PLEASE JOIN US IN SUPPORTING THESE WORKING MUSICIANS WHOSE ART AND SPIRIT CONTINUE TO UPLIFT AND SUSTAIN US.

This week’s “Working From Home” features award-winning Portland, Oregon-based singer/guitarist/songwriter Mary Flower, a prodigious talent whose seasoned skills have established her as one of America’s foremost roots performers. So much so that legendary Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna guitarist Jorma Kaukonen admiringly described Mary Flower as “a national treasure in your own backyard.”

100% OF ALL DONATIONS OR PURCHASES GO DIRECTLY TO THE ARTISTS.
(Together, Little Village Foundation & Arhoolie Foundation will match the first $500 donated)

Mary Flower is an internationally renowned award-winning Portland, Oregon-based singer/guitarist/songwriter whose seasoned skills have established her as one of America’s foremost roots performers. Flower combines a deep historical knowledge with a restless creativity that keeps her music evolving into new creative territory while echoing influences from Piedmont to the Mississippi Delta, with additional stops at ragtime, swing, folk, and hot jazz.

An Indiana native, Flower relocated from Denver to the vibrant Portland music scene in 2004. Since then, she’s continued to impress crowds and critics at folk festivals in America and abroad, including Merlefest, Kerrville, King Biscuit, A Prairie Home Companion and the Vancouver Folk Festival, while maintaining a parallel career as a renowned guitar teacher. Along the way, she’s twice been a Finalist in the National Finger Picking Guitar Championship, as well as being nominated three times for the Blues Foundation‘s prestigious “Blues Music Award.”

Last year, Little Village Foundation released her latest album, Livin’ with the Blues Again, a sampler of sorts, offering a representative cross-section of her favorite numbers from her live repertoire. In addition to Flower’s own picking and singing, Livin’ with the Blues Again also showcases key contributions from acclaimed Bay Area violinist (and Arhoolie Foundation Board member) Suzy Thompson, who plays and sings on several tracks, as well as the gospel vocal combo and labelmates The Sons of the Soul Revivers.

Just about everyone has been affected by the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the music world, no one knows when the box office will open again, and even as many of us return to work in the coming weeks and months, working musicians will continue to be cut off from the clubs, dancehalls, theaters, and festivals that sustain them. And the rest of us will be cut off, too, from something we need now more than ever. So we’re bringing the gigs to the artists, and the artists to you — straight from their living room to yours.

“Working from Home,” a co-production of the Arhoolie Foundation and Little Village Foundation, will feature intimate mini house concerts recorded live by traditional musicians around the country trying to make it through this current public health crisis doing what they do best. For every installment, we will provide links where you can give tips directly to the performers, and we will match the first $500 raised for each.