Martha Burns House Concert

Sunday, September 22, 3pm ET (note early start time!)
Cambridge, MA (address provided when you make your reservation)
General admission: $20 at the door ($5 for students)
Reservations required: email HouseConcerts@fssgb.org for reservations and directions.

Martha grew up in Greenwich Village in the 1950s and sixties, during the height of the Folk Revival. The New Lost City Ramblers and the Friends of Old-Time Music were first bringing the greats of early country music to national attention. Harry Smith’s pioneering Anthology of American Folk Music, the first major re-issue of early folk music 78s, came out the year she was born—the New Lost City Ramblers Songbook, when Martha was twelve. Martha gained much of her education in folk music on Sunday afternoons in Washington Square Park. When Doc Watson played at the tiny Gaslight Café on Macdougal Street, Martha was there—with her mother.

Martha has since lived in many parts of the U.S.—Ann Arbor, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, and on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, where she’s presently based. Her first move was in 1970 to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she went for college and stayed for a decade. Some of the songs on her 2014 album Old-Time Songs, she first began singing at the Ark Coffeehouse, then a celebrated hub for traditional music in the Midwest, and her own musical home through those years. During that period, she also played in the Argo Pond String Band. Others in the group included David Cahn and Bill Meyer, now both prominent west-coast musicians, and Craig Johnson, later revered for songs like “New Harmony,” that he wrote in Ann Arbor.

She began performing in the early 1970s, first regionally and then nationally. By the mid-eighties, she had played the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Pinewoods Folk Music Camp, and myriad folk clubs. In 1984 she completed a six-week British tour, which included a memorable concert on the Island of Guernsey.

In 1985 she paired up with fiddler Allan Block, now remembered for the Allan Block Sandal Shop in Greenwich Village, where he hosted legendary jam sessions throughout the 1960s. When Allan and she began performing together, she was living in Boston. Allan had since moved to New Hampshire and was a central figure in the New England folk music scene. Together Allan and she recorded an album on the Marimac label. Sadly, the unexpected death of Marimac’s president prevented its release.

Allan and she continued to play together through the early 1990s. Toward the end of that time, she scaled back on performing for a two-decades-long foray into academia. her field was American history, and she have published on subjects ranging from early American hymnody to female piano teachers before the Civil War.

Her return to music was consummated in 2014 with the release of “Old-Time Songs”. Her first solo album, it was funded through a highly successful Kickstarter campaign—Kickstarter made the project a “Staff Pick” and featured it on the Kickstarter Blog. You can preview or purchase Old-TIme Songs here.