Friday, May 30 2008

Reflecting his ability to play a wide variety of musical styles, Williamson has shared stages with many of the world's most popular and finest musicians, including Sleepy LaBeef, Alan Dawson and Joan Osborne. His jazz credits include gigs with Rich Greenblatt, Jack Pezanelli, Reggie Walley, Dick Odgren and Emil Haddad. Williamson’s blues connections are just as deep and varied. As a teenager he played a weekly jam session in the Great Brook Valley Housing Projects. Since then he has performed with such notable players as Kenny Pino, Ken Vangel, Joanna Connor and Troy Gonyea.

Williamson's chromatic harmonica styling can be heard on She's Busy's Strange Bedfellows, Valerie and Walter Crockett's Moonbone and Emily’s Angel, Mike Duffy's Destined to be a Rumor, and the Movie Channel's station ID, "Try a Little TMC."

“These contestants come from all different levels of experience and from a good variety of styles, from soul, pop, musical theater and folk,” said Kelly Grill, a co-founder of ESL and host of Hopkinton Idol. “I am certain this year’s contest will prove to be just as entertaining as last year with some added audience fun! For instance, each week we plan to run an "Idol trivia" contest.”

The shows will continue every Friday night hereafter (with the exception of May 2) with the final show on Thursday, May 29 and a final reveal with all the performers on May 30. The broadcasts will take place at HCAM studios in front of an audience, which is open to the public (there will be a $5 admission charge). Viewers in the studio audience or who watch the show on HCAM-TV 13 or on the HCAM website www.hcam.tv will then vote via email for their favorite performer. The performers with the lowest number of votes will not continue to the next round.

For more information call 508-435-2114 or visit www.enterstagelefttheater.com

FEATURING: Bernardo Monk- saxophones, vocals, bandoneon; Octavio Brunetti- piano, Juan Pablo Jofre- bandoneon, Paula Majerfeld- violin, Pedro Giraudo- double bass.

Buenos Aires-born Bernardo Monk began studying and playing music in 1990.On a daily basis, Monk was hearing and absorbing the haunting music of 19th Century Argentina known as the tango. In sync with this, he fell in love with American jazz, as heard on many household records and the bands in which his two older brothers played. The music of Charlie Parker, Paquito D'Rivera and Branford Marsalis enthralled him. Soon the enthusiastic young artist Bernardo Monk was becoming a skilled performer on soprano and alto saxophones.

In 2002 Bernardo Monk and tango dancer Fernanda Cajide created MassTango. This music and dance show featured Monk's Tango Quintet. A unique and electrifying ensemble which presents the distinctive musical form called tango. But Monk doesn't stop with the tango. He melds traditional tango musical figures and instruments [such as violin, piano, double bass, guitar and bandoneón] along with the not-so-traditional tango instruments and jazz sounds of the saxophone creating a wonderful and challenging, yet entertaining new artistic direction.

2nd Show 10:00pm

Toni Lynn Washington has received seven WC Handy National Blues Award nominations (including 2003, 2004 and 2005 "Soul-Blues Female Performer of the Year" nominations..), and many previous award nominations "Album of the Year" at the W.C. Handy Awards, "Album of the Year" at the NAIRD Awards, and "Outstanding Blues Album" at the Boston Music Awards.

7:30-8:45: beginner swing dance lesson, no partner needed.

8:45-1am: dancing, with live music and DJ's in the breaks. Cash bar, ample free lot-parking, all ages admitted

This amazing acoustic singer-songwriter joins us to kick off the summer season. Phipps was part of Daring Angels with Wendy Sobel, which was nominated for a Boston Music award in 1995. Kathy has filled Harvest Café with wonderful music over the last few years and continues to perform around New England. Kathy's vocals are high and haunting; her originals are beautiful and soulful.

Call to verify performance time

Scott Hall

Song For Amy is Mike Caruso's first CD. It was recorded in August and October of 2007 and features New England based Jazz musicians Molly Flannery on Piano, Daryl Lowery on Saxophone, Mike Connors on Drums, John Funkhouser on Bass and Mike Caruso on Bass and Guitar.

On the CD, there are 9 original compositions that represent the last 2 decades of musical endeavors. About one half of the music was composed prior to 2006 and the rest composed while Mike was recovering from a Bone Marrow Transplant to help fight Leukemia.

Sales of the CD and CD release performances will be donated to benefit Bone Marrow Transplant research and patient care. So far the CD has raised over $3000 dollars with the hope for a lot more to come.

Visit http://www.mikecarusomusic.com for more information.

This hot New York Americana trio got its organic start in 2004 at a late-night jam session at Falcon Ridge, coming together around a love of Appalachian ballads, old gospel, bluegrass, and the old-timey songs of newgrass artists like Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss. Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello dig down to the roots of a song with simple, uncluttered arrangements, leaving plenty of room for three voices to carry it skyward.

“If anyone can make the accordion hip - and that's a tall order - it just might be Cory Pesaturo.

"A songwriter of startling clarity and depth, equally skilled at turning a melody or lyrical phrase into what you didn't know you needed until you heard it... fearlessly emotive... like Dylan, Cohen, and Welch, Mitchell weaves her stories into an effortlessly beautiful and cohesive tapestry with the skill of an artisan's carpenter, showing no seams." - Acoustic Guitar

2nd Show 10:00pm

Presented by MassConcerts.

Singer/songwriter Eric Hutchinson has toured with G. Love and Joe Jackson, and opened for such artists as Blind Melon, Jonatha Brooke, Marshall Crenshaw, and Jason Mraz. Last year his album "Sounds Like This" ranked in the iTunes list of top 10 sellers.

Marié Digby is a singer/songwriter, guitarist, and pianist best known for her acoustic version of Rihanna's hit "Umbrella," which has been featured on YouTube, The Hills, and Last Call with Carson Daly. She released her debut album Unfold in April.

As songwriters and performers, Ashford & Simpson have long ranked among the most acclaimed and admired creative couples in contemporary music.Career laurels aside, Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson are currently hotter than ever. A two-week stint at New York’s elegant Feinstein’s at the Regency in 2006 was so successful that they were brought back for three weeks in 2007, garnering some of the best notices of their career. “Singles, doubles gays straights, blacks, whites, all mixed together and singing along”, concluded the New York Times’ Stephen Holden in his rave review, “Ashford & Simpson turn diversity into unanimity”.

2nd Show 10:00pm

A big show...a big sound...a big night! She goes toward that "Blues Thing" You will see what we mean.

Call to verify time

Pressure Cooker is Boston’s progressive roots reggae band. The group was founded in 1997 with a shared love of Jamaican music of the sixties and seventies era. Using this inspiration as a guide, Pressure Cooker crafted its own flavor of new American reggae music, thoughtfully written and powerfully delivered through a horn-infused, nine piece supergroup.