LEWISTON – Gillen & Turk of Hudson Valley, N.Y., will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, July 18, at She Doesn’t Like Guthries. During the last five years, Fred Gillen Jr. and Matt Turk have engaged audiences and refined their art in the Hudson Valley of New York City. On numerous occasions the two performers shared the stage and eventually became close friends and are now blending their talents into a new sound.

“There’s so much energy and fun playing with Fred, it’s like I’m starting out all over again,” said Turk.

Augmented by drummer Dave Blackshire and multi-instrumentalist Steve Kirkman of Hope Machine, a Woody Guthrie tribute band, Gillen & Turk has an acoustic and electric repertoire that bends toward the recognizable folk-rock genre without losing any respective idiosyncrasies. Harmonies abound, along with singing that’s tough, sincere and full of heart and soul. Guitars are front and center. There is also some spirited playing of the washboard and mandolin.

“This is the kind of ‘meeting of the muses’ I’ve always hoped and waited for,” Gillen said.

Since his recording debut, Gillen has independently released four more solo CDs and two EPs, including his latest, “Gone Gone Gone.” Readers of the Westchester Weekly voted him Best Folk Artist three consecutive years, and he was also a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant.

A soulful vocalist who has been playing guitar and mandolin since his teens, Turk teamed up with world-famous folk music icon Pete Seeger as part of The Street Singers, a group that taught folk music to schoolchildren and others in and around New York City.

For the past several years both have been mainstays at the Circle of Song tent at the Great Clearwater Music and Arts Festival, an event inaugurated by Seeger in the 1960s and held each June on the banks of the Hudson River.

There is no cover charge. Guthries is at 115 Middle St. For more information, call 376-3344 or visit myspace.com/guthriesplace.


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