With a 22-foot-high ceiling, a balcony and stage, the Salisbury Grange No. 624 anticipates a full house when contemporary folk musician and lyricist Marshall Stewart performs at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“He tells a story, but it’s not cowboy music,” said grange lecturer Sue Jorrey. “It’s just good Adirondack music.”
The New Hartford performer played at the grange in June, and Jorrey said the lineup will be a brand-new set of songs.
“He had a standing ovation last time,” she said.
Since July, Stewart said he has written 40 more songs.
“I write the poetry first, and then go at the chords later,” he said. “I didn’t really get serious about songwriting until I discovered I had prostate cancer last year. The cancer seemed to unlock and unleash all this sensitivity. You become aware of your own mortality.”
Stewart started playing guitar in high school, continued through college and even sang at venues overseas while serving in the Air Force. A B-52 navigator in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1971, he played at a Thai hotel resort.
His musical heroes, he said, include Gordon Lightfoot, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.
Stewart recorded his first song last year, called “Loose Change,” in a friend’s recording studio in Speculator, another upstate area Stewart likes to perform in.
“The CD took me nine months to make,” he said, adding all but one song on the album are originals.
Jorrey said light snacks and refreshments will be served at Saturday’s event. Only 80 will be seated, so get there early. Cost is $6.
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