One Longfellow Square is one of Portland, Maine’s most charming and versatile, non-profit performing arts and concert venues, offering a warm and intimate atmosphere and setting the stage for unforgettable live music, performing arts, and community events.
Located in Portland’s West End at the entrance to the city’s vibrant Arts District, One Longfellow Square accommodates a wide range of events including film, theater, dance, and of course, live music.
Over the course of her twenty five year career, Susan Werner has earned a reputation as “one of the most innovative songwriters working today” (Chicago Tribune). With formidable chops on guitar (she began playing at age 5) and piano (she was a guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz), along with a graduate degree in voice performance, her shows are a one-woman master class in musicianship. Although best known as an acoustic songwriter that came up through coffeehouses and folk festivals, the Chicago-based artist has written songs in the style of Gershwin and Cole Porter (I Can’t Be New, 2004), gospel music (The Gospel Truth, 2007), traditional Cuban “son” (An American In Havana, 2016), and New Orleans junk piano (NOLA, 2019). In 2014 she composed the music and lyrics to the musical theater score Bull Durham, The Musical (MGM). Her songs have been recorded by Tom Jones, Michael Feinstein, and Shemekia Copeland, and her latest recording of originals, The Birds of Florida, took flight in 2022.
Livingston Taylor picked up his first guitar at the age of 13, which began a 50-year career that has encompassed performance, songwriting, and teaching. Born in Boston and raised in North Carolina, Livingston is the fourth child in a very musical family that includes Alex, James, Kate, and Hugh. Livingston recorded his first record at the age of 18 and has continued to create well crafted, introspective, and original songs that have earned him listeners worldwide.
From top-40 hits “I Will Be in Love with You” and “I’ll Come Running,” to “I Can Dream of You” and “Boatman,” the last two recorded by his brother James, Livingston’s creative output has continued unabated. His musical knowledge has inspired a varied repertoire, and he is equally at home with a range of musical genres—folk, pop, gospel, jazz—and from upbeat storytelling and touching ballads to full orchestra performances.
Livingston has never stopped performing since those early coffeehouse days, shared the stage with major artists such as Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Buffett, and Jethro Tull, and he maintains a busy concert schedule, touring internationally. He is a natural performer, peppering his shows with personal stories, anecdotes and ineffable warmth that connect him to his fans. His relaxed on-stage presence belies the depth of his musical knowledge, and fans might just as often be treated to a classic Gershwin or something from the best of Broadway.
Livingston is a full professor at Berklee College of Music, where he has taught a Stage Performance course since 1989. He teaches young artists invaluable lessons learned over the course of an extensive career on the road; the course is consistently voted the most popular at the College. His high-selling book, Stage Performance, released in 2011 offers those lessons to anyone who is interested in elevating their presentation standards to professional standards.
Livingston’s 50th year of making music was celebrated by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, both declaring January 18, 2017 “Livingston Taylor Day”.
In the decade since Jenny Owen Youngs last released a full-length album, she’s toured the world, co-written a #1 hit single, launched a wildly popular podcast, landed a book deal, placed songs in a slew of films and television series, moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles to coastal Maine, and gotten married, divorced, and married again. She’s done everything, it seems, except release another album.“After writing a zillion songs with other artists and immersing myself in other people’s voices for ten years, I finally started to get excited about making my own music again,” she explains. “It was like I took this extended sorbet course, and after that palate cleanser, I was ready to dig back in.”
With her exceptional new Yep Roc debut, Avalanche, Youngs delivers a main course worthy of the wait. Written with a series of friends including S. Carey, Madi Diaz, The Antlers’ Peter Silberman, and Christian Lee Hutson and recorded with producer JoshKaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, The Hold Steady, Cassandra Jenkins, Josh Ritter), the collection is an achingly beautiful exploration of loss, resilience, and growth from an artist who’s experienced more than her fair share of each in recent years. The songs are deceptively serene here, layering Youngs’ infectious pop sensibilities atop lush, dreamy arrangements that often belie the swift emotional currents lurking underneath. The performances, meanwhile, are riveting and nuanced to match, gentle yet insistent as they reckon with the pain of regret and the joy of redemption, sometimes in the very same breath. The result is the most raw and arresting release ofYoungs’ remarkable career, a brutally honest, deeply vulnerable work of self-reflection that learns to make peace with the past as it transforms doubt and grief into hope and transcendence.“There’s a good deal of heartbreak and disappointment in this music,” Young explains, “but it ultimately gives way to excitement and promise, to the incredible, immeasurable bliss of falling in love and findingyourself again. These songs travel the whole emotional spectrum.”That kind of range has been Youngs’ calling card from the very start.
Born and raised in rural New Jersey, she fell in love with The Beatles at an early age before eventually finding her way to The Cranberries and Elliott Smith in high school. Her self-recorded debut, Batten Down The Hatches, landed a high-profile sync in the Showtime series Weeds and led to a deal with Nettwerk Records, which re-released the album along with her 2009 follow-up, Transmitter Failure. Widespread acclaim and dates with the likes of Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, Frank Turner, and Aimee Mann followed, but by the time Youngs released her third album, 2012’s An Unwavering Band Of Light, she was ready for a change of pace, moving to LA to focus on writing for other artists and for film and TV. In 2016, Youngs co-wrote Pitbull’s “Bad Man,” which debuted at the 58thannual Grammy Awards; in 2017, she co-wrote Shungudzo’s “Come On Back,” which was featured in the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack; and in 2018, she co-wrotePanic! At The Disco’s smash hit “High Hopes,” which went five-times platinum and broke the record for most weeks atopBillboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart. Along the way, Youngs also launched Buffering The Vampire Slayer, an episode-by-episode podcast devoted toBuffy The Vampire Slayer that attracted more than 160,000 monthly listeners and led to a book deal with St. Martin’s Press. Youngs recently launched a new series with her podcasting partner/ex-wife called The eX-Files and has a narrative fiction podcast due out next year, as well.
Welcome to One Longfellow Square’s Open Mic Night! We’re excited for yet another music-filled evening, hosted by Leslie.
We are primarily a music-oriented open mic, but other formats are welcome, like a poem, story, or skit. Performances must be 10 minutes long, at most, or two songs. Mics, a keyboard, and a DI system will be provided onstage for you. The signup sheet is all in person– participants can sign up starting at 6pm at the OLS front door. The list caps at about 10-11 performers. No one is guaranteed a slot, but everyone is welcome to get in line to enter their name. We will post clearly once the list is full- it fills up fast. We will have future open mics, and look forward to hearing you from our stage soon!
Please reach out to Leslie@onelongfellowsquare.com with any questions!
It’s obvious listening to Sarah Shook and the Disarmers’ clear-eyed, biting, and unafraid songs that integrity is the most important thing to the Chapel Hill, North Carolina, country-punk outfit. “A lot of artists are in this industry for fame, recognition, and money but those things don’t mean anything to me,” says bandleader River Shook. “Songwriting is it for me. It’s the only real healthy coping mechanism I’ve ever had. It’s life-saving. I don’t care about any superficial things when I’m making a record.” On their resonant fourth album Revelations, produced by Shook and out March 29 via Thirty Tigers, these raw and resilient tracks come first. Throughout, Shook’s deft storytelling documents regular people getting by and keeping on, all presented without filter or pretension.
In 2022, Shook was remarkably productive. They released two albums: debut solo indie rock record Cruel Liars under the moniker Mightmare (Kill Rock Stars) and a third Disarmers full-length called Nightroamer (Thirty Tigers). Compared to every Disarmers record before that, which captured the in-the-room energy of the band with live recorded songs, the latter LP was instead more of a product of the studio with meticulous tracking sessions and an outside producer. While that effort was well-received, Shook believed the songs on Revelations deserved a more direct approach. “Since the Disarmers started in 2015, our strength has always been in our live performance,” says Shook. “To me, an album should capture the essence of a band. With this new set of songs that are all super special to me, I didn’t trust anybody else to capture the songs and decide how to best serve each song.” Shook, who honed their production skills with their Mightmare LP and Izzy Ryder’s debut record, confidently took the reins during a blistering recording session, capturing 10 songs in two days.
For Shook, it was paramount the recordings match the band’s tangible live ferocity because these songs boast their most immediate lyrics yet. “All of my writing is autobiographical, and I write everything based on my observations and experiences,” says Shook. “But there was something about Revelations that felt more personal to me. I unlocked this level of honesty with myself and an ability to be more objective about the things I struggle with daily.” Take the title track, which finds Shook singing about the precariousness of navigating mental health under capitalism. Over a rollicking, twang-hued arrangement, they sing, “Black cloud followin’ me around, little storm in my head / Some days I levitate off the ground, some days I can’t get outta bed.” The track doesn’t preach or romanticize. Instead, it’s galvanizing and relatable.
These are lived-in stories about real people with real dreams, atmospheric pasts, and inescapable problems. “I think of myself as a collector: I just go around and collect experiences and observations,” says Shook. “I’m still adjusting to writing songs as a sober person but a lot of the themes are just about being a working person and navigating mental health and relationships with other people going through the same things.” Lead single “Backsliders” comes directly from Shook’s life when they were a bartender at a Chapel Hill dive called The Cave. The song is a deceptively breezy romp about workplace romantic entanglements with Shook singing, “Love you like a breath when I ain’t workin’ myself to death / cause I’m longin’ for the ghost of a friend.” On one hand, it captures the closeness that only service workers can experience on the job but on the other, it plainly states how easy it is to fall into bad habits when dealing with any type of loss.
Throughout the LP, there are cathartic, snarling kiss-offs to villainous men (“Motherfucker”) but also moments of tenderness and ecstasy. Shook describes closer “Criminal” as their “gay cowboy song”, the torturous longing of the lyrics is anchored by shimmering guitar leads from Blake Tallent and bastioned by drummer Jack Foster’s hypnotic rhythms. River sings, “If lovin’ you will always be a crime I’ll always be a criminal.” It’s a triumphant line that highlights Shook’s emotional sturdiness. “That line got me thinking about how we as queer people have been persecuted, and how we so often have to keep all kinds of things under wraps because of the law because of social taboo,” says Shook. “I wanted “Criminal” to portray these feelings of longing and desire that two gay people can have for each other. They’re complicated feelings because human beings are complicated. Gay love is every bit as complicated as straight love.”
Revelations is the most assured Sarah Shook and the Disarmers record yet because it so pointedly captures the gamut of the human experience: anger, sadness, confusion, love, and acceptance. It’s a document of Shook at the top of their game and a reflection of their own journey not just as a writer but as a person. “I’m a firm believer that if you are an artist, and you want to make better art, a big part of that isn’t just exercising your musical skills, it’s growing as a human being,” says Shook. “So every time I make a record, I want to be able to listen to it and look back on who I was then. I want to see this arc and this evolution. That’s really fucking important to me.”
Witty & engaging, Damn Tall Buildings’ energizing music finds beauty and glory in the mundane workaday struggle of everyday life: time keeps passing and the seasons come and go, you scroll too much, you smoke too much, you lose yourself, only to sit with yourself & find yourself again, you laugh with your friends, and you look out the window & dream about what else might be out there. It all keeps coming around. You carry on, intent on flourishing and thriving. This is what Damn Tall Buildings sings about, what they seek to share with their audience.
In their early days, Damn Tall Buildings didn’t rehearse – they busked. Now, whether live or on record, the trio still radiates the energy of a crew of best friends playing bluegrass on the street. Anchoring that energy is their instrumental chops, their strong songwriting, and their varied influences that stretch beyond bluegrass, even beyond American roots music altogether. Whether sharing lead vocals and instrumental solos or blending their voices into high-spirited harmony, Damn Tall Buildings is a tight unit that contains more than the sum of its parts.
Primary vocalist and lyricist Max Capistran’s singing recalls old blues and The Band-style roots-rock, whereas Sasha Dubyk’s time studying musical theater is evident in her rich vocal tone and soulful flair. Avery Ballotta’s fiddle brings stratospheric dimension to the churning rhythm section of Capistran’s guitar and Dubyk’s bass. The band’s harmony singing is tight without being too slick – they sound like three individual voices joined together in celebration, not a perfectly polished machine. Their choruses are the kind you sing along to with a glass raised into the air.
In 2013, then students at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, the band took their instruments to nearby street corners and jammed for hours on old bluegrass and blues songs, traditional fiddle tunes, and eventually their own original music. Busking, a continuous test of one’s ability to command an audience’s attention, cemented their closeness and fostered their infectious, captivating performance style. It’s how they learned half of their repertoire, and it’s where Dubyk first picked up the bass.
Since their busking days, Damn Tall Buildings have grown to new heights over the course of their decade of creating together. They’ve made four albums: 2014’s Cure-All, 2015’s self-titled, 2019’s Don’t Look Down and 2022’s Sleeping Dogs. The band has also relocated to Brooklyn, NY and toured widely, appearing at festivals like Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Freshgrass Festival, Ossipee Valley Festival, Walnut Valley Festival, Blissfest and Merlefest. Now based in Brooklyn, NY, they have begun to travel the globe playing bigger and bigger stages, making lots of friends wherever they go. They carry with them a connective spirit, welcoming audiences to join in the moment with the band as they take us on a journey through a well-crafted show. The trio has a knack for making any room feel a little more like home.
Some folks are lucky to find what they love to do at an early age and quietly settle in for the long haul expanding and developing their work over the arc of a lifetime. Willy Porter is one of those artists. He has followed his own path to explore the sacred language that music truly is. 30 years after his solo recording debut, he continues to reach further into his guitar & pen while stretching the form of what his own music can be. He recently released his 13th full length album, The Ravine, in 2023.
Willy Porter continues on a musical and personal odyssey spanning over two decades, 11 albums, and multiple continents. His journey has been defined by an inquisitive love for humanity and the language that describes what we all hold to be true. Porter’s songs weave a universal perspective about the questions, struggles, and triumphs of human existence. His live shows are guitar-driven grit, soul, silence and muscle– at times electrifying, dynamic, and unique in the way that Porter’s voice blends and fuses with his fret work.
A largely self-taught musician, Porter began treating audiences to his brand of guitar playing and wry storytelling in the late ‘80’s while living in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1990, he released his first full-length independent album, The Trees Have Soul, and the touring life has flowed steadily ever since. Porter has literally logged millions of miles across America, Canada, the UK, and Europe, touring solo, as well as with various incarnations of the Willy Porter Band and in support of artists like Tori Amos, Paul Simon, Jethro Tull, Sting, and Jeff Beck.
Porter’s breakthrough album, Dog Eared Dream, was released in 1994, and the song “Angry Words” quickly became a staple at the burgeoning AAA radio format. This led to a major label deal with BMG/Private Music in 1995. Unfortunately, Private was dismantled by BMG just as Porter was preparing to release his follow-up. With contractual freedom in 1998, Porter quickly signed with the San Francisco-based label Six Degrees. There he released three albums beginning with the studio gem, Falling Forward (1999), produced by multiple Grammy-winner Neil Dorfsman (Dire Straits, Sting). The eponymous Willy Porter (2001) followed featuring great guest performances by Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull and Tony Levin. His fan-favorite solo disc, High Wire Live (2003) was co-produced with Grammy-winner Ben Wisch (Marc Cohn, Shawn Colvin).
In 2005 Porter left Six Degrees and launched his own imprint, Weasel Records. Together with longtime keyboardist/ collaborator Dave Adler, Porter produced the atmospheric album Available Light in 2006. His work with Guild & Fender guitars over the next several years would result in the manufacture of the “Willy Porter Signature” acoustic guitar. Porter then took time to record and produce singer/songwriter Natalia Zukerman, on her whip-smart Weasel debut, Brand New Frame (2008). Porter released his next disc, How to Rob a Bank in 2009, the heavily Americana-flavored record featuring the contributions of the LA-based quartet, Raining Jane. Bank was followed with a live disc recorded with the Carpe Diem String Quartet in (2010). This collaboration produced a gorgeous EP featuring several of Porter’s most enduring tunes (“Breathe,” “Paper Airplane,” “Watercolor”), elevated and reinterpreted against a backdrop of lush string arrangements.
In 2011, Porter produced the second Weasel release for Natalia Zukerman, the driving Gas Station Roses. A partnership with Milwaukee-based singer/ songwriter Carmen Nickerson resulted in the album, Cheeseburgers and Gasoline (2013). This spartan production illuminates themes of life-longing and relationship repair, all while balancing the dream of self-actualization on the axle of a carnival’s Tilt-a-Whirl. The record also includes Porter’s brilliant cover arrangement of Peter Gabriel’s “Digging in the Dirt.” Porter’s follow-up release, Human Kindness (2015) incorporated all of his acoustic, electric, and multi-string chops to bear in service of a great selection of songs bearing the influence of soul, rock, blues/Americana, showcasing Porter’s growth as a writer, musician, and producer.
After touring extensively together for more than two years, Porter and Nickerson released a full-length disc of original co-writes: Bonfire to Ash (2016). Produced by Grammy winning producer Ben Wisch (Marc Cohn, Jonatha Brooke) and featuring Bassist Zev Katz and Drummer/Producer Ben Wittman, Bonfire to Ash is a record that charts the experiences bridging the intimate with the universal. Porter and Nickerson borrow from their strong stage chemistry to render the same kind of musical conversation that unfolds in performance within a studio setting. This dialogic style broadens to consider the connections and values forged in the communities we call home (“Living Proof”) and in the responsibility we have to the planet that gives itself to house us (“Plant A Garden”). Bonfire to Ash compiles candid snapshots of the human journey, exposing ideas such as hope, regret, love, loss, and connection that remain immutable against time, history, or place.
In addition to making a life in music, Porter finds ways to make an impact on local and international levels. He is an active supporter of Advocates of Ozaukee, a shelter and treatment facility for victims of domestic violence and abuse in Mequon, Wisconsin. His annual benefit concerts have raised more than $100,000 for this organization to date. He is also an Ambassador for Guitars for Vets, a Milwaukee-based International organization that works to improve the lives of veterans by providing them with guitars and music lessons.
House of Hamill owes its existence – almost entirely – to a series of cancelled flights. Rose Baldino and Brian Buchanan first found themselves onstage together at the 2014 Folk Alliance International conference in Kansas City. Rose’s band Burning Bridget Cleary was scheduled to perform, but inclement weather prevented two of her bandmates from flying. Desperate to salvage the showcase, Rose approached Brian, who she knew fronted Canadian celtic rock band Enter the Haggis. She thrust a guitar into Brian’s hands, pulled him onstage, and the two just clicked.
Four years and hundreds of shows later, the duo was booked to play a closing slot at a Colorado festival, so they hired a bass player and drummer to fill out their sound. By the oddest of coincidences, their hired bandmates’ flights were canceled the day of the show. A frantic Facebook post introduced Brian and Rose to local musician Caroline Browning, who joined them on bass for the weekend. Once again, the chemistry was undeniable, and House of Hamill became a trio.
Today, Pennsylvania-based House of Hamill is a fixture on festival stages across the US, and have shared their music and stories on the country’s premier folk stages. Their version of “Pound a Week Rise” rose to #1 on the US Folk DJ charts, and the video for their all-violin cover of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” amassed over 16 million views on Facebook, where it was shared over 400,000 times. Their latest release, “Folk Hero,” captures perfectly the frenetic energy and eclecticism of their always engaging live show. A lively collection of original instrumentals, reimagined folk ballads, and new songs that showcase the trio’s versatility, “Folk Hero” is the third House of Hamill album to be funded entirely by their fans. Whether they’re ripping through a set of original jigs and reels, adding lush three-part harmonies into traditional folk ballads, or cracking up an audience with stories from the road, House of Hamill puts on a show that captivates audiences from the very first note.
Scottish Fish present a fresh take on traditional and contemporary Scottish and Cape Breton music. Their lively and unique arrangements are woven together from session music handed down from generations of the tradition’s finest players. They have performed at the Boston Celtic Music Festival, the Bellingham Celtic Festival, Club Passim, and at various other public and private venues across the United States. Their music and performances have earned them features on WGBH, KALW, and in American Girl and Folkworld Magazines; attracted the attention of programs such as America’s Got Talent; and secured an international audience of over one hundred thousand followers on Instagram. In 2017, the group released their debut album, “Splash,” and followed it with “Tidings,” a 5-track holiday EP, in 2019. Their newest record, “Upscale,” produced by pianist and composer Neil Pearlman, was released in October, 2022, marking the band’s ten year anniversary.
Scottish fiddler Hanneke Cassel has described the Scottish Fish sound as “both incredibly musical and just a little unusual.” “Individually they are all creative and talented,” says Cassel, “and together they spark each other, pushing each other even further to make amazing music.”
“There’s soul flowing in and out of her rock ‘n’ roll with a serpentine seduction. Some of soul music’s sweet, grand dames belt, shout, seethe, and succumb, while Wright sings gently like a heartache’s apology. It’s funky in spots and beautiful all over. And it hurts a little … like it should”.
After touring for the last decade as a 7–9-piece soul band with horns & keys blazing, this new era finds Kat Wright being born anew – more herself than ever – revealed, simply in a startlingly honest & glimmering naked light. With restrictions imposed by the pandemic, Wright & her cohorts have recently come to enjoy writing & touring in a stripped down formation, mostly trio or quartet, in contrast to the big band she fronted for the better part of the last decade where she was described “a young Bonnie Raitt meets Amy Winehouse”. Fans of Wright’s singing & style have been thrilled to discover this paired down line up which puts the groups true talents front & center to shine, instead of drenching them in horns and fanfare. You’ll still hear the Raitt & Winehouse influences, but now also likenesses with Brandi Carlisle & Norah Jones. The resulting music is more intentional, more distilled, more potent – a direct balm for the trying times we face today. It’s truly a scenario of “less is more” – allowing Wright’s voice to really finally take center stage, to shine and ache and yearn and howl – unburied, out in the open, beaming.
A quote from the folk publication Red Line Roots from November ’21 sums it up best: “The first time I saw Kat Wright live was a festival gig where the band’s horn section alone was comprised of 3 people. Wright has that special balance of power and grace in her voice that can shimmer and float to the top of a big band setting, I don’t think anyone who has witnessed her perform could deny that. But the intimacy and vulnerability that she and collaborators Bob Wagner and Josh Weinstein has crafted with their newly (and COVID necessary) formed (trio) outfit is something truly magnificent.
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