Iconic singer-songwriters Susan Werner & Vance Gilbert have performed hundreds of shows across the country with a wide range of impressive collaborators — and they’re bringing their talents to the Payomet tent this Wednesday, August 16.
Over the course of her twenty five year career, Susan Werner has earned a reputation as “one of the most innovative songwriters working today” (Chicago Tribune). With formidable chops on guitar (she began playing at age 5) and piano (she was a guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz), along with a graduate degree in voice performance, her shows are a one-woman master class in musicianship. Although best known as an acoustic songwriter that came up through coffeehouses and folk festivals, the Chicago-based artist has written songs in the style of Gershwin and Cole Porter, gospel music, traditional Cuban “son”, and New Orleans junk piano. Her songs have been recorded by Tom Jones, Michael Feinstein, and Shemekia Copeland, and her latest recording of originals, The Birds of Florida, took flight in 2022.
Vance Gilbert burst onto the singer/songwriter scene when the buzz started spreading in the folk clubs of Boston about an ex-multicultural arts teacher who was knocking ’em dead at open mics. Word of the Philadelphia-area bred performer quickly spread to New York City– then Shawn Colvin invited Gilbert to be a special guest on her Fat City national tour, and Vance Gilbert took audiences across the country by storm.
Vance continues to refine his unlikely union of humor, virtuosity, and the unexpected. Whether with classic, original songwriting or ageless interpretations of covers, his is a presentation steeped in deep humanism and bravery, stunning artistry and soul, and contagious, unbridled joy – inarguably the blue ribbons that tie and seal the seemingly impossible package that is… Vance Gilbert.
