WESTERLY — Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Peter Wolf are just a few of the big names who’ll take the stage this summer at The United’s first-ever Beatwave Summer Concert Series, which kicks off on June 13 with Victor Wooten and the Wooten Brothers.
The inaugural series at the United will feature a wide range of styles, with headliners including the Wailers — yes, the late Bob Marley’s band — and Wolf, formerly of the J. Geils Band.
“We are really stepping up our summer programming this year ,” said United Artistic Director Tony Nunes, “with an exciting lineup of genre-spanning live music that showcases the kind of programming we strive to curate to build audiences around — popular, new, classic, and worldly music at its highest quality.”
“We have shows with the multi-Grammy winning Victor Wooten and the Wooten Brothers,” he said, followed by the Sam Grisman Project which celebrates “the musical legacy of Sam’s legendary father David Grisman and his music with Jerry Garcia.”
There’s also a “special July 4th throwdown with Yonder Mountain String Band,” Nunes said, followed by Bob Marley’s Wailers, who’ll be performing and celebrating the 40th anniversary of the “Legend” album.
Then comes “an intimate evening with J. Geils Band lead singer Peter Wolf, folk acts Blind Pilot, Aoife O’Donovan with Hawktail, and Sarah Jarosz, Congolese afropop rockers Jupiter and Okwess, and more,” he said.
“This summer’s lineup is still growing,” he added.
Wolf, who announced his tour earlier this year, “continues to push his artistic envelope by adding an upcoming memoir to his list of many accomplishments.”
His shows will be “unique nights of acoustic music and stories that have mapped out Peter’s fascinating life. Accompanying Peter are guitar masters Duke Levine and Kevin Barry. The music may have a more intimate presentation than what one might expect from Peter, but of course, the unexpected IS to be expected from this iconic artist.”
— Nancy Burns-Fusaro
