Lucy Kaplansky has a voice you won’t forget. Clear, pure, and full of tender feeling, it cuts through the noise of the world and pierces the heart. The good news is, she’s bringing that voice back to the Freight for an evening of incisive originals and carefully chosen covers. She’s “a truly gifted performer,” according to The New Yorker, “with a bag of enchanting songs,” and her latest album, Reunion, is “her best yet,” says AcousticMusic.com, which praises “the emotionally unflinching stories, the complete honesty of her lyrics and vocals, and then there's the voice—the one that singers want backing them in harmony, and the one fans want to hear front and center.”

Once upon a time, Lucy was a hip kid making the singer-songwriter scene in New York with Suzanne Vega, Cliff Eberhardt, and the late Bill Morrissey. It was easy, the New York Times said, “to predict stardom for her.” Then she changed direction, earned a Ph.D. in psychology, and began working with mentally ill adults. Music kept calling her back, though, in the form of friends who wanted her to sing on their albums, Shawn Colvin, Nancy Griffith, John Gorka. She went on to record half a dozen outstanding solo albums – Ten Year Night and Every Single Day won Best Pop Album of the Year from the Association for Independent Music – and she also collaborated on two enormously entertaining and popular “super group” projects, Cry, Cry, Cry with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell, and Red Horse with John Gorka and Eliza Gilkyson. Now that Lucy’s a mother with a hip kid of her own, her music has only deepened and grown more complex. Her show tonight promises a rich mix of folk, roots rock, and country, all delivered with great warmth, humor, and intelligence, in that unforgettable voice!

Freight favorite Nina Gerber is the LeBron James of guitar players – a superstar who makes everyone around her play better. She’s added her talents to the work of a wealth of wonderful artists, including Karla Bonoff, Peter Rowan, Nanci Griffith, Lucy Kaplansky, Laurie Lewis, and Kate Wolf, with whom Nina started her musical career. Her album Good Music with Good People features outstanding performances with Jackson Browne, Bruce Cockburn, and Eliza, among others, all taken from the Kate Wolf Festival, and Nina has a new album, Apple Blossom Lane, a collaboration with Chris Webster.

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