PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present a singer-songwriter showcase, in person and via livestream, featuring Paper Wings, Jason Scaggs, Emily Margaret, and Michael Roberts at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill Rd., Friday, Jan. 30 at 7:30 pm.
Southern Vermont-based Scaggs, Margaret, and Roberts will perform an in-the-round set, followed by the Nashville-based duo Paper Wings.
Longtime friends and collaborators Emily Mann and Wila Frank, known together as Paper Wings, “dream up warm, pastoral folk songs suited to wandering through a forest or field, quiet contemplation, and long winding journeys,” organizers wrote in a news release.
With banjo and harmonies “so close you often can’t tell their voices apart,” Mann and Frank play American folk music and their own style of music.
“The strength and solitude one finds in the wilderness” is a theme throughout their writing, and they “lovingly transport listeners to open landscapes in which to find comfort and ask the questions which we all have in common,” said organizers.
Scaggs’s music encompasses Appalachian roots with southern Vermont sound. His songs “carry the warmth and grit of traditional bluegrass, but he bends those traditions with groove-forward rhythms and unexpected melodic turns,” Organizers said. “There’s a raw, lived-in quality to his vocals — equal parts storyteller and front-porch philosopher — that gives each performance an intimate, human edge.”
Margaret, an 18-year-old singer-songwriter from Guilford, began her musical journey early, picking up the ukulele at age 4 and the guitar at 7, and writing her first song by 9. Margaret has developed her craft under the guidance of industry veterans, including June Millington at the Institute of Musical Arts and two-time Grammy Award–winner Sonya Kitchell. Influenced by R&B and jazz, her music “explores deep emotions with lyrical sincerity, and her voice transitions seamlessly from delicate to powerful, offering a captivating blend of raw emotion and sophisticated melodies,” organizers wrote.
Roberts is a guitarist, improviser, singer-songwriter, and sound researcher living in Vermont. He founded the indie folk band Wooden Dinosaur, leads the Americana honky-tonk party band The Rear Defrosters, and composes ambient guitar and folk albums through his solo work. As a bandleader and sideman, event promoters said, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Newport Folk Festival, the Mongolian National Sports Stadium, and the Thing in the Spring Festival and has shared bills with Iris DeMent, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, The Devil Makes Three, the Suitcase Junket, and Chris Smither, among many others.
Next Stage is at 15 Kimball Hill in downtown Putney. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $20 advance, $25 at the door, and $10 for the livestream. For tickets and more information, contact nextstagearts.org or 802-387-0102. Beer, wine, and cocktail cash bar will be provided.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.