Touring in support of his recent CD Bright Sunny South, Vermont-born folksinger Sam Amidon performs in the Olin Arts Alive music series on Tuesday, Sept. 10, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The Maine country songwriter Wesley Allen Hartley and his band Traveling Trees open for Amidon at 7:30 p.m.

Admission is $12, available at . For more information, please contact 207-786-6163.

Folksinger Sam Amidon. Photo credit: Terry Magson.

Bright Sunny South, Amidon’s fourth CD and Nonesuch debut, is “a lonesome record,” says the singer and multi-instrumentalist. The folk songs, shape-note hymns and country ballads that he performs deal with the darkest, most fundamental issues. Yet there is beauty and comfort in these time-tested words and melodies and in Amidon’s simple, emotionally direct delivery.

These songs constitute a patchwork portrait of Amidon himself, each representing a facet of his history, travels and discoveries. Witness his version of “Weeping Mary,” a shape-note hymn his parents, Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, recorded with the Vermont-based Word of Mouth Chorus for Nonesuch Records in 1977.

Amidon is known for reworking traditional melodies into striking new forms. He delivers these songs in a plainspoken voice that encompasses sadness and stoicism, vulnerability and wisdom. As a writer for Pitchfork said, “his interpretations are so singular that it stops mattering how (or if) they existed before.”

Amidon started out on fiddle and picked up guitar during a sojourn in New York City. If his foundation is in folk music, he brings influences ranging from free jazz to avant-garde to Irish to Bartok. He also incorporates storytelling and movement, particularly a kind of intense “liturgical” dancing, into his shows, and has appeared at experimental venues like Chelsea’s The Kitchen as well as on more conventional folk stages.

Wesley Allen Hartley (second from left) & The Traveling Trees.

Wesley Allen Hartley & The Traveling Trees are a country band based in Portland, Maine. Their debut album, Narrow Gauge Quad Trains (Burst & Bloom Records) was named one of the top 10 local albums of 2010 by the Portland Phoenix.

In June 2010, the band recorded its second album, Don’t Peel Your Bloomers Off Just Yet, currently self-released.

The Traveling Trees have played numerous shows and festivals from Maine to Texas.

Known for his humor, energy and an instrumental creation called the “guit-steel” — combining the standard six-string guitar with the steel guitar — singer Junior Brown performs at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Tickets are $15 and $8, available at . For more information contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

Brown has mastered the best of two musical worlds, rock and traditional country. “Just about the time listeners label me as some old-time honky-tonk singer,” he says, “I throw something new in there that surprises them. And then they’ll appreciate the traditional styles of country music too.

“Do something to wow them without ruining the roots of country and they end up accepting the music that they would have been prejudiced against.”

Brown literally dreamed up the “guit-steel” after finding himself torn between the standard 6-string and lap steel guitars during performances. “I was playing both the steel and guitar, switching back and forth a lot while I sang, and it was kind of awkward.

“But then I had this dream where they just kind of melted together. When I woke up, I thought ‘You know, that thing would work!’ They made double-neck guitars and double-neck steels, so why not one of each?”

Guitar maker Michael Stevens fabricated the guit-steel for Brown around 1985. For Brown the guit-steel is an amazing tool, a means to creating some of the hottest, most heartfelt playing heard in years. Life magazine honored him as the only contemporary musician included in their “All Time Country Band,” and Guitar Player magazine’s 1994 “Best of…” listings named him No. 1 as lap steel player, No. 2 as Country Artist and awarded him No. 3 for country album (Guit With It).

Following years as the one must-see act that Austin, Texas, had to offer to visiting musicians and label heads, Brown has since found an audience far beyond the Lone Star border. The first two of his dozen albums, 12 Shades of Brown and Guit With It (both on Curb, 1993) helped establish him from Texas roadhouses to the hippest clubs of New York City and Europe.

In the mid-1980s, Brown taught guitar under Leon McAulliffe, legendary steel man for Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, at Oklahoma’s Hank Thompson School of Country Music, part of Rogers State College. It was there that he met “the lovely Miss Tanya Rae,” the talented woman who would become his rhythm guitarist, backup vocalist and wife.

With country singer Elizabeth Cook performing at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College on Veterans Day, the college’s Olin Arts Center Concert Hall is offering military veterans and currently enrolled military personnel two free tickets to the concert.

The offer is good while ticket supplies last. Please contact 207-786-6163 or olinarts@bates.edu to reserve tickets.

Praised for the honesty of her lyrics and her wide stylistic range, Cook performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Cook has toured worldwide and hosts a morning radio show, Elizabeth Cook’s Apron Strings, on Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel. She’s “an intriguing bunch of contradictions,” wrote a reviewer for Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“She lives in Nashville, has the good looks of a country pin-up and has made regular performances on that legendary country show, the Grand Ole Opry. But she’s influenced by rock and punk as well as bluegrass and rockabilly, and many of her direct, no-nonsense songs are far too daring for the Opry.”

Born in rural Florida, Cook began singing and playing guitar early on. In 2002 she released her major label debut, Hey Y’All, on Warner Brothers. The record included the song “Dolly” in which Cook playfully seeks advice from country star Dolly Parton. Cook’s five studio albums also include This Side of the Moon (Hog Country, 2005) and the Rodney Crowell-produced Balls (31 Tigers, 2007).

Her most recent record, this year’s Welder (31 Tigers) has received glowing reviews. Many of the songs are inspired by family experiences, and the album title pays tribute to her father, a welder who learned to play bass in prison. The record was produced by Don Was (Rolling Stones, Kris Kristofferson), and features appearances by Dwight Yoakam, Crowell and Buddy Miller.

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