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... by Joanne Corsano ... joanne@picturelake.com

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of the concert

Do What I Have To Do {Phil Ochs} - Better Angels - Sheep Don't You Know the Road {Bessie Jones} - Wade in the Water {traditional} - Roll On Woody - On Solid Ground - Standing In Freedom's Name ... intermission ... Hello In There {John Prine} - High Over the Hudson - Marching Up To Freedom Land - Hickory Hill - Ready To Go ... encore ... We Will Get There {traditional spiritual}

Scroll to below videos for a review of the show.

Standing In Freedom's Name

This was the last concert for the summer put on by the Harwich Cultural Center, which has space in what was formerly Harwich Middle School. I have seen Reggie Harris there before, in March 2019, performing the show called Deeper Than the Skin with his colleague and friend Greg Greenway. Review of that show is here. The show tonight was held outside for safety during the coronavirus pandemic.

Reggie played for a good two hours, and because the show started at 7 pm and it's getting later in the summer, he was in the dark by the time he was done with his second set. It made for an almost mystical visual appeal. I wish I had thought of taking a picture.

Reggie played acoustic guitar and sang a wide range of songs, including originals, covers, and traditional folk and spiritual songs. His presentation is absolutely magical, as he weaves these diverse musical styles together with stories from the musical world and his own experiences. Reggie has a relatively new solo album out called Ready To Go; he played a few numbers from this superb album.

Among other stories, he talked about attending the Grover Cleveland Elementary School while growing up in Philadelphia. The student body did quite a bit of singing at that school, and one day in second grade Reggie's teacher introduced the class to Woody Guthrie and taught them "This Land is Your Land." Many years later as an adult, Reggie was doing a show attended by some school children, and in the audience he spied his old second grade teacher who had introduced him to the wonders of Woody Guthrie a couple of decades earlier. This was an introduction, of course, to Reggie's wonderful song "Roll On Woody."

Incidentally, Reggie mentioned that never once during his elementary school years did any of the teachers even mention the school was named for a U.S. President. During the intermission I regaled Reggie with some Cleveland trivia; since that president summered in the town of Bourne, where I now live, and his private train station has been preserved as a museum exhibit, I actually know quite a bit about Mr. Cleveland.