - from bars to beautiful theaters, private homes to major outdoor festivals, in mines and on mountaintops; from playing in prisons to performing for Presidents of the United States. His audiences find food for the soul in his words, music, and expressive delivery..
Michael's sound grows out of the roots of American music, encompassing its broad range of styles – from country to blues, jazz to rock, rural to urban; vocal and instrumental, acoustic and electric. He’s been featured on Entertainment Tonight, CNN and FOX News, and his music has appeared in film, TV and stage productions.
In January, 2010, The Ventura County Star (Ventura, CA) named his performance from Oct. 2009 as one of its "Top Five Concerts of the Year" (others chosen were Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Paul Thorn and Steve Poltz.)
“The music is unmistakably passionate, wedding Michael’s penchant for dust ‘n’ bones guitar arrangements with his classically-trained musical sensibilities. The result is a sound that is primal, raw and powerful. When I caught his live show last Sunday, his words seemed like gospel. He is an electrifying performer”. – The (East Lansing) State News
Friday, January 20, Juggernaut Jug Band, $15
You haven't heard "Pinball Wizard" or "People Are Strange" until you've heard it played on jugs and "various other sundries." Jug band music is blues, ragtime, swing and jazz combined in a strange concoction spawned in Loiusville, home of the Juggernaut Jug Band. Jug bands flourished in towns along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, as then, a jug band is the ultimate party band. The Juggernauts have been featured on the Today Show and radio's "Dr. Demento Show." Their current CD is You Mean We Get Paid For This?
Friday, February 3, "Un-Valentine" show, $12
Valentine's started as a day devoted to a saint, but nobody remembers that anymore. We're awash in a deluge of commercial sentimentality, forced attentiveness, chocolates and pink ribbon---an event as mercantile and manufactured as Sweetest Day or those nasty little candy hearts.
Had enough? Of course you have, and here's the antidote: an evening of laughs, healthy cynicism and fine music titled "The Un-Valentine's Show: Songs and Tales of Unforgiveness, Heartbreak, Dysfunction and Revenge."
What started as a one-off, themed evening in 2006 quickly formalized into an ongoing event, filling and selling out venues in an ever-widening area in Michigan and beyond. Presented in a relaxed, singers-in-the-round format, "Un-Valentine's" typically features multi-award-winning songwriter John Latini, singer-label queen-musical entrepreneur Jamie-Sue Seal, actor-comedian-songwriter Andre Villoch and Michigan songster Dave Boutette sometimes referred to as The Campfire Kid.
An Un-Valentine evening is a sparkling, freewheeling event that can veer from songs designed to tug at the heartstrings and tearducts to an original song about a love triangle at a gun-and-knife swap meet, Villoch's serio-comic "Day the Bearded Lady Died," Latini and Seal's politically incorrect "Stalker Song," a twisted retake on "Frankie and Johnny" and much more---as well as the sort of sharp, spontaneous interplay that can develop only among four such simpatico artists, honing "Un-Valentine's" over the years into a can't-miss event.
The immediacy, directness and sheer honesty of a singer, a guitar and a song---in front of a live audience---is the direct opposite of the prefab, mass-produced sentimentality of so much popular music regarding love and its many disappointments. Unforgiveness, heartbreak, dysfunction and revenge are with us always---but for that reason the "Un-Valentine's" musical revue has become increasingly in demand the year around, a lively evening of song and hilarity that's welcome in any season.
Friday, February 24, Sarah Masen, $15
As a songwriter and a performer, Sarah Masen has won the enthusiasm of critics and a committed, eclectic fan base for over 15 years. Whether immersed in electronica or as solo acoustic broadsides, her work speaks to all things awkward, political, dysfunctional, and seemingly mundane. She sings with a voice which is simultaneously adamant and ethereal.
Sarah Masen began her music career as the singer for acoustic folk-pop band The Art Institute, which released one album, The Holding, on TAI Records. Her self-titled debut in 1996 won considerable attention and its breakout single "All Fall Down" was included in the soundtrack for the TV show Party of Five and is a favorite spin on Contemporary Christian radio. After the release of The Dreamlife of Angels in 2001, Sarah took a break from recording and performing in order to focus on her growing family. In 2004 she contributed two tracks to Stars and Sirens, an album by Pristina, a collective of female artists teamed with producer Joey B. of The Echoing Green. She also continued to give occasional live performances, and offered new recordings through her website. In 2007, Sarah released three new EPs, containing a total of 15 songs. The new works debuted at the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College where she shared the bill with Sufjan Stevens, Emmylou Harris and Neko Case, among others.
Don't miss this chance to see and hear Sarah Masen in an intimate venue setting! www.sarahmasen.com
Friday, March 9, Lou & Peter Berryman, $15
Lou and Peter Berryman were both raised in Appleton, WI, and began playing music together in high school during the sixties. During the following nomadic decade, Lou studied classical voice and music theory in college while Peter continued an unfocused fascination with surrealist art, beatnik poetry, and jug band music. Early influences of American and British musical comedy and folk music fed a growing repertoire of original songs. A brief marriage in the early seventies resolved into a lifelong friendship, and by the late seventies and early eighties the two were honing their skills playing regular weekly concerts in Madison, becoming full-time musicians and songwriters in 1979.During those early years they wrote new songs every week, many about the history, cheese, beer and strange politics of their home state. By the mid '80s they were traveling all across the country, still writing and singing, but now with a broader perspective, finding that the quirks of their home state were not so much Midwestern as human. In twenty-five years of performing together, Lou and Peter have released twenty albums and four songbooks worth of hilarious, quirky, yet oddly profound songs, rich with word play and interesting images. Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and Tom Lehrer count themselves among their fans. Their work has appeared in numerous compilations such as the popular RISE UP SINGING songbook, in periodicals like SING OUT! Magazine, and in many audio compilations. Berryman songs are being sung around the world by a legion of professional musicians including Peter, Paul and Mary, Garrison Keillor and Peggy Seeger. They have appeared numerous times on such national programs as NPR's A Prairie Home Companion and Weekend Edition. www.louandpeter.com
Friday, March 23, Meg Hutchinson, $12
With a poet’s ease, Meg Hutchinson makes the personal become universal, allowing people’s stories to come alive through her unique vocals and haunting melodies. Since the release of her Red House Records album Come Up Full she has won high praise for her songwriting and has been featured nationally on NPR Music, XM/Sirius Radio and several times on the syndicated show Mountain Stage. Publications such as The Winnipeg Free Press have compared her songwriting with that of veterans Dar Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Joni Mitchell.
Growing up in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, the woods and ponds were her childhood muses, as were songwriters like Greg Brown and Joni Mitchell, and poets like Mary Oliver, William Stafford, William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost. When Hutchinson inherited her grandmother’s 1957 Martin guitar at age eleven, her love of words found an inspiring instrument, and there was no turning back.
After graduating from college with a degree in creative writing, Hutchinson settled in Boston. In between gigs at pubs, coffeehouses and train stations, she won a Kerrville New Folk Award (2000) and was nominated for a Boston Music Award for her first studio album Against The Gray. She went on to win awards at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, the Telluride Troubadour Songwriter’s Showcase in Colorado and The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in North Carolina, all in the course of a year, causing national publications such as Performing Songwriter to take notice, calling her “a master of introspective ballads filled with understated yearning and an exquisite sense of metaphor.” She quickly became an integral part of the vibrant Boston songwriting community.
After recording her live CD Any Given Day in 2001, and continuing to build a fan base throughout the Northeast, she went into the studio with esteemed producer Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton, Mary Gauthier) to record The Crossing. Released in 2004, this album was enthusiastically received by critics and DJs across the country, catching the attention of renowned folk/roots label Red House Records. Knowing her songs could stand alongside those by Red House heavyweights Greg Brown, Eliza Gilkyson and John Gorka, label president and veteran producer Eric Peltoniemi signed Hutchinson to the label. Teaming up again with Crit Harmon, Hutchinson recorded Come up Full over the course of more than a year in Boston. An instant folk hit, the album was one of the most played on folk and college radio and landed her on many “best of the year” lists
Meg's latest CD is The Living Side. Combining her raw storytelling folk style with tasteful, intimate production, the album showcases her sweet, earthy vocals and her most powerful songwriting to date. It confirms that she is indeed one of the great voices of the next generation of acoustic musicians.
www.meghutchinson.com
Friday, April 13, Suzzy Roche, $15 New! Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
Suzzy Roche has been singing for most of her life. She and sisters Maggie and Terre formed The Roches and recorded ten albums and have performed all over the US and Europe for over twenty-five years.
Their debut album The Roches was named album of the year by The New York Times. They were hailed as “Best Vocal Group” by the New York Music Awards. Will You Be My Friend, a recording of songs for children of all ages, was given The Parent’s Choice Gold Award and their Christmas recording, We Three Kings has become a classic.
They have recorded and written music for movies and TV, including their own episode of Steven Spielberg’s “Tiny Toons” and the score for the film, “Crossing Delancey,” which included a cameo role for Suzzy. They performed and recorded with Philip Glass, Paul Simon and The Indigo Girls, just to name a few.
Suzzy has recorded two solo cds released on Red House Records, Holy Smokes and Songs from an Unmarried Housewife & Mother, Greenwich Village USA, which was named “Album Of the Week” by The New York Times.
In 2001 Maggie & Suzzy released Zero Church, an unusual collection of prayers. Zero Church is the result of work they began at The Institute On The Arts & Civic Dialogue, at Harvard University. It is a collection of prayers gathered from performing artists and everyday folks, which the sisters set to music.
Suzzy has toured extensively and graced stages across the country. Suzzy is also an accomplished actress, appearing in "Crossing Delancey" (with Amy Irving) and working in live theater with The Wooster Group and other ensembles.
Suzzy's latest endeavor is as author of the novel, "Wayward Saints." In her own words:
"I have always loved to read novels, but whatever drove me to sit down and write one is a mystery. Through the years I’ve had a tendency to create poems and stories but they remained, for the most part, private. I like to think of Wayward Saints as a fable. I wanted to write about faith and art, and how it manifests differently in everyone. I also wanted to write about the absurdity and dangers of the music business, the consequences of violence, the power of forgiveness, and the possibility of the miraculous. I guess I know that my book is a little unconventional, but I hope it will find its place in the world, and be meaningful to someone out there."
Come and experience this rare Ann Arbor appearance! www.theroches.com
Friday, April 27, Rita Hosking, $15 Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
A descendant of Cornish miners who sang in the mines, Rita Hosking grew up with a deep regard for folk music and the power of the voice.
Rita's songs have been lauded for story and sense of place, and her performances praised for capturing the audience. Honors include Best Country Album in the 2010 Independent Music Awards, winner of the '08 Dave Carter Memorial Songwriting Contest at the Sisters Folk Festival, and finalist in the '09 Telluride Troubadour Contest. "There’s a grit to her songs and sinewy toughness to her voice that weave their own spell." - Q Magazine.
Rita's third album, Come Sunrise, a collection of 11 original songs, was released in June of 2009. Recorded in Austin, Texas with producer and guitarist Rich Brotherton (Robert Earl Keen, Caroline Herring,) Come Sunrise launches Rita onto the international Americana scene with players such as Brotherton, Lloyd Maines, Warren Hood and Glenn Fukunaga. "Superb country-folk from a brilliant singer-songwriter." - Americana UK.
Rita Hosking's country-folk music is authentic, and her voice fierce and lovely. Sean Feder accompanies Rita this evening on banjo, dobro, bass and guitar. www.ritahosking.com
Sunday, April 29, Ronny Cox, $15 (This is a 7:30pm show!) Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
With a career that spans over a hundred and twenty-five films and television shows, Ronny Cox is often ironically identified with the villains he has played in movies such as "Total Recall" and "Robocop," and the ruthless politician in the hit science fiction TV series, "Stargate." Ronny's first film and his first time acting in
front of a camera was as the guitarist in the famous "dueling banjos" scene in Deliverance. His second big film was Bound For Glory, Hal Ashby’s film about Woody Guthrie. The truth is that Ronny has been writing songs and telling stories for over four decades. Only in the last 10 years has the world seen him evolve from being an “actor who sings” into knowing him as a “singer who happens to have a pretty fair career acting.”
His first album, Ronny Cox, was released in 1993 for Mercury Records in Nashville and, according to Ronny, was “pretty much a country record; at least it seemed so to me.” For his next album, Acoustic Eclectricity (2000), Ronny executed a more “folkie” approach. Cowboy Savant (2002) was a studio album produced by Wendy Waldman and his next two albums, Ronny Cox Live (2004) and At The Sabastiani (2006), were recorded live.
In 2007 Ronny’s friend, producer, and musician Jack Williams, encouraged Ronny do a tribute album to the great Mickey Newbury, one of the great Texas songwriters. The result was the album, How I Love Them Old Songs.
“I enjoy all kinds of music and I try to bring that eclectic approach to the music I play," Ronny says. “I'm interested in weaving a tapestry of songs and stories with an over-all arc that eventually comes together and tells us something about 'the human condition'... and to have a few laughs along the way."
A few years ago, Ronny’s wife Mary passed away. He met Mary when he was 14. She was his only love. He confesses that one of the ways he has dealt with the loss of Mary has been through music. The result is Ronny Cox’s newly released album, Ronny Cox -- Songs With Repercussions, a collection of several covers and three original songs. Repercussions made it to the #1 spot of the Folk DJ list in the summer of 2009.
Repercussions is one of Ronny’s finest and most honest pieces of work. Like Ronny, the songs are eclectic, funny, touching, insightful. Each tune showcases an original, sophisticated lyric-driven sound and the stories that accompany these songs are compelling. www.ronnycox.com
Friday, May 4, Don White, $17 Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
Saturday, May 5, Don White, $17 Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
Back by popular demand after his last sold-out Green Wood Coffee House show! Don White combines heartfelt, serious lyrics with side-splitting laughs to provide an evening not to be forgotten. This Massachusetts comedian/singer/songwriter/author is best-known in these parts for his radio gems, "Rascal," "Psycho Mom and Dad" and "I Know What Love Is." In 2009 Don released Christine Lavin and Don White Live At The Ark -- The Father's Day Concert, two hours of hysterical songs and stories recorded in June of 2009 from these two veteran performers with guest appearances by Matt Watroba and Katie Geddes. This recording is available only as an MP3 download here: http://www.cdfreedom.com/artists/donwhite. Don’s latest release is Winning Streak. A Don White show promises to delight new audiences and devoted "repeat offender" fans, alike.
Friday, May 11, Matt Watroba, $15 Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
Matt Watroba brings a very special set of talents to the stage whenever he appears as a folk musician. His excellent guitar playing, mellow voice, friendship with his audience, and knowledge of his presentations is impressive. Add to that Matt’s own special brand of humor and you are in for a most entertaining and enlightening evening. You will feel his obvious love of folk music, both traditional and contemporary; its writers and performers, its heroes and villains. Matt sings songs of compassion, inner strength, humor, and everyday living. He sings songs that you will feel and remember for a long time. Matt's latest CD, Shine Right Through The Dark, receives airplay around the nation and has appeared on several folk DJs' "Best Of" lists for 2010. www.mattwatroba.com
Friday, May 18, Dave Boutette ($15) Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
In his own words: A guy on Bois Blanc Island said I looked like James Taylor and sounded like Neil Diamond. He was real drunk though. Here’s what AMG said: “There’s an honesty in his voice that’s genuinely comforting; he finishes each line with an exclamation point that’s confident without coming off as smug, putting him somewhere in between Alex Chilton and Elvis Costello. Boutette’s a songwriter that relieves the Midwest of its tendency to spew forth an endless sea of singer/songwriter banality, replacing its tired clichés with protagonists that are as mischievous as they are heartfelt.” An evening with Dave Boutette is just plain fun. His songs are wonderfully written and delivered with infectious enthusiasm and emotion. His energy is contagiously genial and will give your day a fine winding-down.
Friday, June 1, Doug & Telisha Williams ($15) Buy tickets to this show online with PayPal
Doug and Telisha Williams hail from Martinsville, Virginia, where boarded up factories stand as monuments to how fast the world can change. When they write and sing songs about dying small towns, they know what they’re talking about. The unemployment rate where they live is 20.2 %. The songs for their latest record weren’t written by people who like to imagine what it’s like “out there;” rather they came from stories told across kitchen tables or between friends after a couple of pitchers at the Ten Pin.
Their hometown sits in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains and you can hear, smell and taste that influence on their new record, Ghost of the Knoxville Girl. This album gives voice to the struggles of everyday people. Like the ghost in the title track, the characters in this collection of songs are resilient spirits who face their troubles straight on, never looking away. Telisha’s voice rises from way down deep and delivers a frank clearness that never wavers. Doug’s guitar and harmonies follow suit, giving soul and heart. And when Doug offers up his story songs, you can imagine Flannery O’Connor nodding in praise. It has been three years, hundreds of shows and thousands of miles since Doug and Telisha released their previous record, Rope Around My Heart. Since then, they’ve traveled from Florida to Oregon and Michigan to Texas, they’ve played with some of their most beloved heroes - Lucinda Williams, Darrell Scott, Charlie Louvin, and Joe Ely – and have been on stage at Anderson Fair, The Birchmere, The Carolina Theater, Godrey Daniels, Madison Square Park and Floydfest. No matter how far they roam, Doug and Telisha always find their way back home. A place that holds tight to the intricacies and contradictions of life in the south today. A place where old time religion, superstition, rundown bars, gravel parking lots and boarded up factories tell stories that inspire songs. A place where in just one set, Doug & Telisha can still send audience members to their feet in applause, to their knees in prayer, and back to the bar to buy another beer.
www.dandtw.com
2012 Fall Schedule ... (incomplete)
Friday, September 28 - Jeremy Horn, $12
Friday, October 12 - Nathan Bell
Friday, October 19 - Don Henry
Friday, October 26 - Sally Barris
Friday, November 2 - Chuck Brodsky
Friday, November 9 - TBA
Friday, November 16 - Mary McCaslin, $12
Friday, November 30 - Katie Geddes & Friends, $15
Friday, December 7 - Don White, $17
Performers interested in bookings at the Green Wood Coffee House should leave a message at 734-665-8558.
