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In celebration of 30 years of the Folk in Fredonia Music Series, the Opera House in 2024 is bringing back some of the artists who performed in the earlier years of the series. Garnet Rogers first appeared in 1996, and we’re thrilled that he is returning!
In a darkened bedroom, lit only by the amber glow from an old floor model radio, two young brothers, ages 6 and 12, lay in their beds, listening to country music broadcasts from the Grand Ole Opry, and practiced their harmonies. Two years later, the youngest one was playing the definitive 8-year-old’s version of “Desolation Row” on his ukulele. He soon abandoned that instrument to teach himself the flute, violin and guitar.
Within 10 years, and barely out of high school, Garnet Rogers was on the road as a full-time working musician with his older brother Stan. Together they formed what has come to be accepted as one of the most influential acts in North American folk music.
Since then, Rogers has established himself as “one of the major talents of our time.” Hailed by the Boston Globe as a “charismatic performer and singer,” he is a man with a powerful physical presence – close to six and a half feet tall – with a voice to match. With his “smooth, dark baritone” (Washington Post), his incredible range, and thoughtful, dramatic phrasing, Rogers is widely considered by fans and critics alike to be one of the finest singers anywhere. His music, like the man himself, is literate, passionate, highly sensitive, and deeply purposeful. Cinematic in detail, his songs “give expression to the unspoken vocabulary of the heart” (Kitchener Waterloo Record).
An optimist at heart, Rogers sings extraordinary songs about people who are not obvious heroes and of the small victories of the everyday. As memorable as his songs, his over-the-top humor and lightning-quick wit moves his audience from tears to laughter and back again.
Folk in Fredonia Music Series is Sponsored by The Gilman Family