Songwriters in the Round 8/20
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David Scott
Aug 20, 2025, 1:00:23 PMAug 20
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Songwriters in the Round has had a thrilling summer season. Mark Stepakoff and Sam Bayer have taken the ball and run with it. Hit a home run with it? Darn sports metaphors… Anyway, the folks they have brought in have excited and delighted us while bringing us to a new understanding of our shared humanity. There are billions of us on this planet with similar emotional equipment, and everyone has their own way to express themselves, but the feelings that a good original song evoke are universal-yet-unique. Uniqui-versal? That’s good. Call Merriam-Webster.
This week's performers: Jack Byrne is a true musical lifer. Since childhood he has dedicated his time to performing, writing and teaching in Boston and northern New England. Rachel Marie wrings thoughtful, emotional truth out of, as she says, “paper and pain”. Beth DeSombre’s pure, ethereal voice is a canvas for personal yet political insights. And our good friend Sam Bayer is back to shepherd the evening along while interjecting with his perfect, pithy paeans to money, dogs and bureaucratic hell.
While you’re here: Songwriters in the Round needs sponsorships to continue at our high level. For $200, I can guarantee the four songwriters and sound engineer a base fee of $40. Please get in touch if you can help.
Songwriters in the Round
Wednesday August 20, 7pm-8:30pm
Arts at the Armory Café
free (suggested donation $10-$20)
https://artsatthearmory.org/events/songwriters-in-the-round-2025-08-20/
The Armory Café is a warm, welcoming place where people can enjoy food and drink as well as chance meetings and conversation. But everyone becomes quiet when four songwriters take the stage to take turns playing songs, occasionally joining each other on harmony vocals or guitar licks. In between songs, the audience listens while the performers discuss music and life in general. “I was inspired by the ‘guitar pulls’ of the Bluebird Café in Nashville,” host David Thorne Scott says, “but with a wider variety. There is folk and country, but also rock, R&B, soul, jazz, and musical theater.”
Held on the first and third Wednesdays of each month from 7:00-8:30 p.m. This program is supported with a small grant from the Somerville Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The event is free but you may want to donate $10-$20 for the performers.
Part of the ROOTED Armory Café Series. Food, snacks, coffee, tea, beer and wine available!
You might hear a young up-and-coming pro, an established mid-career performer and mentor, and a cherished elder of the scene -- all sharing music. The growing relationships will warm your heart and enrich your soul. Come every week as the lineup shifts and new friends are made.
All ages welcome.
Sign up for the Songwriters in the Round email list at http://eepurl.com/c2gNWf
Our songwriters this week
Jack Byrne was raised in a musical family who are prone to spontaneous Beatles singalongs at any given moment. Jack started writing his own songs at an early age, and these days writes in an intimate folk style reminiscent of Iron & Wine, Johanna Warren, and Simon & Garfunkel. He recorded much of his latest EP, New Beginnings and Resolutions, during the summer of 2020 in a cabin in Maine. Jack teaches private music lessons and adult guitar groups at NEMPAC, and performs in the Boston area at venues such as Club Passim, Gallery 263, The Burren, and hosts shows with Somerville Songwriter Sessions at The Armory. https://www.jackbyrnemusic.com
Boston-based and Pennsylvania-raised, Rachel Marie follows in a tradition of unapologetically forthright women folksingers, with songs that hearken to "overstuffed lines of Tori Amos, philosophical turn of Indigo Girls, and lilting vocals like Joni Mitchell" (Victoria Farmer, The Christian Humanist Podcast). The social awareness of folk meets the introspection, catharsis, and healing of the singer-songwriter tradition. "Add in a brilliantly woven, genuine, and sometimes silly banter and Rachel’s unique show will stay with you a long time" (Tom Bianchi, 24 Hour Music). Rachel's latest full-length album, False Foundations, was released in 2018, and her next album, My Sorry, Troubled Head is in the works. rachelmarie.com
Beth DeSombre writes songs that are "smart and uplifting...focusing on the quiet meaning to be found in ordinary life" (Sing Out! Magazine), exploring issues from the personal to the political. Her music touches both mind and heart, with insights wrapped in melody and harmony that stay with you after the echoes of the last chorus have faded away. Her newest CD, Holding the Threads (2024), is her most personal album to date, telling stories about family, and crisis, and trying to find hope in dark times. Her previous EP The Sea Beside Us (2023), tells stories of ships and the ocean. Her 2017 EP, Resistance, which was written in response to the political situation after the 2016 election, is a fundraiser for the ACLU. It reached #10 on the folk charts (with two top-10 songs). An award-winning writer in many formats, she has published 8 books. bethdesombre.com
Your host, Boston musician Sam Bayer is your literate, exuberant guide to an imaginary world where housewives win the Nobel Prize in physics, poker-playing children gamble over their bedtimes, and metaphorical elephants pirouette in the den, four and a half minutes at a time. His latest studio CD, Bad Apple, brings 11 gems from his universe to yours. https://sambayer.com
This week's performers: Jack Byrne is a true musical lifer. Since childhood he has dedicated his time to performing, writing and teaching in Boston and northern New England. Rachel Marie wrings thoughtful, emotional truth out of, as she says, “paper and pain”. Beth DeSombre’s pure, ethereal voice is a canvas for personal yet political insights. And our good friend Sam Bayer is back to shepherd the evening along while interjecting with his perfect, pithy paeans to money, dogs and bureaucratic hell.
While you’re here: Songwriters in the Round needs sponsorships to continue at our high level. For $200, I can guarantee the four songwriters and sound engineer a base fee of $40. Please get in touch if you can help.
Songwriters in the Round
Wednesday August 20, 7pm-8:30pm
Arts at the Armory Café
free (suggested donation $10-$20)
https://artsatthearmory.org/events/songwriters-in-the-round-2025-08-20/
The Armory Café is a warm, welcoming place where people can enjoy food and drink as well as chance meetings and conversation. But everyone becomes quiet when four songwriters take the stage to take turns playing songs, occasionally joining each other on harmony vocals or guitar licks. In between songs, the audience listens while the performers discuss music and life in general. “I was inspired by the ‘guitar pulls’ of the Bluebird Café in Nashville,” host David Thorne Scott says, “but with a wider variety. There is folk and country, but also rock, R&B, soul, jazz, and musical theater.”
Held on the first and third Wednesdays of each month from 7:00-8:30 p.m. This program is supported with a small grant from the Somerville Arts Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The event is free but you may want to donate $10-$20 for the performers.
Part of the ROOTED Armory Café Series. Food, snacks, coffee, tea, beer and wine available!
You might hear a young up-and-coming pro, an established mid-career performer and mentor, and a cherished elder of the scene -- all sharing music. The growing relationships will warm your heart and enrich your soul. Come every week as the lineup shifts and new friends are made.
All ages welcome.
Sign up for the Songwriters in the Round email list at http://eepurl.com/c2gNWf
Our songwriters this week
Jack Byrne was raised in a musical family who are prone to spontaneous Beatles singalongs at any given moment. Jack started writing his own songs at an early age, and these days writes in an intimate folk style reminiscent of Iron & Wine, Johanna Warren, and Simon & Garfunkel. He recorded much of his latest EP, New Beginnings and Resolutions, during the summer of 2020 in a cabin in Maine. Jack teaches private music lessons and adult guitar groups at NEMPAC, and performs in the Boston area at venues such as Club Passim, Gallery 263, The Burren, and hosts shows with Somerville Songwriter Sessions at The Armory. https://www.jackbyrnemusic.com
Boston-based and Pennsylvania-raised, Rachel Marie follows in a tradition of unapologetically forthright women folksingers, with songs that hearken to "overstuffed lines of Tori Amos, philosophical turn of Indigo Girls, and lilting vocals like Joni Mitchell" (Victoria Farmer, The Christian Humanist Podcast). The social awareness of folk meets the introspection, catharsis, and healing of the singer-songwriter tradition. "Add in a brilliantly woven, genuine, and sometimes silly banter and Rachel’s unique show will stay with you a long time" (Tom Bianchi, 24 Hour Music). Rachel's latest full-length album, False Foundations, was released in 2018, and her next album, My Sorry, Troubled Head is in the works. rachelmarie.com
Beth DeSombre writes songs that are "smart and uplifting...focusing on the quiet meaning to be found in ordinary life" (Sing Out! Magazine), exploring issues from the personal to the political. Her music touches both mind and heart, with insights wrapped in melody and harmony that stay with you after the echoes of the last chorus have faded away. Her newest CD, Holding the Threads (2024), is her most personal album to date, telling stories about family, and crisis, and trying to find hope in dark times. Her previous EP The Sea Beside Us (2023), tells stories of ships and the ocean. Her 2017 EP, Resistance, which was written in response to the political situation after the 2016 election, is a fundraiser for the ACLU. It reached #10 on the folk charts (with two top-10 songs). An award-winning writer in many formats, she has published 8 books. bethdesombre.com
Your host, Boston musician Sam Bayer is your literate, exuberant guide to an imaginary world where housewives win the Nobel Prize in physics, poker-playing children gamble over their bedtimes, and metaphorical elephants pirouette in the den, four and a half minutes at a time. His latest studio CD, Bad Apple, brings 11 gems from his universe to yours. https://sambayer.com
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