Eric Andersen will perform ’60s classics and new songs at Avenel Performing Arts Center

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Eric Andersen — who recently released his first full-length collection of new songs in 20 years, the two-CD Dance of Love and Death — will perform at The Avenel Performing Arts Center, Oct. 3. At 82, he is one of the few remaining touring artists from the heady days of the 1960s folk music scene. While we still enjoy concerts by members of that vibrant musical community, including Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and Noel Paul Stookey, many other groundbreaking artists from that era no longer tour (Joan Baez, Tom Paxton) or are deceased (Phil Ochs, Richard & Mimi Fariña).

A Buffalo native who has long resided in The Netherlands, Andersen is known for poetic, poignant songs such as “Violets of Dawn,” “Close the Door Lightly When You Go” and “Come to My Bedside.” “Thirsty Boots” (1966) honored civil rights activists’ commitment to social change; the weary boots referred to those worn by protesters in marches or other forms of resistance. His best known album is 1972’s Blue River, featuring “Is It Really Love at All” and the title track (with Joni Mitchell on backing vocals).

His career has encompassed diverse recordings including albums paying trying to great writers (Shadow and Light of Albert Camus, Mingle With the Universe: The Worlds of Lord Byron, Silent Angel: The Fire and Ashes of Heinrich Böll).

Andersen’s life was chronicled in the 2021 documentary “The Songpoet,” which highlighted his decades-long journey in folk music; and he was celebrated on the 2022 album Tribute to a Songpoet: Songs of Eric Andersen, featuring Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Janis Ian, Willie Nile, Lenny Kaye, the late Rick Danko and others.

The cover of Eric Andersen’s album, “Dance of Love and Death.”

His stirring new songs include meditations on love such as “Love Is a Sacred Thing,” “Story of Skin,” “Map of a Woman’s Heart” and “Dance of Love and Death.” His serene, haunting “Season in Crime (Crime Scenes),” about climate change and wildfires, stands out.

This last song (listen below) was inspired by violinist Scarlet Rivera’s experience with wildfires, and she joins him on it, along with bassist Tony Garnier and others. Both Rivera and Garnier are known for their work with Dylan.

Andersen sings:

Embers flying in the wind
The earth is fire and flame
Hills are burnin’ to a crisp
Sparks spitting down like rain

Water was a rumor once
Dying in the mud
Soon there came the hurricanes
And then there came the floods

Eyes are looking to the skies
But no help from above …

Crime scenes in the ocean
Crime scenes in the air
Crime scenes in the rivers
Crime scenes everywhere

JAMIE KALIKOW PHOTOGRAPHY

Eric Andersen and Richard Barone.

When I spoke with Andersen before his performance at Richard Barone’s 2019 “Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s” show at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, we talked about his move to Greenwich Village in the ’60s, and the interesting life he led as a young man. The show was in a church and, in an irreverent and comic moment, he stood onstage during soundcheck with his arms outstretched near the church’s pulpit.

During the show, he performed while vintage black-and-white photos of ’60s musicians, including his friend Lou Reed, were shown on a screen.

Barone had recorded “Close the Door Lightly When You Go” with Allison Moorer for his 2016 album Sorrows & Promises: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and Andersen performed this song at the show (see video below).

Shows like Andersen’s create nostalgia for a remarkable time, but also remind me of the urgent need to protect our writers, musicians, comedians and activists.

Eric Andersen will perform in an acoustic duo with Steve Addabbo at The Avenel Performing Arts Center, Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m.; visit avenelarts.com.

For more about him, visit ericandersen.com.

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