Celtic Americana, Soulful Blues


& Political Puppets


by STEVE MACQUEEN, Artistic Director


Among the lessons that life repeatedly teaches is that you can’t plan everything in advance: sometimes you’ve got to roll with it. And so it is with programming at the Flynn. You can plan a season, but there are bound to be opportunities throughout the year that cannot be passed up. Here’s a brief rundown of three such shows you’ll see in the coming months—as a member, you can buy tickets early.


Bread and Puppet Theater


Keb’ Mo’, solo acoustic Sunday, March 16 at 7 pm, tickets on sale now


Keb’ Mo’


Keb’ Mo’ has won three Grammys for Best Contemporary Blues Album and 10(!) W.C. Handy Blues Awards. And, as a central figure in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed history The Blues, he can stand on stage with an acoustic guitar and play the daylights out of some Robert Johnson, no doubt about it. But as he’s developed as an artist, Keb’ Mo’s music has expanded as well, venturing into that nebulous realm of “folk-soul”—home to such like-minded geniuses as Bill Withers, Terry Callier, and Bobby Womack.


This genre-blending artfulness along with his unique guitar style, distinctive voice, onstage charisma, and impassioned songwriting, has garnered him a deservedly loyal fan base ever since his first disc, Keb Mo, hit shelves in 1994. And while he’s won numerous awards and even dabbled in acting—The West Wing and John Sayles’ film Honeydripper, for instance—he’s at his best in performance, where his very real connection with an audience can work magic.


Bread & Puppet Theater, Birdcatcher in Hell Friday, May 16 at 8 pm, tickets on sale to members March 3


Vermont’s own Bread & Puppet Theater, certainly one of the most acclaimed and controversial puppet troupes in the world, is celebrating its 50th anniversary, which includes this performance of Birdcatcher in Hell, B&P’s first show at the Flynn since 1992. The show was originally created by founder Peter Schumann and poet Bob Nichols in the mid-‘60s in a “blue” version, then recreated (with references to Richard Nixon and the My Lai massacre) in its “red” version in 1971.


Based on a comic interlude from the Japanese Noh cycle, the current version of Birdcatcher is an update of “red,” focusing on such hot-button topics as enhanced interrogation, Guantanamo, drone bombings, and American politics. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Bread & Puppet does not shy away from explicit political messages—quite the opposite, in fact.


This production features many of the original cast members, members of the resident company, local volunteers, and many of the old puppets and masks. The original costumes were so fragile that a group of Northeast Kingdom volunteers, guided by printer Lila Winstead, met last winter to dye, print and sew a whole new set of robes, banners, and flags.


The Chieftains with special guest Ry Cooder Friday, July 4 at 8 pm, tickets on sale to members March 3


At first glance, the idea of a Chieftains show on the Fourth of July may seem a bit out of place. An Irish band on the most patriotic of American holidays? Well, yeah. The Chieftains, celebrating their 50th


as standard-bearers of Celtic music, chronicle the Irish experience in song, frequently featuring tales of the emigration to the United States and the Irish experience stateside. Leader/founder Paddy Moloney is a two-country man himself, spending half the year in Dublin and the other half in Florida.


Ry Cooder—a revered rock/blues guitarist, roots musician, record producer, songwriter, and composer who rarely, if ever, tours any more—is one of the great exponents of North American roots music, having played equal parts guitar wizard and musical archaeologist in his early days. He then used that grounding to go worldwide, performing with (and winning Grammys for) such world artists as Ali Farka Toure, V.M. Bhatt and, most famously, the Buena Vista Social Club.


Together, the Chieftains and Cooder made Los Patricios, a brilliant concept album based on a true story about a group of Irish immigrants who deserted the U.S. Army in 1846 to fight for the Mexicans in the Mexican-American War. Granted, that’s a bit less overtly patriotic than Stars and Stripes Forever, but it’s a true and compelling moment of American history turned into a rich musical tapestry by some of the best musicians around.


This marks the Chieftains first appearance at the Flynn in more than 20 years and offers an astonishing opportunity to see the ever-more- reclusive Cooder perform onstage. Not to be missed!


March, April, May MARQUEE | 3 anniversary


Frédéric Silberman


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