On June 24 at 7 p.m., two outstanding musicians from Mali, Africa will perform a public concert in Northampton. Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia will play at the Iron Horse Music Hall www.iheg.com. A video of them performing one of their songs in concert is at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=shbOmNakdTo
Bagayoko and Doumbia’s current tour includes stops at prestigious concert halls in Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington, DC. Bagayoko and Doumbia are blind.
Local reggae band the Alchemystics will perform on May 10 at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton. The band sounds like a mixture of Bob Marley and Michael Franti and Spearhead. The Alchemystics played an outstanding, sold-out concert at the Arts Block in Greenfield in 2011. Almost everyone at the concert danced.
A video of the Alchemystics performing is at
www.YouTube.com/watch?v=zDLqJjIk-cc
In the video, the sound quality is good; the image quality is literally shaky.
Amy Ray and Emily Saliers founded the the Grammy Award-winning band the Indigo Girls. They will play at the Calvin Theater in Northampton on March 1. They have earned a reputation for outstanding concerts. Ray and Saliers founded, with Native American activist Wynona LaDuke, Honor the Earth, an environmental group: www.honorearth.org.
Other winners of Grammy Awards include U2 and Bob Dylan. The March 1 concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are available from www.iheg.com.
Oliver Mtukudzi and his band performed a very good public concert at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on January 16. The dance floor was full of people dancing. Mtukudzi is from Zimbabwe, in southern Africa. You can hear one of his songs at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn5nEKvr6aU
Concord Music Group (CMG) Corporation has a web page about Mtukudzi:
Simba will perform a free, outdoor public concert in Putney, Vermont, near Brattleboro, on August 10. At a recent Simba concert, at least 100 people danced for hours. The band plays reggae and funk, among other kinds of music.
Thomas Mapfumo, a musician and activist from Zimbabwe, will perform a public concert in Northampton on July 22 at 7 p.m. Mapfumo was forced to leave Zimbabwe because he spoke out against the government. He lives in Oregon. Samples of his music can be heard for free at:
www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-k...
One of the best bands that is currently performing is Devil Makes Three. The band's lead singer, Pete Bernhard, will perform a public concert in Putney, Vermont, near Brattleboro, on March 25 at 7 p.m. He will perform with several other musicians. Details are at:
www.HookerDunham.org/docs/TWILIGHTCALENDAR.htm
and
On February 19 in Brattleboro, six musicians played an excellent concert at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, the town’s best live music venue. The theater was almost sold out, and the audience applauded the music warmly. The musicians sang and played Scottish smallpipes (like bagpipes except, rather than blowing into the instrument, the player pumps it like an accordion), a wooden flute, piano, guitar, and a lute. The absence of drums was pleasing.
Charlie King, Karen Brandow, and Rebel Voices will perform an evening concert in Greenfield on January 21. It’s a benefit for the Safe and Green Campaign, which works to replace the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor with solar panels, energy efficiency programs, windmills, geothermal energy, and other renewables. Safe and Green works closely with www.nukebusters.org and www.vpirg.org
Vermont Yankee is three miles from Massachusetts and a stone’s throw from New Hampshire.
Pete Seeger said, "Charlie King is one of the finest singers and songwriters of our time."
Seven local bands, some of which tour nationally, played at a festival whose mission was to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The music festival was on September 17 in Newfane, Vermont. The bands were outstanding. Among the highlights were Simba and Pulse Prophets. Hundreds of people attended; many danced. The autumn weather was sunny and comfortable.
Here are the web sites of the bands that performed: