PUTNEY-Next Stage Arts continues its 2024 Bandwagon Summer Series of concerts with a Folk/Roots/Americana music festival featuring The Clements Brothers, The Jacob Jolliff Band, and The Mammals on Sunday, Oct. 6, at 2 p.m. at Cooper Field on Sand Hill Road.
The Clements Brothers are George and Charles Clements, identical twins from New England. They say they've been playing and writing music together for as long as they can remember, and their duo marks their first project together since playing in the internationally touring grass-roots band The Lonely Heartstring Band, with whom they put out two albums on Rounder Records.
With roots, rock, bluegrass, jazz, and classical influences, George (guitar) and Charles (bass) aim to capture their singer-songwriter sensibilities in a blended voice, "at once enthralling and intimate, groovy, and serene," say organizers. "The duo is a fusion of each brother's unique musical journey, and the result is a music all its own, filled with vocal harmonies, instrumental virtuosity, and a genuine love of song."
Born into a musical family in Newberg, Oregon, Jacob Jolliff started playing mandolin at age 7, and performed in a bluegrass gospel band with his father as a teenager. At age18, he was awarded a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he joined the New England-based roots music band Joy Kills Sorrow. They toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, playing hundreds of clubs, theaters, and festivals.
In 2012, Jolliff won the National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, Kansas, and two years later, joined the progressive bluegrass jam group Yonder Mountain String Band, releasing three albums and touring with the band until the end of 2019. In 2022, Jolliff was called on by banjo player Béla Fleck to tour as part of My Bluegrass Heart.
He performed around the country alongside Fleck and some of the very best musicians in the genre. Jacob's main focus now is The Jacob Jolliff Band - an ensemble of virtuosic pickers who play his original instrumentals, and showcase his singing. They tour nationally and have also performed in Scotland and Australia.
The Mammals are folksingers Ruth Ungar, Mike Merenda, and a cohort of collaborators who form a touring quintet on the fiddle, banjo, guitar, organ, bass, and drums. Over the past 20 years, they "have quietly composed a canon of original songs that both reflect their culture and offer a vision of how the world might yet be," say organizers.
A rough-and-tumble decade in the 2000s forged The Mammals identity as "subversive acoustic traditionalists" (The Boston Globe) and a "party band with a conscience," equally inspired by their folk predecessors and Americana peers. Re-emerging in 2017 from a hibernation period during which the band's founders explored new songwriting terrain (releasing five albums under the moniker Mike + Ruthy), the quintet effortlessly spans the horizons of Americana, from harmonized indie-folk ballads to fiddle and banjo-driven footstompers.
Tickets are $22 in advance, $25 at the gate and kids under 12 are admitted free. Advance tickets are available online at nextstagearts.org. Next Stage will provide a beer, wine, and cocktail cash bar, and Smokin' Bowls will serve a variety of seasonal dishes using local produce, dairy, and meat. Bring lawn chairs or blankets for outdoor seating on the grass. For more information, call 802-387-0102.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.