Headliners

Celtic brew

"Sunday afternoons at The Brewery have been very special to us," says guitarist Dave Meuser of the Celtic ensemble Banish Misfortune, which has been playing acoustically at The Northampton Brewery for 16 weeks running. "The staff and clientele really get us. There's been dancing children and smiling parents. We feel so appreciated and welcome."

Track Record: New CD releases

EL TURISTA

Josh Rouse

Yep Roc, $15.99

Josh Rouse sings South American songs on "El Turista," yet his Great Plains roots remain evident. "I want to see some green; get me out of this place," he pleads, sounding like someone trapped in winter in his native Nebraska.

Weekend Planner -- Music

Turns out a significant number of musical anniversaries are being celebrated this year.

Weekend Planner -- Recital

Last summer the Northampton-based organ-restoration firm of Czelusniak et Dugal officially brought the pipe organ at Northampton's Edwards Church into the 21st century by replacing the instrument's internal electronics with a Peterson ICS-4000 computer that controls all the organ's functions and expands its capabilities.

Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry: Music, and love, born from grief (with audio)

It was another gig, like many they'd played before. But for this one, they took inspiration from the lead singer's recent knee surgery to introduce themselves by a new name: Tracy Grammer and the Male Nurses.

Headliners

Hawaiian hybrid

While the Hawaiian word hapa ("portion," "fragment," "part") generally refers to a person of mixed blood (as in hapa hawai'i, part Hawaiian), it's inevitably come to be applied to the type of music that has emerged from the Islands' long history of acculturation, beginning with the influx of numerous styles of European music in the late 18th century, particularly the hymns brought by Protestant missionaries and the falsetto singing technique introduced by Mexican cowboys. With the integration of Hawaiian music into the broader field of American popular music in the 20th century, hapa music came into its own and now appears to have crystallized in its 21st-century form largely via the efforts of the duo of Nathan Aweau and Barry Flanagan, who of course call themselves HAPA.

Weekend Planner -- Music

A recognition of the economic, political and social achievements of women, International Women's Day has been celebrated annually across the globe since 1911 and is now a national holiday in China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria (though, strangely, not in the U.S.A.).