18 September 2015

Joseph Arthur

Jenee Halstead opens

Me&Thee listeners are in for a cosmic and transporting experience when critically-acclaimed Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter-poet-painter-performance artist Joseph Arthur takes the stage. A performer of magical and astonishing range, Arthur has been celebrated by such titans of music as REM’s Michael Stipe and Peter Gabriel, who “discovered” Arthur in the mid-1990s and put him on the roster of performers for his label Real World. As Allmusic observed, “Arthur is in a class of his own.” ¶ Unforgettable Boston-based-by-way-of-nowhere Alaska singer-songwriter Jenee Halstead opens the show.

Concert starts at 8:00 pm

Joseph Arthur

Joseph Arthur plays guitar, bass, keyboards and harmonica and cut his teeth as a musician “playing blues in the back seats, from biker bars to limousines, all over Northeast Ohio.” Nearly two decades and dozens of EPs later, the prolific, restless and constantly touring artist continues to make unique and challenging music, contributing to soundtracks for such disparate films as Shrek, The Bourne Identity, and HBO’s True Blood.

The critically-acclaimed and Grammy nominated artist has worked with T-Bone Burnett, Ben Harper, the Band’s legendary keyboardist Garth Hudson and the city of Prague Philharmonic. In addition to writing and performing music, Arthur is a talented painter whose abstract expressionist canvases have been exhibited in galleries from Manhattan to London and he has painted the cover art for his entire discography. Arthur has even been known to sing and paint for audiences; YouTube is full of magical and fascinating clips of him doing just that. Arthur plans to pack his paints and brushes for his appearance in Marblehead.

His 2013 masterpiece, The Ballad of Boogie Christ, which was entirely funded through Pledge Music, is an 11-song odyssey, a “fictionalized character loosely based on my own journey,” as Arthur reflects, in the tradition of Lou Reed’s Coney Island Baby and Berlin, which are rich with semi-autobiographical characters and experiences. Like his late friend Lou Reed, Arthur is a storyteller with a bittersweet edge and a rock ’n’ roll heart. In 2014, the year after Reed’s death, Arthur released Lou, a 12-song collection of the songs of his friend and inspiration. The songs are not merely covers, however. In Arthur’s capable and insightful hands, Reed’s songs are rechristened, restructured and delivered in “such a way that it seems you’ve never heard them before,” as No Depression writes. Michael Stipe of REM said it best: “Joseph Arthur writes, builds, paints, draws, and creates because he has no choice. It is our luck that he does so.”

Photo by Danny Clinch

. . .

Jenee Halstead

While Boston-based singer-songwriter Jenee Halstead draws frequent comparisons to Patty Griffin and Shawn Colvin, Halstead’s ethereal crystalline soprano takes listeners to a dreamier, more spectral place. Her songs are tender and raw, arrestingly honest and full of keen observations that are way beyond that of a young artist. Halstead’s range of styles is breathtaking and there is something for every listener from the fragile but resilient ballad and title track of her latest release, Raised by Wolves, to the dark, driving rocker “So Far So Fast,” to the buoyant, uplifting “Damascus.” Halstead is the perfect complement to what promises to be an unforgettable evening of music, poetry and art.

  • When I first heard Jo’s music, his lyrics jumped out at me. I love his words, love his music. It’s great to see some of his best written work assembled. His words rattle and rumble and prise open the cage. Peter Gabriel, musician
  • To riff off a riff; to update Ginsberg’s holy HOWL; to stand this naked; to wrestle an attention deficit world into a moment’s shivering standstill, just for a spiked breath of reflection: Wow. Joseph Arthur writes, builds, paints, draws, and creates because he has no choice. It is our luck that he does so. Michael Stipe of REM
  • . . .
  • If it’s difficult to place Jenee Halstead’s third album, Raised by Wolves, in any distinct time or place, that’s to the singer/songwriter’s credit. Nominally rooted in folk and occasionally recalling PJ Harvey’s knack for spare, unsettling underwater lullabies, Halstead doesn’t quite exist in any specific category; despite some tension-racked drum loops, the music doesn’t rock, yet it never succumbs to the soft strumming of folk. She, like Neko Case before her, mines allegories and fables for her songs, but Halstead isn’t a cyclone. She floats and observes, almost achieving a spectral presence on her own songs. Certainly, her keen, powerful voice is a gateway into Raised by Wolves, but the music, for as many questions as it raises, is immediate. It’s a vivid dream world and one that begs for more than one visit. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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