PUTNEY, Vt. – Next Stage Arts continues its 2024 Bandwagon Summer Series of concerts with a folk, roots, and Americana music festival, featuring The Clements Brothers, The Jacob Jolliff Band, and The Mammals, on Sunday, Oct.6, at 2 p.m., at Cooper Softball Field in Putney, Vt.
The Clements Brothers are George and Charles Clements, identical twins from New England. They’ve been playing and writing music together for as long as they can remember, and their duo marks their first project together since playing in the internationally touring grass-roots band The Lonely Heartstring Band, with whom they put out two albums on Rounder Records. With roots, rock, bluegrass, jazz, and classical influences, George (guitar) and Charles (bass) aim to capture their singer-songwriter sensibilities in a unique blended voice, at once enthralling and intimate, groovy and serene. The duo is a fusion of each brother’s unique musical journey, and the result is a music all its own, filled with vocal harmonies, instrumental virtuosity, and a genuine love of song.
Born into a musical family in Newberg, Ore., Jacob Jolliff started playing mandolin at age 7, and performed in a bluegrass gospel band with his father as a teenager. At age18, he was awarded a full scholarship to The Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he joined the New England-based roots music band Joy Kills Sorrow. They toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, playing hundreds of clubs, theaters, and festivals. In 2012, Jacob won the National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, Kan., and two years later joined the progressive bluegrass jam group Yonder Mountain String Band, releasing three albums and touring with the band until the end of 2019. In 2022, Jolliff was called on by world-famous banjo player Bela Fleck to tour as part of My Bluegrass Heart. He performed around the country alongside Fleck and some of the very best musicians in the genre – Bryan Sutton, Cody Kilby, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, Michael Cleveland, Stuart Duncan, and Billy Contreras. Jolliff’s main focus now is The Jacob Jolliff Band, an ensemble of virtuosic pickers who play his original instrumentals, and showcase his singing. They tour nationally in the U.S., and have also travelled to Scotland and Australia to perform.
The Mammals are folksingers Ruth Ungar, Mike Merenda, and a cohort of compelling collaborators, who form a touring quintet on the fiddle, banjo, guitar, organ, bass, and drums. Over the past 20 years, they have quietly composed a canon of original songs that both reflect our culture, and offer a vision of how the world might yet be. A rough and tumble decade in the 2000s forged The Mammals’ identity as “subversive acoustic traditionalists” and a “party band with a conscience,” equally inspired by their folk predecessors and Americana peers. Re-emerging in 2017 from a hibernation period during which the band’s founders explored new songwriting terrain (releasing five albums under the moniker Mike + Ruthy), the quintet effortlessly spans the horizons of Americana, from soulfully harmonized indie-folk ballads, to zealous fiddle and banjo-driven foot stompers.
Cooper Field is located at 41 Sand Hill Road in Putney, Vt. Tickets are discounted in advance at www.nextstagearts.org; kids under 12 are free. Next Stage will provide a beer, wine, and cocktail cash bar, and Smokin’ Bowls will serve an ever-changing variety of seasonal dishes using local produce, dairy, and meat. Bring lawn chairs or blankets for outdoor seating on the grass. For more information, visit 802-387-0102 or visit the website.