MARBLEHEAD — Last year was slated to be a special time at the Me&Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Me&Thee was excited to continue to bring the community more of the live music and concerts that had become a staple at the Mugford Street establishment.
But all of that changed when the pandemic forced them to put a pause on their Friday night live music, and wait to see when getting artists back on the stage would be safe again. Now, thanks to some generosity from New York, the music will return with a twist this week.
Caffe Lena, located in Saratoga Springs, is collaborating with Me&Thee to present a virtual concert that will not only bring some of the life back to their music scene, but also bring in revenue for the small business that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. The concert, which will be held this Thursday, also features an artist with local roots in Mark Erelli.
“(Caffe Lena’s) board reached out to Me&Thee to offer a show from their stage to ours, and this generous offer means that we will receive some of the proceeds from the show with one of our favorite local musicians, Mark Erelli,” said Me&Thee Booking Manager Kathy Sands-Boehmer.
Caffe Lena is considered an essential business in New York, which allows them to present shows at their state-of-the-art broadcasting facility on site. Widely recognized as one of the longest continuously operating folk music venues, Caffe Lena has been recognized by both the GRAMMY Foundation, for their important contributions to the development of American music, and called “an American treasure” by the Library of Congress.
This year, they’ve been using that impressive reputation to help spread the music and help out small businesses like Me&Thee.
“This is a unique opportunity to join forces with Caffe Lena, one of the most cherished venues in our close-knit folk community,” Sands-Boehmer said. “We appreciate their gesture of friendship and solidarity as we aim to keep the music alive during these difficult times.”
And the music should be more than fitting Thursday night. Mark Erelli, originally from Reading, Mass., has become a folk music staple in the area as a singer and songwriter.
Erelli served as a capable sideman for Grammy Award-winning artists like Paula Cole, Marc Cohn, and Josh Ritter, has produced albums for Lori McKenna, and produced his own material, including the stunning “By Degrees,” in which he was joined by a host of voices including Roseanne Cash and Sheryl Crow. The song was nominated for “Song of the Year” at the 2019 Americana Music Awards and served to reintroduce Erelli to a wider audience. His latest album is titled “Blindsided.”
“One glance at the headlines and anyone can see that we are questioning the stories we’ve told ourselves and, in many cases, they aren’t proving as durable as they once seemed,” Erelli said of the album. “Do the things I took for granted as truth when I was younger still hold up? What can I still lean on? Am I strong enough for the ones I love to lean on me? The answers, if there even are answers, can be both unsettling and reaffirming.”
The Mark Erelli virtual show, presented by Caffe Lena and the Me&Thee, takes place on Thursday, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m., and will be streamed live on Caffe Lena’s YouTube channel.
Dan Kane can be reached at [email protected].