Tag Archives: steve earle

THE 40th ANNUAL NEW YEAR’S DAY MARATHON BENEFIT READING

The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church
131 East 10th St. at Second Ave.
Wednesday, January 1, $20, 2:00 pm – 12 midnight
www.poetryproject.org

Every January 1, New Yorkers flock to the Poetry Project at St. Marks Church for the annual poetry marathon, consisting of readings by the famous and not-so-famous, poets and performance artists, journalists and musicians, welcoming in the new year while also raising funds for the nonprofit literary organization. This year’s marathon will include a raffle, a three-hour prime-time spot emceed by Sean Cole, and a trio of special-edition tote bags, as well as readings by nearly one hundred and fifty regulars and newcomers from multiple disciplines, among them Anselm Berrigan, Anne Waldman, Bob Holman, Bob Rosenthal, CA Conrad, Carolee Scheemann, Dynasty Handbag, Edmund Berrigan, Edwin Torres, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elliott Sharp, JD Samson & Emily Roysdon, Jennifer Bartlett, Jennifer Monson & Chris Cochrane, John Giorno, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Justin Vivian Bond, Legs McNeil, Lenny Kaye, Lynne Tillman, Maggie Dubris, Nick Hallett, Patti Smith, Penny Arcade, Philip Glass, Rachel Trachtenburg, Steve Earle, Tammy Faye Starlite w/ Steve Earle, Thurston Moore, Yoshiko Chuma, Yvonne Meier, and Yvonne Rainer.

THE 33rd ANNUAL JOHN LENNON TRIBUTE

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharp Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Friday, December 6, $65-$105, 8:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.lennontribute.org

Every year since 1981, a group of musicians has gotten together to pay tribute to John Lennon, who was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman in front of the Dakota on December 8, 1980. A proponent of peace and love in his life and career, Lennon was only forty years old at the time of his death and had just released his first album in five years, Double Fantasy, with his wife, Yoko Ono. On Friday, December 6, the thirty-third annual John Lennon tribute will be held at Symphony Space, featuring performances by Steve Earle, Raul Malo, Joan Osborne, Teddy Thompson, Dana Fuchs, Bettye LaVette, Dan Bern, Toshi Reagon, Rich Pagano, the Buffers, and Joe Raiola, the MAD magazine senior editor who created the tribute. The event is presented by Music Without Borders and Theatre Within, an organization dedicated to supporting the performing arts. A portion of the proceeds from the concert will go to Spirit Foundations, a nonprofit that was founded by John and Yoko in 1978 to help “charitable and humanitarian causes around the world.”

THE EXONERATED

Powerful, intense, and crucially important, THE EXONERATED is back at the Culture Project for a special tenth-anniversary engagement (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Culture Project
45 Bleecker St. between Lafayette & Bowery
Tuesday – Sunday through November 4, $30-$99
866-811-4111
www.cultureproject.org
www.theexonerated.com

Ten years ago, married couple Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen’s groundbreaking The Exonerated debuted at the Culture Project. The riveting, multiple-award-winning play, which follows the true, harrowing stories of five men and one woman who found themselves on death row for crimes they did not commit, is now back at 45 Bleecker St. for a special return engagement, and it’s as powerful as ever, as innocent people continue to be incarcerated and executed in this country. On a dark stage, ten people sit in front of black music stands, relating their stories as overhead lights single them out, with occasional interstitial music by David Robbins. The production, again directed by Bob Balaban, features a regular cast of six actors, along with a rotating selection of four guest stars taking on some of the major roles. The central figures are Gary Gauger (Brian Dennehy), Kerry Max Cook (Chris Sarandon), Robert Earl Hayes (JD Williams), David Keaton (Curtis McClarin), Delbert Tibbs (Delroy Lindo), and Sonia “Sunny” Jacobs (Stockard Channing), each of whom was wrongly arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. They are joined by Jim Bracchitta and Bruce Kronenberg as various cops, prosecutors, and other public officials, April Yvette Thompson as Hayes’s wife, and Amelia Campbell as Cook’s and Gauger’s wives; Campbell, McClarin, and Kronenberg reprise their roles from the original stage production, while Dennehy and Lindo previously played their parts in the 2005 Court TV movie. Every single word of The Exonerated is taken from interviews, court transcripts, letters, and other primary sources; nothing is fictionalized, which adds to the play’s intense power. The terrifying personal journeys of the six wrongly convicted people explore such issues as racism, homophobia, and political maneuvering in which the truth seems to always take a backseat. Even though the audience knows that the six people have been freed, the play is beautifully paced, cutting from one character to another as the tension mounts and the details grow more and more amazing and hard to believe. The acting is solid throughout, but Lindo is particularly mesmerizing, speaking Tibbs’s poetic words with a masterful grace. Dennehy, Channing, and Sarandon continue through September 23 and Lindo through September 30; upcoming celebrity guests include Steve Earle, K’naan, Lyle Lovett, Brooke Shields, and the real Sunny Jacobs. Numerous shows will also be followed by panel discussions featuring such groups as the Innocence Project, Amnesty International, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Reinvestigation Project. The Exonerated not only makes for terrific theater, but its importance cannot be overstated. Don’t miss it — especially if you’re in favor of the death penalty.

HAPPY TALK

The Rubin Museum examines the pursuit of happiness with a series of cool programs through December

Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
September 23 – December 21, $20 – $35 (Love Songs $85, Cabaret Cinema free with $7 bar purchase)
212-620-5000
www.rmanyc.org

Rubin Museum genius programmer Tim McHenry is at it again, coming up with yet another unique and fascinating series at one of the city’s most exciting institutions. “Just how happy are you?” the man behind the perennially thrilling Brainwave festival asks. “The alleviation of suffering is central to Buddhist belief; the result is a form of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is cited as an inalienable right in the Declaration of Independence; the result is what, exactly? Are we talking about the same condition?” We all want to be happy, but happiness is different for every one of us. On September 23, Happy Talk kicks off with a series of inspired pairings, as artists from a variety of disciplines sit down with scientists, philosophers, and other big-time thinkers to discuss what inner and outer, personal and public joy is all about. That first session will feature entertainment legend Elaine Stritch with Duke Institute for Brain Sciences member P. Murali Doraiswamy and will be followed by such promising duos as performance artist Laurie Anderson and Harvard psychiatry professor Daniel Gilbert, meditation expert Sharon Salzberg and visual artist Josh Melnick, Dexter star Michael C. Hall and Cambridge research psychologist Kevin Dutton, playwright Neil Labute and singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, and award-winning actress Julianne Moore and Berkeley philosophy and psychology professor Alison Gopnik, among others. As a sidebar, the Rubin’s Friday-night Cabaret Cinema turns its attention to the theme of “Happiness is…,” with Dan Kleinman introducing Woody Allen’s Annie Hall on September 21, Molly Neuman discussing Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train on September 28, and Lili Taylor talking about Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life on October 5; the series continues through December 21 with such other films that deal with various levels of unhappiness as Five Easy Pieces, 8½, The 400 Blows, Brief Encounter, South Pacific, and Grapes of Wrath. In addition, the Rubin will premiere Victress Hitchcock’s documentary When the Iron Bird Flies, which examines Tibetan Buddhism’s path around the world, October 19-24, with most screenings including special speakers. And finally, on December 7, Rosanne Cash will present “Love Songs,” an evening of music with a trio of happy musical couples: Cash and John Leventhal, Steve Earle and Allison Moorer, and Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams. Wanna know one of the things that makes us happy? Our regular visits to the Rubin Museum, which never fails to ignite our minds and put huge smiles on our faces.

WOODYFEST

Steve Earle and special guests will celebrate Woody Guthrie’s centennial at City Winery this week

CELEBRATION OF WOODY GUTHRIE’S 100th BIRTHDAY
City Winery
155 Varick St.
July 11-13, $60-$80, 8:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com

One hundred years ago this Saturday, folk-singing legend Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. In his too-brief career — he died from Huntington’s Disease in 1967 in Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens at the age of fifty-five, his ashes sprinkled in the ocean at Coney Island — he created a lasting legacy that proved that music can make a difference in changing socioeconomic and -political times. His 1940 album, Dust Bowl Ballads, is still a primer for the folk movement, containing such songs as “I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore,” “Vigilante Man,” “Pretty Boy Floyd,” and “Blowin’ Down This Road.” This week City Winery will pay tribute to Woodrow Wilson Guthrie — yes, he was named after the New Jersey governor who was soon to become president — with the centennial celebration WoodyFest, part of a yearlong series of concerts put together with the Grammy Museum, the Woody Guthrie Archives, and the Guthrie family. The three-day event will be hosted by actor, author, activist, and folk troubadour Steve Earle, who is a kind of illegitimate son of Guthrie and Hank Williams. On July 11, Earle will be joined by John Hammond, Tim Robbins, and Diana Jones, followed on July 12 by Rachael Yamagata, the Wood Brothers, and Allen Toussaint and July 13 by Billy Bragg, Amy Helm, and Joe Purdy, with more to come. Be sure to study up on those other verses of “This Land Is Your Land,” because there’s sure to be a sing-along of the whole song.

NEW YEAR’S DAY POETRY MARATHONS

Visual artist and bilingual poet Yuko Otomo will participate in both New Year’s Day marathons (photo by Marilyn Kaggen)

Every January 1, a pair of poetry marathons do battle on the Lower East Side in celebration of the new year. The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church (131 East 10th St. at Second Ave., $20, 3:00 – 12 midnight) will be hosting its thirty-eighth annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading, featuring 140 artists, 52 of whom contributed a line to the broadside “Exquisite Corpse,” which begins, “Language is what the rocks thought of when they wanted to walk.” The always spectacular lineup includes Anne Waldman with Ambrose Bye & Daniel Carter, Bob Hershon, Church of Betty, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elliott Sharp, John Giorno, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Judith Malina, Lee Ranaldo, Lenny Kaye, Mónica de la Torre, Nick Hallett, Patti Smith, Penny Arcade, Steve Earle, Susie Timmons, Suzanne Vega, Taylor Mead, Thurston Moore, Wayne Koestenbaum, Yoshiko Chuma, and Yvonne Meier with Aki Sasamoto. The exact schedule is available only onsite. Meanwhile, over at the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery between Houston & Bleecker Sts., free with suggested donation of paperback books for Books Through Bars, 2:00 – 12 midnight), the eighteenth annual Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word and Performance Extravaganza features more than 150 performers as well an open mic, with such guests as Corrina Bain, Richard Kostelanetz, Ocean Vuong, EJ Antonio, Adam Falkner, Marcy Alexis, Steve Cannon, Emanuel Xavier, Kathi Georges, Jackie Sheeler, Eve Packer, Nancy Mercado, Ngoma, Sparrow, Laura Dinnebeil, Angelo Vergas, and such double-duty poets as Steve Dalachinsky, Anselm Berrigan, and Yuko Otomo, who will read at both marathons. This year’s Bowery theme is “Kaleidoscope”: “Come observe what happens when words shift and flicker! We are a circle of mirrors. Together we reflect the rest of the world.”

STEVE EARLE/ALLISON MOORER & FRIENDS

Married Greenwich Village duo Allison Moorer and Steve Earle will be joined by special guests during four-week summer residency at City Winery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

City Winery
155 Varick St.
July 8, 15, 29 & August 5, $45-$65, 9:00
212-608-0555
www.citywinery.com

Husband-and-wife singer-songwriters Steve Earle and Allison Moorer begin a four-week summer residency at City Winery on July 8 with a sold-out show featuring Rosanne Cash, who just played a terrific set with her band on Governors Island on July 4. Earle, a fierce political activist and engaging live performer, mixes country, folk, blues, and rock on such records as GUITAR TOWN (1986), COPPERHEAD ROAD (1988), I FEEL ALRIGHT (1996), and THE REVOLUTION STARTS NOW (2004); his wife, meanwhile, is a more traditional country artist who has released such discs as CROWS (2010), MOCKINGBIRD (2008), and THE DUEL (2004). On July 15 the Greenwich Village couple will be joined by Earle’s son, Justin Townes Earle, a fine singer-songwriter in his own right, as evidenced by his excellent first two albums, THE GOOD LIFE (2008) and MIDNIGHT AT THE MOVIES (2009); his third, HARLEM RIVER BLUES, is due September 4. On July 29, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band comes up from New Orleans to take the stage with Earle and Moorer; the guest for August 5 has yet to be announced. If you’ve never seen Steve Earle live, this is a great opportunity at an intimate venue to catch one of the most underrated, controversial, and talented performers of the last twenty-five years.