Richard Shindell writes the kind of songs where you realize, three verses in, that you have stopped thinking about anything else. His narratives are built around specific characters inhabiting specific moments, people you wouldn’t invent if you weren’t trying to tell the whole truth, and when he performs them solo, with just an acoustic guitar and a room quiet enough to hear the spaces between the notes, something shifts. On Sunday, October 11, Shindell brings his “An Evening with Richard Shindell – All Acoustic” tour to Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, performing at 7:00 p.m. as part of the venue’s Folk Heritage Series, made possible by the Charlie Pickett & Kathleen Rehl Endowment Fund.
About the Show
Shindell’s career is one that rewards close attention. Joan Baez heard something in his writing and covered three of his songs for her 1997 album Gone From Danger, including the title cut from his own album Reunion Hill, then invited him to accompany her on European and U.S. tours in 1997 and 1998. That same year, he joined Dar Williams and Lucy Kaplansky as Cry Cry Cry, a folk trio whose 1998 self-titled album of covers and accompanying tour became, by one account, one of the top 50 national tours in terms of ticket receipts. His debut, Sparrow’s Point, arrived in 1992; his most recent studio album, Careless (2016), which Shindell has described as “ambitious and lush” and incorporating “a little more electric blues,” was a three-year project completed around his relocation to Buenos Aires, where he lives now.
He began playing guitar at eight, busked the Paris Metro before enrolling at Union Theological Seminary in 1986 (despite identifying as an atheist), and found in that period the material for “On a Sea of Fleur de Lis,” the composition that first announced what his songwriting could do. He eventually left theological study to pursue music, made his way into New York City’s songwriter circles on Houston Street, and has spent the decades since building a body of work that, in the words of Folk Alley, “paints pictures, tells stories, juxtaposes ideas and images” while inhabiting various characters to evoke entire worlds.
What this October tour offers is the simplest possible version: just Shindell and the songs, all acoustic, across fifteen U.S. dates before he heads to Wales, England, and Scotland in November. The Caffe Lena stop falls near the beginning of that itinerary, and folk clubs are where this kind of songwriting has always landed best.
Venue & Logistics
Caffe Lena is a folk club and listening room on Phila Street in Saratoga Springs, in the capital region, with 110 seats and an intimate configuration that suits Shindell’s format without a square inch to spare. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets
Tickets are priced at $37.96 for members, $41.21 general admission, and $20.61 for children and students, all prices inclusive of fees. A live stream of the show through Caffe Lena TV is available for $5, with all proceeds going directly to the artist. Buy tickets