Root Music Coffeehouse To Present Red Molly In Inaugural Offering

DANBURY — Red Molly, a New York female trio of musicians with soaring vocal harmonies, will kick off the new Roots Music Coffeehouse on Saturday, February 10, in downtown Danbury.

Presented by William Wisnowski and Carl W. Knobloch of Danbury, the coffeehouse will be in the Common Ground Annex dance studio, located in the former CityCenter Dance Factory space at 345 Main Street. Doors will open at 7:30 pm, with an open mic at 8 and the featured act at 9.

Suggested donation is $10 online at RootsMusicCoffeeHouse.com or $12 at the door. Because of the dance floor, be prepared to leave shoes in the outer room, unless the organizers manage to find big pieces of carpeting free or cheap before then.

“We want Roots Music Coffeehouse to satisfy the renewed interest in acoustic and American music that is at the root of all the songs we sing,” Mr Knobloch said. Plans are for semi-regular monthly coffeehouses, with a few months off during the summer festival season.

Future acts already booked are Twilight Hotel, an edgy duo from Canada, on March 25; and Little Toby Walker, a National Steel blues guitarist from Long Island, N.Y., on April 14.

In the wee small hours of a summer night, a group of singer-songwriter friends gathered to share their latest tunes at a hilltop campsite at the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. The song circle grew smaller as one by one, sleepy campers drifted off to their tents, leaving only Laurie MacAllister, Abbie Gardner and Carolann Solebello in the citronella-scented candlelight.

Not yet ready to call it a night, these women, who had long admired each other’s solo work, began sharing favorite songs by other songwriters. Before long, Laurie, Abbie and Carolann were singing their fellow campers off to sleep in three-part harmony on songs by contemporary writers like Gillian Welch and Iris DeMent, bluegrass standards, old-time southern gospel and classic American tunes.

Before the sun rose on Hillsdale, N.Y., Red Molly was born.

In the two years since that pivotal night, Red Molly has performed at a number of venues in the Northeast and is steadily garnering a devoted regional fan base. Red Molly has opened shows for such artists as Aztec Two-Step, Michael Smith, Bill Staines, Johnsmith, David Wilcox, Jeffrey Gaines, John Hammond and Jonathan Edwards. In a particularly satisfying turn, Red Molly was selected to perform in the 2006 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase. Even more exciting, audience voting determined that Red Molly will return to the Falcon Ridge main stage in 2007.

In July 2006, the trio’s first full-length offering, Never Been to Vegas, was released. Recorded on a chilly December evening before a warm studio audience of fans and friends, Never Been to Vegas is a collection of 14 carefully chosen songs that span more than a century of great American songwriting.

In uncluttered arrangements for three voices, songs by timeless greats like Hank Williams and Billy Edd Wheeler, new traditionalists like Gillian Welch, Patty Griffin and Red Molly’s own Abbie Gardner mix easily with traditional American folk and gospel. Never Been to Vegas follows Red Molly’s April 2005 eponymous debut recording, a four-song EP that has earned enthusiastic reviews from audiences and critics alike.

For more information, contact Carl W. Knobloch at info@RootsMusicCoffeeHouse.com or 798-7044 or Bill Wisnowski. Wwisnowski@snet.net or 994-1903.