A couple years ago, Loudon Wainwright III passed a milestone: The venerable folksinger, known for his sardonic wit and autobiographical songs, turned 75.

The number, on one hand, feels kind of arbitrary, because Wainwright has seemingly been around forever, mining his tumultuous life for his music, which has always been delivered with a mix of humor, self-deprecation, anger, regret — a full range of emotions, including love.

But Wainwright, who comes to the Bombyx Center for Arts & Integrity in Florence tonight (April 28) at 7 p.m., seems to have used turning 75 as a time for reflection and, dare we say it, coming to terms with his life with grace and even some optimism.

Last summer, the 2010 Grammy Award winner released “Lifetime Achievement,” his first album of new material in eight years, a record loosely based on reaching three-quarters of a century. He covers that topic more explicitly, with typical gallows humor, on “How Old is 75?” which he strums on a banjo.

“How old is 75? / So old that you’re hardly alive / It’s a number that’s weighty / In five years, you’ll be 80 / Poised way up there on the high / Diving board.”

But there’s also the title song, a tender offering to his partner, Susan Morrison, the articles editor for the New Yorker, with whom he’s been involved for several years after burning through a few previous marriages and relationships that produced four children, three of them musicians in their own right.

In “Lifetime Achievement,” a slow country number with some pedal steel guitar, Wainwright assesses the acclaim he’s won as a performer — “Trophies on my mantelpiece / Citations on my wall” — but concludes that “the biggest prize, the great surprise / Is I managed to win you.”

Of course, “Lifetime Achievement” being a Wainwright album, there’s some inevitable snark, such as on “Fam Vac,” a tune about taking a vacation to get away from your family, which ultimately might be for the good of everyone: “My family needs a vacation from me.”

Opening the show is David Howley, a founding member of the Irish band We Banjo 3.

 

The Holyoke Civic Symphony, which plays a fundraising concert May 7 at 3 p.m. at Holyoke Community College, celebrated its 25th year last year with Conductor David Kidwell at the helm.

Now, as the symphony gets set to conclude its 2022-2023 season, the focus turns to a talented 16-year-old cellist from Amherst, new music by a Vermont composer, and work by a historic African American composer.

The concert, in HCC’s Fine & Performing Arts Building, will feature solo work by cellist Noah Ferris, a sophomore at Amherst Regional High School who in February won a biennial student concerto competition hosted by the symphony. He’ll be performing “Cello Concerto No. 2 in E minor,” written by Victor August Herbert, a 19th-century American composer and cellist of British-Irish ancestry and German training.

Ferris, who Kidwell calls an “outstanding talent on the cello,” has previously appeared with the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony and at the October 2022 opening of David Geffen Hall in New York City.

At HCC, the symphony will also debut “Let There Be Music,” an orchestral piece by Gwyneth Walker, a Vermont composer who previously taught in Connecticut. On her website, Walker says the piece was inspired by seeing HCS return to live performance in fall 2021 after being sidelined by the pandemic.

“Even though this first concert featured only chamber ensembles, the audience was thrilled to experience live music once again,” Walker writes. “When the players first walked onto the stage, they were greeted with a standing ovation.”

HCS will round out its performance by covering “Symphony No. 1, Afro-American,” written by William Grant Still, a Mississippi-born composer of varied music including ballets, operas, choral works and more.

His “Symphony No. 1,” which debuted in 1930, was the first symphony composed by a Black man and performed by a major American orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic.

 

For something a little more hard-charging, you can head to The Drake in Amherst April 29 at 8 p.m. for a double dose of electric blues, courtesy of Clay Melton and Davy Knowles.

Melton, a Louisiana native now based in Texas, is a blues-rock guitarist whose raspy voice and heavy licks seem at odds with his young looks (he’s in his late 20s and has now grown a beard, but he could pass for someone younger).

He’s also a songwriter — his most recent album, “Live in Texas,” has 10 original tunes — whose musical inspirations come from both the blues and rock pantheons, from Buddy Guy, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page.

Red Hot Rock Magazine says the “passion and electricity” of Melton’s music is “certain” to make him “recognized as one of this generation’s guitar heroes.”

Knowles, meantime, who was born on the Isle of Man, has absorbed both blues and Celtic influences in his music and has toured and shared stages with Buddy Guy, Jeff Back, Gov’t Mule, and others. “Roll Me,” a tune off his 2021 solo album “What Happens Next,” was chosen one of the best blues songs of 2021 by Spotify.

More music on tap

From tribute bands to Americana: The Shea Theater in Turners Falls hosts two bands covering the music of Ozzy Osborne and AC/DC on April 28 at 8 p.m., and on April 29 at 8 p.m. it’s the Adam Ezra Group and Whiskey Treaty Road Show.

Northampton singer/songwriter Heather Maloney is at The Parlor Room in Northampton April 28-30 at 7:30 p.m. The April 28 and 29 shows have sold out, but tickets can still be had for the 30th.

North Sea Gas, one of Scotland’s most popular folk groups, will be at All Saints’ Church in South Hadley on April 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Rocking in Holyoke: SouthBound Renegade, which plays the music of the The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, comes to The Divine Theater on May 6 at 8 p.m., while jam band Spafford is at Race Street Live at the same time; both shows are at Gateway City Arts.

Cellist and bandleader Eric Friedlander and his group The Throw will be at Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield on May 6 at 7:30 p.m., in a show produced by Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares.

The Young@Heart Chorus will perform “The Love Show,” including the music of Rihanna, Lizzo, Miley Cyrus and more, on May 7 at 3 p.m. at Northampton’s Academy of Music.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.

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