Say goodbye to the February blahs when the eleventh annual San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival comes to town! Tonight's show brings the glorious vocals and scintillating musicianship of two great all-woman bands, the Stairwell Sisters and Red Molly.
Driving stringband music, sweet country harmonies, and red-hot buckdancing: the Stairwell Sisters offer all this and more when they bring their passion for old-time country songs and rowdy fiddle tunes to the Freight for a wild, good-time show. Energetic musicianship and tight vocal arrangements are the order of the hour when Lisa Berman (dobro), Stephanie Prausnitz (fiddle), Evie Ladin (clawhammer banjo and clogging), Martha Hawthorne (bass), and Sue Sandlin (guitar and tiple) take the stage with their fiddle tunes from Alabama to Scotland, old songs of trains, boats and possums, and new songs of trial and work, loss and love, and all-night parties.
Hailing from New York, the trio Red Molly offers gorgeous three-part harmonies, exceptional musicianship, and apparently boundless energy. Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner, and Carolann Solebello have a lot of fun on stage, and it's contagious: the
Boston Globe
commented that "what is most striking is the ardor they bring to everything they do, whether snuggling into the sweet parochialism of an old spiritual, or the gritty pathos of a Gillian Welch tune." With a repertoire that encompasses the full
americana
spectrum, Laurie (banjo, bass, guitar); Abbie (Dobro, guitar); and Carolann (guitar, bass, mandolin) mingle songs by well-known contemporary writers, traditional tunes, originals, and standards from the bluegrass and jazz worlds.
Visit the Stairwell Sister's website
Visit Red Molly's website
Visit the SF Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival's website
Listen to a track from the Stairwell Sisters:
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Listen to a track from Red Molly:
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