Awarding-winning folksingers Holly Hanson and Steve Hayes, who comprise the duo known as Neptune’s Car, will be the featured performers at the Andover Community Coffeehouse “Third Friday” concert on September 18, beginning at 7 PM. The event is open to the public at no charge.
Maverick Magazine describes the duo as offering “a beautiful blend of country and folk…. Holly’s vocals are tender, warm, and quite evocative, [while] Steve’s guitar playing complements Holly’s vocals perfectly, giving each of the songs depth and character…. The songs are beautiful, and the overall atmosphere created is perfect.”
Also appearing onstage that evening will be up to a dozen open-microphone performers, whose contributions in previous months have ranged from the spoken word to show-business, jazz, folk, bluegrass, and country-and-western tunes.
Doors to the coffeehouse venue, the Highland Lake Grange Hall in East Andover, will open at 6 PM for food purchases offered by the Andover Congregational Church and for open-mic sign-ins on a first-come, first-serve basis. The show is sponsored by Proctor Academy.
An acoustic duo from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Neptune’s Car released its third album, The 45th Parallel, last January. The album reached the #2 ranking on the Folk charts for February, with two songs tied with each other at the #5 spot.
In April 2015, the song Fly Fishing the Big Hole was honored with an Outstanding Achievement Award in Songwriting in the Folk/Americana category from The Great American Song Contest. In June, the duo was named a Grassy Hill Emerging Artist and invited to play on the Main Stage at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York state. For more information, visit NeptunesCar.com.
What’s the story behind the name Neptune’s Car? According to the group’s Web site, “Neptune’s Car was a clipper ship that had a female captain. During an 1857 voyage from New York to San Francisco, Captain Joshua Patten became ill at sea. His wife, Mary, took command of the vessel and successfully navigated Neptune’s Car around Cape Horn to the port of San Francisco, while caring for her husband, being pregnant with her first child, and fighting off mutiny from the first mate. We chose Neptune’s Car as our band name to honor Mary’s heroic deeds and memory and to spread the word about this amazing woman whose story should not be forgotten.”
Looking ahead: On Friday, October 16, the headliner will be Newfound Grass, a New Hampshire quartet whose work its Web site describes as “a kickin’ blend of traditional and progressive bluegrass-flavored music.” See NewfoundGrass.com for additional information.
Information about future dates and scheduled performers, and a photographic record of the performers, both headliners and open-mic participants, are shown in the Coffeehouse Web site at AndoverCoffeeHouse.org and on the Facebook page “Andover Community Coffeehouse.”