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Teddy Thompson & Leslie Mendelson play BSP in Kingston

Teddy Thompson & Leslie Mendelson play BSP in Kingston

Saturday, September 30: “Thompson,” the sur- in Teddy Thompson’s name, is not a bad music industry handle – especially if you have any interest whatsoever in the great school of British progressive folk and all of its downhill streams. In that tradition, Teddy’s father Richard Thompson is a royal among royals.

Willie Nile plays Marlboro’s Falcon

Willie Nile plays Marlboro’s Falcon

Friday, Sept. 29: He sang with Springsteen. Bono toasted him. Townshend and Lou Reed are among his vocal admirers. A verbal dynamo and complex character in the tradition of Zimmerman, Willie Nile has released no fewer than 11 records. Still, he is NYC’s secret weapon – maybe because that’s just a cool thing to be.

Jazz supergroup Hudson to launch tour at the Bardavon

Jazz supergroup Hudson to launch tour at the Bardavon

Wednesday, October 4: This is indisputably a supergroup. It finds the great and epochal jazz guitarist John Scofield reuniting with the Jazz Rushmore drummer and Woodstock icon Jack DeJohnette, as well as John Medeski (whose primacy in the reclamation and reinvention of fusion simply cannot be overstated) and Larry Grenadier on bass.

Colony in Woodstock hosts Two Dark Birds’ album release party

Colony in Woodstock hosts Two Dark Birds’ album release party

Friday, Sept. 29: Most of the players here, many of whom you’ve heard if not heard of, earned their musical stripes elsewhere but live and work here now, forming a kind of new model collective for the post-industry music world, where you might as well live and play in the Catskills, for all anyone cares. Few, however, take on the Catskills as subject and as inspiration as directly as Koester, the Bard of Pakatakan Mountain.

Ani DiFranco to play the Bardavon

Ani DiFranco to play the Bardavon

Friday, Oct. 6: As influential for her funk- and punk-inflected take on singer/songwriter acoustic rock as for her rigorous self-determination and relentlessly energized activism, walking the talk where so many others are content merely to talk it, Ani DiFranco is simply important. She’s a lightning rod for polarized opinion as well, but that just comes with her territory.

Cowboy Junkies to play in Hudson

Cowboy Junkies to play in Hudson

Thursday, Sept. 28: There’s no overestimating the influence of the Cowboy Junkies on the aesthetics of “low”, leading, decades after they rocked the world with whispers, directly to the phenomenon of dreampop and to the genre that I hereby deem closet folk (think early Iron and Wine).

Graham Nash to perform an intimate show at Bethel Woods

Graham Nash to perform an intimate show at Bethel Woods

Sunday, Sept. 24: Very few bands have ever comfortably supported three songwriters, and even two can be a fractious challenge. Consider, then, the rare case of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – not only four songwriters in one outfit, but four established ones who had written hits with their previous bands: Buffalo Springfield (Stills and Young), the Byrds (Crosby) and the Hollies (Nash). Imagine the wrestling over vinyl bandwidth.

Colony hosts Sylvia Bullett album release concert

Colony hosts Sylvia Bullett album release concert

Sunday, Sept. 24: Flying Machine features substantive contributions from five-time Grammy winner Cindy Cashdollar on steel guitar, paired on a track with drummer and family torchbearer Gabe Butterfield. Avant-garde vocalist, composer and violinist Iva Bittová appears on the same track as the reed player and scholar of animal sounds David Rothenberg and the world-recognized harmonic overtone singer Timothy Hill. Imagine that. No, really.