The Woods Hole Folk Music Society will host its final concert Sunday, marking the end of an era for the small Cape Cod village.
Since 1972, the society has presented live acoustic music at the village’s old wood-shingled community hall on the waterfront, featuring some of the most revered folk, blues, bluegrass and traditional music artists from the U.S. and abroad. The venue has hosted some of the folk world's best performers, including Peggy Seeger, Mike Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, Geoff Muldaur, Gordon Bok, Jean Ritchie, Tony Trischka and the New England Bluegrass Boys, among others.
The society invited its favorite performers back this year, before the concert series shuts down for good. The last concert's final performer will be Bill Staines, one of New England’s best-known troubadours. A New Hampshire native, Staines has played in Woods Hole every year since the concert series launched.
Staines, who plays all over the country, said Woods Hole has always been one of his favorite venues, and to be the final performer is an honor. He said the folk music scene is changing. Some larger urban venues are doing well, while many smaller rural ones like Woods Hole are closing.
Started by folk music DJ Dick Pleasants, the Woods Hole concerts were originally broadcast on his program “Sail Loft” on a local radio station. Clyde Tyndale joined forces with Pleasants after the first broadcast and eventually took over the concert series when Pleasants left a few years later.
“On a Sunday night in Woods Hole, nothing was going on … we were the only game in town,” Tyndale said about the early days of the series. Over the years, the concert series amassed a large and faithful following. Fans from throughout southern New England began making the Sunday night trek to Woods Hole to hear talent usually featured at much larger venues.
Tyndale estimated that the society has produced more than 700 concerts in the last 47 years, and he has overseen most of them. He’s ready to retire, he added.
“We're all graying and getting older, and there's no younger volunteers coming out, and this is an all-volunteer organization," he said.
Without new volunteers, Tyndale said, there aren’t enough people to set up and take down the sound system, lights, portable stage and more than 100 folding chairs every two weeks. Although he will miss hearing the music he loves, Tyndale said he won’t miss ”schlepping the gear around” with the other volunteers, most now in their 70s and 80s, and many of whom have hip and knee replacements.
The concerts still draw good-sized audiences that pay the bills, but Tyndale says they too, are aging, and the audience size is shrinking. But, he said, “we have nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve been around longer than a lot of other organizations, and we wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper.”
Volunteer Debra Segal said she will miss the experience of hearing live music in the Woods Hole Community Hall.
”When I see the people singing the same songs, all together joining in that community of singing together," Segal said, "it's ... going to be a terrible loss.”
Segal said the concert series may be ending, but the society is not shutting down. It will remain active and will work with anyone who would like to revive what has been a vital part of cultural life in southern New England.
