Christine Lavin

Christine Lavin

Birdland Theater

Monday, November 22 at 8:30pm

$30 cover, $20 food/drink minimum

During much of the pandemic, Christine Lavin made ends meet by performing online concerts, writing and recording songs, creating videos for other artists, and selling her books and CDs from her website. For most of her online concerts she asked for requests, and many of her fans asked for songs she hadn't performed in years. Much to their delight, she went about re-learning many of them. Her show at the Birdland Theater will be a combination of her most requested songs, but with a unique modern twist. And because her passion over the years has always been promoting the work of other songwriters, she will have one of them do a cameo performance as part of her concert.

Christine Lavin is a singer/songwriter/guitarist/recording artist/author/videographer based in New York City. Her latest solo album, her 25th, ON MY WAY TO HOOTERVILLE, includes 10 new songs and one re-worked song, "Ramblin' Waltz," a re-telling of her time in 1975 when she was an entourage driver for the first week of Bob Dylan's iconic "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour.

In June 2021 Christine's new song, "The Best Summer" made it to #12 on the International FolkDJ Music Chart. In May 2021 Christine received an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from her alma mater, the State University of New York at Brockport. In an odd twist, she has a younger brother also named Chris (born on Columbus Day) who also in May 2021 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from his alma mater, Hobart/William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.

In September 2019 Christine spent a month at the artist retreat Yaddo in Saratoga Springs. Three of the songs she wrote there are included on her latest HOOTERVILLE album. In April 2019 she was inducted into the Rochester, NY Music Hall Of Fame along with Al Jardine of The Beach Boys. She received a 2012 Nightlife Award in NYC. In November 2011 her book COLD PIZZA FOR BREAKFAST: A MEM-WHA?? (Tell Me Press, New Haven) won the 43rd Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music, is available in paperback, kindle, and audio book formats, with the foreword written by actor/playwright/singer/songwriter Jeff Daniels. Christine has also won five ASCAP Composer Awards, The Kate Wolf Memorial Award, and her album Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind won Album Of The Year from the National Association Of Independent Record Distributors.

She has produced ten compilations, JUST ONE ANGEL v2, being the latest. So far these compilations have showcased songs of close to 100 songwriters whose work she loves. The food-themed compilation, ONE MEAT BALL, includes a 96-page cookbooklet that Christine edited — songs and recipes by Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, and many more, including a surprise appearance by performer Dame Edna.

For four years she hosted "Slipped Disks" on xm satellite radio, playing CDs slipped to her backstage by compatriots, and was occasion guest host for City Folk Sunday Supper on WFUV-FM at Fordham University. She also writes freelance for various publications (The Washington Post, Huffington Post, St. Petersburg Times, Performing Songwriter, and Delta "Sky" Magazine). Her song AMOEBA HOP is a science/music book by illustrator Betsy Franco Feeney (Puddle Jump Press), receiving the stamp of approval from The International Society of Protistologists, and a "Best Book Award" from The American Association for The Advancement of Science.

THE PLUTO FILES: THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERICA'S FAVORITE PLANET (W.W. Norton) by Neil deGrasse Tyson, head of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC, includes the complete lyrics to Christine's song "Planet X," which details Pluto's history and planetary status debate in rhyme. Neil included Christine in a live concert event at The Beacon Theater in NYC, "Comedians & Astronomers," and his voice is on that recording, her 23rd album, SPAGHETTIFICATION.

Christine performs concerts all over the US, Canada, and points beyond (Australia, Germany, Israel), often hosting knitting circles and Downton Abbey-style napkin folding backstage at each show. Songs of hers have been performed by artists as diverse as Broadway stars Betty Buckley, Sutton Foster, Karen Ziemba, and Klea Blackhurst, cabaret divas Andrea Marcovicci. Barbara Brussell, and Colleen McHugh, the a cappella Dartmouth Decibelles, and The Accidentals, winners of the National Harmony Sweepstakes Championship.

On A Winter’s Night, her first seasonal compilation project, (20 artists) became a four-artist national tour that first hit the road back in January 1991 and was a five-artist tour that hit the road November 2019, including Christine, Cliff Eberhardt, Patty Larkin, Cheryl Wheeler, and John Gorka -- only to be abruptly sidelined by the pandemic on March 12, 2020. The remainder of those dates across the US have been rescheduled for February/March 2022.

Christine was the keynote speaker in November 2016 at the annual North East Regional Folk Alliance Conference (NERFA) in Stamford, CT, and that keynote address has become the basis for her next book, which will take up where COLD PIZZA left off. She was also keynote speaker at the Lifespan National Caregivers Conference in 2017 in Huntsvile, Alabama.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Birdland Theater, 315 West 44th St, New York, United States