From a free concert by a top-flight guitarist in Concord to a folk festival in Golden Gate Park and a benefit starring Mrs. Doubtfire, there is a lot to see and do in the Bay Ares this weekend. Here is a partial roundup.
Free fretboard fireworks in Concord
The Bay Area has an highly impressive record as the home to many phenomenal guitarists and the blues genre has long been well-represented in this impressive collection – from John Lee Hooker to Bonnie Raitt to Tommy Castro. One of the finest blues fret magicians from these parts may not be as well known as some of his contemporaries, but he is no less a gem. Roy Rogers, born in Redding and named for the cowboy singer and guitarist, has long been a stalwart of the Bay Area music scene. Like Raitt, he is best known for his prowess on the slide guitar, on which he is regarded around the globe as one of the finest purveyors of Mississippi Delta blues going. As the All Music Guide puts it, “His versatility with the technique is nothing short of astonishing.” And Guitar Player magazine raves, “That’s not a slide on Roy Rogers’ pinky, it’s a time machine. With it, Rogers transports you to the Mississippi Delta’s past and future.” His stunning style and talent – and his self-processed knack for pushing the envelope – has made him an in-demand collaborator on stage and in the recording studio by artists including Linda Ronstadt, Sammy Hagar, Raitt, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Steve Miller, to name but a few. Growing up in the Bay Area, Rogers started playing the guitar in earnest when he was 12 and was drawn to the blues after hearing the legendary Robert Johnson. Such is his global fandom that he regularly tours in Europe, South America and Australia. Locally, he is not stingy with his talents, performing regularly with his longtime band, the Delta Rhythm Kings, with whom he performs for free on Thursday at Concord’s Todos Santos Plaza, as part of the city Music & Market series.
Details: 6:30 to 8 p.m.; Todos Santos Plaza at Willow Pass Road and Grant Street, Concord; free; www.cityofconcord.org/311/Downtown-Events.
Folk Fest returns to Golden Gate Park
Fans of folk music — not just listening to it, but singing and learning about it, too — should have a grand ol’ time at the 48th annual San Francisco Free Folk Festival on Saturday in Golden Gate Park.
The roots of the festival stretch back to the 1940s, when a group of self-described “idealistic and not very musically gifted high schoolers” formed the San Francisco Folk Music Club. The club staged the first festival in the late 1970s and it has been going strong ever since.
This year, performers include the Sauce Piquante Cajun-Creole Band, Americana trio Sugar Mountain, acoustic blues band Blind Lemon Pledge and — from across the ocean — percussion-dance group The Lions of Africa. There are also dozens of workshops with titles like Funny Songs and Jokes, Sea Shanties, Turkish Singing, Climate and Labor Sing Together, Quebecois Tune Jam and Beginning Fingerpicking Guitar.
So come on down to the park and, in the words of the immortal Pete Seeger, learn how to “put songs on people’s lips instead of just in their ears.”
Details: Noon-6 p.m. Saturday; Golden Gate Park Music Concourse and Bandshell; free; sffolkfest.org.
— John Metcalfe, Staff
Classical picks: Merola singers; ‘Spanish Favorites,’ Festival Opera
A concert featuring artists of the Merola Opera program, Spanish masterworks performed by the San Francisco Symphony, and a double bill at Festival Opera are just three of the Bay Area’s top classical events this week.
Merola singers step up: Opera fans have already met the gifted young artists of this year’s Merola Opera Program; this week, the singers will be back onstage to perform in the Schwabacher Summer Concert, featuring staged scenes from operas by Donizetti, Gounod, Puccini and others, accompanied by a full orchestra conducted by Louis Lohraseb.
Details: 7:30 p.m. July 11; 2 p.m. July 13; San Francisco Conservatory of Music, $10-$65; merola.org.
Spanish delights: With performances in Davies Symphony Hall and Stanford University’s Frost Amphitheater, Carlos Miguel Prieto conducts the San Francisco Symphony in “Spanish Favorites,” a program featuring Rodrigo’s always-moving “Concerto de Aranjuez,” along with music by Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla, with special guest guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas and soprano Caroline Corrales.
Details: 7:30 p.m. July 11 at Davies Hall, San Francisco, and 7:30 p.m. July 13 at Frost Amphitheater, Stanford; $15-$110; www.sfsymphony.org.
Operatic double bill: At Festival Opera, general director Zachary Gordin is presenting an enticing double bill of one-act operas: Poulenc’s dramatic “La Voix humaine” (The Human voice), with libretto by Jean Cocteau; and Purcell’s lustrous “Dido and Aeneas,” with libretto by Nahum Tate. Although both works feature strong female leads, these two operas couldn’t be more different. Staged by Ars Minerva founder and artistic director Céline Ricci, the productions feature esteemed artists including Carrie Hennessey, Kindra Scharich, Sara Couden, and Matthew Lovell, along with members of the Diablo Ballet.
Details: 7:30 p.m. July 12 and 2 p.m. July 15; Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek; $45-$110; festivalopera.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
lit comes to life with laughter
Have you ever found yourself squirming uncomfortably in your seat on a plane, bus or train, trying to avoid eye contact with a nosy, way-too-chatty seatmate who just can’t seem to take the hint?
Acclaimed Irish writer Kevin Barry has written about it, to hilarious effect, in “The Wintersongs,” one of three of his short stories that is being enacted, with full text intact, on stage by the energetic San Francisco-based theater troupe Word for Word. Actors Stephanie Hunt and Ailbhe Doherty play the entrapped young girl and her elderly seatmate in the story, which takes a somewhat surprising turn.
Also being presented are “Who’s-Dead McCarthy,” so named for the annoying protagonist named McCarthy who is thrilled to be catching everyone in town up on who is the latest unfortunate person to shuffle off this mortal coil, and “The Coast of Leitrim,” which is about an awkward Irish guy who gets interested in, then obsessed by, a younger Polish girl.
Details: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through July 21; Z Space performance center, 470 Florida St., San Francisco; $40-$65, zspace.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
Famed fundraiser marks 30th anniversary
Help Is on the Way, one of the Bay Area’s best known and revered annual fundraisers, returns to San Francisco on Sunday with another night full of A-List stars and beloved Broadway songs.
Created in 1995 by Ken Henderson and Joe Seiler as part of the Richmond/ Ermet Aid Foundation, Help Is on the Way each year assembles top-flight singing and stage talents to perform a Broadway-themed show, with all proceeds going directly to various charities. So far, REAF says it has raised more than $4.5 million to benefit program that fight AIDS, help the homeless and fee the hungry.
This year’s event boats another star-studded lineup, including star Rob McClure and other cast members from the touring production of “Mrs. Doubtfire”; singer Debby Boone; Broadway stars Bruce Vilanch, Faith Prince, Sam Harris and Lisa Vroman; cabaret stars Paula West and Jason Brock; and many more.
The show kicks off with a silent auction and reception at 6:30 p.m.; with the performances beginning at 7:30 p.m. and a VIP after-party at 9:45 p.m.. A variety of snacks and drinks will also be served.
Details: Party and performances at Marines Memorial Theatre, San Francisco; $39-$500; www.reaf-sf.org.
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Yes, Stones tickets are still available
Stones’ ‘Diamond Tour’ finally arrives
The Rolling Stones have been touring North America since 1964. And one thing hasn’t changed in all those years: It’s always a really big deal when Mick Jagger and company hit town.
That’s certainly the case with the band’s July 17 show at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, which has been a really hot topic among Bay Area rock fans basically ever since the group announced plans for its Hackney Diamonds Tour in November. And tickets are still available.
The trek supports the album of the same name, the group’s 24th full-length studio effort and its first collection of all original material since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang.” The record has earned some really nice reviews, both by critics and fans, yet that’s not what Bay Area fans aren’t paying those big bucks in order to experience performed live. Instead, they’ll surely be turning out to Levi’s in hopes of hearing such classics as “Gimme Shelter,” “Miss You,” “Paint It Black” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
And, judging by the setlists we’ve seen, they’ll most likely get them when the Stones roll back into the Bay Area on July 17.
Details: showtime is 7:30 p.m.; tickets start at $118 (subject to change); ticketmaster.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
Afro-Cuban splendor at SFJAZZ
In the ‘90s, the Buena Vista Social Club, thanks to a highly acclaimed album and Wm Wenders’ follow-up documentary, gained global fame and was, for many in the U.S. and elsewhere, an introduction to the stirring and infectious polyrhythmic sound of Afro-Cuban jazz. Produced by American guitar great Ry Cooder, the Social Club earned many revered Havana musicians, including Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portundo, worldwide fame in the twilight of their careers. The director of the band was Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, a popular bandleader, musician and actor who had made it his calling to preserve and promote such classic Cuban sounds as son. Thirty years later, Gonzalez is still a force in the Cuban music scene and comes to the SFJAZZ Center this weekend with his current outfit, the Afro-Cuban All-Stars. But don’t expect Buena Vista Social Club tribute show, the Afro-Cuban All-Stars consists of young, up-and-coming Cuban musicians and their repertoire spans past, present and future Havana sounds. “What I’m trying to do is create a bridge between contemporary and traditional Cuban music,” de Marcos says.
Details: Performances are 7:30 p.m. July 11-13; $35-$125; www.sfjazz.org.
A Festival Opera double bill
Get set to be saddened and simultaneously uplifted as Walnut Creek-based Festival Opera presents us with two mesmerizing one-act operas, one set in modern times and the other in ancient Carthage, that both revolve around desperate ladies who are losers in love. First up, starting at 7:30 p.m. July 12 in the Lesher Center for the Arts’ Hofmann Theatre in Walnut Creek, is Francois Poulenc’s 1958 monologue “La Voix humaine,’ starring soprano Carrie Hennessey as Elle, the abandoned woman who spends the entire opera on the phone trying to connect with her indifferent former lover, who may or may not be on the receiving end.
Following intermission comes Henry Purcell’s Baroque masterpiece “Dido and Aeneas,” partly and loosely based on Virgil’s “Aeneid,” in which the warring hero escaping the sack of Troy is welcomed to Carthage by Queen Dido, who falls in love with him and is devastated when a scheming Sorceress tricks him into leaving her to go on and found Rome. A highlight of the work, which stars mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich as the tragic queen, is her final suicidal aria, the poignant and moving “Dido’s Lament.” Matthew Lovell sings the role of Aeneas, and contralto Sara Couden, making her Festival Opera debut is the Sorceress. The production repeats at 2 p.m. July 14 at the same venue.
Details: $20-$110; festivalopera.org.
— Bay City News Foundation