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.
On a small corner lot in southeast Portland, Oregon, Jeffrey Martin holed up through the winter recording his quietly potent new album Thank God We Left The Garden. Long nights bled into mornings in the tiny shack he built in the backyard, eight feet by ten feet. What began as demos meant for a later visit to a proper studio became the album itself, spare and intimate and true. Recorded live and alone around two microphones, Jeffrey often held his breath to wait for the low diesel hum of a truck to pass one block over on the busy thoroughfare. During the coldest nights, he timed recording between the clicks of the oil coil heater cycling on and off.
Martin’s fourth full length album, Thank God We Left The Garden comes out on Portland’s beloved Fluff and Gravy Records Nov __. He produced and engineered it himself, recalling, “There was a magic quality to the sounds I was getting in the shack with these two cheap microphones, some lucky recipe of time and place that allowed my voice and the way I play guitar and the shape of these new songs to come together with the kind of honesty I was craving.”
So much has happened in the world since the release of his previous album One Go Around (heralded by No Depression as ‘the poetry of America’), and Jeffrey has filled the time doggedly, but happily, touring the US and Europe, watching it all unfold in a stream of small town conversations and city sprawl. In a moment where depth is so often traded for the instantaneous, where tech billionaires are building rockets to escape the planet, where the dead-eyed stare of artificial intelligence is promising to existentially upend our world, and where divisiveness in our culture is breeding delusional levels of certainty, Jeffrey Martin’s new record feels like a hopeful and fully human antidote.
There are holes in all the side walls where the wind it brings the rain in
And the gold crowns have been found out to be brass that has been painted
There are holes in all our bibles where we make secret compartments
To hide the broken treasures we smuggled out of the garden -Quiet Man
The sounds feel warm, close, and refreshingly real, all held up by the richness and rare candor of Jeffrey’s voice. Production is restrained mostly to his guitar and vocals, with flashes of classical guitar for a tumbling wash of melody and low end color. Martin’s voice sits high above everything, reaching into new melodic territory that goes beyond his earlier work. “I feel like I’ve only just learned how to sing,” Martin said. “Like I’ve been chasing this record since my very first recordings. I wanted to really see what I could do, just my guitar and my voice and little else. I don’t think it was conscious. I think maybe it was a reaction to the pace of life these days. The churning news and entertainment and politics and violence of it all. I needed to know that even in this day and age, just a few simple ingredients still hold up.”
Beloved Portland-based guitarist Jon Neufeld added electric guitar to three tracks. Sticking to the same less-ismore approach, his playing skillfully and subtly elevates the lyrical intention. Neufeld’s touch is best displayed on Red Station Wagon, a searing story about one man’s transformation from a narrow-minded bigot into a person who feels deep remorse for the ugliness of his youth. In his transformation he discovers the clarity of empathy and compassion. The devastating and redemptive four minute song contains the emotional arch of an entire film, and each turn is beautifully punctuated by Neufeld’s guitar. In addition to his guitar work, Neufeld mixed and mastered the album, and was such a crucial part of the final feel of the record that Martin also credited him as a producer.
“Jon and I really produced this album together,” he said. “Me in the shack, and then him in his studio working with what I brought him as he mixed and mastered. It was such a treat to work with him. I brought this pile of rough songs and he was able to dial it in and make up for my complete lack of recording know-how. I love the performances I got, but Jon’s magic is what helped them breathe and truly come to life.”
No less lyrically weighty than his previous work, Thank God We Left The Garden holds a new kindness and easy solace that feels timeless and full of generosity. The title is a paradoxical nod to Martin’s own spiritual conclusions, a theme that is subtly woven throughout the album. The son of a pastor, he touches on his religious upbringing then carries us well beyond his past where the weight of his deepest questions are free to unfold.
“It’s always bothered me how uptight religion gets around the messiness of our human natures, always trying to tell people they’re broken and flawed from the get go. The only God I can imagine is one who is overjoyed with the mess. Who revels in the edgeless mystery. I imagine hanging around with angels all day gets boring pretty fast. So maybe we got the story wrong. Maybe we were supposed to leave the Garden all along. Maybe that was the first good thing we ever did. After all, I can’t think of anything that has an ounce of meaning or dimension that doesn’t come from failure.”
This is an album that craves your full attention, best experienced as a whole. Each song further illuminates the scene until you find yourself resting in the strangely comforting tangle of aliveness and meaning (and full spectrum of being alive./what it means to be alive.). At its core Thank God We Left The Garden is an album made of questions, humble and nuanced, a reverent celebration of the asking.
In my mind there’s a garden, full of beauty and darkness
Full of sorrow and sweet things where my heart can be honest
In that garden there’s a fruit tree and I eat from it daily
The same that Adam and Eve ate / what does that make me? -Garden
Whether singing about his own internal landscape, telling a story of someone else’s, or reflecting on the elusive relationship between scarcity and contentment, Martin’s writing never pushes the listener away, never points a finger. He sings of things we can all pin a memory on, holding the rough shorn gem of human experience up to the light.
There’s a treasure that we all know but we can’t have it / It’s a place beyond the measure of our minds
It is where we go when we forget we’re living / It is where we go when we forget we die . . .
And all the tools we use to feel important / they are useless as a sailboat in the sky
Where old bones and heart aches are forgotten / It’s a place we don’t have words to describe
The sun will rise like it always does on the day that I die
The world will spin, the sun will go on burning
Never even knowing I was alive
-There Is A Treasure
Thank God We Left the Garden will be released on Fluff and Gravy Records in the fall of 2023. Subsequent touring will carry Jeffrey Martin through all of the US, Canada, and Europe.
When you hear Marielle Kraft’s music or experience her candid live shows, you feel as though you already know her. The indie pop singer/songwriter, now based in Nashville, displays craftsmanship beyond her years, following suit to artists like Colbie Caillat, Maisie Peters, and Taylor Swift. Self-taught, the Rhode Island native began playing guitar at 16 and soon writing songs that strike chords with listeners everywhere. Her gift for storytelling is evident through her use of salient detail, raw emotion, and poignant word choice to describe moments “exactly as they feel.”
Over the past few years, Marielle Kraft has self-released two original EPs, including eight singles, and four official music videos. Kraft’s 2017 debut single, “How Far You Feel,” has collected over 1 million streams across platforms. The indie pop breakout track seeks to understand the dichotomy of physical vs. emotional distance in relationships, brilliantly expressing “what many feel but cannot find the right words to say.” Marielle Kraft’s debut studio EP, “The Deep End” officially released on July 12th, 2019, featuring fan-favorite tracks like “Toothbrush” and “Better Without You”. Kraft’s first effort is notably strong both lyrically and sonically, described by The Music Mermaid as “song after song of mini pop addictions.” In February 2020, Marielle Kraft co-released an “anthemic” and “heart-filled” single with Joshua Howard entitled “In It Together”, which has quickly gained support across platforms.
Marielle Kraft regularly plays at venues across the United States, sharing stages with names as big as Mt. Joy, Ava Max, and Betty Who. She presents her live shows as a seamless narrative: evocative yet encouraging, deeply reflective yet refreshing. The raw authenticity with which Marielle invites listeners into her story cultivates a relationship with them beyond the song, as she is known to “bring together a room full of strangers.” Her “winning personality,” “genuine connection”,” and “gift for story telling” on stage have fueled the ever-growing crowds at each of her shows, with no signs of slowing down.
In spring 2018, she was crowned Grand Champion of the Mid-Atlantic Singer-Songwriter Competition, and the following June she delivered a Tedx Talk at Firefly 2018, discussing the importance of honesty rooted in her songwriting process.
In 2021, Marielle Kraft released 4 singles, each of which found major traction on TikTok before becoming fully studio produced releases. “Everyone But Me” (February 19th), “We Were Never Friends” (March 24th), and “Second Coffee” (July 19th) feature a more developed sound than seen from Marielle before, while her latest collaboration with Charlie Brennan called “Sidelines” (October 29th) reached Spotify’s “Fresh Finds” and Apple Music’s “Breaking Singer/Songwriter” playlists.
Kraft’s sophomore EP “Heartspace” landed on September 30th, with lead singles “Shrink” (April 8th) and “I Kissed A Boy” (May 19th) and a nearly sold-out headlining fall tour accompanies this highly anticipated release, with much more to come from this budding singer-songwriter.
Kraft launched into 2023 with two powerhouse pop singles “Owe My Ex” and “10x Better,” coupled with a nearly sold-out spring headlining tour across the United States.
October 27th, 2023 brought the latest offering from Kraft—an evolved EP of 4 songs, tied together as the concept project called “GOOD.” Co-produced with Nashville’s Quinn Redmond [Stephen Day, Emma Klein], GOOD marks an exciting new chapter for Kraft as she stretches her reach to opposite coasts and wider corners of the internet. Since leaving her full-time teaching career to pursue a life committed to creating music, Marielle Kraft has promise to follow suit to artists like Julia Michaels and Maisie Peters as the burgeoning artist makes an impact in the indie pop scene, setting her on pace for an even bigger 2024.
Robbie Fulks is a singer, recording artist, instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter. His current release, Bluegrass Vacation on Compass Records, returns him to his bluegrass roots, with a large group of masterful musicians including Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Justin Moses, Ronnie McCoury, Alison Brown, David Grier, Tim O’Brien, Todd Phillips, John Cowan, Brennen Leigh, Randy Kohrs, Sierra Hull, Stuart Duncan, Shad Cobb, and Chris Eldridge. Across 11 new original songs (and one freewheeling interpretation of the Delmore Brothers), Robbie covers themes like small-town blues, the endurance of childhood memory, inebriation, love, divorce, the role of music in strengthening family bonds, losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s, and bluegrass itself.
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Patty Larkin is a visionary of sound and wonder, a real deal version of artistry made of equal parts guitar wizardry, vocals shot through with soul and inventive lyrics that ripple across the terrain of the heart. Described as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly), and a “drop-dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter), Patty has captured audiences for over 30 years with an imagination, enchantment, and technical artistry that has redefined the boundaries of the guitar-driven singer-songwriter.
With eleven studio albums and two live recordings under her belt, Patty mines the intersections of poetry and song with her innovative 14th release, Bird in a Cage, released on her own Road Narrows Records. Bird in a Cage puts poems from ten notable poets to song, including US Poet Laureates William Carlos Williams, Stanley Kunitz, Kay Ryan, Robert Pinsky and Billy Collins, for a new and haunting collection that pulses with the magic of lyricism. Poems are made to be shared aloud, and with Bird, Patty takes up that tradition and sets it aglow: her extraordinary musical shadings make each poem a star.
Bird in a Cage grew out of her songwriting practice. As Patty describes it, “Over the years I began my writing days by reading my favorite poets just to be amazed and inspired. I looked to poetry as I look at nature: with awe. This morning ritual evolved into a desire to make music of some of my favorite poems. The rhythm and cadence of the lines felt new and fresh to me, the melody slowly revealing itself. And uncovering a melody that is slowly revealed by the words was pure joy.”
This new album leaves standard songwriting forms behind, crossing instead into a world where rhyme is optional and phrases unfold at their own speed. Bird in a Cage embraces those creative spaces where boundaries are fluid; its ten tracks are full of cross-disciplinary energy, the hot spark of one artist collaborating with another. The album’s liner notes say it best with this reflection from Patty on Bird’s genesis: “This project is my way of holding brilliance in my hand.”
Bird was co-produced by Patty and Mike Denneen, who Patty has called her “musical compass.” Their collaboration spanned 16 years and 5 albums. Mike, whose work as a record producer was nothing short of genius (Aimee Mann, Howie Day, Jen Trynin, Letters To Cleo), passed away in July of 2018, just shy of Bird’s completion. For Bird in a Cage, Mike created a lush sonic landscape, playing vintage keyboards on several tracks. Patty and Mike’s shared vision for an album with layered, atmospheric sound was secured with backup support from friends Jonatha Brooke (vocals and guitar), Merrie Amsterburg (vocals) and Marc Schulman (electric guitar), and strings by Catherine Bent (cello) and the Parkington Sisters (violin, viola, vocals). Patty’s long-time drummer and percussionist, Ben Wittman, kicks up the mix on the last track, an inspired version of Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry.”
Patty’s recent projects include Still Green, an album written in a dune shack on the Outer Banks of Cape Cod’s National Seashore, and 25, a retrospective album that includes the contributions of 25 friends, among them Grammy award winners Rosanne Cash, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Janis Ian, as well as acclaimed singer-songwriters Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Greg Brown, among others. Patty was the Executive Producer of the groundbreaking La Guitara, a compilation of women guitarists actively changing preconceptions about gender and guitar heroes.
Patty was raised in the Midwest, and is a descendant of a long line of Irish American singers and tale-tellers. Her mother was a painter, and her sisters are both musicians. She studied English Literature and Folklore in the Pacific Northwest, as well as jazz guitar and voice at the Berklee College of Music. While in Boston, Patty honed her performance chops in listening rooms, clubs, and festivals.
Her songs have been covered by various artists including Cher and Holly Cole and have been featured in television and film including Evolution (DreamWorks); Random Hearts (Columbia Pictures); Sliding Doors (Miramax); and Men in Trees. With 11 Boston Music Awards to her credit, Patty is also the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music and she has been honored by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino for her music and philanthropy. She lives with her family on Cape Cod.
Cheryl Wheeler has to be seen to be appreciated. Nothing you read and nothing you hear from her albums prepares you for how entertaining a performer she is.
If you’re not already familiar with Cheryl, you have probably heard her music. She is very respected as a songwriter by her peers, which can be seen by how many of them record her songs. Cheryl’s songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Dan Seals, Peter Paul & Mary, Kenny Loggins, Garth Brooks, Suzy Bogguss, Melanie, Bette Midler, Maura O’Connell, Sylvia, Kathy Mattea, and Holly Near.
From her albums you can tell that she is a gifted songwriter with a beautiful voice. From other people’s comments about her you learn that she is a natural storyteller with a fantastic sense of humor. But until you see her in person, you never really be- lieve what you’ve been told about her. Interestingly enough, almost half of the songs she performs during her shows have never been recorded!
Cheryl’s first concert was to a captive audience. She found an old toy ukelele in a neighbor’s attic and serenaded her mother who was taking a bath at the time. A year later she got a real ukelele, followed by her first guitar. She learned guitar from a neighbor, who also taught a group of boys. Each week they would get together and play just about any song they could think of for hours on end. Her first public performance was at a Hootenanny when she was 12. She started writing her own songs when she was 17.
Cheryl has never had a “day job,” and her first professional gigs were at the Steak and Ale Restaurant in her home town of Timonium, Maryland. The place only had one PA system; in the middle of her songs you would hear: “Jones, party of four … Jones, party of four.” She finally convinced them to get a second PA system.
She performed at venues around Baltimore and Washington DC before moving to New England in 1976, where she now lives. She tours extensively, often performing solo or with Kenny White, who often opens her shows as well. She appeared as part of the On a Winter’s Night tour, and was part of the Philo 25th Anniversary tour.
Her funny stories between songs reveal her talent for diversity. Each time she tells a story, it will be a little bit different, so even if you’ve heard it before, you still find yourself laughing.
Todd Barry has released four one-hour stand-up specials including his latest one, Domestic Shorthair.
He’s appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ,The Late Show with David Letterman, Conan and Late Night With Seth Meyers and his acting credits include The Wrestler, Road Trip, Flight of the Concords, Chappelle’s Show, Spin City, Sex and the City. You may have heard his voice on the animated series Bob’s Burgers, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Todd is also the author of the critically-acclaimed 2017 travel memoir Thank You For Coming To Hattiesburg.
With “a voice for the gods that can transport listeners to other realms” (Boston Globe), Mary Fahl is an expressive, emotional singer/songwriter who first achieved fame as lead singer and co-founder of the mid-1990s NYC- based chamber-pop group October Project, a band known for their lush harmonies, sweeping melodies and Fahl’s unique and powerful vocals. After two records on Epic, the band disbanded, but Fahl had more freedom to pursue her own muse, whether that meant writing and recording songs for movies (including the theme for the Civil War epic “Gods and Generals”), singing arias and medieval Spanish songs for Sony Classical or releasing a unique album-length take on “Dark Side of the Moon”…
With an earthy, viscerally powerful contralto that bridges the generational gap between Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny and London Grammar’s Hannah Reid, Mary Fahl makes music that feels timeless, esoteric and ecumenical. Her elegant, cinematic songs have a hauntingly gothic romanticism that inspired renowned writer Anne Rice to portray Mary’s voice emanating from a dead woman’s room in her 2013 novel The Wolves of Midwinter…
Over the past few years, she’s been touring and recording on her own label, Rimar Records, and her recent releases have garnered awards including an Indie Acoustic Award for Best Live Album for “Live at the Mauch Chunk Opera House” (filmed for PBS) and a 2020 Independent Music Award for her recent holiday album, “Winter Songs and Carols”. Her latest release, a Blu-ray 5.1 surround DVD, “From the Dark Side of the Moon”, brilliantly mixed by Bob Clearmountain, won the 2021 Immersive Album Audio Listener’s Choice award and was named “Immersive Album of the Year” by Life in Surround.
Now she returns with “Can’t Get It Out of My Head”. In an effort to find some light and comfort during these challenging times, singer/songwriter Fahl looks back to some of the essential music that has brought her sustenance and clarity by reinterpreting songs from her greatest inspirations … Pink Floyd, George Harrison, Moody Blues, ELO, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others. For Mary, this is a tribute to the music that defined her as an artist.
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.
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