Thank you to all our musicians, guests and volunteers!

The last concert of the 2017-2018 Carroll Café season was a few weeks ago, and it is long since time to offer our thanks to all who have been part of this terrific collaboration of and for the community.

To the wonderful and gifted musicians who have graced our stage, please know how incredibly grateful we are that you shared your time and talents with us. You have contributed immeasurably to how Carroll Café fulfills its call:

We believe:

• that music is a gift that brings a deeper understanding and experience of the Creator and ourselves in a way different from any other discipline;
• that music is a gift for everyone, and everyone’s own music can be good and useful;
• that music from other places, cultures, and times can be important for everyone to bring us to mutual understanding.
• that music can promote cooperation, compassion, empathy, and friendship amongst all people.
• that roots music is a living tradition that grows out of the relationships between an artist and an audience.

We are called:

• to offer excellent music to the community at the nexus of Takoma Park, Montgomery County, and the Greater DC area for education, inspiration, enlightenment, and joy so everyone can receive the gifts that music offers.
• to provide a venue for musicians to present their music and thoughts; where they can be paid a fair wage for their skill and dedication.
• to help visitors learn more about, and experience the hospitality of, Seekers Church.
• to use music to create a world of equality, fellowship, and justice.

To each and every person who came to a single concert or many to support the music and musicians, and the team that forms the foundation of the venue, our gratitude knows no bounds.

Then there are the volunteers who come out to help at one concert or many, there enough that we can say to convey the thanks of the community. Without you we couldn’t offer this venue to anyone.

We are pleased to say that our 2018-2019 season will be another great opportunity to immerse yourselves in music, music, music! Please see the schedule  and look for the email announcing that registration is open for concert number 1 with Magpie!

With sincere thanks,

Glen Yakushiji, Denise Leclair, Margreta Silverstone, Doug Dodge, Sandra Miller

Friday, June 8, 2018

Eleanor Ellis & Back Porch Blues is an all-star down-home acoustic trio consisting of the incredible guitar and vocal work of Eleanor Ellis, the blues harmonica virtuosity of Jay Summerour, and the percussion talents of Eric Selby. Together they deliver real-deal acoustic blues, from the Piedmont to the Hills to the Swamp, blues without compromise in a relaxed, fun musical atmosphere…just like sittin’ with friends having a jam session on the back porch. Back Porch Blues has performed at various venues throughout the country including the Greenwood Blues Cruise in South Carolina, the Music Center at Strathmore, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

ELEANOR ELLIS, a native of Louisiana, has performed at clubs, festivals and concerts in the United States, Canada and Europe and has and has developed a distinctive and personal approach to the music. According to one reviewer, “More than copying one artist or another, Ellis distills the elements of the originals and transmits them, intact, in her own expressive way.” She has a long involvement with the blues scene; has traveled and played with the late gospel street singer Flora Molton and bluesman Archie Edwards, and sometimes accompanied Delta Blues great Eugene Powell. She is a founding member of the DC Blues Society and the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation, has written about the blues for several publications, teaches guitar privately and at various blues camps, and is producer and editor of the video documentary Blues Houseparty, which features well-known Piedmont blues musicians such as John Jackson, John Cephas, and Archie Edwards. She also worked at the Archive of New Orleans Jazz at Tulane University in New Orleans, and at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. www.eleanorellis.com

ERIC SELBY is a much sought-after producer/drummer/percussionist for many genres of music with concentration on the blues. Eric has performed live and recorded with many talented artists, including: Billy Thompson (Little Milton, Albert King, Art Neville), Ron Holloway (Warren Haynes, Dizzy Gillespie,
The Allman Brothers, Sonny Rollins, Tedeschi/Trucks), Daryl Johnson (The Neville Brothers, Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, U2, Bob Dylan), James East (Elton John, Lionel Richie, Eric Clapton), Guy Davis, Warner Williams (Piedmont blues legend, 2012 NEA National Heritage Fellowship Winner), Drink Small (Piedmont blues legend, 2015 NEA National Heritage Fellowship Winner), Bill Payne (Little Feat, J.J. Cale, The Doobie Brothers), Lenny Castro (Adele, The Rolling Stones, Steely Dan, Maroon 5, Stevie Wonder) and Mike Finnigan (Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker) to name a few. Eric has been named Blue411‘s Drum Thumper “Jimi” Award winner, been nominated for multiple WAMMIE awards, inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, #1 on Blues411‘s charts multiple times and was featured in Modern Drummer for his approach and perspective in their “Drummer Blogs.” For more information: www.ericselby.com

Hohner Harmonica endorser JAY SUMMEROUR has been involved with music for well over 40 years. Beginning his musical education on the trumpet at age 7, Summerour learned the harmonica from his grandfather Smack Martin, an accomplished blues harmonica player.

Largely self-taught, Summerour picked up bits and pieces from “folks he ran into”—like Sonny Terry, James Cotton, and Magic Dick. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Summerour took the traditional harmonica into the popular arena, joining the Starland Vocal Band and playing with Nils Lofgren and his band Grin. Four of the Starland Vocal Band’s records went gold during Summerour’s tenure. He also plays with blues artist Warner Williams to perform at folk festivals, blues festivals, and Smithsonian concerts under the name Little Bit of Blues.

Friday, May 18, 2018

Sally Rogers performs traditional, contemporary and original ballads and songs, interwoven with stories taken from her life as a performer, a wife and a mother. She accompanies herself on guitar and Appalachian dulcimer, or performs without accompaniment in a voice that needs no further enhancment. Reviewers have described her voice in superlatives ranging from “remarkable” to “mesmerizing.” As one critic summarized, “…it’s really next to impossible to do justice to a voice of that quality.” Much of the material performed by Sally includes her own compositions, many of which are considered classics of the folk and popular genre.

Like a jester, Claudia Schmidt weaves anecdotes throughout a concert that bring people to expect a relationship between themselves and memories driven deep. Her endless display of self-0realization through humor and longing leaves audience members yearning to become an integral part of her world.

To say that Schmidt is simply a performer with a talent to entertain would be a miscarriage of understatement. Schmidt takes her audiences into her world as easily as the child who discovers the endless universes that exist in a cardboard box.

Friday,  April 13, 2018

March 9, 2018

Guy Davis once said, “I like antiques and old things, old places, that still have the dust of those who’ve gone before us lying upon them.” Blowing that dust off just enough to see its beauty is something Guy has excelled at for over twenty years of songwriting and performing. It’s no wonder his reverence for the music of the Blues Masters who’ve gone before him has been evident in every album he’s ever recorded or concert he’s given.

Guy has had his musical storytelling influenced by artists like Blind Willie McTell and Big Bill Broonzy, and his musicality from artists as diverse as Lightnin’ Hopkins and Babatunde Olatunji. However, there’s one man that Guy most credits for his harmonica techniques, by stealing and crediting from him everything that he could, and that man is the legendary Sonny Terry.

“Truth be told, there just aren’t many who can deliver Americana in as interesting and entertaining a manner – or give acoustic traditional blues such a contemporary sound – as Davis. . . .”
—The Blues PowRBlog

Guy Davis has spent his musical life carrying his message of the blues around the world, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle, earning him the title “An Ambassador of the Blues.” His work as an actor, author, and music teacher reveal him as a renaissance man of the blues. What music and acting have in common, he explains, “is that I don’t like people to see the hard work and the sweat that goes into what I do. I want them to hear me and be uplifted.”

When Guy plays the blues, he doesn’t want you to notice how much art is involved. “It takes work making a song that’s simple, and playful, and easy to do,” he says. “And I don’t want people to see that. I want some little eight-year-old kid in the front row to have big eyes and say, ‘Hey, I want to do that!'”

February 9, 2018

January 12, 2018—CANCELED

December 8, 2017

A new and international project, Trifilio Tango Trio presents virtuosic performances of original tango music. Led by Argentinian Emmanuel Trifilio (composition, bandoneon) and Devree Lewis (arrangements, cello), TTT celebrates the tango classics while creating new repertoire for today’s audiences. The refined group has performed in different environments around the world; from their weekly appearances in D.C.’s small venues to their formal concerts in Buenos Aires, they present an intimate experience from any stage.