, Suzanne Vega){kind=link}
In celebration of her just-released, career-spanning album, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories (out now on Amanuensis/Cooking Vinyl), Suzanne Vega will play two globally livestreamed concerts from New York City’s iconic Blue Note Jazz Club in Greenwich Village. The first will go live on October 7 at 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time for North American fans and the second will go live on October 8 at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, to accommodate U.K. and European audiences. In a gesture of support for the independent live music industry, currently facing the existential threat of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, Vega has partnered on the shows with more than 70 independent venues and promoters in the United States and additional promoters and major festivals in Europe. Tickets for each show available HERE via Seated, a live events and live stream ticketing company.
The full-band set will feature the album’s New York-centric repertoire, honoring Vega’s long musical relationship with her hometown. She will be joined on the Blue Note stage by longtime guitarist Gerry Leonard, bassist Jeff Allen and keyboardist Jason Hart.
Recorded live in early 2019 at New York’s Café Carlyle with Leonard, Allen and keyboardist Jamie Edwards, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories includes familiar songs like “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” alongside deep cuts from Vega’s catalog such as “Frank and Ava” and “Ludlow Street.” The mix of repertoire also features “New York Is My Destination” from Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, her one-woman play about the Southern gothic novelist Carson McCullers. Produced by Leonard, mixed by Grammy Award-winning engineer Kevin Killen and mastered by Grammy Award winner Bob Ludwig, the album is available HERE, and the recently released video for Vega’s cover of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wilde Side” is available to stream and share HERE.
Of the album, Vega says, “It is always a pleasure to play at the Café Carlyle in New York City, where this album was recorded. It is a small exclusive club that has hosted legends from Eartha Kitt to Judy Collins, and is also known to be the place where Jackie Kennedy met Audrey Hepburn. I love it for its bohemian old-world glamour! I decided it would be fun to perform a New York-themed show there with songs inspired by New York City or for which New York provided the backdrop, including ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ by my late, great friend, Lou Reed—a song I rarely heard him sing himself.”
Widely regarded as one of the foremost songwriters of her generation, Vega emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s. Since the release of her self-titled, critically acclaimed 1985 debut album, she has written and recorded numerous songs that have become part of the contemporary music vernacular, including “Luka,” “Marlene on the Wall” and “Tom’s Diner,” an a cappella piece that was remixed by U.K. electronic dance duo DNA and became a major club hit. Her albums, including her self-titled debut, the follow up, Solitude Standing and 99.9F have sold millions of copies worldwide. Vega was most recently seen in the cast of the Off-Broadway production Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, where her performance earned praise from The New York Times as “brandy-voiced…a delightful, smoothly sardonic presence.”
SUZANNE VEGA—LIVE FROM THE BLUE NOTE NEW YORK
October 7—9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time—TICKETS
October 8—3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time—TICKETS
VENUE & PROMOTER PARTNERS
AMP Concerts
Asbury Hall—Buffalo, NY
Avalon Theatre—Easton, MD
Barbara B Mann Performing Arts Hall—Fort Myers, FL
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts—Bethel, NY
Bimbo’s 365 Club—San Francisco, CA
Blue Note New York
Blue Note Hawaii
Blue Note Napa
Boch Center—Wang Theatre—Boston, MA
Boulder Theater—Boulder, CO
BRE Presents
Bull Run—Shirley, MA
Cafe Carlyle—New York, NY
Carnegie Hall—Lewisburg, WV
Cat’s Cradle Presents
Chocolate Church Art Center—Bath, ME
City Winery
Club Passim—Cambridge, MA
Collective Concerts
Count Basie Center for the Arts—Red Bank, NJ
Dakota—Minneapolis, MN
Dan Smalls Presents
Duck Club Presents
Eccles Theatre—Salt Lake City, UT
Emelin Theatre—Mamoroneck, NY
Flying Saucer Presents
FPC Live
Freight & Salvage—Berkeley, CA
GimmeLIVE
Guild Hall—The John Drew Theater—Easton Hampton, NY
Hanover Theatre—Worcester, MA
Hawaii Theatre—Honolulu, HI
Infinity Music Hall & Bistro—Hartford, CT
Landmark on Main Street—Port Washington, NY
Ludlow Garage—Cincinnati, OH
Me & Thee Coffee House—Marblehead, MA
Metropolitan Entertainment
Montalvo Arts Center—Saratoga, CA
Music Box Supper Club—Cleveland, OH
Music Without Borders
Musikfest Café Presented by Yuengling—Bethlehem, PA
Narrows Center—Fall River, MA
New Jersey Performing Arts Center—Newark, NJ
North Shore Center for the Performing Arts—Skokie, IL
Old Town School of Folk Music—Chicago, IL
Proctors Theatre—Schenectady, NY
Providence Performing Arts Center—Providence, RI
Rams Head—Annapolis, MD
Ridgefield Playhouse—Ridgefield, CT
Sellersville Theater—Sellersville, PA
South Orange Performing Arts Center—South Orange, NJ
SPACE and Out of SPACE—Evanston, IL
Spaceland Presents
StageOne—Fairfield, CT
Suffolk Theater—Riverhead, NY
Swallow Hill
Tarrytown Music Hall—Tarrytown, NY
The Ark—Ann Arbor, MI
The Beacon Theater—Hopewell, VA
The Birchmere—Alexandria, VA
The Bushnell—Hartford, CT
The Coach House—San Juan Capistrano, CA
The Grunin Center—Toms River, NJ
The Music Hall—Portsmouth, NH
The Strand Theatre—Rockland, ME
Tobin Center For Performing Arts
Troy Music Hall—Troy, NY
Universal Preservation Hall—Saratoga Springs, NY
Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center—Westhampton Beach, NY
Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts—Vienna, VA
World Cafe Live—Philadelphia, PA
Yarmouth Drive In on Cape Cod—Yarmouth, MA