Celebrating forty-one years of making music! The Folk Club is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to the appreciation of music and the preservation of folk traditions. Each Tuesday we host an open mic and/or special monthly events, including concerts and member showcases. Come join us any Tuesday. Whether you choose to listen, perform or both, you’ll find the Folk Club to be a friendly and enjoyable experience you’ll want to repeat.

Every Tuesday at 7:00 pm, Amphora Diner Deluxe, 1151 Elden St, Herndon, Virginia 20170

News, Notes & Quotes

Important Dates:

April 13 & 27 – Alternate Mondays Virtual Open Mic on Zoom

April 14 – Showcase Night featuring Richard Thornburgh & Newfound Friends

April 21 – Theme Night – Songs Against the Storm

Tuesday, April 14:

April Showcase featuring:

Richard Thornburgh & Newfound Friends

Richard was first inspired to play guitar listening to his future brother-in-law, Joe Klockenkemper, play and sing in the Thornburgh family living room on Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Joe provided live entertainment at Richard’s 8th birthday party, a feat that no other kid in school could brag about. His mother insisted on piano lessons first, and after a delightful detour playing trumpet in his high school jazz band at variety shows and on a European
tour, he finally took up guitar while in college at Notre Dame in the late 80s, swapping songs with dorm mates and playing at Club 23 in South Bend on quarter beer night. (See this month’s newsletter for the rest of Richard’s musical journey to date!)

For the April showcase, Richard will feature several of his own bluegrass and Americana songs as well as some bluegrass standards. He will be joined by his newfound musician friends: Mike Riedman (guitar) and Emily
Day (mandolin, vocals) of Seneca Creek Bluegrass Band, Evan Sands (banjo) of Pictrola and Old Town Tradition, and John Werntz (bass) and Ron Goad (percussion) of too many bands to list.

Tuesday, April 21 Theme Night:

Songs Against the Storm


Folk music has always been the music of the people, and wherever people have suffered under the boots of war and oppression, folk songs have risen in answer. Woody Guthrie’s anthems for the dispossessed, Pete Seeger’s calls for unity, Joan Baez’s songs of wartime sadness, and Bob Dylan’s early protest ballads did not simply describe injustice — they named it, shamed it, and
dared listeners to imagine something better. “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” asks a simple question and lands mournfully. “Blowin’ in the Wind” turns rhetorical questions into a kind of prayer.

Today, with conflict still rewriting maps and cruelty being sold as policy, folk music endures. As long as there are wars to mourn and freedoms to defend, there will be folk singers to insist, vocally and stubbornly, that peace is not weakness, rather, it is the hardest, bravest work of all.

“Folk Music has pretty powerful medicine for changing your heart.” – Paul Stookey