Lamoille Songwriters in the Round Benefit Concert

The Lamoille Songwriters in the Round is an intimate and unique concert experience. Six Lamoille County based songwriters will share the stage, showcasing their songs and the stories and inspiration behind them. This event is sponsored by Ten Bends Beer, Stowe Cider and Lamoille Valley Ford and Lamoille Valley Chevrolet, with ticket proceeds to benefit the Lamoille Community Food Share. The featured songwriters are Abby Sherman, John Fusco, Christine Malcom, Trevor Crist, Lesley Grant, and David Karl Roberts.

About the Songwriters

Abby Sherman
Abby Sherman is a heartfelt singer songwriter born and raised in Lamoille County. Her influences include Sarah Jarosz, Susan Tedeschi and Gillian Welch. Seven Days calls her “One of the scene’s most consistently quality singer-songwriters,” and goes on to say “The Morrisville-based Sherman has been steadily releasing music for the last few years, making a name for herself as a soulful vocalist with a touch of blues-rock to her compositions. Her previous efforts, ‘Finding Hope’ in 2018 and 2019’s ‘So It Goes’, hewed close to folk and country, and showcased Sherman’s roots pedigree and talent for down-on-your-luck troubadour songwriting. Backed by The Way North, Sherman reveals a grittier edge.”

John Fusco
While best known as the screenwriter of such iconic movies as Young Guns, Thunderheart, Hidalgo, the Oscar-nominated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and The Highwaymen, John Fusco is also a singer-songwriter with a deep background in American roots music. Fusco’s very first movie was the 1986 cult classic Crossroads, a blues musical inspired by his own teenage travels in the Mississippi Delta. Since 2019, Fusco has come full-circle back to his music, penning nearly 50 original songs, recording an acclaimed debut album (John Fusco and the X-Road Riders) and a double album follow-up (John the Revelator). The latter was nominated for 3 Independent Blues Awards in 2021.

NPR has praised Fusco’s songwriting as ‘ranging from deep blues to Randy Newmanesque portraits of American life in the Trump era to tales of friendship, love, and redemption.’ His early songwriting and storytelling influences were Leon Russell, Gregg Allman, Dr. John, and the early blues and gospel roots that influenced the work of those artists. Fusco’s third album Borderlands will be released in March 2022.

Christine Malcolm
Christine is a mother, a midwife and family nurse practitioner here in Vermont for the past twenty five years.   She is also an award-winning songwriter and has had the honor of being selected to perform at national level songwriter festivals.  Her music has always wandered the dirt roads leading to home, family and heart and lately has been exploring the tough stuff of social justice.  In the truest sense of the folk musician, Christine uses all the traditions- from Delta blues to sweet country ballads- to have a conversation with listeners. 

Vocally she has been compared to Natalie Merchant and her musical influences range from traditional Appalachian to psychedelic rock.  Artists like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Lori McKenna, Anais Mitchell and Ani DiFranco have been especially inspiring.  “Malcolm continues to write excellent tunes and sing with tunefulness and conviction”– The Times Argus. 

Trevor Crist
Trevor Crist is a multi-instrumentalist and is the lead singer and principal songwriter in Maple Run Band, whose recent debut album landed on the national Alt.Country charts shortly after its debut in August of 2020, and has been played on radio stations worldwide.  Seven Days calls him a “mature, potent songwriter”.  The Montpelier Times Argus called the self-titled Maple Run Band album an “intelligently written, authentic sounding country/country-folk album”, and awarded it a Tammie award as the best debut album of 2020.  His songwriting style is colored by the folk, country, and rock artists he listened to growing up on the high plains of western Kansas. Key songwriting influences include John Prine, Billy Joe Shaver, and Neil Young.

Lesley Grant
Singing from the heart, Lesley Grant writes songs that are honest and relatable.   Her songs will remind you of old, but not forgotten country melodies. Lesley has had the honor of sharing the stage with some of Vermont’s finest musicians in venues throughout the state. Strong music influences include Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris and Loretta Lynn.

David Karl Roberts
Combine an Americana troubadour with a cocktail of soulful melodies, swampy blue notes and outlaw folk and you get David Karl Roberts, a songwriter who creates a blend of whiskey soaked Americana. DKR has performed at clubs, festivals and colleges throughout New England and the east coast of the U.S.  as a singer/songwriter and was based in Portland Maine for many years where he fronted the alt-country punk blues band, Love Cactus, the folk’a’billy duo The Killer Greens and folk psychedelic hipsters Crazy Moonbeam.  

About Lamoille County Food Share:
We are a nonprofit group of volunteers dedicated to providing food security for our friends and neighbors in and around Lamoille County, Vermont.  We have a pantry located at 197 Harrel Street in Morrisville, next door to the Community College of Vermont.  Here families can come and receive basic food and other grocery items to help stretch their food dollar.

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