Cuchulain is a low-voiced songwriter with a wry wit. The NPR Music-featured folk singer released an album of long distance pandemic collaborations called FEAT on Nov 5, 2021 that was called “an as-yet-unpublished portion of the Great American Songbook.” Cuchulain’s deep baritone and clever lyrics have drawn comparisons to Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen, and Johnny Cash. From rooms as big as the Kennedy Center or as small as a friend’s living room, Cuchulain’s lyrics have brought laughs and tears to audiences across the US and beyond as he shared the stage with renowned folk acts including Ira Wolf, Jeffrey Lewis, Viv & Riley, Billy Keane, Upstate, and more. His “Sing In The Shower” single release tour took him to Europe in the summer of 2022, and his nationwide My Dog single release tour criss-crossed the US in summer 2023. His new album Minute To Win It – a visual album of 20 songs in 20 minutes – is out now and taking the world by storm.
Artist Category: Singer/Songwriter
Joe Pug
A singer-songwriter known for his lyrical acumen and plaintive harmonica style, Joe Pug dropped out of college and moved to Chicago where he worked as a carpenter before breaking into the city’s music scene. Since 2008 he has released a string of critically-acclaimed albums and toured heavily in the U.S. and abroad. Paste Magazine wrote of his music: “Unless your surname is Dylan, Waits, Ritter or Prine, you could face-palm yourself to death trying to pen songs half as inspired.”
He has toured with Steve Earle, Levon Helm, The Killers, Justin Townes Earle, Sturgill Simpson, and many others. He has appeared at Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and The Newport Folk Festival. His music has appeared on NPR’s “Prairie Home Companion” and “Mountain Stage”. His music has been released by Lightning Rod Records, which features an alumni roster of Jason Isbell, Billy Joe Shaver, and James McMurtry.
Additionally, he is the creator and host of the popular podcast The Working Songwriter.
Sam & Daphne
Daphne Ellen and Sam Stage are a duo of songwriters hailing from the rich musical fabrics of Philadelphia, PA and Boston, MA. Brought together by Darrell Scott as selected fellows at the 2023 Acoustic Music Project in Memphis, TN, they pull on the fresh sounds of modern folk to make something all their own, armed with a palette of colors ranging from intricate harmonies to flashy fretwork.
Chris Walton
Chris Walton is a jack of all trades. Walton is a singer, songwriter, and producer based in Boston. He’s equally comfortable writing intimate introspective love songs or upbeat retro pop tracks, which is evident throughout his 2021 EP, Fade. He released his debut album, Ruminating Thoughts, in January 2023. This album is a culmination of his music up to this point, including recent releases “Soon” and “Cravin’,” which left fans eager to hear more from the chilled-out crooner. Inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder, early John Mayer, and Daniel Caesar, Chris has created an album of smooth, jazz-kissed songs that tug at the heartstrings of listeners with effortless relatability on love and loss of love. Walton attended Berklee College of Music and is now a Professor of Songwriting at the very same institution.
Pink Navel
Pink Navel is a non-binary rapper originally based out of the South Shore of MA,but has relocated to Maine to join Ruby Yacht at their headquarters. As a self-proclaimed Nintendo and Disney collector, Navel’s music tends to blend the carefree cadence of cartoons with introspective lyrics on gender identity and mental health.
Aisha Burns
Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and currently residing in Western Massachusetts, violinist and singer-songwriter Aisha Burns began playing violin when she was 10 years old. Soon after moving to Austin in 2005, she gained her start with a Texas folk-rock band, began touring and recording, and later joined the instrumental ensemble Balmorhea on violin in 2007. After years of secret singing, she released her solo debut Life in the Midwater in 2013. Called “”twisting, ethereal…arresting”” by Dazed Magazine, and praised for its “”delicate intimacy”” by NPR, Life in the Midwater explored mortality and relationships with candor and wisdom.
Her newest album Argonauta, is a collection of songs about her struggle with the grief of losing her mother, while also navigating a new relationship, and ultimately trying to discern the new normal for her life. “”Argonauta takes her vocal prowess to a new level—more confident and operatic,” Bandcamp wrote. “She evokes Thom Yorke’s plaintive cry…and occasionally, she delivers the album’s most poignant messages with an air of almost stately detachment, bringing to mind the German cult singer Nico, acting as a foil for the rich string arrangements, equally cinematic and mournful…”” Called “A poignant album” by Pitchfork, Aisha wrote Argonauta to quiet a weary mind. Taking its name from a book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh called Gift From the Sea, the record picks up where Life in the Midwater left us, this time with even more strength and light. Aisha has performed at the SXSW festival in Austin, NXNE festival in Toronto, as well as the Reeperbahn festival in Hamburg, Germany, among others.”
Anjimile
Last fall, Anjimile Chithambo, better known as Anjimile, announced his new album, The King, his first full-length since 2020’s breakthrough Giver Taker.
Highlighting the artistic shift from Giver Taker to now, ‘The King’ opens with a lofty, melodic choir, an intro that belies the song’s motives. Suddenly, sinister arpeggios interrupt the reverie, and the voices grow darkly serious. Deeply steeped in the confusion, grief, and rage of being Black in America, ‘The King’ pushes back against the tired adage, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” hissing, “What don ’t kill you almost killed you// What don’t fill you//pains you// drains you.”
“If Giver Taker was an album of prayers, The King is an album of curses.” In his second album, Anjimile continues exploring what it means to be a Black trans person in America. The brutally honest reflection of 2020’s deadly summer is less reminiscent of the pink cloud of early sobriety and more rooted in the reality of seeing brutality with clear eyes. Drawing from influences ranging from religion, Phillip Glass, and lived experiences, the album is a grand step forward for Anjimile. Nearly every sound you hear on The King comes from two instruments: an acoustic guitar and Anjimile’s own voice. Other than a few beautiful contributions from Justine
Bowe, Brad Allen Williams, Sam Gendel, and James Krivchenia (Big Thief), the album is the result of a year in LA working intimately with Grammy and Juno winner Shawn Everett.
Eva Gertz
Eclectic singer-songwriter and pianist Eva Gertz hails from Melrose, MA, and was raised by artsy parents. Introspective, honest lyrics and a moody Joni Mitchell-informed writing style flow expressively like the characteristic Jewish curls atop her head. As a graduate of Berklee College of Music and now a professor of arranging at the college, her arrangements alone can move you.
Don’t miss her Club Passim debut- a rare occasion to hear the full arrangements live with a band! This show celebrates her second album and the culmination of a 3-year life chapter: Worth the Drive is the title of the album, written during her 5-month solo road trip in 2021. The pandemic and a breakup and The Artist’s Way were all catalysts in her leaving New York and taking off into indefinite travel abyss to find herself and learn to be the rock she needed- also Eva’s Saturn return years. She has woven these stories and emotions into beautiful music that she self-produced and arranged. Please join us for this extra special Eva Gertz Passim debut.
Tim Grimm
Tim Grimm is a bit of a Renaissance man in the performing arts world, forging a rich and varied career that blends his love of songwriting, travel, and acting in theatre, film and television. For most of his 25-year career as a storytelling balladeer in the tradition of John Prine, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan, Tim has written primarily about community, history, family, and social issues – often framed by his strong sense of place and the many years he spent on the family farm he built in rural Indiana. His songs are filled with rural characters and landscapes, written and sung with vivid warmth and intimacy.
Tim’s new album, THE LITTLE IN-BETWEEN (March 2023), is an evocative evolution from his previous albums – and his most personal to date, written in three intense months during the winter of 2021-22. This album traces his travel between the hills of southern Indiana and the Oklahoma prairie – and his internal journey from a rich past to an unexpected future – using a first-person voice in every song to illuminate a deep inner territory that historically remained more submerged in his work. This fertile creative year also yielded forays into visual art, with Tim using pastels and charcoal to create striking folk-art style triptychs, pieces of which now form the visual art featured on the new album cover and booklet.
Jeffrey Foucault
In two decades on the road Jeffrey Foucault has become one of the most distinctive voices in American music, refining a sound instantly recognizable for its simplicity and emotional power, a decidedly Midwestern amalgam of blues, country, rock’n’roll, and folk. He’s built a brick-and-mortar international touring career on multiple studio albums, countless miles, and general critical acclaim, being lauded for “Stark, literate songs that are as wide open as the landscape of his native Midwest” (The New Yorker), and described as “Quietly brilliant” (The Irish Times), while catching the ear of everyone from Van Dyke Parks to Greil Marcus, to Don Henley, who regularly covers Foucault in his live set. His forthcoming record, The Universal Fire, will be coming out in 2024.
