twi-ny recommended events

TICKET ALERT: BAM 2016 NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

Mikhail Baryshnikov channels Nijinsky in Robert Wilson’s LETTER TO A MAN (photo by Lucie Jansch)

Who: Performers and/or creators Mikhail Baryshnikov, Isabelle Huppert, Ivo van Hove, Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, John Jasperse, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Alarm Will Sound, Howard Fishman, David Lang, Jonah Bokaer, Daniel Arsham, TR Warszawa, Cheek by Jowl, the Magnetic Fields, So Percussion, Wordless Music Orchestra, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Kyle Abraham / Abraham.In.Motion, Faye Driscoll, Mark Morris Dance Group, and many more
What: Annual fall interdisciplinary performance festival
Where: BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St.), BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave.), BAM Fisher (321 Ashland Pl.)
When: September 7 – December 3
Why: Tickets for BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival have just gone on sale to the general public, but you better hurry if you want to see some of the hottest shows of what is always a great collection of innovative dance, music, film, theater, and hard-to-describe hybrid presentations from around the world. This year there are more than five dozen events, including performances, talks, and master classes. We don’t know about you, but we’ll be practically living at BAM this fall. Below are five of our don’t miss favorites.

Isabelle Huppert stars as a modern-day mythical queen in PHAEDRA(S) (photo by Pascal Victor/ArtComArt)

PHAEDRA(S)
BAM Harvey Theater
September 13-18, $30-$95
Isabelle Huppert is back at BAM, following her stunning turns in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis in 2005 and Robert Wilson’s Quartett in 2009. This time she stars as the mythological queen in Phaedra(s), in which director Krzysztof Warlikowski and Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe incorporate texts by Kane, Wajdi Mouawad, and J. M. Coetzee to tell the three-and-a-half-hour story of love and tragedy. On September 18, BAM will host the related panel discussion “Phaedra Interpreted” at Borough Hall as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival.

REMAINS
BAM Harvey Theater
September 21-24, $20-$45
John Jasperse, who presented the exhilarating Canyon at BAM in 2011, now looks back at his thirty-year career as well as toward the future in Remains, featuring dancers Maggie Cloud, Marc Crousillat, Burr Johnson, Heather Lang, Stuart Singer, and Claire Westby and music by John King. On September 22 at 2:00 ($30), Jasperse will teach a master class for intermediate to professional dancers at the Mark Morris Dance Center, and on September 23 at 6:00 ($25) he will participate in a talk with Tere O’Connor at BAM Fisher.

LETTER TO A MAN
BAM Harvey Theater
October 15-30, $35-$120
BAM regular Robert Wilson reteams with Mikhail Baryshnikov in this multimedia staging of the diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky; the two collaborated at BAM in 2014 with The Old Woman. Baryshnikov recently paid tribute to his friend Joseph Brodsky in Brodsky/Baryshnikov, while Wilson has presented such aural and visual spectacles at BAM as Quartett, The Black Rider, and Woyzeck. On October 24 at 7:00 at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, “Inside Nijinsky’s Diaries” will consist of an actor reading from the diaries, followed by a discussion (free with advance RSVP).

Ivo van Hove merges multiple Shakespeare plays into KINGS OF WAR (photo by Jan Versweyveld)

KINGS OF WAR
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
November 3-6, $24-$130
In-demand director Ivo van Hove and Toneelgroep Amsterdam return to BAM for a four-and-a-half-hour adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry VI Parts I, II & III, and Richard III. Van Hove has previously staged such works as Angels in America, Cries and Whispers, and Antigone (with Juliette Binoche) at BAM, in addition to the double shot of A View from the Bridge and The Crucible on Broadway.

THANK YOU FOR COMING: PLAY
BAM Fisher
Judith and Alan Fishman Space
November 16-19, $25
Choreographer Faye Driscoll follows up Thank You for Coming: Attendance with this new work, which we got a sneak peek at this past weekend on Governors Island. Driscoll’s presentations (There is so much mad in me, 837 Venice Blvd.) are always involving and unpredictable, and this piece is no exception. Driscoll will also be teaching a master class on November 18 at 2:00 ($30) for performers at all levels.

PRIVACY

A closed-down writer (Daniel Radcliffe) has trouble opening up to a psychiatrist (Reg Rogers) in PRIVACY at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

Newman Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor P.
Tuesday through Sunday through August 14, $100
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org

Tickets to James Graham and Josie Rourke’s Privacy come with a unique set of terms and conditions, advising “Privacy is a unique theatrical production that involves interactive moments with the audience, designed to explore how public many details of our lives have become. In order to better explore these issues, information that you provide when purchasing ticket(s) to the production of Privacy at the Public Theater will be used to inform some moments during your performance.” As far as “involving” theater goes, this coproduction with London’s Donmar Warehouse takes it to the next level, especially when, right before the show begins, the prerecorded voice of Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis asks audience members to leave their phone on, and then an address is given where they can send photos and texts to. Daniel Radcliffe stars as the Writer, a young man obsessing over his recent breakup with his boyfriend, who accused him of being too closed off. He is too scared to open up and share his innermost thoughts even with a psychiatrist (Reg Rogers), who guides him into situations in which he mentally faces his divorced parents (Rachel Dratch and Michael Countryman) and meets experts on information technology, cybersecurity, surveillance, social media, and personal privacy in the age of the iPhone. Among those he speaks with are Harvard professor Jill Lepore, journalists Ewen MacAskill and James Bamford, OKCupid cofounder Christian Rudder, MIT professor Sherry Turkle, former Facebook marketing director Randi Zuckerberg, FBI director James Comey, and U.S. senator Ron Wyden. These experts and family who enter the Writer’s mind are played by De’Adre Aziza, Raffi Barsoumian, an excellent Countryman, a terrific Dratch, and an outstanding Rogers and are identified by a projection of their faces and credentials on a large rear wall; all of their words are based on original interviews conducted by Graham and Rourke. As the Writer considers sharing more of his life with the psychiatrist as well as online, the audience is asked numerous times to text information or photos that are processed by onstage researcher Harry Davies and, within minutes, are incorporated into the show in clever ways. It’s almost like magic, but instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Davies reveals surprisingly easy-to-access details about audience members. It’s both funny and frightening, but to say much more would give away too many of the show’s “tricks,” including a video appearance by a very special guest near the end.

Privacy concerns, with the onstage actors as well as audience members, are at the heart of James Graham and Josie Rourke’s participatory show (photo by Joan Marcus)

The casting of Radcliffe (The Cripple of Inishmaan, Equus) to play the shy, reserved Writer works on two major levels; first, he is excellent in the role, his unwillingness to talk about himself and his hesitant body movements beautifully capturing his character’s fears. In addition, Radcliffe became such an international star from the Harry Potter movies that he probably enjoys very little privacy in real life. He is particularly effective in a scene that may or may not be mostly improvised. When he is not the main subject of attention in the show, it drags significantly, but fortunately that is never for too long. Lucy Osborne’s uncomplicated set design allows Duncan McLean’s creative projections to often steal the audience’s attention, especially when — well, you’ll have to find that our for yourself, but don’t be surprised if you discover something rather personal about various people seated around you. Meanwhile, you won’t learn much about the cast in the Playbill, as numerous words and sentences have been redacted. And if you’re wondering who is providing the voiceovers, it’s British actors Simon Russell Beale and Harriet Walter. The first half of the show, which focuses on the Writer, is much stronger than the second half, which occasionally gets lost in the marvels of technology and the implications of sharing private information online. Also, if you already closely follow the ongoing controversies about government surveillance, drones, hacked email servers, smartphone protections, social media and online shopping algorithms, and other such privacy concerns, you might not learn much that is new. But writer Graham (This House, Finding Neverland) and director Rourke (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, City of Angels), who have also collaborated on The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse, maintain just enough drama to keep all of the data from overwhelming the story. (Radcliffe will be taking part in a TimesTalk with director Daniel Ragussis at the TimesCenter on August 8 at 7:00, discussing their upcoming film, Imperium; tickets are available here.)

EUDORA WELTY — MISSISSIPPI STORIES

Jenny Odle Madden and Alice Rainey Berry bring Eudora Welty and one of her most beloved stories to life in MISSISSIPPI STORIES (Fowler Photography)

Jenny Odle Madden and Alice Rainey Berry bring Eudora Welty and one of her most beloved tales to life in MISSISSIPPI STORIES (Fowler Photography)

The Studio Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Thursday – Sunday through August 7, $35
www.summonersensemble.org
www.theatrerow.org

Summoners Ensemble Theatre and Memphis-based Voices of the South pay tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning southern writer Eudora Welty in Eudora Welty — Mississippi Stories, a pair of minimalist one-acts, adapted and directed by Gloria Baxter and starring Jenny Odle Madden and Alice Rainey Berry, running at the small gray box Studio Theatre at Theatre Row through August 7. The show begins with a delightful interpretation of one of Welty’s most beloved short stories, “Why I Live at the P.O.” Published in the 1941 collection A Curtain of Green, the tale is narrated by Sister (Berry) as her family (all played by Madden) gathers for a July 4 celebration. Sister’s younger sibling, Stella-Rondo, spends the day turning everyone against Sister in shameful ways. “Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she’s spoiled,” Sister explains. “She’s always had anything in the world she wanted and then she’d throw it away. Papa-Daddy gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when she was eight years old and she threw it away playing baseball when she was nine, with only two pearls.” Stella-Rondo has left her husband, Mr. Whitaker, and returned home with a two-year-old daughter whom she insists is adopted despite the child’s highly suspicious resemblance to both Stella-Rondo and the absent Mr. Whitaker. As the women’s long-simmering rivalry heats up, Sister’s standing in the family grows more and more dire. Berry is spectacular as Sister, delivering Welty’s slyly uproarious words with the poetry and grace they deserve, the lines just flowing off her tongue as she walks around the three chairs that form all the scenery on the stark stage and maintains nearly continual direct eye contact with the audience, making sure no one misses a single instant. Fluidly shifting among multiple eccentric characters, Madden overplays her roles with exaggerated gestures and cartoony facial movements, but Berry manages to bring it all back home every time.

In the second act, Berry and Madden both portray Welty in “Listening,” the first chapter from Welty’s 1984 memoir, One Writer’s Beginnings. The chairs are removed and replaced by a trunk and a long spread of fabric on the floor, which occasionally come into play as Welty recounts scenes from her childhood that put her on her career path. (Madden:) “In our house on North Congress Street in Jackson, Mississippi, where I was born, the oldest of three children, in 1909,” (Berry:) “we grew up to the striking of clocks.” (Madden:) “There was a mission-style oak grandfather clock standing in the hall,” (Berry:) “which sent its gong-like strokes through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and pantry, and up the sounding board of the stairwell. Through the night, it could find its way into our ears; sometimes, even on the sleeping porch, midnight could wake us up.” Welty remembers discovering the moon and sun and stars, listening to her mother tell stories to her friends, and hearing such expressions as “Well, I declare,” “You don’t say so,” and “Surely not.” Madden then adds, “Years later, beginning with my story ‘Why I Live at the P.O.,’ I wrote reasonably often in the form of a monologue that takes possession of the speaker,” to which Berry finishes, “How much more gets told besides!” The second work lacks the drama of the first, but it still tantalizes with Welty’s glorious language and observations about time. Once again Berry is excellent, displaying a natural acting ability that helps distract from Madden’s grander tendencies, which are calmer here than in “Why I Live at the P.O.” The theater world is often overloaded with Shakespeare, Williams, Albee, Shepard, Miller, etc.; Eudora Welty — Mississippi Stories offers a splendid literary alternative. (Note: Ten percent of all ticket sales goes to the Mississippi Center for Justice, which seeks is dedicated to advancing racial and economic justice.)

LAST CHANCE — HEY! HO! LET’S GO! RAMONES AND THE BIRTH OF PUNK / QUEENS INTERNATIONAL 2016

Danny Fields, “Ramones in alley behind CBGB,” 1977 (photo courtesy the artist)

Queens Museum
New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Sunday, July 31, suggested admission $8, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
718-592-9700
www.queensmuseum.org

“The Ramones all originate from Forest Hills and kids who grew up there either became musicians, degenerates or dentists. The Ramones are a little of each. Their sound is not unlike a fast drill on a rear molar,” Tommy Erdelyi, aka Tommy Ramone, wrote in in the Ramones’ first press release. That artifact serves as the perfect introduction to “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk,” which closes at the Queens Museum on Sunday, July 31, along with the Queens International 2016. The Ramones celebration is being held in conjunction with the fortieth anniversary of the band’s debut album, Ramones, which featured lead singer Joey (Jeffrey Hyman), guitarist Johnny (John Cummings), bassist Dee Dee (Douglas Colvin), and drummer Tommy pumping out fourteen songs in less than half an hour, a nonstop barrage that included “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” and “53rd & 3rd,” on their way to changing the shape of music and underground culture around the world. The exhibition consists of memorabilia galore, from photographs, videos, and artwork to handwritten lyrics, letters, T-shirts, and concert posters, as well as a few of their classic leather jackets and instruments (and the Schlitzie mask used during “Pinhead”). In a back room, the Ramones’ 1977 New Year’s Eve concert at the Rainbow in London plays continuously on the big screen. It’s the first of a two-part exhibition; the second iteration begins in September at the Grammy Museum in L.A. Gabba gabba hey!

Abby Dobson and Sam Vernon will perform in front of Vernon’s “Louis & Sam” collage at the Queens Museum on July 31 (photo by QM Curatorial Staff)

Sunday is also your last chance to catch “Queens International 2016,” the museum’s biennial exhibition focusing on artists who live and/or work in the borough, this time looking at the concept of thresholds. We’re particularly fond of Kate Gilmore’s “Beat It” video (don’t read about it in advance and simply experience it), the Janks Archive’s “The Internal Insults,” a collection of razzes in multiple languages; Alan Ruiz’s “Western Standards,” a different kind of Mexican wall; Melanie McLain’s “Prepersonal” installation, which you are supposed to touch; Shadi Harouni’s “The Lightest of Stones,” a video in which she pulls down rocks in a pumice quarry in Iranian Kurdistan; and Brian Caverly’s “Studio Abandon,” a miniature re-creation of his Ridgewood studio. The closing festivities on Sunday start at 1:00 with “Las Reinas,” a performance by Jesus Benavente and Felipe Castelblanco involving the creation of a new song by two mariachi bands, one in Queens and one in Colombia. At 2:30, “When You’re Smiling . . . The Many Faces of the Mask” is a site-specific performance by singer Abby Dobson and guitarist Sam Vernon in response to the latter’s wall collage “Louis & Sam.” And at 3:00, there will be a screening of “A Frame Apart: Short Films Showcase,” followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE: TRY TO ALTAR EVERYTHING

“Crucifom” is one of many unusual ritualistic artworks in Genesis Breyer P-Orridge exhibit at the Rubin Museum (courtesy Invisible-Exports)

“Cruciform” is one of many unusual ritualistic artworks in Genesis Breyer P-Orridge exhibit at the Rubin Museum (courtesy Invisible-Exports)

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Through August 1, $10-$15
212-620-5000
rubinmuseum.org

There are only three days left to see Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s intriguing and captivating site-specific, interactive-exchange exhibition “Try to Altar Everything.” Born Neil Andrew Megson in 1950 in Manchester, England, Genesis cofounded the influential industrial bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV as well as the art collective COUM Transmissions. Five years ago, Marie Losier’s documentary, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye: A Film of Transformation, detailed the love story between Genesis and Lady Jaye, both of whom went through various forms of plastic surgery to become one pandrogynous unit known as Breyer P-Orridge. (Pandrogeny stands for “positive androgeny.”) Lady Jaye passed away in 2007, and h/er death is evident throughout “Try to Altar Everything.” (The artist prefers such gender-neutral pronouns as “s/he,” “h/er,” or the plural “they” and “their.”) The exhibit explores occult ritual, faith and devotion, and the nature of objects; throughout the run of the show, visitors are encouraged to bring a small offering that will be placed in the circular containers in the walls on the sixth floor.

Genesis P-Orridge will take calls as part of Try to Altar Everything (photo courtesy Rubin Museum)

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge will take calls as part of “Try to Altar Everything” (photo courtesy Rubin Museum)

Genesis employs the cut-up method, popularized by Bryon Gysin and William S. Burroughs (whom she knew), to create sculptures and mixed-media collages that reference religion, from Christianity to Hindu and Tantric Buddhism. Each work is filled with strange and fascinating details that are worth investigating, including “Cruciform (Sigil Working),” in which a naked Lady Jaye adopts Christ’s pose on the cross; “Feeding the Fishes,” a shrine with fish, a mandala, and a sphere resting on a mold of gums and teeth; and “Reliquary,” a wooden box with sting ray skin, plastic eggs, a mirror, and photos. There are also illuminated standing coffins, a medicine chest, a bronze hand you’re supposed to touch, a stiletto shoe with bones and fur, and a cabinet of curiosities. And for “Listen Here,” Genesis will occasionally stop by the museum, take a seat in the regal red chair, and answer visitors’ phone calls. It’s a bold, wild, yet deeply personal exhibit that feels right at home at the Rubin. “Once you let go of all the different reasons to not do something, it leaves you with the freedom to do everything, and that was the path we chose,” Genesis says about taking risks in the Artist Extras section of the Rubin website. “Let’s go out and look for revelation, look for creation.” In addition, Genesis has curated a related Friday-night Cabaret Cinema series that continues through August 26 with Fellini Satyricon, Peter Collinson’s Up the Junction, John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar, and Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter, introduced by Simon Critchley.

MISS SHARON JONES!

Sharon Jones is nervous about returning to the stage after tough cancer battle in Barbara Kopple’s intimate, affecting documentary

MISS SHARON JONES! (Barbara Kopple, 2015)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, July 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
sharonjonesandthedapkings.com

“I feel my day is coming, it’s my time,” soul singer extraordinaire Sharon Jones is shown saying at the beginning of Barbara Kopple’s touching and intimate documentary, Miss Sharon Jones! But that was before the former wedding singer and Rikers Island corrections officer, who was born in 1958 in North Augusta, South Carolina, raised in Brooklyn, and later lived in Queens, was diagnosed in June 2013 with stage two pancreatic cancer. Jones, who has been called the female James Brown — she tells a story in the film about the time she met the Godfather of Soul — allows the Oscar-winning Kopple (Shut Up & Sing, Harlan County, USA) remarkable access as she cuts off her trademark locks and chooses a wig, undergoes painful chemotherapy, is cared for by her close friend and holistic nutritionist Megan Holken, and visits her old stomping grounds in Augusta, Georgia. Jones shares her thoughts about her future, feeling responsible for the financial well-being of her longtime band, the Dap-Kings. “First and foremost, we’re a family,” Daptone Records cofounder and saxophonist Neal Sugarman says. In fact, “family” is a word that pops up often in the film when people describe their relationship with Jones, who has never married and has no children. Among those who talk about Jones, her amazing talent, and her fight with cancer are her oncologist, Dr. James Leonardo; her manager, Alex Kadvan, who is with her every step of the way; her assistant manager Austen Holman, who tries not to break down on camera; Daptone Records cofounder and bassist Gabe Roth; guitarist Binky Griptite, who is up front about his financial troubles while the band is on hiatus; drummer Homer Steinweiss; and Dapettes Starr Duncan Lowe and Saundra Williams.

Sharon Jones, the female James Brown, takes the stage in Barbara Kopple’s MISS SHARON JONES!

Jones is a fiery dynamo onstage, pounding the floor in her bare feet, shaking her dreads wildly, a relentless performer in a compact package. (We’ve seen Miss Jones perform numerous times, including with Prince at Madison Square Garden, and Kopple does a masterful job capturing Jones’s infectious passion and energy.) She proves herself to be quite the character offstage as well, an unpredictable force who is at ease lighting up a cigar while fishing in a lake, not embarrassed to admit that her dream is to dance on Ellen with Ellen DeGeneres, and lifted by the power when delivering an awe-inspiring rendition of the Gospel standard “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” in a Queens church. Of course, the film is filled with lots of great music, all originals by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, including “I Learned the Hard Way,” “Get Up and Get Out,” “Longer & Stronger,” “I’ll Still Be True,” and “100 Days, 100 Nights.” As the chemotherapy nears its conclusion, Jones, itching to return to the stage, wonders whether she’ll be strong enough to go back out on tour behind their latest record, the aptly titled Give the People What They Want.After seeing the film, Jones posted on social media, “I never thought I had a story, but Barbara Kopple and her team captured a beautiful one during the most difficult months of my life. They were able to make the difficulty in what I went through mean a lot. You see a part of life I never would have looked at and it was moving for me to be able to see all the people it affected.” Miss Sharon Jones! is indeed a moving, deeply affecting film. It opens at IFC Center on July 29, with Kopple and Jones participating in Q&As following the 7:45 screenings on July 29 and 30.

ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS AT CITY WINERY

Eric Burdon and the Animals will play two intimate shows at City Winery August 8-9 (photo © David Weimann)

City Winery
155 Varick St. between Spring & Vandam Sts.
Monday, August 8, and Tuesday, August 9, $85-$125, 8:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com/newyork
www.ericburdon.com

In his 2012 SXSW keynote address, Bruce Springsteen talked about the influence Eric Burdon and the Animals had on him. Playing “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” on an acoustic guitar, Springsteen said, “That’s every song I’ve ever written. That’s all of them. I’m not kidding.” He also called listening to the Animals for the first time “a revelation.” The next year, Burdon joined Springsteen and the E Street Band, who used to turn the Animals’ “It’s My Life” into a showpiece in their early days, onstage in Cardiff for a stirring version of “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”; clearly, Burdon had forgiven Springsteen for calling the Animals the “ugliest” band in rock and roll. I felt the same way the first time I heard the Animals; they were so different from fellow British Invaders the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones, and the Kinks. They were a bunch of working-class guys you would not want to meet in a dark alley, infusing their music with the deep heart of the blues while also offering escape. I remember seeing Burdon perform in the 1980s at Westbury Music Fair in the round, where he covered Springsteen’s “Factory,” which described a life he knew, having been born and raised in the coal-mining town of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Eric Burdon and the Animals back in the British Invasion days

In 1986, about halfway through his storied career, Burdon wrote the memoir I Used to Be an Animal But I’m All Right Now. Since 1962, he has been the lead singer of numerous on-again, off-again incarnations of the band, which has been beset by breakups and lawsuits over the years; the latest edition will be returning to New York for two intimate shows at City Winery August 8-9, following their two sold-out performances there last October. Burdon has one of the most powerful, distinctive voices in rock and roll history, melding blues, funk, jazz, R&B, folk, hard rock, psychedelia, and other styles over a career that has included playing with the ever-changing lineup of Animals as well as with War, the Eric Burdon Band, Eric Burdon’s Fire Dept., the Eric Burdon Brian Auger Band, Eric Burdon and the Greenhornes, and as a solo act. Burdon’s remarkable back catalog is ripe with amazing songs: In addition to the aforementioned “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” and “It’s My Life,” there’s “The House of the Rising Sun,” “Sky Pilot,” “San Franciscan Nights,” “Spill the Wine,” “Tobacco Road,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” among so many more, both originals and covers of such legends as Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, and other great bluesmen. “My faith was so much stronger then / I believed in fellow men / And I was so much older then / When I was young,” he sang back in 1966; half a century later, Burdon is still going strong, having just celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday in May.

A painter and actor (check out the German film Comeback) as well as an author (he also wrote Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood in 2002 and is working on a third memoir), the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is no mere novelty act; he’s back on the road with guitarist Johnzo West, keyboardist Davey Allen, bassist Justin Andres, saxophonist Ruben Salinas, trombonist Evan Mackey, and drummer Dustin Koester, playing the big hits in addition to songs from his latest record, 2013’s personal and political ’Til Your River Runs Dry, which boasts such tunes as Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me”; “Memorial Day,” which honors soldiers and pacifists; and “27 Forever,” which pays tribute to all those musicians who died at the age of twenty-seven. Burdon has seen it all, from drugs and the height of success to going broke and battling over song credits; in fact, after a long legal fight, he recently regained the UK rights to the name the Animals, so he will be playing what is being billed as “The Homecoming” in Newcastle on September 7. But before then, you can catch Mr. Burdon at City Winery, where he will play a wide range of songs from throughout a remarkable, still vibrant career, doing what he was born to do. “Nothing’s changed, I’m still the same,” he sings on ’Til Your River Runs Dry. “Old habits die hard.” (Brooklyn-based Alberta Cross will open both nights.)