[Classifieds] Singer-songwriter Bill Staines Returns to Woods Hole for Concert #46

[MBL Classifieds]

The Woods Hole Folk Music Society’s 46th season will continue Sunday, January 28 with a performance by singer-songwriter Bill Staines, the only artist to perform every season since the organization’s founding in 1972. The concert will take place at 7:30 PM in Community Hall, 68 Water Street, Woods Hole. Doors open at 7 PM. Admission is $20 with discounts for members, seniors, youth and children; season passes are also available. Community Hall is handicapped accessible, and street parking is free after 6 PM.

Bill Staines is an icon in the world of contemporary folk music. A New England native, he was pivotal in shaping the Boston music scene in the 1960s, and for a time emceed the Sunday Hootenanny at the legendary Club 47 (now Passim) in Cambridge. He quickly became known for his warm baritone voice, welcoming stage presence, deadpan humor and deeply evocative original songs. A Boston Phoenix reviewer described him in 1971 as "simply Boston's best performer."

Mr. Staines has been performing across North America for over four decades at festivals, colleges, concerts, clubs, and coffeehouses. His music portrays a slice of Americana, filled with cowboys, Yukon adventurers, young lovers, fishermen, truckers and everyday working people. He sings of the beauty of nature, the challenges of raising children, the endurance of the human spirit, and the comic elements of life on the road.

His songs have appeared in grade school music books, church hymnals, and scouting campfire songbooks. Composer David Amram described Bill Staines as "a modern day Stephen Foster … [whose] songs will be around 100 years from now." He has influenced a myriad of artists including Peter, Paul, and Mary, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy, The Highwaymen, Jerry Jeff Walker, Glen Yarborough and Nanci Griffith, who says: "Bill Staines has been my hero since 1977. He picks up where Woody [Guthrie] left off, carrying on the tradition of stories and characters you wish you knew."

Bill Staines has appeared on HBO's award-winning series “Deadwood,” as well as Public Radio's “Mountain Stage” and on “A Prairie Home Companion.” His music has been used in a number of films, including “Off and Running” with Cyndi Lauper and “The Return of the Secaucus Seven,” the debut film for writer-director John Sayles. He has recorded twenty six albums and written over 300 songs, along with music books for adults and children and an autobiography entitled, “The Tour: A Life Between the Lines.” His two family albums, “The Happy Wanderer” and “One More River,” have won Parents' Choice Awards. In 2009, his highly popular song “All God's Critters” was released as a children's book with illustrations by Caldecott-honored artist Kadir Nelson.

In 2007, the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association presented Bill Staines with The Jerry Christen Award in recognition of his contribution to New England folk music. In 2015 the 80th Anniversary Issue of Yankee Magazine listed him as “one of the 80 gifts New England has given to America,” along with the likes of Stephen King and Katherine Hepburn. Mr. Staines is also one of the featured interviewees in The History Project from Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York, the oldest continuously running folk coffeehouse in the country. He appears regularly on folk music radio listener polls as a top all-time favorite folk artist and still performs nearly 200 concerts a year, with original songs offset by his signature blend of gentle wit and dry humor. His concerts are appropriate for families, and audiences are invited to join in on the choruses of many songs.

"His gentle lilting voice, spacious melodies and common-chord lyrics give his songs a homespun grace that often belies his mastery of the folk form.”- New England Folk Almanac


Upcoming WHFMS performances include: Feb. 11, Cindy Kallet and Grey Larson; Feb. 25, Windborne; Mar. 11, Claudia Schmidt & Sally Rogers; Mar. 25, Amy Gallatin & Stillwaters; Apr. 8, Joe Jencks.

The Woods Hole Folk Music Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enjoyment of folk music in all its forms. Concerts are made possible by support from its members, season subscribers, volunteers, and performers. Refreshments are served at intermission, and donations of baked goods are always welcome. More information is available at woodsholefolk at gmail.com<mailto:woodsholefolk at gmail.com> and www.arts-cape.com/whfolkmusic<http://www.arts-cape.com/whfolkmusic>.





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