Bill Staines and Red Molly

Bill Staines has been a mainstay at the Me&Thee since it opened its doors 37 years ago. A New England native, Bill has been singing his songs at coffeehouses, festivals, folk song societies, and concert halls since the 1960s and, for a time, emceed the Sunday hootenanny at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge.

Over twenty albums worth of music later, Bill continues to play more than 200 concert dates per year and is one of the most popular folk singers on the circuit. He has chronicled his life on the road in a book, The Tour: A Life Between the Lines. Each fall, Bill leaves his home in New England and sets out on a five-week tour of North America. He covers about 15,000 miles of open highway and gets to relay many of his adventures while he performs for his fans. Bill’s road memoir was begun on the 20th anniversary of his annual fall tour. “This book” is also a chronicle of a life, from the time that Bill spent growing up in the Boston-Cambridge folk music scene in the early 1960’s to the present, when he has come to be considered one of the most respected singer-songwriters on the folk music scene today. It is all here, and it is all written from the heart.

Bill’s repertoire includes contemporary love songs as well as beautifully arranged traditional folk tunes. Staines can sometimes be cajoled into yodeling as well, since he is a former yodeling champion, an honor bestowed upon him at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas.

A music critic at the Boston Globe says of Staines: “there is no better writer of instantly memorable sing-along choruses in this genre of music.” Bill is the epitome of the traveling folk troubadour. We guarantee you that you’ll be singing and humming Bill’s song all the way home after this show!

The history of Red Molly’s origin is the stuff legends are made of in the acoustic music world. The story goes that in the wee small hours of a summer night, a group of singer-songwriter friends gathered to share their latest tunes at a hilltop campsite at the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. The song circle grew smaller as, one by one, sleepy campers drifted off to their tents, leaving only Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner, and Carolann Solebello in the citronella-scented candlelight. Not yet ready to call it a night, these women, who had long admired each other’s solo work, began sharing favorite songs by other songwriters. Before long, Laurie, Abbie and Carolann were singing their fellow campers off to sleep in three-part harmony on songs by contemporary writers like Gillian Welch and Iris DeMent, bluegrass standards, old-time southern gospel, and classic American tunes. And before the sun rose on Hillsdale, NY, Red Molly was born.

In the two plus years since that pivotal night, Red Molly has performed at a number of excellent venues in the northeast and is steadily garnering a devoted regional fan base. They have opened shows for artists such as Aztec Two-Step, Catie Curtis, Jonathan Edwards, John Hammond, Michael Smith, Bill Staines and David Wilcox. Red Molly was selected to perform in the 2006 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase. Even more exciting, Red Molly earned the highest number of audience votes, and will therefore appear at Falcon Ridge 2007! Author of Midnight Train, Michael Scott Cain says: “Red Molly has taste, talent, and voices to die for. They make music the way it should be made: raw, powerful, and beautiful. With this band, you hear and feel the soul inside the songs. It’s music to make the spirit soar.”

In July 2006, Red Molly’s first full-length offering, “Never Been to Vegas,” was released. The CD is a collection of 14 carefully-chosen songs that span more than a century of great American songwriting. In uncluttered arrangements for three voices, songs by timeless greats like Hank Williams and Billy Edd Wheeler, new traditionalists like Gillian Welch, Patty Griffin, and Red Molly’s own Abbie Gardner mix easily with traditional American folk and gospel. “Never Been to Vegas” quickly climbed into the top 30 on the Radio & Records Americana chart. . . a rare accomplishment for an independent album.

The magic of Red Molly likely stems from the richness and diversity of each member’s “pre-Molly” experiences. Laurie (vocals, guitar, banjo) left a career in psychology to pursue music. She worked for several years as a backup singer, and also released two solo albums. Abbie (vocals, Dobro, guitar) studied classical flute as a child and directed/arranged a cappella music at Boston University. In 2004, she released her first solo album, “My Craziest Dream,” with her father, jazz pianist Herb Gardner. In 2006, Abbie released a second solo album, “Honey on My Grave.” Carolann (vocals, guitar, bass, mandolin) spent several years as a professional theatre actor before releasing her solo album, “Just Across the Water,” in 2000. She went on to release two albums with power folk quartet CC Railroad.

 

 

Any new song that can live comfortably beside the well-worn songs of folk tradition has a good chance of surviving the test of time. Such, we believe, are the songs of Bill Staines Charles “Sandy” Paton,
Folk Legacy Records

Red Molly plays music the way I like it: unpretentious, straight from the heart, and way down deep in the old-time roots. It’s true folk music that comes from the right place. They take me back to a purer time when people sang for one another just because of the love of music. And they pack some power. It’s purely delightful and inspiring. It warms the soul. Frank Matheis, Host, “Frank’s Picks,” WKZE FM