COURTESY PHOTO
Don White will host a night of music and storytelling Saturday at Lynn Auditorium.
By BILL BROTHERTON
LYNN — Don White loves Lynn. He grew up here and has lived in the city for most of his life, save for the few years he hightailed it to the Maine woods.
In fact, his kids and grandkids — the fifth generation of Whites to settle here, if children can indeed settle — all live in the 01905 zip code.
“We never got the memo we were supposed to leave,” White said with a smile.
White and some of his musical friends will play a hometown show Saturday night at Lynn Auditorium. The music begins at 7 p.m., but White says the meet-and-greet in the lobby before the show is equally important.
“It’s better than a class reunion. People are in town for the Thanksgiving holiday. You get to see all your friends and what the town has to offer,” said White.
He added that nonprofits have been invited to set up in the lobby “to raise awareness and money for things in this town.”
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There will be a silent auction to benefit Arts After Hours, furthering White’s commitment to helping the city’s burgeoning arts scene.
White said his Lynn Auditorium shows have many benefits: It proves the venue can be successful as a 500-seat theater, Lynn people can get reacquainted, money and awareness can be raised, and the arts community and local talent can shine in the spotlight.
White’s guests will open the show, playing their own music. White will then perform solo, before calling the musicians back on stage to join him.
Guests include longtime musical mates Pete Capano, Jack Phelan and Alan Hezekiah, plus Steve Burke, Brian Maes, Christina Thompson Lively, Everett Pendleton and White’s son Lawren.
White cites the late folk singer/poet/storyteller/activist Utah Phillips as an inspiration. “He was a community guy. He’d hop freight trains, get off in a town and say ‘You need a coffeehouse here.’ He brought people together, he was a community builder.”
Although he no longer hops freight trains, Don White is one of those guys who is quietly making a difference in the community.
We’re sitting in the White Rose Coffeehouse in Central Square, and White, a 1974 graduate of Lynn Classical, is in a philosophical mood.
It’s quite a change from the jokester whose shows at Connery Post 6 in the 1980s remain infamous; once during intermission he shaved off the beard he’d had for years, shocking even his wife, Terry, who wasn’t in on the sight gag.
On stage, White has a knack for making the audience roar with laughter one minute and fight back tears the next. It’s a rare gift.
“No one told Charlie Chaplin he couldn’t be funny one minute and sad the next,” White said. “I’ve always studied and watched other performers, and I’ve absorbed how the best succeed at what they do, how a comic sets up a joke, how a singer plays somebody’s favorite song and that person gets lost in the song and memories.
“A poet is totally untethered. They can talk one minute, sing the next, shout or speak softly, be in character, get out of character.
“Everybody who stands on a stage suffers from the same disease. We all think we have something to say,” White said.
White has released six studio albums, three DVDs, two live albums, a greatest hits collection and a joint live album with witty folk goddess Christine Lavin.
He has opened for such performers as Taj Mahal, Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie and Little Feat and wowed crowds at storytelling festivals in Tennessee, Texas and Alabama. He’s served as a comedy show emcee.
White also penned a book of short stories, “Memoirs of a C Student,” for which his brother Michael wrote the testimonial: “I knew this book was going to be a pack of lies as soon as I saw the title because my brother was a D student.”
Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy gave White the key to the city in 2011, for organizing and hosting Speak Up, a spoken word open mic held at Walnut Street Cafe every Wednesday.
“I was informed that only three people have ever received the key to the city of Lynn; supposedly Southside Johnny was one and I have no idea who the other is,” White said.
“My friends in jail were excited, ‘Don got the key to the city!’ But the key didn’t open the cell door. They were very disappointed.”
Don White Live, at Lynn Auditorium, Saturday, Nov. 26. Meet and greet at 5:30 p.m.; music at 7. Tickets: $18; www.lynnauditorium.com or 781-599-7469.
Bill Brotherton can be reached at [email protected]