Valerie June

Get cozy in your living room, turn up your speakers or headphones and spend an intimate evening getting to know better the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Valerie June. We hope you’ll join us for another presentation of American Strings on Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 5 p.m.

Hosted by OSU Director of Popular Music and Performing Arts Bob Santelli, the American Strings series brings in successful artists from a variety of genres for a night of conversation and live performance.

Valerie June’s unique sound encompasses folk, blues, gospel, soul, country, Appalachian and bluegrass music. “Call Me a Fool,” a song from her recent album, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers is currently nominated for a GRAMMY for Best American Roots Song. With her spellbinding vocals and infectious sense of wonder, Valerie June gently eases the listener into a charmed state of mind, one that quickly restores a powerful feeling of joyful possibility. More on Valerie June

Registration is required to view the free program.

Register Here

Open to all community members.

Open to all community members.

Open to all community members.

Curtis Salgado
with Alan Hager

Oregon State University presents Curtis Salgado on the next installment of the College of Liberal Arts’ American Strings series.

Get to know better the Pacific Northwest’s own blues legend, Curtis Salgado, and guitarist Alan Hagar, in an evening of conversation and live performance.

“Curtis Salgado’s range and power as a vocalist are a tour-de-force…hard-nosed blues, beautifully nuanced R&B, phat and funky.” –Billboard

Salgado is famous, not only for his powerhouse live shows and multiple albums, but also for his passionate and insightful original songs. He is a three-time Blues Music Award nominee for Song of the Year, winning in 2018 for “Walk A Mile In My Blues” from The Beautiful Lowdown album. In total, Salgado has won nine Blues Music Awards, including the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year.

Seating on the plaza is free and on a first come basis. The SEC Plaza is located between the Memorial Union and the Student Experience Center on Jefferson Street. Parking in permit restricted lots is unrestricted after 5 p.m.

Philomath Bluegrass Workshop/Jam

Philomath Bluegrass Workshop/Jam

Philomath Bluegrass Workshop/Jam

Rickie Lee Jones

Oregon State University presents Rickie Lee Jones on the next installment of the College of Liberal Arts’ American Strings series.

Musician and storyteller, Rickie Lee Jones, has been inspiring pop culture for decades, beginning with her first two seminal albums Rickie Lee Jones and Pirates. The New Yorker has hailed her as “the premiere song-stylist and songwriter of her generation.”

A two-time Grammy Award winner, Jones’ celebrated memoir, “Last Chance Texaco,” was named Book of the Year by MOJO, Pitchfork and NPR. She will release her first all jazz album, produced by Russ titleman in April, 2023.

Join University Director of Popular Music/Rock Historian Bob Santelli, for an intimate conversation with this legendary pop/rock star, followed by a live performance. Seating is limited to 200.

TICKETS GO ON SALE MONDAY, OCT. 24 AT 8 A.M. AT oregonstatecla.universitytickets.com

Philomath Bluegrass Workshop/Jam

American Strings Celebrates Women’s History Month

featuring Shannon McNally
with Marilyn Jordan and Fiona Daley

GRAMMY® Nominated Americana Musician Shannon McNally has been called a Zen-like, post-Beat song poet. Those who have followed her nearly 20-year career, know the thing that stands out about McNally is the timelessness and effortlessness of her work. With a long catalog and longer list of peers with whom she has written, recorded, and toured, McNally continues to turn out great music that crosses many genres.  McNally’s music career began on the jam band circuit of the 1990’s with bands like Robert Randolph and Derek Trucks. She writes original music as well as she interprets the songs of others. With a top tier musicality to her craft, a soul stirring voice that immediately grabs one by the heart strings, and a troubadour’s wanderlust, not to mention that she is also an excellent electric guitar player, McNally knows she can serve up a song much like her anti-hero heroes J.J. Cale, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan. Dr. John, and Jim Dickinson.

Our host Bob Santelli will will talk to Shannon about her quiet but steady plodding through the many layers of music business. And while she hasn’t yet been rewarded with massive fame and fortune, that slow burn has become the treasure in and of itself. Perhaps the music industry is finally catching up with her independent spirit. We’ll explore that and more and hear Shannon perform at this special installment of American Strings.  Joining Bob and Shannon in this special evening will be two special guests, from right here at OSU:

Marilyn Jordan is a jamband-inspired singer-songwriter who creates songs like impressionist paintings, from her native rural Oregon. Drawing on themes of home, hiding out, and running like hell, Jordan tells stories of badass adventures through this bittersweet life, with intriguing stories, and a soul-saving sense of humor. An OSU graduate student studying Nanci Griffith’s songwriting, Marilyn is releasing her debut album titled “Both Things Are True,” on March 3.

Fiona Daley is a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts. She was born and raised in a small town in Montana just outside of Yellowstone. Daley has been playing guitar for four years and writing songs for two, but grew up always listening to and playing music. Fiona loves and writes music because of the ability it has to connect people, no matter how different. In sharing pieces of her life through music, she hopes to do just that.

Regarding tickets to this event: A ticket vendor with which Oregon State University contracts is experiencing an outage. This outage could last as long as five to seven days. Our ability to sell tickets online, as well as to take credit card payments in-person, are both impacted.

If you have not yet purchased tickets: Tickets will be available for purchase at the event by cash or check only. Ticket sales will begin one hour prior to the performance. Please note that we anticipate that this performance may sell out. Tickets will be sold on a first come, first served basis.

If you have already purchased tickets: We will have your name on a will call list at the event. We recommend you arrive early for general admission seating.

American Strings
An Evening with
the Kingston Trio

Join University Director of Popular Music Bob Santelli in a conversation with the legendary folk group: The Kingston Trio. Current members Mike Marvin, Tim Gorelangton and Buddy Woodward, have intrinsic links and experience with the iconic trio’s original members. Mike is the adopted son of founding member Nick Reynolds, who was also his musical mentor; Tim, a close friend since boyhood, is one of the few musicians outside the trio who has recorded with Nick Reynolds; and Buddy has performed with longtime Kingston Trio member George Grove. Together, they recall and will talk with Bob about the original members’ journey as folk music made its extraordinary ascent to the pinnacle of popular culture and the top of the music charts.

Following the interview, the trio will perform such timeless classics as “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” and “Tom Dooley”.

Only 200 seats!  Take advantage of the presale now at the link above to secure your seats.

Salem Folklore Community’s
34th Annual
Westwind Weekend
of music and dance

A beautiful setting on the Oregon Coast.  A pristine, sheltered beach, tidepools galore, wildlife in the water, woods, and air, hikes that lead to superb vistas up and down the coast.  It’s a weekend at the beach, with music and friends old and new.  It’s always sunny at Westwind, AND it almost always rains.  Which is to say, any weather can happen.

A growing, family friendly community.  More than a fourth of those who attend the Westwind Weekend are young people.  Kids bring their friends.  They dig in the sand, play Frisbee, hike, play cards, dance, play music, drink hot cocoa, help out, hang out, and build lasting memories.

Non-stop music jams.  At any moment you’ll find swing favorites on the front porch, old-time in the shed, and Irish/contra tunes in the kitchen.  Some of the finest musicians in the Willamette Valley come to Westwind and are joined by folks just learning to play and everyone in between.

Contra dancing and more.  Friday and Saturday evenings feature the Westwind All Star Orchestra playing tunes, and dance programming that’s aimed at all ages and abilities. Expect family dances, contras and squares, and a set of Scandinavian favorites. Also find musicians jamming and swing or zydeco dancing underway outside the main hall.

Camper-led workshops.  Gumboot dancing, daisy chain squares, swing chords, beach talk, favorite folk songs: come with your special talent to share or learn something you’ve never heard of before. Sunday morning expect time for singing the gospel of our non-denominational love of community.

A Saturday camper concert. Enjoy listening to the crazy, creative, and sublime as your fellow campers perform, or put together your own high or low art performance and step up onto the whale bone stage.

Happy, hearty vegetarian food.

Registration opens February 23.

Kalos

Kalos is made up of three innovative interpreters and composers of Celtic roots music: Eric McDonald, Ryan McKasson and Jeremiah McLane. They are masters of tradition who purposefully explore the dark corners floating on its edges, delivering an alluring musical complexity full of spontaneity and joyful exuberance. They set the standard for traditional repertoire with an underlying drive and pulse charged with rhythmic electricity and integrity, forging a new musical path that draws on Celtic, Breton, American and other musical traditions on accordion, guitar, fiddle, and vocals. The title of their new album, Headland, which refers to a point where land meets sea, is a fitting analogy for the exploratory space Kalos inhabits — one that calls forth driving, heartfelt music journeying through unknown territory to seek and find its essence – the enduring, resilient experience of the human heart.

Rated: G