Two Newcomers For Next Community Coffeehouse

DANBURY — Nate & James, a Washington, D.C.-based acoustic folk/rock duo, and singer-songwriter Shana Cassidy from New York City, will perform at the Community Coffeehouse for the first time on Saturday, May 15.

The concert starts at 7:30 pm at the Community Meetinghouse, 7 Madison Avenue. Admission and refreshments are free but a freewill donation will be taken. For information and directions 748-4972.

Ms Cassidy grew up in a Queens, N.Y., home where the family really loved music. Her parents listened to everyone from Susanne Vega to the Police and gatherings with extended family frequently included singing together in four-part harmony.

Ms Cassidy has been influenced by and compared to Jennifer Knapp. Her early included three women she met when they played independently and who would eventually form the group Maeve – Rollyn Zoubek, Rachel Taylor and especially Courtney Reid.

In the two years since Cassidy graduated from Gordon College, just outside Boston, where she studied both social work and theater, her sound has evolved. She recorded her first CD, Way Beyond the Blue, in 2001, and says that work “is a great representation of who I was at a certain time. It’s very basic. It’s just me and my guitar and a few backup vocals,” she said.

“The stuff I’m writing now is completely different. I’m excited about getting into a studio,” said the 25-year-old singer-songwriter. “I know I have to get my new stuff down. My voice has changed over the years.”

Ms Cassidy’s sound now also includes guitarist Tim Busching and Tommy Gonzalez playing the djembe, an African drum.

Ms Cassidy has a hard time characterizing her sound.

“People always assume that just because you play an acoustic guitar it’s folk,” she said. Cassidy has written songs that are bluesy and pop as well as straight-up folk.

Nate Miller and James Vitray have been together since they met more than a decade ago in the summer before the start of their freshman year at Messiah College in Pennsylvania.

At first they arranged music in empty chapels and even dormitory stairwells but they got encouragement to do more with their music. As seniors in 1997, they began recording their first CD. The project, a self-titled

12-song CD, wasn’t completed until May of 1999.

After a five-year wait, the duo released its second independent album, The In Between Time, earlier this year.

While the duo will sometimes play a cover during a live gig, if requested, the bulk of their shows reflect

the original music contained in their albums. The sound has been best described as a combination of acoustic folk and acoustic rock. They’ve been referred to as “a Christian Simon & Garfunkel” with a sound also reminiscent of Caedmon’s Call or Jars of Clay.

Community Coffeehouse will wrap up its 13th season on Friday, June 18, with another big, big event: a return engagement by the nationally known David Crowder Band at Western Connecticut State University’s Ives Hall.

Tickets are $13 and are available at Mercy and Truth Bookstore in Brookfield, MorningStar Books in Danbury, or by visiting www.1HeartOnline.org.

For further information on either event, including directions to the coffeehouse, call 748-4972.