In January 1961, a 19-year-old Bob Dylan made his first New York City appearance at Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street. That same year, he turned up in Cambridge at Club 47 — now Club Passim — and talked his way onto the stage between another act’s sets. Both rooms are still standing, still booking songwriters.
Joelton Mayfield and Ben de la Cour step onto those historic stages this October, bringing their songs to Club Passim in Cambridge on Tuesday, October 20th, and Cafe Wha? in New York on Wednesday, October 21st.
Mayfield writes songs about hypocrisy, doubt, and disappointment rooted in a Texas upbringing steeped in church music and Dylan records. De la Cour crafts “Americanoir” — gothic folk built around down-and-out characters, informed by Townes Van Zandt and Nick Cave in equal measure.
Oct 20 – Club Passim
Oct 21 – Cafe Wha?
MEET THE ARTISTS
Joelton Mayfield
Joelton Mayfield grew up outside a small central Texas city, running his church’s music ministry as a teenager before Dylan and a run of outsider songwriters gave him somewhere else to put his questions. He left for Nashville, traded a music business degree for an English one, played in a series of college bands, and spent most of a decade building toward a debut.
He made it in February 2021, in a family barn near Alabama’s Mobile Bay, with a Hammond organ trucked from Nashville and his grandmother’s century-old vibraphone from Texas. Days before the session, the woman he loved, who was also set to co-produce, ended the relationship. Crowd Pleaser came out of the three weeks that followed: ten songs about hypocrisy, doubt, and disappointment, played by a band that sometimes numbered close to a dozen. He’s since opened shows for John Moreland, American Aquarium, and Futurebirds.
Ben de la Cour
Ben de la Cour’s visceral songwriting weaves evocative stories of desperate characters with his signature “Americanoir” sound, shining an empathetic, raw, and at times bleak light on the human condition. Raised in Brooklyn, he lived in London, Cuba, and across the United States before settling in the American South over a decade and a half ago, drawing inspiration from writers and musicians alike—Townes Van Zandt, Jimi Hendrix, Nick Cave, Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen, James Baldwin, and Carson McCullers among them. His gothic folk songs create fully realized worlds populated by down-and-out characters trying to make it through.
New Roses is de la Cour’s sixth album, following his 2023 Grammy-shortlisted Sweet Anhedonia. It grew out of late-night writing and recording sessions at his home, where he experimented with layering synthesizers and looping sounds, electric guitar, and acoustic fingerpicking. De la Cour plays every instrument on the record except fiddle and trumpet, and the songs balance doom and optimism, seeking out kernels of hope in the darkness.
About the author: Mild-mannered corporate executive by day, excitable Twangville denizen by night.