Debra Cowan and The Vox Hunters collaborate for a fun evening at the me and thee on February 26

Debra Cowan is perhaps one of the most captivating traditional ballad singers on the concert circuit today. For something entirely different, Debra is bringing along a couple of young musicians called The Vox Hunters to join her on the me&thee stage for a night of “trad music with a twist.” The audience will be encouraged to participate in lots of sing-alongs like an old-fashioned pub sing and will also be delighted by the artistry of all three musicians. This show is sponsored by the Marblehead and Massachusetts Cultural Council. The show takes place at the me&thee at 28 Mugford Street, Marblehead, MA Tickets available on the website.

Debra Cowan was once asked what kind of songs she writes. Her reply? “Bad ones. Besides, there are so many good songs out there written by others and they should be sung.” Her en­gag­ing and warm alto carries each folk song she chooses with such emotion that you’ll forget that they were written by others. She per­forms a cap­pel­la and with guitar in the great tra­di­tion of folk singers like Joan Baez and Judy Collins, with a clear vocal that calls forth the ghosts of long past but can also offer a more modern urban land­scape. In her live record­ing en­ti­tled Among Friends, she demon­strates her ability to in­ter­act with her au­di­ence and have them en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sing along on cho­rus­es and re­frains.

As a young girl she idol­ized Julie Andrews and in her teens dis­cov­ered Jethro Tull and Steel­eye Span. When she at­tend­ed college in Cal­i­for­nia, she began to sing in bars and con­tin­ued her dis­cov­ery of folk with English singers like Maddy Prior and Scot­tish singers like Ray Fisher. Debra started touring in 1998, with fre­quent stops in the US and UK, from folk clubs to fes­ti­vals like the Old Songs Fes­ti­val and Broad­stairs Folk Week in England. That led her to where she is now, a full-time singer who bridges the old and new with a re­fresh­ing stage pres­ence.

For the last six years Debra has been joining her good friend John Roberts for a number of tours and her newest CD, Ballads Long & Short. Her record­ings have won high praise from both sides of the At­lantic and her music has been in­clud­ed in many com­pi­la­tion record­ings, most notably on the 2006 Free-Reed Records box set RT–The Life and Times of Richard Thomp­sonand the 2014 Dear Jean: Artists Cel­e­brate Jean Ritchie.

The Vox Hunters are among a new generation of traditional music performers. Arman Aromin from Providence, Rhode Island is a violin maker as well as a musician and Benedict Gagliardi is a concertina player who dabbles with a variety of other instruments like banjo, harmonica and melodeon. They have been playing around the Northeast for the past couple of years and have instilled a new love and admiration of traditional music wherever they have played.

Aromin makes his own instruments and plays with the Boston-based Irish music group, The Ivy Leaf. He learned much of his music from renowned Irish musicians and tunesmiths Jimmy Devine and Patrick Hutchinson. In addition to being the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil Champion for Senior Fiddle, Armand was also a finalist at the Séan Ó Riada Gold Medal Fiddle Competition held in Cork, Ireland in 2011. Since 2010, he has taught fiddle and tin whistle for the Reynolds-Hanafin-Cooley branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann in Boston.

Gagliardi discovered folk music of a band called The Morgans in high school and immediately bought a concertina. Although Ben never received formal lessons, his music-making was nurtured and encouraged at sessions by local trad musicians from the time he first started going to sessions in CT. He has had the pleasure of joining Robbie O’Connell, Dan Milner and Jeanne Freeman at the annual Mystic Sea Music Festival.

This concert is supported in part by a grant from the Marblehead Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.