Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music
(AAFFM)

Fiddler’s Green April 20, 2024

DIRTY CELLO and TAL NACCARATO

DIRTY CELLO

From Iceland to Italy, and all over the U.S., San Francisco-based band Dirty Cello brings the world a high energy and unique spin on blues, rock, and Americana. Led by vivacious cross-over cellist Rebecca Roudman, Dirty Cello is cello like you’ve never heard before. From down home blues and rock with a wailing cello to virtuosic stompin’ Americana, Dirty Cello is a band that gets your heart thumping and your toes tapping!

“Dirty Cello’s music is all over the map: funky, carnival, romantic, sexy, tangled, electric, fiercely rhythmic, and textured, and only occasionally classical.” Oakland Magazine

https://dirtycello.com

TAL NACCARATO

Born in Italy and raised in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, Italo “Tal” Naccarato is a composer, songwriter, teaching artist, and instrumentalist. His stylized original work highlights a deep appreciation for traditional Folk, Americana, Roots and Country Blues and includes classical guitar inspired compositions with a “bluesy swing.” His next collection of works, ‘The Theory of Hurricanes’, will be released in April 2024.

“…Tal is a one-man revue of a dozen of the great blues guitar masters…” Mike Livingston, Program Chair, Folk Society of Greater Washington.

https://talnaccarato.com

Fiddler’s Green March 16, 2024

JEFF SILVER & PAT WALSH and THE IRISH BROTHERS

Jeff Silver & Pat Walsh

In addition to being a singer/songwriter, Jeff Silver has composed for musical theater, advertising, corporate projects, and modern dance. His song Forget About Love appeared on Mark Wills’ gold-selling album Permanently. He has recorded two albums, Looking Forward/Looking Back, and his latest EP Pinwheel. Jeff has led songwriting workshops for elementary school children, cancer survivors at Piedmont Hospital’s Cancer Wellness Center, and has been a participant for three years in Music Therapy of the Rockies’ Retreat for Military Veterans with PTSD. He has also been one of the coordinators of the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) Metro Atlanta chapter since 2003. https://www.reverbnation.com/jeffsilver

Pat Walsh brings listeners a rich chordal palette, shifting time signatures, literate lyrics, and a strong melodic sense. He has released two independent albums and is currently in the studio working on his latest project. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Grammy nominees Steve Morse and Rod Morgenstein (The Dregs), Peter Stroud and Tim Smith (Sheryl Crow), and Ricky Keller (Bruce Springsteen). Pat has also opened for musical giants such as Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joel, and Todd Rundgren.
https://www.youtube.com/user/PatWalshMusic

The Irish Brothers

The Irish Brothers are the Atlanta area’s leading performers carrying on their legacy of classic Irish folk performers such as the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem. The Irish Brothers are Sandy “Sandyman” Flynn and “Captain” George Hergen. It’s a unique team – Sandyman comes from the mountains of Western North Carolina with the Captain hailing from the canyons of New York City. The two started performing together thirty-five years ago when they worked ‘suit’ jobs at IBM. Both draw from their Irish heritage for material, from traditional Irish ballads, to original songs of love, drinking, revolution and redemption. Their music practically maps the Irish cultural integration into the “new country.”

Sandy is a former songwriter on Music Row (Tree-Sony/ATV) in Nashville, and toured nationally and internationally with the band Cullowhee for 10 years, sharing the stage with the likes of The Kingston Trio and Jimmy Buffett. George started singing and playing after his first visit to New York’s Greenwich Village in the mid-1960s. George honed his craft by traveling throughout Ireland with the great Tommy Makem. The team received the name “Irish Brothers” following a performance at The Folk Alliance International in Memphis, Tennessee. They are regulars at Irishfest Atlanta, Fiddler’s Green St. Patrick’s Day celebration and many others.
George Hergen: https://www.facebook.com/george.hergen
Sandyman Flynn: http://redheadscape.com

 

Welcome! This site lists information about folk music and related activities in the greater Atlanta area and the Southeastern U.S. It contains:

  • General and recurring information in an expanded directory format
  • Links to other folk resources
  • See the EVENTS Tab for Fiddler's Green and other AAFFM- sponsored concerts, workshops, and pickin' parties, as well as other events of interest in and around Atlanta.

In email blasts, you'll find details about current events and information on member-only activities like our famous "get-togethers". If you'd like to host a pick-'n-grin, let us know! See the EVENTS tab for upcoming concerts and pickin' parties.

Contact us at membership@aaffm.org to host a pickin' party, join our organization, find out about an upcoming concert, party or workshop, or to submit listings to the website.

See the 'History' tab for the history of the organization.

AAFFM sponsors a local monthly coffeehouse, Fiddler's Green, that features concerts that included traditional music, singer-songwriters, poetry and storytelling. As of August, 2016, it is held at First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. AAFFM Membership benefits include the email blasts (our mailing list will always remain private) and discounts on AAFFM sponsored concerts. Annual membership dues are $15 for individuals and $20 for families, $35 sustaining members. E-mail membership@aaffm.org for membership information or click HERE for our Membership Application.

AAFFM Needs YOU

We at AAFFM deeply appreciate John’s kind letter (see below) and hope it inspires you to join or re-join AAFFM. Just click the button below in order to access our membership application.
Thanks,
Chris Moser, President
AAFFM

John McCutcheon
Smoke Rise, GA

April 7, 2019

Dear Friends,

I got a call, early on in my years of performing, from Betty Smith, a friend I’d met at the Folk Festival of the Smokies, inviting me to come do a show in Atlanta. A follow up call from Don and Laeta Smith sealed the deal and, sometime in the 1970’s I appeared in Atlanta for the first of many times. My host was a freshly-formed group, The Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. What I found was a devoted clutch of folk music lovers who not only presented concerts, but sponsored all sorts of events that encouraged people to play music themselves, to share the love of this music that is the root of all the world’s music. To get involved with the music, with one another, with the world.

 Having this lovely relationship with Atlanta played a part in my decision to move here in 2006. And I thank you for that.

Over forty years later, AAFFM is still sponsoring events that are meeting places for Atlantans of all stripes and a watering hole for that wandering herd of performers still plying the boards out there. I get to see some of my far-flung fellow performing pals as a result of these. And I thank you for that.

But groups such as AAFFM do not magically sustain themselves. Communities must commit to survive. And in this age of hyper-tribalism it’s more important than ever to reach out, to stand up, to say, “This is the kind of community, the kind of world, I want to be a part of.” You’ll never see the musicians AAFFM brings into our intimate gatherings at the Fox or on Netflix. No, you have to go out, sit shoulder-to-shoulder with others and have that experience live and in person. You can learn how to play, how to sing, how to harmonize in jam sessions not sponsored by YouTube. And, in the process, help build a community that improves the lives of individuals and the collective community life of Atlanta.

Pete Seeger would have been 100 years old this year. He taught us what we could feel like, what we could do if we risked adding our voice to the others in his audience, if we dared to harmonize with a roomful of strangers. But we had to make the move.

So, my fellow Atlantans, make the move, risk, dare, and join me in continuing to support the Atlanta Area Friends of Folk Music. And for that I thank you, as well.

Take it easy, but take it!  

www.folkmusic.com

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