Susie Burke and David Surette have made a name for themselves as one of the finest acts on the lively New England folk scene. Together since 1988, Susie and David have built a steady following for their own blend of contemporary, traditional, and original folk and acoustic music.
Burke’s vocal style is at once stunning and heartfelt, and is matched by Surette’s fluid fretwork. Both are well-respected within the folk music community, as is demonstrated by the fact that they have appeared as backing musicians on numerous recordings. Many of these have come out of the New Hampshire Seacoast area, where Susie and David are based, and which has a well-deserved reputation as a haven for folk and acoustic music.
Susie Burke has been singing on Seacoast stages since the early 80s, as a soloist, a member of several local bands, and in several duos, including one with guitar whiz Harvey Reid. Her musical tastes and influences are varied and many, encompassing contemporary and traditional folk, swing, country, topical songs, and acapella singing, with detours along the way for Broadway showtunes and classic ballads. Before devoting her energies to music full-time, Burke worked as a day-care teacher, and her love of kids is evident in her wonderful participatory children’s concerts.
David Surette has been performing in the Seacoast area since the mid-80s, both with Susie and with a number of other groups and musicians. He is well-known as a top-notch accompanist in New England’s contra dance and Celtic music circles, and is also in demand as a studio musician. As a multi-instrumentalist, David brings a variety of stringed sounds to the duo; Folk Roots magazine notes that his “bouzouki, guitar, and mandolin playing is exemplary.” In addition to performing and recording, Surette maintains an active teaching schedule, and is head of the folk department at the Concord (NH) Community Music School.
Hayley Reardon is a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter and a storyteller in the truest sense of the word. Her songs serve as postcards from an artist brave enough to take the road less traveled. Reardon dove head first into music at the young age of 15, and has spent much of the past decade writing, recording and performing music around the world.
Raised in a coastal Massachusetts town north of Boston, Reardon spent three years based in Nashville and the past six years carrying her songs and stories all over the globe — including a six-month artist-in-residency stay in Dachau, Germany — gathering experiences, inspiration and soulful connections. Her ever-deepening music carries a lyrical and melodic weight beyond her years, being described as “brilliantly moving folk/pop with a lyrical depth and soul” (Performer Magazine) and “a melancholy little masterpiece” (American Songwriter Magazine). No Depression writes “Reardon is truly a treasure.”
Her latest release Changes (July 20, 2023) is the continuation of a journey that began with Reardon’s 2022 release In the Good Light. Both projects were recorded in Barcelona with Catalan collaborators Pau Figueres (producer and one of Spain’s premiere instrumentalists) and Aniol Bestit Collellimir (recording engineer). The title track on Changes features an original, bilingual duet with Catalan sensation Judit Neddermann, with whom Reardon formed a deep musical bond during her time in Barcelona and who appears on the EP courtesy of Universal Music Spain.
Reardon’s songs have found a home on Spotify Editorial Playlists like Fresh Folk, Folk Pop, Morning Coffee and Today’s Singer/Songwriters, as well as Apple Music’s Acoustic Chill and New in Singer/Songwriter. She totes over 6 million streams on Apple Music alone and has shared the stage with renowned artists including Lori McKenna, Rodney Crowell and Anaïs Mitchell, among others.
Singer-songwriter/guitarist Brooke Annibale sheds a bit of her indie-acoustic skin on her newest record Hold to The Light–a pop-progressive album that offers a fusion of textured electronic and traditional (guitar, strings, keys) instrumentation with songs bearing Brooke’s keen, soulful lyricism.
Produced by Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Lake Street Dive) the record features the contributions of seasoned artists Sam Kassirer on Keys; Zachariah Hickman (Ray Lamontagne) on Bass; Josh Kaufman (The National) on accompanying guitars; Sean Trischka (Molly Tuttle, Oh Pep!) on Drums; and Matt Douglas (Sylvan Esso, Mountain Goats) on Woodwinds.
Hold to The Light is an exciting evolution in Brooke’s career as a musician. Her creative roots run deep with family connected to music–her maternal grandfather founded a music store, selling instruments and sound equipment, which continues to operate today in Pittsburgh, PA. Brooke began playing guitar at 14 and since then her passion for making and performing music has taken her all over the country. She released her first full-length record, Silence Worth Breaking in 2011, produced at The Smoakstack in Nashville, followed by 2013’s EP Words in Your Eyes and 2015’s The Simple Fear.
On the road, Brooke has recently been on tour opening for Josh Ritter, Margaret Glaspy, Chadwick Stokes, Great Lake Swimmers, Jesca Hoop, Iron & Wine, Rufus Wainwright, Aoife O’Donovan, The Handsome Family and others. Her songs have been featured on Sirius XM radio in addition to being placed in multiple TV shows including Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, Hart of Dixie, Vampire Diaries and more.
Some folks are lucky to find what they love to do at an early age and quietly settle in for the long haul expanding and developing their work over the arc of a lifetime. Willy Porter is one of those artists. He has followed his own path to explore the sacred language that music truly is. 30 years after his solo recording debut, he continues to reach further into his guitar & pen while stretching the form of what his own music can be.
Willy Porter continues on a musical and personal odyssey spanning over two decades, 13 albums, and multiple continents. His journey has been defined by an inquisitive love for humanity and the language that describes what we all hold to be true. Porter’s songs weave a universal perspective about the questions, struggles, and triumphs of human existence. His live shows are guitar-driven grit, soul, silence and muscle– at times electrifying, dynamic, and unique in the way that Porter’s voice blends and fuses with his fret work.
“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.” – John Ruskin (1819-1900)
It may be that the famous English art critic Ruskin uttered these words well over a century ago, but they remain relevant today, perfectly describing the life of married couple Shawn Fisher and Jordyn Jackson. As the Truth or Consequences, NM-based ‘Harmonic Alternative Folk’ duo Flagship Romance they live, work, and annually travel tens of thousands of miles together, deeply in love with each other and the process of bringing their emotionally powerful music to the people. It is an inspiring union of hearts, minds and souls that entrances all who encounter them and their art.
Fluent, intense acoustic guitar playing; lyrics of life’s peaks, troughs, mysteries and wonders; soaring, yearning vocals; tender, though oft-anthemic melodies, and harmonies one could barely separate with a single human hair: this is the Flagship Romance sound. Live, sharing a custom-built dual microphone stand, they deliver their beautiful material with passionate abandon, living each song as if it will be the last they will ever perform. Such commitment to their music and stagecraft has, in just a few short years, seen the aptly-monikered Flagship Romance become huge favourites of the North American house concert circuit. This suits them just fine, as Shawn and Jordyn’s preferred performance scenario is an intimate venue where the audience is tucked up close enough to them that they can hear them breathe (and, unfailingly, gasp at Shawn and Jordyn’s chemistry and dynamics). Yet they have also appeared at festivals, clubs and concert halls, sharing stages with international acts including Half Moon Run, Iris DeMent, Mason Jennings and the Goo Goo Dolls.
No matter the form, when it comes to art, there are a number of different tacks to take. Some artists continually push their work across new horizons. Neil Young, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Joni Mitchell come to mind, in that regard. Others — Claude Monet, Jason Isbell, and Bonnie Raitt, among them — stand a bit more still in order to continually refine the capturing of their vision. Singer/songwriter Peter Bradley Adams falls into the latter category of perfectionists chasing their own perfection. With A Face Like Mine, he may well have caught it.
There’s a confidence, a completeness in the song cycle that listeners have gleaned throughout Adams’ illustrious career, but A Face Like Mine, his sixth solo effort, brings it all into sharp focus. As Adams sees it, “On the long plod of finding my voice as a singer and a writer, the singing has slowly developed from the sound of a scared guy to someone who believes what he’s saying and the writing, I hope, has become less rigid — both in the lyrics and the phrasing.”
Less rigid, indeed. Adams’ brand of Americana nestles his often delicate, always heartfelt voice in the warm embrace of gentle guitar, tasteful dobro, subtle banjo, supportive bass, and unhurried percussion. The result is a sonic scape that, in turn, wraps itself around the listener like a soft blanket on a cold day. With A Face Like Mine, Adams further refines the simple musical sophistication that has become his trademark.
As a work of musical art, A Face Like Mine fulfills the promise of Peter Bradley Adams. And rarely has an artist’s standing still sounded so divine.
Stace Brandt has listened for a long time, ear to the ground, constantly searching for what makes a song tick. After spending five years in Burlington, Vermont writing songs, collaborating, and playing live to shape her sound, Stace returned to the Boston area where she grew up and jumped into a new scene. Melodically, Stace’s intuition never fails to pack a punch: soul-driven lyrics flow into R&B inflected hooks. Her guitar, minimal and percussive, provides a rhythmic backbone for her smoldering vocals. Powerfully reflective and sentimental, Stace’s music wavers between intimacy and solitude, between living recklessly and intense self-reflection. Stace will release her second EP, Lucky Ones, in February of 2019.
After a lifetime of performing and recording with The Roches and as a solo performer these days Suzzy enjoys singing on the road with her daughter Lucy Wainwright Roche (lucywainwrightroche.com) Lucy & Suzzy recorded their first CD Fairytale and Myth which won the popular vote for best singer/songwriter album of the year for the Independent Music Awards 2014. Suzzy and Lucy released their second recording Mud & Apples in 2016, which was also nominated for best singer/songwriter album of the year. Both recordings are available on this website as well as iTunes.
Suzzy also performs with The Wooster Group (thewoostergroup.org) most recently in: A Pink Chair (in place of a fake antique), Early Shaker Spirituals ~ a record album interpretation , and The Room by Harold Pinter.
Suzzy is a founding member of the singing group The Roches. She has written two books; a novel Wayward Saints, and a children’s book Want To Be in a Band? Her second novel The Town Crazy is finished and is looking for a publisher.
In addition to recording numerous albums with The Roches, Suzzy has recorded two solo albums, and an unusual collection of musical prayers, Zero Church (with Maggie Roche), which was developed at the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University.
Suzzy has taught performance at NYU graduate and undergraduate schools and at Princeton University in the Atelier Program.
Jean Rohe writes one-of-a-kind narrative songs, concerned as much with the internal world as with the external. Her latest record as a bandleader, Sisterly, produced by longtime collaborator Liam Robinson, is a collection of songs about communication and missed connections, and tackles topics from love, lust, and longing to prisons, police violence, and migration.
She is perhaps best known for her much-covered 2012 video single, “National Anthem: Arise! Arise!” an aspirational alternative national anthem performed with choir and brass ensemble. Her award-winning 2013 release Jean Rohe & The End of the World Show was hailed by an Elmore Magazine reviewer as “enchanting” and “remarkable in so many ways I can think of no comparison.”
Jean tours regularly with Robinson & Rohe, her rootsy songwriting duo with Liam Robinson, and continues work on a performance memoir, The Odysseus Agreement, for which she’s received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, and others. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Ariel Strasser is a singer, songwriter and pianist originally from the Twin Cities, Minnesota. A graduate of the Boston Conservatory’s musical theater program with an emphasis in songwriting, she frequently tours the country delivering soulful pop tunes reminiscent of Carole King, Sara Bareilles and Norah Jones.
She comes from a family of musicians, so it is no surprise to see her pursuing music as well. Recorded at The Vault recording studio in Hoboken, NJ with producer Dan McLoughlin of The Push Stars, her debut album “Crooked Line” released to five star reviews in 2013. “Crooked Line” features Nate Tucker on drums and percussion, Max Judelson on upright bass, Adrianne Pope on violin and Chris Trapper, also of The Push Stars, on vocals. Ari’s newest release, “Motivation” features beloved New England locals Ken Budka, Steve Clements and Paul Ortolano and is produced by Nick Zampiello of New Alliance East.
