Singer, songwriter, activist, and storyteller Kemp Harris returns to the Harmony on the Green Coffeehouse Series in Lexington for a special show on Saturday, January 25th. The evening, titled “We Shall Overcome: Songs of Hope, Struggle, and Action” will include a wide range of music, focusing on songs that everyone can participate in as we face the next era in our country’s story. Proceeds from the show will benefit the LGBQ Asylum Task Force in Worcester.

“As we enter the time of this next Presidential administration, I felt, and was hearing of, people’s needs to come together to find community and express their feelings in song,” says Harmony’s coordinator Mark Morgan. “We want to create a space and event in which people can support one another, express their hopes and fears, and find solidarity in this fractured time. We also wanted the whole thing to be done for a good cause–a gesture of support for those most vulnerable who will likely be disproportionately adversely affected by the changes to come.” LGBT Asylum Task Force supports members of the LGBTQ community who have had to flee their home countries, frequently to protect their own lives. The Task Force assists them through the asylum process and in getting work authorization so that they can support themselves.

Kemp Harris is a force of nature with a long history of performing, storytelling, and teaching. 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 powers of observation, his unique gift for shining a light on the modern world and what it means to be alive, have only deepened over a lifetime devoted to the most basic and profound of pursuits: human connection. Whether he’s in the classroom, on a film set, leading a workshop, or performing on the concert stage, “at the end of the day,” Kemp says, “I’m an old black man telling stories and spreading the love.”

Details

The show will take place as part of the Harmony on the Green Coffeehouse Concert Series on Saturday, January 25th at 7:30 p.m. in Clark Hall at Hancock Church, 1912 Massachusetts Ave in downtown Lexington. Tickets are $25, or “pay what you can” and can be purchased here

The venue is accessible through an elevator in the front and a stair lift in the rear. We have single-user accessible bathrooms. Plenty of free parking is available. For further information, please visit our Facebook event page

photo by Jim Shea