The cultural highlights this weekend in the greater region include a homecoming concert of sorts by one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our generation; a comedy show by one of the hottest female comedians on the scene; a reading by an emerging novelist; a film festival devoted to the heyday of the Catskills as a resort community; and a tribute to Billie Holiday by a Grammy Award-nominated vocalist.
Folk-pop singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright brings his “Best of” tour to the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington on Saturday at 8pm. Wainwright is widely regarded as one of the best songwriters of his generation by his fellow musicians, critics, and audiences alike. In addition to seven albums of his own songs and film soundtracks, he has written a classical opera and set Shakespearean sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson. Wainwright – a scion of the Wainwright-McGarrigle musical clan - also has close ties to the region, having been born in Rhinebeck, N.Y., where he lived for the first three years of his life, and then having returned to the area to attend the Millbrook School.
On-the-rise LA-based comedian Cameron Esposito brings her standup act to Club B-10 at MASS MoCA in North Adams on Saturday at 8pm. Esposito’s edgy, in-your-face style led Jay Leno to call her “the future of comedy.” Rarely seen without her ubiquitous jean jacket and side mullet, Esposito is at ease on stage, a versatile performer ready to play off the audience.
Stone Court Writer-in-Residence Snowden Wright – the author of “Play Pretty Blues: A Novel of the Life of Robert Johnson” -- will read from his work at The Mount in Lenox on Saturday at 3pm. The reading is free and open to the public. Part researched reconstruction, part vivid imagination, Play Pretty Blues brings blues legend Robert Johnson alive through the voices of his six wives, revealing the husband and son inside the legend, illuminating the vacuum Johnson left in the worlds of those who loved him and those he would never meet.
The Borscht Belt Film Festival at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst kicks off with a double feature of “Welcome to Kutsher’s: The Last Catskills Resort” and “Dirty Dancing” this Sunday. The film festival, in conjunction with the visiting exhibit Echoes from the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld, runs through June, with movies celebrating the heyday of the Catkills Mountains resort region.
Singer-songwriter Heather Maloney will bring her unique blend of folk, rock, jazz, and pop to Club Helsinki Hudson tonight at 9pm, just one week after the release of her long-awaited new album, “Making Me Break”. Singer-songwriter Will Dailey will warm up the crowd for Maloney.
The Aaron Diehl Trio, featuring Grammy Award-nominated vocalist CécileMcLorinSalvant, will perform a centenary tribute to jazz legend Billie Holiday in the Fisher Center at Bard College tonight at 8pm. Known for her definitive interpretations of classic jazz standards, Billie Holiday is considered to be one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time. Salvant will perform some of Holiday’s most beloved repertoire, including renditions of “Jeepers Creepers,” “You Go to My Head,” “Lover Man,” and “Hello, My Darling.”
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkshire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com