For Joanie: Dolceola Gospel, Piano Boogies, and Ragtime Piano on the Guitar

Saturday, October 16, 7:00PM & Sunday, October 17, 3:00PM

BOTH SHOWS SOLD OUT
Thank You For Supporting Local Live Music In The North Country!

Andy Cohen, Guitarist

LIVE at the Hand House in Elizabethtown, NY

Reservations only.
Socially distanced seating.
Proof of Covid-19 vaccination and masks required.
Details below!

Please check the PBN website for up-to-date guidance.

Andy Cohen

ANDY COHEN IS A VIRTUOSO FINGER-STYLE GUITARIST WHO HAS been described as “a walking, talking folk-blues-roots music encyclopedia.” He grew up in a home with a piano and lots of Dixieland Jazz records. During the Sixties Folk Revival, he got hooked on the music of Big Bill Broonzy and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. When Andy was 16, he heard South Carolina’s Rev. Gary Davis perform and the effect on him was profound. He has devoted his life to studying, performing, and promoting traditional blues and folk music of the pre-World War II era.

Andy toured with Martin, Bogan and Armstrong, John Jackson, Rev. Gary Davis, Brother Daniel Womack, Rev. Dan Smith, Jim Brewer, and Honeyboy Edwards. He also worked extensively with Walt and Ethel Phelps, Big Joe Duskin, Pigmeat Jarrett, Etta Baker, Big Boy Henry, and Son Thomas.

Andy Cohen playing the dolceola.

Andy has helped to support a number of his mentors and younger players, by organizing festivals and other venues for them to play in. He has written about several of the old masters and studied their work in a systematic way. Many of his students are now professional touring musicians.

The Country Blues says, “One thing is for sure, the boy can play. There are few people around today who had a chance to pick it all up from the old generations, get this good at it and continue to cherish and preserve the old traditions.”

He has been assiduous in sharing his expertise in classes, camps, and anywhere people are making music. Andy Cohen has more than a dozen recordings to his credit, including Oh Glory, How Happy I Am: The Sacred Songs of Rev. Gary Davis and Andrew M. Cohen: Dolceola Favorites.

An enthusiastic proponent of the dolceola, Andy says he “never leaves home without it.” Described by some as a “miniature piano,” the dolceola has a keyboard, but the strings are struck with wooden mallets. Along the way, Andy earned a Master’s Degree in anthropology. His passions come together in his essay on “The Hands of Blues Guitarists,” published in Ramblin’ On My Mind: New Perspectives On the Blues, edited by David Evans (2008).

At an Andy Cohen concert, expect to hear blues rooted in Mississippi, the Piedmont, Memphis, and Chicago, as well as some ragtime, gospel, and original tunes. In 2011 Andy received the Eisteddfod Award from The Eisteddfod Traditional Music Festival. Festival Director Dr. Jerome Epstein said, “We decided to give the award to Andy, one of this year’s performers, because of his outstanding contributions to the field of traditional music, as performer, collector, and advocate.” In 2012 Andy received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Autoharp Gathering.

Here are Andy’s remembrances of Joan:

I met Joan Crane in 1968, when Paul Geremia and I were playing the coffeehouse at Plattsburgh. He and I were interested in helping the artist Rockwell Kent clean up from a fire that destroyed his art collection. She took us down to Au Sable Forks where he lived, and the three of us picked through the rubble all afternoon.

Joan was a budding guitar player. I mean, she was fer it! She was advanced enough on the guitar that I could show her some fancy moves, and she got them right away. She had the gift, and she used it from the gitgo. Pretty soon she was running up and down the Northway, collecting accolades for her playing and doing gigs right and left. Her Philo record was an impressive collection of old and new tunes done right. Thing was, it wasn’t so much her chops that sold her, though those alone were certainly high quality enough. It was her obvious love for the people and the music, and for entertaining in general that did it. 

I was devastated when Joanie told me her time was limited. She looked me straight in the eye and said ‘Thank you for my life.’ I about lost it. I didn’t have all that much to do with her career, other than to give it a shove, teach her a little, and encourage her. But I always felt bonded to her, like family. She did the heavy lifting required to maintain an adoring, small but consistent public, and I admired her efforts from afar. Whenever I was within shouting distance I’d drop in, and always wanted to play gigs opposite her. She was my first student, and one of my very best. I mentored her as much as I could, and in the course of time, she came to mentor some younguns coming up. 

I will miss her till the day I drop.

Joan Crane has been the shining example of delta blues finger picking in the Adirondack North Country since the late seventies. Her musical experience and discography is lengthy. Joan also has the distinction of being one of the very few women to concentrate on the fingerpicking style of the traditional country blues artists of the ’20s and ’30s, including Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Blake, and Robert Johnson.

Having played her last gig on this Earth, renowned guitar and banjo player, singer, and composer Joan Crane is now entertaining in the Heavens. A fixture throughout the North Country, Joan entertained thousands of fans at countless venues, which included the Palmer St. Coffee House and Crete Center in Plattsburgh, farmers’ markets, fairs, churches, and many more. For several years during the 1980s she was a disc jockey on Plattsburgh station KDR as she interviewed notable personalities as well as played her guitar and sang. Joan also enjoyed mentoring up-and-coming musicians. Joan’s proudest achievement came when she was the FIRST woman to perform at the International Guitar Luthiers Symposium and was invited back.

Joan has performed for all the major guitar manufacturers at the National Guitar Luthier’s Symposium and placed in the statewide Indiana Blues Competition, being the only solo, only acoustic, and only female. Her guitar style ranges from the emotional Delta style to the syncopated Piedmont style.

And here are some words from her bassist of many years–Steve Feinbloom:

“Joan was the queen of the North Country blues, a charismatic performer, world class musician, and first rate raconteur who had a sparkle in her eye every day of her life. She performed her music for anyone, anywhere, any time. She won hearts and earned new fans at every opportunity. She simply loved to play.”