Photo by Margie Rosenkranz
A NEW ALBUM!
Thirty eight years together and still going strong, we continue to add songs to our repertoire. It’s been eight years since our last recording, and the new songs – as well as a few we’ve been doing for a long time – wouldn’t be denied. |
The album will be out in November 2024. We hope you enjoy it! |
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An informal performance of Pete Seeger's "Quite Early Morning" during a 2014 rehearsal.
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Check out the Betty and the Baby Boomers Virtual Concert for Clearwater Festival June of 2021.
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The Boomers perform "Oh Had I A Golden Thread" during the 2014 Pete and Toshi Seeger memorial concert at Lincoln Center Outdoors, New York.
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Our fifth album, This Love Will Carry, is our most diverse recording yet. It includes Irish songs, R&B, a country classic, a Brazilian bossa nova that has become a jazz standard, and a great new song from Jean. Wanda Fischer, host of WAMC Northeast Public Radio's Hudson River Sampler folk show since 1982, included This Love Will Carry in her list of favorite new albums of 2016. Album Cover by artist Stacie Flint. |
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"This is a work filled with glorious voices and an important theme; the life and health of our dear, beloved Hudson River...A CD of songs related to the Hudson River is not that unusual these days, but one of this depth and grace is always welcome. Betty and the Baby Boomers — Betty Boomer, Jean Valla McAvoy, Paul Rubeo and Steve Stanne — sing and play old- school folk like it was brand spanking new." - David Malachowski, Kingston [NY] Daily Freeman
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BETTY & THE BABY BOOMERS
have always been known for their rigorously rehearsed and tightly structured ensemble singing. Their first two albums are wonderful examples of what practice can do… beautiful harmonies, complex arrangements. But folks, wait until you hear this new album: it has SOUL! ... For one thing, this album is less an ensemble effort…it features each member individually and you get to really hear the differences in each of them…in voicing, in the choice of song…from Betty Boomer’s delightful love song, REMEMBER ME, to Paul’s cover of the great Greg Brown tune LAUGHING RIVER…then a wonderful rendition of the Carl Sandburg (attributed) TELL OLD BILL by Steve Stanne…and then, for me at least, the “killer” song of the album…Jean Valla McAvoy’s composition BACK BAY. Jean has written many songs…some are found on earlier albums…but something is different here. The voice is deeper or richer, or more weathered…the song itself will take you to one of those Hudson River “backwater” areas…you can almost feel the canoe gliding along, the swish of a paddle…and you feel something else in her singing…the almost wailing sound of the blues. I live on the Chesapeake…and there are “backwaters” galore here too. The song is universal. Hard to explain, but listen to it. - Tom McHugh, founder of The Mainstay, Rock Hall, MD |
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“… a refreshing reminder of the halcyon days of
American folk music.” Sing Out! Magazine “Betty and the Baby Boomers play the kind of folk music that’s all too rare today. It’s music with exquisite harmonies that grab your heart and lyrics that tickle your brain and stir your soul. Plus, Stanne and Rubeo play some pretty mean guitars.” - Stephen Israel, Times Herald Record, Middletown, NY |
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The Boomers' debut album featured one of the the first recordings of Phil Ochs' moving song "Hands," found long after his passing on a bootleg concert tape. Two decades after the album's release, "Hands" remains one of the most requested songs in the group's concert repertoire. |
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