The Peru Gazette

FOLK MUSIC ICON TO FEATURE NEW ALBUM AT HARBORSIDE

After a successful first month in which each concert presented featured an average of more than 50 carloads of music lovers packing the Harborside Parking Lot, Plattsburgh’s Curbside At Harborside drive-in concert series continues with a full slate of concerts throughout the month of August, beginning with beloved folk singer and songwriter Dan Berggren performing a solo show on Aug. 1.

Gates open at 6:30 p.m. for Berggren’s August 1 drive-in concert in Plattsburgh, with the concert starting at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 per carload (not per person) and will be available on the evening of the performance at the Harborside Lot entrance near the City of Plattsburgh Marina, behind the D&H Railway Station. (2 Dock Street is the best GPS address to use for finding this lot).

Vehicles will be parked first-come, first-served by the volunteer parking attendants on-site. All attendees must bring with them a face mask to wear whenever they exit their vehicles. All Centers for Disease Control and New York State requirements concerning social distancing will be observed.

For more information, please contact pomerance.benjamin58@gmail.com or visit www.facebook.com/CurbsideAtHarborside.

For decades, Berggren has remained one of the most celebrated troubadours of the Adirondacks, with a touring career that brought him everywhere from Central Africa to Eastern Europe the British Isles to states from Texas to Vermont — all while showcasing the music of the mountains that his family has called home for generations.

Berggren’s seventieth birthday concert at the storied Caffe Lena, the oldest continuously operating coffee house in the United States, was sold out so quickly that the venue immediately added a second show — which also was sold out almost immediately. For more than 40 years, his concerts have been widely praised by reviewers and audience members alike, and his songs have received significant national attention on public television and radio broadcasts.

Fans of the annual Adirondack Folk Music Festival know Berggren well, for it was Berggren — with significant personal encouragement from his longtime mentor Pete Seeger, who had tried to launch a similar festival in the Adirondacks during the late-1940s and early-1950s — who helped to launch this popular festival approximately three decades ago.

Having just released a new album when COVID-19 hit, this Plattsburgh drive-in concert marks one of the rare opportunities to hear Berggren live and in-person this year in a program that will feature songs from this new CD as well as favorite standards from the singer-songwriter’s extensive original catalog.

Even amid this global pandemic, Berggren has remained extremely active, including writing and recording a new single — Be Safe, Be Well — about his response to COVID-19 that has already received more than 16,000 views online.

The range of Berggren’s repertoire is vast and impressive, from the treasured ode to the Adirondacks Mountain Air to the renewable energy anthem Power From Above to the endearing When Harry Carried The Mail, describing the mail route that Berggren’s grandfather used to travel dating back to 1915 as one of the first rural free mail carriers in the Adirondacks. His music tells the true stories of hard-working folks in these mountains, describing human challenges and human triumphs, tragedy and love, care for the environment and care for each other.

Berggren’s Adirondack roots run deep, beginning with boyhood trips from his Brooklyn home to the farm near Minerva that his great-great-grandfather had started after migrating from Ireland during the potato famine. When Berggren was 12 years old, his family moved to that land year-around, with Berggren ultimately graduating from Minerva High School in a class of 11 students.

After studying at St. Lawrence University and serving in the United States Army, Berggren returned home to the Adirondacks, where he initially worked as a surveyor. In nearby Schroon Lake, he met two folk singers who introduced him to the extensive archive of recordings of Adirondack folk music made by Essex County historian Marjorie Lansing Porter.

Around that same time, Berggren found his grandfather’s old leather mail pouch in the family barn. This discovery led Berggren to travel his father’s old mail route, hoping to find someone who remembered his grandfather and could share some stories about him. In the kitchen of an 89-year-old Minerva resident named Cecil Butler, Berggren found what he was looking for — and developed the inspiration to devote the rest of his musical life to the folk music of the Adirondacks.

In addition to his performing and recording career, Berggren also taught radio and audio production at the State University of New York College at Fredonia, where he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and where he currently holds professor emeritus status. He remains an educator through song and storytelling, as observed by the New York State Outdoor Education Association, which honored him with their Art and Literary Award, and by the Adirondack Mountain Club, which honored him with their Education Award.

More Upcoming Curbside At Harborside Performances

On the Saturday after Berggren’s concert, The Revenants to town on August 8, three skillful Bluegrass Gospel Project alumni who have joined forces to present original, time-honored, and contemporary Americana music across the northeast.

Perennial favorites Beartracks take the stage on August 15, offering the bluegrass and country music that has delighted fans of this North Country-based group with international acclaim since their inception in 2004.

Jazz returns to the bandshell on August 22, with the Wickmoore Jazz Trio — brothers Nelson and Eli Moore on drums and bass, and Vihan Wickramasinghe on piano — performing classic and original blues, funk, and smooth jazz tunes.

August 29 highlights the talents of High Peaks Opera, featuring former New York City Opera principal artist George Cordes and highly accomplished pianist Elizabeth Cordes, with an evening of classics from opera, operetta, and Broadway.

September 5 showcases four gifted artists with deep connections to the North Country — husband-and-wife vocalists Bill and Brenda McColgin, and pianists Jennifer Moore and Rose Chancler — for a night of classical works for piano and narrator, as well as many favorite Broadway show tunes.

The “Curbside By Harborside” season will end on September 12, with a performance of traditional music from the time of the Battle of Plattsburgh, curated by folk musician Stan Ransom, who has entertained audiences with his voice and his stylings on hammered dulcimer, mandolin, and multiple other instruments for nearly 60 years. The Too Tall String Band (Rod Driscoll, Bruce Lawson, and Hap Wheeler) will be featured on this program as well, bringing the talents that have kept this group humming for 36 years, and humorous entertainment will be provided by Israel Green’s Tavern Rogues (Mike Trudo, Henry Morlock, and Benjamin Pomerance).

All concerts begin at 7:30 p.m., with gates opening for parking at 6:30 p.m. For more information, please contact Benjamin Pomerance at pomerance.benjamin58@gmail.com or visit www.facebook.com/CurbsideAtHarborside.