Jimmy Tingle, former commentator for 60 Minutes II and three-time “Best of Boston” winner, comes to the Mass Arts Center for one show only, Saturday, August 16th, 2025. VIP seats include a meet-and-greet with Jimmy at 6:30 pm.
In Humor and Hope for Humanity, Jimmy will take us on a very funny and soul-searching journey from his Boston roots as an aspiring comic and street performer to network television, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a run for political office, and up to the present 2025 moment.
Jimmy will speak to the challenges of the day with comedic insight, compassion and common sense during a 90-minute, laugh filled yet thought-provoking tour de ’force performance. If laughter is the best medicine, then Jimmy Tingle is the Surgeon General of American humor. Clean, funny, and hopeful, Jimmy will make you laugh, think, and feel better. Just what the doctor ordered!
“Martin Luther King, Jr., Winston Churchill, and Jimmy Tingle all spoke on the Sanders Theatre stage at Harvard University, and I can guarantee you Jimmy Tingle got the most laughs…gets my vote for Best Political Comedy film of the Year.” — Paula Poundstone, comedian
More info on Jimmy click here.
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Eric Andersen, his voice, songs, guitar, and piano playing created a career that has spanned over 45 years. He has recorded 25 albums of original songs and made numerous tours of North America, Europe, and Japan. Eric Andersen’s songs have been recorded and performed by world renown artists such as Ricky Nelson, Judy Collins, Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, The Kingston Trio, Peter Paul and Mary, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Linda Thompson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Francoise Hardy, plus many others in Europe, Australia, England, and Japan.
Eric Andersen is one of our finest singers and songwriters, in the most literal sense of that tradition…
the most elegant of singers.” David Fricke (Rolling Stone Magazine)
“A singer and songwriter of the first rank.” (The New York Times)
“An American master.” Robert Palmer (Ghosts Upon the Road liner notes)
“Eric Andersen is a great ballad singer.” (Bob Dylan – live on stage at the Oslo Spektrum)
Eric Andersen, Click here for Tickets.
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Peter Asher, we first came to know him through the global smash “World Without Love” as one half of the British Invasion duo Peter & Gordon. He returns–now a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire– in “Peter Asher: A Musical Memoir of the 60s and Beyond” which brings a multimedia experience to the stage, hosted by the two-time Grammy winner for Producer of the Year. Peter Asher moved effortlessly from his role with Peter & Gordon to Music Executive with the Beatles’ Apple Records, then famously- (as in cover of Rolling Stone magazine level famous)- to Producer and Manager, handling the careers of James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and a host of others. Books abound, documentaries with half-truths (and worse) are all too common, but, now, finally, Mr. Asher tells firsthand his tales from the eye of the cultural hurricane in this intimate evening.
“Memoir” includes film footage and photos from Peter’s considerable personal archive, brought to life with a storyteller’s gift, transporting audiences back to the heart of 60s popular culture. Icons such as Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithful, Yoko Ono, Carole King, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt are among the cast of characters in this narrative – along (of course) with the greatly missed Gordon Waller. The evening is filled with the music of Peter & Gordon, including “I Go to Pieces,” “True Love Ways,” and “Lady Godiva.” The songs given to Peter & Gordon by Paul McCartney are also front and center: “Woman,” “I Don’t Want to See You Again,” Nobody I Know,” and “World Without Love,” all of which were US Top 40 hits. Peter presents these timeless classics along with other old favourites from that golden era.
The show brings the audience through the earliest days of Peter’s journey all the way to the present day, and projects including his SiriusXM radio show on the Beatles Channel, “From Me to You”. Peter’s book, based on the show, “The Beatles A to Zed,” was released by MacMillan on October 29, 2019; the book is already in its third printing.
Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room in concert, Friday, November 14, 2025, at the Fallout Shelter, Norwood, MA.
About Barry and the Engine Room:
Guitarist Barry Goudreau, formerly of Boston, recently announced the release of his new CD, “The Road,” from his band Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room. Barry’s blues/rock ensemble includes his former RTZ bandmates Brian Maes on lead vocals and keyboards, as well as Tim Archibald on bass. Both Maes and Archibald were members of Peter Wolf’s House Party Five, playing on two of his records and touring the world extensively. The band is rounded out with “Old” Tony DePietro on drums and Mary Beth Maes, Terri O’Soro, and Joanie Cicatelli on background vocals. Expect some favorites like “Smokin” and “Long Time” in their live set, alongside songs from the new CD as well as tracks from “Full Steam Ahead”, the 2017 release from Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room.
Produced by Brian Maes, “The Road” features songs written by Goudreau, Maes, Archibald, and DePietro, with the sole exception of “The Rhythm Won’t Stop”, penned by Brad Delp and Barry Goudreau. Goudreau calls it “Contemporary classic rock”, an apt description of songs like “Love Will Lead The Way”, “Word To The Wise”, and the power ballad “Shade”–songs inspired by the iconic music of the great rock bands of the ’70s and beyond.
The Engine Room’s 2017 CD Full Steam Ahead” covers the whole spectrum of blues and rock, from the stripped down blues of “All Mine” to the all out rock assault of “Need”. A longtime friend of Goudreau’s, legendary bluesman James Montgomery, sits in on harp for “Layin’ it Down {In Beantown}.” Barry says, “I wanted to look back to the acts of the late sixties and early seventies when they were reinventing the blues in new and exciting ways”. Maes produced the record in his studio with Goudreau recording the guitar tracks in his home studio.
With new music to play, Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room looks forward to a return to the stage!
The Kennedys. Songwriting duo Pete and Maura Kennedy make a strong return to the studio and stage after three years of weekly live-streamed lockdown-era concerts. They took the opportunity to explore classic songwriting in depth, performing over a thousand songs during the pandemic. That vast overview strengthened and refined their own writing and laid the foundation for this new collection of original, socially-conscious songs.
“After such a deep dive into American roots music, we felt like we had a new set of writing tools. We were ready to create this body of work, and there’s just SO much to write about,” says Maura. “During our five-year hiatus from writing and recording, America changed in massive ways, divisive ways that have shaken our whole foundation. That has to be addressed by creative artists, those of us who have a voice to speak for others. Our love of the great things about this country, things that are under threat, is the reason we decided to make “Headwinds” the title track of the CD. Political and social headwinds are making it hard to get back “home’ to our greatness as a nation. We want to push back in a positive way against those winds.”
In addition to singing and writing, Pete and Maura are multi-instrumentalists. The thirteen songs are cast in a soundscape that draws from the classic canon of American roots, in keeping with the theme of getting back “home” as a nation. Acoustic and electric guitars, a vintage steel guitar, a gospel-inflected piano/organ mix, and even a slide ukulele all add colors to a songbag of sounds that have drawn us together during hard times. Pete and Maura believe that those sounds still have the power to pull us through again.
The Kennedys began their writing and touring life three decades ago as members of Nanci Griffith’s Blue Moon Orchestra, developing their own sound as a frequent support act on Nanci’s tours across America, Ireland, Scotland and England. Collaborations with Nanci continued, culminating in Pete and Maura producing her final album, “Intersections.” Along the way, they hosted a nationwide radio program, “The Dharma Cafe” on Sirius/XM, wrote and released sixteen CDs of original music, and have been core artists on folk radio, expanding their audience further with the inception of the AAA and Americana formats.
The Divas return for two shows this holiday season. You’ll want to get your tickets ASAP, since they always sell out! Divas with a Twist is a group of five powerful female vocalists backed by Grammy-nominated musicians. They’ll perform classic holiday songs with fresh new arrangements and harmonies. Get in the holiday spirit with selections including a rocking “Drummer Boy,” “Do You Hear What I Hear,” Aerosmith’s “Rocking on Top of the World” from The Polar Express, “O Holy Night,” a beautiful a cappella version of “Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas,” and some of their regular rock songs that you’ll recognize. Don’t miss out on this rocking holiday show!
Greg Abate jazz saxophonist, flutist, composer continues as an International Jazz/Recording Artist with 225 days a year touring the globe.
In the mid-70s, after finishing a four-year program at Berklee College of Music, Greg played lead alto for the Ray Charles Orchestra for 2 years.
In 1978, Greg formed his group Channel One, which was a favorite in the New England area, and from there had the opportunity to play tenor sax with the revived Artie Shaw Orchestra under the leadership of Dick Johnson from 1986 to ’87.
Following this experience, Greg ventured out as a post-hard bop soloist playing Jazz Festivals, Jazz Societies, and Jazz Clubs throughout the U.S., Canada, and abroad, including most of Europe, the UK, and Moscow and Georgia, Russia.
Greg’s newest release, Gratitude, with the Tim Ray Trio, has received glowing reviews and extensive international airplay. Also, check out Greg’s other recordings, including special guests Phil Woods and other notable artists.
Greg is currently a Whaling City Sound recording artist. Greg recorded his first CD, Live At Birdland NYC, in 1991 on the Candid Jazz Label with the trio of James Williams, Rufus Reid, and Kenny Washington. To this date, Greg has recorded over 17 other recordings as a leader.Greg is also an adjunct professor of Jazz Studies at Rhode Island College and is a very active jazz clinician with the company, sponsored by the Conn-Selmer Instrument Co., conducting workshops and master classes throughout the U.S and abroad.
Greg has been inducted into the RI MUSIC HALL OF FAME 2016.
On A Winter’s Night. Patty Larkin, John Gorka, Cliff Eberhardt, Lucy Kaplansky. Presenting the Reunion Tour of “On A Winter’s Night” from veteran singer-songwriters who remain among the brightest stars of the singer-songwriter movement for the past three decades. In 1994, Christine Lavin gathered them together, along with folk and Americana artists, to showcase music of the Winter Season on the now-classic On A Winter’s Night CD, followed by several years of touring collaborations. These artists have released dozens of recordings and toured steadily through the decades, with fond memories of their touring days together. The winter season is once again celebrated by these unique and popular performers, reunited by popular demand. Photo: Laurie Glassman
Monica Rizzio. A unique Americana singer-songwriter who blends Texas influences and Cape Cod charm. A bonfire on a beach. A couple of days with the one you love. Simply doing…nothing. The little joys in life. Americana singer-songwriter Monica Rizzio’s new album, Sunshine Is Free, is all about the simple things that make it all worth it. The concept for Sunshine Is Free was born on the road, as Rizzio spent time under open skies while touring. Realizing she needed to step outside of a New England winter to write the follow-up to 2016’s Washashore Cowgirl, Rizzio spent the fall of 2018 traveling from her home in Cape Cod to Nashville for writing sessions. Over a week in April at Skinny Elephant Recording, she and producer Michael Rinne (Caroline Spence, Erin Rae & The Meanwhiles, Kelsey Waldon) as well as a stacked lineup of guest musicians including Mindy Smith, Maya de Vitry, Gwen Sebastian, Joe Pisapia, Will Kimbrough, and Eamon McLoughlin, Rizzio created a collection that focuses on finding joy in simpler things and looking for the silver lining of difficult situations.
