W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) Ben stay another night to see deSol or get there 5 days early to see James Montgomery Band....

You might want to check their site. Some of the dates say Octet (which I assume would be all members); a lot of the dates say Quartet which may or may not include Benmont. I think most of the time the Quartet is made up of Sean, Sarah, Glen, and Luke. Someone who has had the good fortune to attend one of their shows probably can tell you who usually makes up the Quartet.

Works Progress Administration

Wow Benmont playing in my home state and just a few miles away from me! I had to read this post several times, really Londonderry, NH!! Too bad I happen to be away on vacation that week.

Thanks HeartbreakerFan on the caution. The venues website says:

“WPA will perform as at least a quartet* with Sean Watkins, Glen Phillips, Luka Bulla, and Sebastian Steinberg. Other WPA members participation will depend on their band’s touring and recording schedules”


W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) consists of some of the most accomplished and legendary musicians in today’s American music scene. Founding members Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket), Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek), and Luke Bulla (Jerry Douglas Band, Ricky Skaggs, Lyle Lovett) have teamed up with Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek), Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Greg Leisz (Joni Mitchell, Wilco, Sheryl Crow, Beck), Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Randy Newman), and Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Cracker), and long-time acclaimed producer Jim Scott (Wilco, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Rolling Stones). Once they entered Scott’s studio, the group was able to collaborate and record the entire album plus a number of bonus tracks in only five days. In an era where the expectation of a “supergroup” is something conceived by business executives, this band came out of an authentic and vibrant musical community, and the result is a beautiful reflection of its origins. W.P.A. was born out of the musical community surrounding the legendary LA club, Largo. The eight members of the band had known and admired each other for years, and found themselves with a strong batch of unrecorded songs, a little down-time, and a collective feeling that it might be a good idea to put something on tape. Listen to W.P.A. • wpamusic.com


Antje Duvekot opens.
Antje is one of the brightest singer-songwriters to rise out of Boston's competitive acoustic music scene. She is releasing her second studio album, "The Near Demise of the High Wire Dancer" on Black Wolf Records on March 17, 2009.

Singer songwriter Ellis Paul says “Antje is the rare artist that can write about the social and the personal in the same breath. She is as understated as she is wise and her songs go down mentally as well as soulfully. Her voice has a sound of innocence and naivety which makes razor sharp insights into the human condition.” Listen to Antje • AnteDuvekot.com

*Guess you better call 603.437.5100 first....

Checked WPA's website and it looks like all their shows, right now anyway, are quartet; keep checking their website because things may change....

Cathee, I just got a message that WPA had added some dates. It looks like the date you were looking at now says that there will be a full band performance. They changed several dates or added dates for the full band--lucky those of you in the Northeast. Wonder what the difference is in Octet and Full Band?

Yeah - I have tickets for this too but I have something else going on that night as well. I'm going to try.... to make it up there. It's an hour and 25 minutes away. If I can be finished with Vacation Bible School a 1/2 hour early - I think we'll make it for WPA but not for Antje...

Quartet - Eddie's Attic - two shows Sept. 20th
515 B N McDonough St, Decatur, GA

Ah-h-h-h wish it were the WHOLE group! Might go anyway!

Should be an interesting night. We might just make it! Hoping to leave VBS at 7:30 and go from there to WPA. Should arrive at 9... With or without Benmont (but it SURE would be GREAT if it was with), I think this show is going to be great!

Reserved a table for the second show at Eddie's Attic and have another couple joining us. I'm excited seeing Derek Trucks Band a few days before and because that following Wednesday I'll be having surgery then in the hospital for about a week....my last musical fling till recuperation is complete.

Will you give us a little review of the show, Bonnie and Cathee?

New York Times Review:

Music Review | Works Progress Administration
The Folksiness of Bluegrass, the Heartache of Country

The members of Works Progress Administration, which goes principally by its abbreviation, WPA, take a companionable approach to conflicted emotion. On Wednesday night at Joe’s Pub, the band’s set began as its self-titled, self-released album does: with “Always Have My Love,” a vow of constancy set against a relationship’s ruins. “So someone might have spent the night beside you,” sang Glen Phillips. “He can’t love you like I do.” Had he not been strumming a guitar, you might have expected a pitiful shrug.

So what came next might have been a corrective measure: “End This Now,” another poisoned-love song from the album, which is due out on Sept. 15. Here Mr. Phillips played the heavy, over a well-groomed honky-tonk waltz. And the shape of the song’s melody called Elvis Costello to mind, as did the angle of its lyrics:

I have a knife so sharp

That when it kissed your breast

You wouldn’t feel it cutting

Just a wind through your chest

Mr. Phillips made this threat seem more defensive than callous. And his accompaniment, notably from the pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz and the fiddlers Luke Bulla and Sara Watkins, sounded unperturbed, even soothing. The crisp geniality of progressive bluegrass and the polished heartache of modern country both have a home in WPA.

This is the kind of group best recognized for its outside affiliations. Mr. Phillips is the former frontman for Toad the Wet Sprocket. Ms. Watkins, along with her brother, Sean, used to be in the bluegrass trio Nickel Creek. The drummer Pete Thomas goes way back with Mr. Costello; the pianist Benmont Tench has been working even longer with Tom Petty.

Fittingly for a collective named after a New Deal agency, the group distributes its singing and songwriting duties. Mr. Bulla, whose regular post is with Lyle Lovett, arrestingly carried “Remember Well,” a ballad that he imbued with aching sincerity, and “Cry for You,” a tough-minded plaint jointly written with Mr. Phillips. There was a hint of Nickel Creek whimsy in “Paralyzed” and “Already Gone,” written and sung by Mr. Watkins.

The most commanding vocalist, though, was Ms. Watkins, finessing the Ray Davies ballad “I Go to Sleep,” which appears on the album, and belting “Long Hot Summer Days,” a John Hartford stomp featured on her own self-titled solo debut. She also took the lead on “The Price,” a song by Mr. Tench with all the sobriety of a Protestant hymn.

But Ms. Watkins didn’t have the lock on mixed feelings. “Not Sure,” a song by her brother that Mr. Bulla capably sang, hinged on this poignant refrain: “I’m not sure that I’ll get over you/I’m not sure that I want to.” And another tune, by Mr. Phillips, summed up the air of confusion in more lighthearted terms: “Is this a wedding or a wake?”
WPA Review