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Kemp Harris and Alastair Moock at The Linden Tree
April 6 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
$25Linden Tree Concerts presents Kemp Harris and Alastair Moock
Saturday, April 6, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Linden Tree concerts’ thirty-ninth season continues with Kemp Harris and Alastair Moock on Saturday, April 6that 7:30 pm. This show promises to lift up your spirit with these two master performers, a show for all ages.
We are welcoming to Linden Tree’s stage for the first time Kemp Harris, a singer-songwriter who defies categorization. He is a singer and songwriter, a master weaver of American musical styles. He’s an actor, activist, author, and storyteller, and an award-winning educator who has taught young public school students for more than 40 years.
“It’s all about communication,” Kemp says. “Everything I do.” “Nobody tries to pigeonhole me,” says a delighted Kemp, “My audience allows me to be myself and do it all.”
Born in segregated Edenton, North Carolina, and transplanted to Massachusetts, where he bounced between relatives’ homes, Kemp learned to adapt to whatever world he found himself in – a talent that has come to define him as a person and an artist. He began writing songs at 14 and recording them in college, using a pair of old cassette players to track parts, and has been delighting music lovers ever since with his earthy, soulful creations.
Kemp honed his powerful, intimate performance style in Cambridge’s coffeehouses, developing into a magnetic frontman who has shared stages with artists such as Koko Taylor, Livingston Taylor, Gil Scott-Heron, Kandace Springs and Taj Mahal. He has composed original music for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, established a songwriting residency at Boston’s Wang Theater, and recently delivered a series of master classes at Berklee College of Music on the subject of Artists as Activists, alongside Chad Stokes of the band Dispatch and members of the dance troupe Urban Bush Women.
Kemp’s most recent album, Edenton, featuring vocals from the legendary Holmes Brothers, is a modern blues journey that fuses the personal and the political, the sacred and the profane, to haunting effect. Edenton’s title track, a bittersweet valentine to his birthplace, explores a simpler time in a racially-divided town with the clear-eyed grace that is a hallmark of Kemp’s work. Everything he makes is built on a foundation of social awareness and the desire to reflect the world as he sees and experiences it. Whether he’s performing a rousing soul tune backed by a 14-piece orchestra in a grand concert hall or a hushed meditation alone at his piano, Kemp speaks truth the only way he knows how: by baring his soul. Linden Tree invites those who haven’t seen Kemp before to join fans who have discovered this seasoned Renaissance man. kempharrisbandbio
Award winning singer songwriter Alastair Moock has been a long time favorite of Linden Tree’s audience ever since he began performing the Boston coffeehouse circuit in 1995. He has gone onto tour the USA and Europe, performing at renowned events like the Newport Folk Festival and Norway’s Bergen Music Fest and opening for acts like sharing the stage with acts like Arlo Guthrie, Taj Mahal, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and Greg Brown. Alastair Moock is an award-winning singer-songwriter having won songwriting contests at Falcon Ridge, Great Waters and Sisters Folk Festivals. He was nominated for a Boston Music Award for Outstanding Singer-Songwriter of the Year. The Boston Globe calls him “one of the town’s best and most adventurous songwriters” and The Washington Post says “every song is a gem.
When his twin daughters were born, he turned his focus for a time to family music. His five albums for children have garnered many of the top awards in American children’s music, including a 2013 Grammy Nomination, three Parents’ Choice Gold Medals, and ASCAP’s Joe Raposo Children’s Music Award. In recent years, Alastair has focused his career on the mission of uplifting historically marginalized voices. Alastair co-founded two antiracism organizations, Family Music Forward, and in Boston, The Opening Doors Project, an anti-racist music organization through which he collaborates regularly with the likes of Reggie Harris, Pamela Means, Vance Gilbert, and Kemp Harris. They use music to entertain and educate audiences of all ages around racial understanding and communication.
His most recent CD is a self-titled ALASTAIR MOOCK evokes a wide breadth of American musical textures: early Nashville, country blues, Western swing, and a tinge of gospel. But most of all, the album is infused with the kind of intimate storyteller’s approach at which Moock excels. The songs on ALASTAIR MOOCK touch on death and love, politics, marriage and family, big universal questions and minute everyday observations. It’s a hard album to pin down, but then Moock has always been a hard songwriter to pin down. “I don’t care who I’m singing to,” he says, “I just want to tell stories.”
Tickets for this show will be $25, for those under 18 are $10. WUMB members receive a $2 discount with their membership card. We accept cash or personal check at the door. Reservations are recommended for preferential seating by calling 781 246 2836. Masks recommended but not required.
The Linden Tree Coffeehouse 39th season of acoustic music is located in the social hall of the Unitarian-Universalist Church, 326 Main St Wakefield, MA 01880. Linden Tree Coffeehouse is supported in part by Mass Cultural Council, Wakefield Arts Council. Linden Tree also supports Fair Trade Music Local 1000. For more information see www.LindenTreeCoffeehouse.org and our page on Facebook.
