Due to health issues, it was necessary for James Keelaghan to postpone his concert on Sunday, April 21, 2024 at The Arts Barn in Gaithersburg, MD. His prognosis is positive and we look forward to rescheduling this concert in the near future.

FocusMusic and Unity of Charlottesville presents James Keelaghan 2825 Hydraulic Cir
Charlottesville, VA 22901 | 7pm

Contemporary folk songs, at their very best, offer an insight into the hardships, attitudes, and resolve of characters and events that shape our day-to-day lives. You can dress these songs up in inspired arrangements and intricate instrumentation but, at their very essence, the archetypal folk song is all about stories. Stories and people. Something such compelling songwriters as Eric Bogle, Si Kahn, Ewan MacColl, and Stan Rogers … all understood and mined so effectively.

James Keelaghan, too, burrows into that same rich seam with equal ability and comparable conviction. To quote Eric Bibb, the award-winning American acoustic bluesman, after listening to Keelaghan perform: “[You’re] a joy to hear, just beautiful. Reminded me of the best of the best of another time – Liam Clancy, Tom Paxton etcetera.” Less colourful but more succinct, Dave Marsh, the eminent Rolling Stone critic, simply described Keelaghan as “Canada’s finest songwriter.”

Truly, throughout a career that now spans almost four decades, the Juno and Canadian Folk Music Award winner has created a repertoire of incalculable importance – a unique body of work, either inspired by or drawn from the folk tradition. Ten solo albums flush with enduring lyrical relevance. Take the beautiful but heartbreaking ballad, “Jenny Bryce,” for example. From any point of view, it’s indistinguishable from the numerous traditional tracks covered on his disc A Few Simple Verses.

What’s more, various other originals from the Keelaghan cannon must surely enter the domain of traditional folklore. Most notably, “Small Rebellion” (highlighting the 1931 slaughter of peaceful striking miners in Bienfait, SK); “Hillcrest Mine” (a prelude to the worst coal mining disaster in Canadian history); “Kiri’s Piano” (a triumph over adversity amidst the shameful, racist treatment of Japanese-Canadians during WW II); “Cold Missouri Waters” (a harrowing portrait of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in the mountains of Montana).

Jillian Matundan is an award-winning, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter living in Northern Virginia. After a fifteen year hiatus from music, she ventured to local open mics in 2019 and has been on a tear ever since, winning multiple songwriting awards, playing numerous shows, and collaborating with musicians on stage and in the studio. She continues to win audiences with her deft and percussive guitar style, soothing vocals, and a warm, funny, unassuming stage presence. She released her debut EP, “Hangin' On”, in 2020 and released her first full-length, fully crowd-funded album, “Singing to the Moon”, in March 2024.