News + Events

Smiley LIVE! Americana Root Series: Citrus Sisters
Wednesday, July 19 | 6:30pm
@ The Contemporary Club

This free public event is part of the Smiley LIVE! free concert series. Its family-friendly, with a Q&A segment where young and old alike can ask the performers questions about their music, their performance, and anything else they may be curious about.

About the Performers:

Ellen Harper is a singer, songwriter, musician, author and co-owner of the Folk Music Center in Claremont, California.  Her memoir, published in 2021, Always a Song covers a transformational time in American culture,  from the importance of protests and love-ins to the popularization of the sitar and the ukulele. Ellen and her son Ben Harper collaborated on the album “Childhood Home” and went on tour together in 2014.  Danny Clinch filmed the documentary A House is a Home about Ellen and Ben’s musical journey.  She released her first solo album in 2018 “Light has a Life of Its Own.” Ellen received a Ph.D. in Education from the Claremont Graduate University, and taught at CSU San Bernardino.  Ellen currently runs the shop, concert series, Claremont Folk Festival and teaches music classes.
ellenharper.net

Elizabeth Hangan is a singer, songwriter, bass player, and music educator who has been performing around Southern California for many years. As a live performer and recording artist she enjoys working with a large and musically diverse group of musicians, who perform folk to funk and some world music as well.Social media links http://elizabethhangan.com, Single release:  “Notorious Woman” Spotify, elizabethhangan@gmail.com

Marguerite Millard began her musical career as a child standing on chairs in her house singing along with musicals. Her career took a musical turn when she was introduced to folk music and learned to play guitar from Dorothy Chase. Since then she’s played with a variety of musical groups in the Bay Area and in Southern California. She also used her musical skills to accompany her students as an elementary school teacher. Her group Squeakin’ Wheels performs frequently around her home town of Claremont.

Smiley LIVE! is a series of monthly free concerts featuring a variety of musical genres sponsored by the A.K. Smiley Public Library. The Contemporary Club is located at 173 S. Eureka Street, behind the Lincoln Memorial Shrine, just south of the Library and Smiley Park.

In honor of Memorial Day, A.K. Smiley Public Library welcomes Mark C. Radeleff on Tuesday, May 30 at 7pm in the Assembly Room to present “Four Sailors and the Battle of Makassar Strait, 1942.” Focusing on Redlanders who served in the United States Navy during WWII, the program will examine their lives and military careers before, during, and after the war.

Telling the story of four boyhood friends who joined the navy to escape the Great Depression, the program will discuss the two ships on which they served, three on the light cruiser U.S.S. Marblehead and one on the destroyer U.S.S. Stewart, both of which served with the Asiatic Fleet. Together they fought against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the early stages of the war and sacrificed themselves in defense of the United States.

Mark Radeleff has been a volunteer researcher in the Division of Special Collections of A.K. Smiley Public for over twenty years. He conducts research on the documents and artifacts of the Division of Special Collections of A.K. Smiley Public Library to provide background of the who, what, why of the people they relate to. He is currently Treasurer of the Inland Empire Civil War Round Table. He is a retired U.S. Marine and Systems Engineer with a passion for history and the people who made it. Married for over 51 years, he has two granddaughters.

This event is free and open to the public. If you have any questions, please call (909)798-7565.

June 22-August 3

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2023 AT 6:30 PM
At the Contemporary Club 173 S Eureka St, Redlands, CA 92373

Please join us for a special night of music to celebrate Patrick Brayer’s record release of ‘Cabbage and Kings’ – An Inland Empire Anthology from Shrimper Records. He will be joined by John York, as they trade off songs in a songwriter showcase, and explore the high art of song crafting.

John York’s vocal and instrumental talents have kept him in the company of such musical luminaries as Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Clarence White, Nicky Hopkins, Mac Rebenack (Dr. John,) Doug Sahm (The Sir Douglas Quintet,) The Mamas and Papas, Johnny Rivers, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel (The Band)……and many others.
Continuing in the Byrds tradition, John York sings with a rich emotional voice and favors the 12 string guitar. His music is strongly rooted in America.

In our stepping back to gain a better view, Patrick Brayer has seemed to have spent as much time shadow boxing his way in diversion from fame, as he has chiseling any day to day placement for himself in the present day annals of contemporary songsmithing. Brayer’s associations, collaborations, and influence upon such historically embedded artists as, Alison Krauss, Alan Jackson, Ben Harper, Stuart Duncan, Chris Darrow, Darol Anger, Atreyu, John York, and Michael Hedges are tales well documented and that can’t be denied without equal creativity. But that is just the mere residue of a life’s work, it is not the work itself. On this current site we hope to educate an audience to the inner workings of a craftsman, a master of lo-fi composition, and a talent that welled up from the life of one who was raised up from a hard scrabble existence by simple people of both West Virginian, and Slovene origins.

Settling in the steelmill town of Fontana California in the year of 1958, Brayer’s earliest memories are of his egg ranch surroundings, the dirt parking lot honky tonks, and the African American drill teams of the Northern Fontana foothills. Brayer wrote its dank history on a series of Gibson Hummingbirds, Martin D41’s, and Gretsch Rancher guitars like no other Fontanan before him, not Sammy Hagar, not Joseph Wambaugh, nor Shelton Brooks. He came of age romanticizing the ‘depression-like Icarus falling’ of the Kaiser Steelmill.

http://johnyorkmusic.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y911X1xcCuU
http://patrickbrayer.com/
https://patrickbrayer.bandcamp.com