Vocal pieces by Beethoven and Barber, both with full orchestral accompaniment, as well as other selections featuring the Youth Chorale.

Get yer bodrán on

Local rock band. Also featuring Will Thomas.

Jazz ensemble with a big ol’ horn section

Hot gypsy jazz from the local guitar player.

Olivarez Trio - Choti
Olivarez Trio - Adieu, Bienville
Olivarez Trio - Chez Drennon
Olivarez Trio - Valse De Tchan Tchou

Acoustic set from Surfzilla, Charlottesville’s premiere surf-rock band. (OK, big-Zilla-small-pond, but still…)

Surfzilla - The Joker’s Wild
Surfzilla - The Jester
Surfzilla - GooGoo Muck
Surfzilla - Failsafe
Surfzilla - Cecilia Ann
Surfzilla - Apache

Folk singer-songwriter. Len Jaffe opens.

The local indie rockers alternate sets of their own with an acoustic open mic and a jam session

Astronomers - The Singularity
Astronomers - Strategem
Astronomers - Shoes
Astronomers - Perpetual Emotion
Astronomers - Or Maybe It’s Nothing
Astronomers - My Hologram
Astronomers - Fermata

One more week with the longest-lived Americana band in town

Potty-mouthed guitar/cello duo

Barling and Collins - (That’s Right) I’m Looking At Your Girlfriend

Dinnertime pianist

George Melvin wears many hats, and his long-standing gig at South Street even has him wearing several at the same time. For the “Group Sound” format, Melvin plays several keyboards at once, using his left hand for walking basslines that match up with jazzy drum loops and working the sustain pedal to give the illusion of multiple right-hand parts.

Fingerstyle guitarist meets former Jimmy Buffett sideman

Rootsy Boston singer-songwriter with classical piano chops, a big fat archtop guitar, an ear for old-school jazz, and an aesthetic she used to refer to as “modern vintage.”

Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade - Streetcorner
Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade - Song For A Southern Boy
Miss Tess and the Bon Ton Parade - Pokey McMumbles

Several members of The Bourbon Specials perform as The Judy Chops to start things off.

Open jam

The local guitar player feeds guitars, bass guitars, and guitar synths through loop recorders to build up riffs with deeper arrangements than one man should be capable of.

Classic British folk-rock singer who sounds a little like Donovan at times and once took guitar lessons from Robert Fripp.

Being that Dylan is so much bigger than any one scene at this point — legend, archetype for musicians and writers alike, the most important voice of as many generations as have lived to see him — it’s not unreasonable to say Joan Baez is the biggest thing left in 60’s Greenwich Village folk, if only because she hasn’t quite transcended it to the same degree yet.

But Baez has kept herself busy over the years too, with her long histories of art and politics winding their way through Vietnam and Martin Luther King to end up at the Iraq war, a 2003 album which covered Ryan Adams and Natalie Merchant, and Barack Obama — all of those crossing paths every step of the way, of course.

Jazz

Despite their rootsy foundation, Canuck indie-rock trio Plants and Animals started to show their art-rock tendencies on the With/Avec EP in 2007 with an eight-minute-plus tune that eventually morphed into Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman,” and they really started to spread their wings on their full length debut Parc Avenue in early 2008.

Bluesy neo-folkies These United States released a music video for “Get Yourself Home,” from the album Crimes, which was made out of public archival footage from the Great Depression era and released it right before those other United States (that is, the real ones) decided to drunkenly topple over right into another. Obviously, then, they know what they’re doing.

These United States - West Won
These United States - Get Yourself Home

Local indie-pop champs Straight Punch To The Crotch kick things off.

Straight Punch To The Crotch - Robot Baby
Straight Punch To The Crotch - When Animals Attack
Straight Punch To The Crotch - Summer Sun and Firecrackers

Hot gypsy jazz from the local guitar player.

Olivarez Trio - Choti
Olivarez Trio - Adieu, Bienville
Olivarez Trio - Chez Drennon
Olivarez Trio - Valse De Tchan Tchou

Blues and rock

1920’s swing band

Americana featuring members of B.C. and the Guano Boys.

Nutty fringe instruments like ukulele, kazoo, and washboard converge on every set of showboating contemporary roots music (”oldturnative,” as they like to call it) delivered by The Wiyos, who play all of the above along with the usual spate of folk instruments and three-part harmonies. Or as Asylum Street Spankers equally raucous frontman Wammo put it, “The Wiyos are way too good to open for my band ever again.”

The Wiyos - Dying Crapshooters Blues [live]
The Wiyos - Smokejumper [live]
The Wiyos - Strawberry Wine
The Wiyos - Jack and Boon

Americana singer Trent Wagler opens with roots music rooted in rock and gospel.

Trent Wagler - Today

Ani DiFranco’s viciously percussive abuse of her acoustic guitar and her no-holds-barred feminist lyrics won over legions of angry young women in the 90’s, and she became one of the first high-profile artists to kick the existing major label infrastructure to the curb with the launch of Righteous Babe Records in 1990 — that’s 17 years before Radiohead, kids. There once was a time when she was slated to mature into a folk icon, but even that will probably end up happening on her terms. That’s OK, though — it would have had to be machine gun folk, and that barely exists elsewhere anyway.

Reggae

The local guitarist and sax player team up to lead their jazz combo through the weekly gig.

Jeff Decker - Street Lights

Local songwriter

Mariana Bell - Book

Country and southern rock

Americana-based eclecto-pop

Shad Dart - Flyin’
Shad Dart - You Make Me Crawl
Shad Dart - Why Don’t We
Shad Dart - How Do You Know

Old-time music

The Rivanna River Chiggers - Over The Waterfall
The Rivanna River Chiggers - June Apple
The Rivanna River Chiggers - Abe’s Retreat
The Rivanna River Chiggers - Sadie At The Backdoor
The Rivanna River Chiggers - Cold Frosty Morning
The Rivanna River Chiggers - Shuckin’ The Brush
The Rivanna River Chiggers - Greasy Coat

Dinnertime pianist

Despite the alliterative awkwardness, we can’t help but call Theresa Andersson a singer-songwriter-synesthete. “I stopped thinking in terms of traditional songwriting,” she said of her last album, Hummingbird, Go! “I worked on shapes, forms, and textures, scents and colors. Elements which are more earthy and organic inspired me.” (She’s also a Swede, and, um, pretty swell, neither of which bode well for the capsule description we’re trying to build to here.)

Also among those elements: the musical heritage of New Orleans, where she has lived for the past decade — along the way, she has toured with Dr. John and the Neville Brothers, among others, and Allen Toussaint had a guest spot on the song “Now I Know.” Isn’t it nice to see N’awlins repped by somebody other than Lil Wayne?

Theresa Andersson - Birds Fly Away
Theresa Andersson - Na Na Na (Empty Heart)

Also featuring arty folk-rock acoustic guitarist Peter Mulvey, who got his start busking on the Boston subway in the early 90’s, and local guitarist Sam Wilson, whose fancy fretwork livens up a half-dozen other rock, pop, folk. country, and metal projects around town when he’s not busy slinging his own compositions.

Peter Mulvey - On The Way Up
Sam Wilson - A Melody Instead
Sam Wilson - In The Morning
Sam Wilson - Once In Your Life
Sam Wilson - Green Gates