Singer, songwriter, guitarist, mandolinist, and longtime stalwart of the Bay Area music scene, Gerry Tenney, backed by the Hard Times Orchestra, honors International Worker Day with an evening of old and new time songs of working folks from around the world and their struggles. The evening also includes original progressive West African Caribbean Blues (songs written by Abu Djigo, Gary Nelson, Ernesto Browne, & Deborah Barer) from the World Blues Trio. World Blues Trio features Trinidadian vocalist NezB, kora player Keenan Webster, & guitarist Gary Nelson. Sharon Bernstein, Francesco Spagnolo and Ariel Spagnolo will join the Hard Times Orchestra to sing Italian partisan and Yiddish songs.

Longtime leader of one of the West Coast's leading klezmer bands, California Klezmer, Gerry also heads the bluegrass/americana band The Lost Tribe. The Hard Times Orchestra features Ray Bierl (fiddle, guitar, vocals), Rick Elmore (trombone), David Laub (bass), Neil Linden (banjo), Leslie Tenney (vocals), and Eric Thompson (guitar, mandolin, vocals).

This concert honors Hester Lox, long time Bay Area partisan of traditional music and progressive causes, and a Freight volunteer, who passed from us recently, and certainly will be with us here in spirit. It will also benefit Katja Samati’s 4th grade class trip from Sobrante Park Elementary School in East Oakland. Katja will be taking her students, many of whom have never seen the ocean, to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.

Listen to a track from Gerry Tenney & The Lost Tribe: