Though they live without traditional sight, the Blind Boys of Alabama are one of the only groups today who truly see what it means to perform Gospel music. Their vocal and percussion styles are reminiscent of music that helped form the country, sorrowful but hopeful and full of warmth. With dozens of albums produced, they’ve been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and they’ve won the Best Soul/Gospel Album Grammy three times. Of course, they’re also still making some of their best deep American Gospel music. The new album comes out in May and features help from Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., Vince Gill, Leeann Womack and Jamey Johnson -- just in time for their exciting StageOne show.

“By the end of the evening, all were up out of their seats, stamping feet and waving raised hands as senior Blind Boys singer Jimmy Carter made his way through the aisles to close the show on a note of unmitigated uplift.” - LA Times

Amlan Ganguly empowers children to become activists and educators, with powerful results. The Revolutionary Optimists follows him as he attempts to replicate his work in the brick fields outside the city, where children live and work in unimaginable conditions.

Using street theater, puppetry, and dance as their weapons, the children in Calcutta's slums have cut their neighborhoods' malaria and diarrhea rates in half, and turned former garbage dumps into playing fields. Now, pushing at the limits of optimism, Amlan is attempting to take his work into the brickfields outside Calcutta, where spend their days making and carrying bricks using methods unchanged by centuries.

The Revolutionary Optimists proposes a workable solution to intractable problems associated with poverty, including preventable diseases and ineffectual governance. Ganguly's story suggests that education and child empowerment are crucial keys to lifting entire societies out of hopelessness.

Rustic Jonathan Edwards typified the young, folkie troubadours of the early '70s. Warm as summer sunshine, real as the truth, intimate as a long overdue visit between old friends, such is a Jonathan Edwards concert. Famous for the 1971 folk hit and protest song "Sunshine," "Sunshine, come on back another day … I promise you I'll still be singing."... Jonathan Edwards is still a vital and relevant artist in the Americana scene. He has a new album out, My Love Will Keep, a collection of acoustic songs, mostly falling into the folk-country bluegrass genre. All filled with Edwards' energy, optimism and contagious feel-good vibe.

Marcia Ball, born on the Texas/Louisiana border, has long been a superb live performer, delivering her swampy blend of zydeco, blues and gritty R&B with all the force of a Saturday night locomotive, and her many fans have been crying for her to return to StageOne, and now, finally, she's back. She's is a living example of how East Texas blues meets southwest Louisiana swamp rock.

Classy and subdued yet bubbling with passion, emotion, and a love of Southern-style music that explodes out of every song, few things in life are as reliable as a Marcia Ball performance. Get ready folks, Marcia Ball is coming back to crank out top-notch blues.

"Rollicking, playful, good time blues and intimate, reflective balladry." - Rolling Stone

It seemed like the perfect spin-off project for a major rock group, Jefferson Airplane's lead guitarist and bass player indulging in a genre exercise by playing a set of old folk-blues tunes in a Berkeley coffeehouse. The music seemed as far removed from the Airplane's acid rock roar as it did from commercial prospects, and thus, it allowed these bandmembers to blow off some steam musically without threatening their day jobs.

In retrospect, however, it's easy to hear that something more was going on. Friends since their teens, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady had developed a musical rapport that anchored the Airplane sound but also existed independently of it, and shorn of the rock band arrangements and much of the electricity (Casady still played an electric bass), their interplay was all the more apparent. Kaukonen remained the accomplished fingerpicking stylist he had been before joining the Airplane, while Casady dispensed with the usual timekeeping duties of the bass in favor of extensive contrapuntal soloing, creating a musical conversation that was unique.

These two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, along with good friend Barry Mitterhoff, bring a spirit of freewheeling fun that'll pervade the first, of many, concerts in Norwalk.

Love Free or Die is about a man whose two defining passions much of the world cannot reconcile: his love for God and for his partner Mark. It is about church and state, love and marriage, faith and identity — and one man's struggle to dispel the notion that God's love has limits.

Gene Robinson was the first openly gay person to be elected bishop in the high church traditions of Christendom. Bishop Robinson's elevation in the sleepy New Hampshire diocese in 2003 ignited a worldwide firestorm in the Anglican Communion, one that has become so heated that there is still a chance of a schism. One year after being muzzled by the Archbishop of Canterbury, he finds himself speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Barack Obama's Inauguration. Gene Robinson confronts those who use religion as an instrument of oppression, and claims a place in the church and society, not just for LGBT people, but for everyone.

The Anglican Communion, a global church body of 80 million, is led by approximately 800 bishops. According to church history, Gene Robinson, the Bishop of New Hampshire, is the only openly gay bishop ever to be consecrated since the time of Christ. The Anglican Communion, like the Catholic Church from which it emerged, believes that its bishops are the direct spiritual descendants of the twelve disciples of Christ. In 2003, the Episcopal Church in America, an arm of the Anglican Communion, made history when it installed Gene Robinson as Bishop. Gene wore a bulletproof vest to his installation and, every day since, the local police have driven by his rural New Hampshire home to provide him and his loved ones protection in the face of a steady stream of death threats.

There is an unofficial church history of bishops, popes, priests and monks living one kind of life for the history book and another off the record. It is an open secret that in the Anglican Communion today Gene Robinson is not the only gay bishop – not by a long shot. What does it signify that the Church can flourish knowing that it is rife with deception, but threatens to shatter when it affirms one man who chooses to be honest about who he is and who he loves?

Love Free or Die follows the Anglican Communion in arguably its most historic chapter since Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church for the right to divorce in 1538. From Gene’s civil union in New Hampshire, to the once-a-decade global bishops’ gathering in Canterbury, to the current fracture within the Church that’s inching toward total schism, to the biennial gathering of the Episcopal Church in America, watch the inner workings of this global moment of change from Robinson’s perspective.

She's come a long way from playing "Pat" on SNL. Today Julia Sweeny is best known for sparse but hilarious television appearances, her dramatic monologues about topics like atheism and surviving cancer and, now, her career as a traveling musician with friend Jill Sobule ("I Kissed a Girl"). The Jill and Julia Show features acoustic folk guitar and singing from Jill and finely crafted stories and some occasional singing from Julia. The result is a surprising mix of politics, controversy, personal stories and sidesplitting humor.

"Next time you have the opportunity to watch these two in action, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's some kind of miracle." -SpinningPlatters.com, SF Bay area

After 20 years of making music together as husband-and-wife jazz duo Tuck & Patti, Tuck Andress's guitar and Patti Cathcart's vocals blend smoothly into a honed sound all their own. They perform both their own compositions, such as "High Heel Blues," and standards like "One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story and Stevie Wonder's "I Wish." Each concert ends with their signature closer, "You Take My Breath Away."

Early Elton is a Tribute to the Elton John, Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson trio tours of 1970 - 1972 featuring Jeff Kazee (Southside Johnny, Bon Jovi) - piano, vocals, Rich Pagano (The Fab Faux, sugarCane cups) - drums and vocals and John Conte (Southside Johnny, Ian Hunter Band) - bass, mandolin, vocals.

They used rare video, bootleg recordings and even Elton's own home demos in shaping their collective vision of Elton's Trio Period to create the ultimate homage to Sir Elton. If you can imagine those lucky enough to have been at A&R Studios on 11/17/70, then you can understand what it will be like to share this night with passionate music lovers.

The Grammy Award-Winning American songwriting legend returns to StageOne with his irreverent and rockin' collection of tunes. Comic and sad, smart-assed and sincere, Wainwright can turn on a single line. It's because of this witty, self-deprecating style — mixed with a current of easily understood sentimentality — that Loudon continues to grow his fan base in a remarkable career.

The smartly hilarious and always thrilling Loudon Wainwright III was tagged as one of the many "New Dylan" talents in the early '70s largely in part for his sincere, candid and witty lyrics. With his unflagging humor and brutally sharp wit, this American songwriting legend is not to be missed.

Lucy Kaplansky got her start as a singer/songwriter at a young age, floating around Chicago and then Greenwich Village and brushing elbows with friends like Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega, John Gorka and Bill Morrissey. Her voice was made for a good folk tune, just like her lyrics - soft, strong and delicate. Come out and experience it for yourself on StageOne the way it was intended -- on the only intimate stage capable of reminding an audience why she has been hailed as “a truly gifted performer…full of enchanting songs” (The New Yorker).

Johnny Winter has been a guitar hero without equal. Signing to Columbia records in 1969 called largest solo artist deal of it’s time, Johnny immediately laid out the blueprint for his fresh take on classic blues a prime combination for the legions of fans just discovering the blues via the likes of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Constantly shifting between simple country blues in the vein of Robert Johnson, to all-out electric slide guitar blues-rock, – Johnny has always been one of the most respected singers and guitar players in rock and the clear link between British blues-rock and American Southern rock (a la the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.) Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Johnny was the unofficial torch-bearer for the blues, championing and aiding the careers of his idols like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.

Johnny Winter is enjoying an unparalleled resurgence performing to sold out shows worldwide even after a long life full of honors and accomplishments such as a triumphant appearance at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival with Derek Trucks, Buddy Guy and Clapton that has been immortalized on the Emmy award winning DVD. In a ceremony with Slash presenting in Nashville, Gibson Guitars released the signature Johnny Winter Firebird guitar that has been his beloved trademark for years. A Live through the 70s DVD is a hit along with his Live Bootleg Series CDs that have all entered the Top 10 Billboard Blues charts. Two unique instructional DVDs have been produced by Cherry Lane/Hal Leonard to the gratitude of players around the world. Always one for special appearances he recently performed with the Allman Brothers at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on the 40th anniversary of their debut.

His recent Grammy nominated “I’m A Bluesman” disc on Virgin/EMI, has only added to his Texas-sized reputation. Joining him on this CD are guitarist Paul Nelson, bassist Scott Spray, 2 members of his current scorching road-tested touring band also consisting of drummer Vito Liuzzi. Performing now with a renewed vigor and fire to say that he is “back” would be an understatement. In fact, he never left. He is just better than ever.

Sanborn is by far the hardest working jazz sax player today. This six-time Grammy Award winner is justly famed for his standout solo on David Bowie's 1975 hit "Young Americans"--one of many celebrated recording projects that evolved out of Sanborn's live supporting roles. Indeed, his matchless tone has additionally been sought to bolster performances by the esteemed likes of Eric Clapton, The Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder--many of whom have likewise gone on to enlist his inimitable sax presence in the studio.

"Among the great saxophonists of the past four decades," says one Rolling Stone writer, "David Sanborn has earned an identity all his own. He's jazz, he's funk, he's soul, he's pop, he's blues, he's rock. Most remarkably, he excels in each of these genres with a voice that is both forceful and tender, sensuous and subtle."