Nov. 20 Hard Luck Café at Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre

By Michael Kornfeld

Houston-based singer-songwriter Libby Koch and Nova Scotia-based bluesman Manitoba Hal share the bill during the Folk Music Society of Huntington’s monthly Hard Luck Café series at the Cinema Arts Centre (423 Park Avenue, Huntington) on Thursday, Nov. 20. The 8:30 p.m. concert in the Cinema’s Sky Room will be preceded by an open mic at 7:30 p.m.. Tickets are $10 for Cinema Arts Centre and FMSH members, $15 for non-members. For more information, visit www.fmsh.org or call (631) 425-2925.

Libby Koch (pronounced “coke”) is an Americana singer-songwriter who draws from a classic blend of country, folk and rock. She performed this summer at the Kerrville Folk Festival’s Threadgill Theater and in the Emerging Artists Showcase at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. She also was a finalist in the Wildflower! Performing Songwriter Contest and a semifinalist in the Songwriter Serenade. Libby was named Songwriter of the Year (2013) by the Houston Press and was selected for official showcases at last year’s Southwest Regional Folk Alliance (SWRFA) and this year’s Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) conferences. She cites Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Janis Joplin, Patty Griffith & Dolly Parton as influences.

Earlier this year, the seventh generation Texan released her third full-length recording. Tennessee Colony is a collection of ten songs about family, faith and home inspired by the small East Texas town of the same name (pop. 150), where Libby’s mother’s family settled in the mid-1800s and in whose red clay ground many generations of her family were laid to rest. Several of the songs are based on stories her grandparents shared with her while she was growing up. Rich Warren, host of the nationally syndicated “Midnight Special” on WFMT in Chicago, named the album his CD of the Week (June 21, 2014). 

Manitoba Hal is a guitarist, songwriter and ukulele player. Using a combination of looping technology and effects, he creates a performance that is one-of-a-kind. His combination of finger picking and strumming creates an instantly accessible sound that complements his fresh and inventive originals and arrangements of traditional blues.

A consummate blues man, Manitoba Hal has toured Canada extensively with a ukulele. Picturing him in his 100 year-old cottage in Nova Scotia, one can’t help wonder how someone can sound like he grew up in the American Deep South and play raw, swamp, delta, Cajun and zydeco style blues. Hal developed the blues sound when he lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba (where he also got his name).

Noting that “Winnipeg, often referred to as the Chicago of the north, is situated in a delta between the Red and Assiniboine rivers,” Hal says: “I was born at the blues and when I found that music inside me, I came alive and my soul started expressing itself in songs that flowed with that music. The blues is where my soul came into this world. Where it will end up I don’t know, but I’m ready for the journey.” 

About the Presenters

Established in 1973, Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre (www.cinemaartscentre.org) seeks to bring the best of cinematic artistry to Long Island and use the power of film to expand the awareness and consciousness of our community. LI’s only not-for-profit, viewer-supported, independent cinema presents a wide array of films that are often accompanied by discussions and guest speakers.

Now in its 46th year, the Folk Music Society of Huntington presents two monthly concert series, a monthly folk jam and an annual folk festival in conjunction with the Huntington Arts Council.  Tom Chapin will be the featured artist during its First Saturday Concerts series, Dec. 6, at the Congregational Church of Huntington (30 Washington Drive, off Route 25A, Centerport).