On Saturday, September 7 at 7:00pm, blues artist, Andy Cohen returns to kickoff our Haystacks concert series with  an evening of entertainment that will benefit the Monic Children’s Center in Jinja, Uganda. he will be joined by fellow blues artists Donna Herula and Andrew Calhoun.

Andy Cohen is a fellow Unitarian Universalist from Memphis who has entertained audiences throughout the country. He mostly plays what he calls “a sort of Country Blues 101.” He’s been known to cover Rev. Davis, John Hurt, Big Bill, Gus Cannon, Frank Stokes, Memphis Minnie, Bukka White, Barbecue Bob, Charlie Patton, Ted Bogan, Henry Spaulding, or any of a hundred other blues people. Andy is currently on a cross-country tour and was able to add this benefit concert to his schedule.

Donna Herula is a Chicago-born singer and slide guitar player who plays a mix of songs from the early blues women, including Memphis Minnie, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith and the early Delta blues men, including Robert Johnson, Robert Nighthawk, Furry Lewis, Blind Blake, and Muddy Waters.  She also performs music from more recent blues and slide players including Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Lucinda Williams. With a percussive guitar style and soulful voice, Donna plays fingerstyle as well as blues slide guitar on her resonator guitars.

Andrew Calhoun’s music is innovative and rooted in tradition. In forty years as a performer he has evolved an increasingly varied repertoire including original songs, Irish and American folk songs, Scottish ballads, African-American spirituals, hymns, historical background, comic songs and poems and songs by writers such as Dave Carter, Mary Oliver and Robert Frost.  He has toured internationally, performing at folk clubs and festivals, pubs and house concerts. In 1992, Calhoun founded Waterbug Records, an artists’ cooperative folk label which has grown to 115 titles, bringing some of the brightest singer-songwriters and folk musicians to an international audience.

Admission to this benefit is $10.

All procedes will go to the Monic Children’s Center, an organization that provides a safe sanctuary for orphans, street children, and young people in Jinja, Uganda that teaches skills to help people (especially women) become self-sustaining, and educates the young in life skills and health and safety.