Lui Collins: “One of New England’s clearest and most distinctive folk voices, with unusually piercing lyrical insight” HARTFORD CURRENT
“Franke songs are often devastatingly simple, joyfully anthemic, just plain quirky or wonderfully suggestive—but always, unforgettable” CHICAGO MAGAZINE
A rare night with two of our finest singer-songwriters, much-loved solo performers (and old friends). Lui Collins and Bob Franke have thrilled us from our days along Albany’s Washington Park to the present at Proctors. Yes, a solo concert by either is always an event. But bringing them together promises a truly magical night!
BOB FRANKE ranks among the most prolific and important folk songwriters of our times. Many of his songs, like “Hard Love,” “For Real,” “Thanksgiving Eve,” and “The Great Storm Is Over” are beloved to folk audiences, guaranteed to be heard sung onstage by a musical colleagues too numerous to count, around folk festival singalongs after dark, but more widely, sung by church choirs.
Franke’s truly a songwriter’s songwriter, and his songs have been recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Kathy Mattea, John McCutcheon, Garnet Rogers, and David Wilcox, among others.
In concert, his intimate songs and potent ballads are interspersed with revealing anecdotes – sly blues about bicycles, computers, and cagey catfish; daffy ditties about manic monkeys, psychedelic polkas, and adjusting to our loved ones’ foibles. His voice is warm, soft and familiar; he’s a superb guitarist but never a show-off; he wants to meet and befriend his audience, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend.
LUI COLLINS: “One of New England’s first and brightest stars,” said The Boston Globe, while the Boston Herald dubbed her a “folksinger for our times.” Onstage she’s enthralling, her voice clear and warm and rich, her performance transporting. Her lyrical and lush songwriting inspired the irascible Dave Van Ronk to call the multi-instrumentalist “one of the best guitarist-arrangers I have heard in years.”
She has been delighting audiences, writing and recording for over 40 years, her early Philo and Green Linnet recordings earning international acclaim. She has performed with Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, Stan Rogers, Garnet Rogers, Dar Williams, John Gorka; and with Garnet Rogers on our stage..
Guitarist/Grammy-nominated producer ANAND NAYAK accompanies Collins in a wide range of styles and languages; more than a decade of creative collaboration shines in their fluid musical dialogue onstage.
Join us for a very specia night!