An Evening of Soulful Blues, Roots & Folk Music

 By Michael Kornfeld

Beaucoup Blue, a Philadelphia -based father-and son-acoustic blues and roots duo, shares a bill with Canadian singer-songwriter Jon Brooks during the Folk Music Society of Huntington’s First Saturday Concerts series on May 3 at the Congregational Church of Huntington (30 Washington Drive, Centerport, NY). The 8:30 p.m. concert is preceded by an open mic at 7:30 p.m. Tickets, priced at $25, $20 for FMSH members, may be purchased online at fmsh.org using a credit card or at the door (cash and checks only). For more information, visit the website or call (631) 425-2925.

Beaucoup Blue has delighted audiences at previous FMSH concert and during the 2011 Huntington Folk Festival with its tasty mix of original songs and select covers. Blending soulful traditional and contemporary styles, the duo creates an innovative and authentic sound that covers a wide swath of what constitutes today’s Americana music.

Beaucoup Blue has been named the grand-prize winner in both the Billboard Magazine World Songwriting Contest and the Telluride Blues & Brews Acoustic Competition, while its albums have charted on Americana, roots and folk radio.

Adrian Mowry plays 6- and 12-string guitars, while his dad, David, an experienced blues master, plays six-string, slide and dobro guitars. The two trade off on vocals. Although strongly rooted in the blues, the duo’s music draws on country, folk, soul, R&B, and jazz as well.

Jon Brooks has been a winner in the prestigious Kerrville New Folk Competition, a Canadian regional winner in the Mountain Stage Newsong Competition, and a three-time Songwriter of the Year nominee in the Canadian Folk Music Awards. He writes songs “to calm those who’ve looked into, and seen, what is in their hearts [and] to terrify those who have not.”

His music is filled with grey and morally ambiguous characters living on the outskirts of approval, but his mandate is unequivocal. Says Brooks: “I’m not interested in writing ‘happy songs’ – I’ve chosen to write healing songs, and for that reason I’m obliged to reveal a wound or two now and then. That said, I’m less interested in writing ‘unhappy songs’: I want to write hopeful songs, inspiring songs, and I expect I owe today’s listener some compelling argument as to why we should believe our present world can be improved, or healed. A song’s highest aim is to invoke empathy – to offer that rare sight of ourselves in others. In this sense, the songwriter is simply trying to ‘politicize love.’ Hence my contention: Today’s songwriter should be a lobbyist for compassion to be our principal representative in government office.”

Now in its 45th year, the Folk Music Society of Huntington is  a volunteer-based nonprofit organization that presents two monthly concert series, a monthly folk jam and sing-along, and an annual folk festival in conjunction with the Huntington Arts Council.