Were you that guy or gal Holding Back the Years while hoisting 99 Luftballoons at your White Wedding full of Karma Chameleons? Or maybe, instead, you were the Owner of a Lonely Heart because Sister Christian said Girls Just Want to Have Fun and then she started Dancing in the Dark with Mr. Roboto to the heat of St. Elmo’s Fire. Well, it Gives Love a Bad Name, right, all this Dancing on the Ceiling, but even if you do Blame It on the Rain, the sad fact is you miss doing the Wild Thing.
The Marafanyi beats go on, from Sunday, August 22, through Tuesday August 24: workshops where adults, children and families together can learn West African drum, dance and song will be held at the Chilmark Community Center. For details and registration, e-mail Mary Ambulos at mvmar@comcast.net or see online marafanyi.com.
Every August, Vineyarders flood the fair grounds at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Hall in West Tisbury. Every fall, we are treated to the harvest festival to celebrate the season’s bounty, and every winter we have Island artisans’ fairs, community potlucks or most recently the winter farmers’ markets. The Vineyard is a place of tradition, and the Ag Hall is a beacon of that.
There are many iconic Vineyard lifestyles available for the dreaming, but Kevin Keady is living what might be the most romantic of them all: he is a singer-songwriter (his band, the Cattle Drivers, has a cult following here) whose dayjob is a farmhand on Chappaquidick. Yes, really.
Dropping two octaves, world class opera singer Renée Fleming sings Oxygen, the anthem of Island troubadour Willy Mason, on a new album that is a collection of popular songs sung in a range that she describes as that of her talking voice.
Twelve years ago, Marsha Winsyrg staged a small-scale effort to help a small group of Zambian artisans make a profit from their work. While in Africa visiting her daughter, Ms. Winsyrg saw the effects of poverty and AIDS “wrecking the fabric of the whole culture.” Upon her return to the States, she hauled back the handmade crafts to sell on the Island. The proceeds would go back to the struggling artisans.
For a week during the holidays this winter, Michelle Jasny left the Island for a camp in the Catskills. Armed with her accordion, she joined some 300 people at KlezKamp, a weeklong retreat for klezmer musicians. Though she’d been playing for nearly a year, and also has a background in piano and guitar, Ms. Jasny was blown away by the intensity of the repertoire, and the music. “Some of this is very fast,” she said of the traditional Yiddish music. “We were playing like nine, 10 hours a day, so it was very intense.”
Genre-blending folkster Martin Sexton will play his only Vineyard concert this summer on Wednesday, August 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the waterfront East Chop Beach Club, to benefit, Friends of mvyradio.
Vineyard old boy Danny Kortchmar produced Mr. Sexton’s 1998 major label debut on Atlantic Records, The American. Mr. Sexton formed his own label shortly after, releasing many awardwinning records including the original live album, Solo, which won last year’s Independent Music Award for Best Live Performance Album.
World musician Krishna Das will perform on the Vineyard on Thursday, August 26 as part of his new Heart as Wide as the World tour. Krishna Das is the rock star of Kirtan, an ancient call-and-response spiritual practice that has roots in Indian traditions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. He will perform at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs from 7 to 10 p.m.
