Mary Louise Bove explained why the century-old Oxford Friends Meeting has the acoustics that it does.
“You wouldn’t think so for a Quaker meetinghouse. But back in the day, they didn’t have microphones,” she said of the importance of being able to hear whoever is speaking.
The Friends Folk Club series of concerts – which have no religious affiliation even though they are held at a Quaker meetinghouse – began more than 20 years ago as living room gatherings at Bove’s house. “The house concerts got bigger and bigger and bigger,” she said.
They got so popular that the concerts moved 17 years ago to the southern Chester County meetinghouse at 260 S. Third St., Oxford, which can seat a maximum of 110 people, according to Bove.
To sustain the popularity of the concerts, the volunteer-run Friends Folk Club enlisted the help of the Villanova-based Musical Lairs House Concert Series to connect them with bigger-name performers, such as Jen Chapin, Annie Wenz, Caroline Aiken and Eric Andersen.
The Friends Folk Club Series has presented Celtic, blues, bluegrass, jazz and traditional American folk music. Concerts are open to the public, refreshments are sold and Friends Folk Club concerts are smoke-free and alcohol-free. Proceeds benefit the Oxford Friends Meetinghouse, which donates some of the proceeds to charities such as the local food cupboard.
Doors open at 7 p.m. on show nights. Performing will be bilingual folk/country/Latino/pop singer/songwriter and guitarist Tish Hinojosa on Oct. 13, the band Mason Porter on Nov. 3 and Charlie Zahm at a to-be-announced date in December. Although Hinojosa also has an Oct. 15 tour stop at Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live, her Friends Folk Club should be a noticeably more-intimate performance, as she will have just one accompanying musician.
With a deep, 16-album catalog to choose songs from, Hinojosa also has a country-leaning, and predominantly English, album due out in February. “I had this big wave of writing this summer,” said Hinojosa, noting that the upcoming album’s lone song in Spanish is “Perfidia,” which was popularized in the U.S. by singer Eydie Gorme in the early ’60s.
The version of “Perfidia” was originally recorded as part of a scrapped Smithsonian Institution project on Spanish songs. Tejano accordionist Flaco Jimenez was involved, according to Hinojosa. “It’s a mixture of like the way The Mavericks would do something,” she said.
The Austin, Texas resident said she recently opened her home to a few of her nieces from Florida that had been displaced by the destruction of Hurricane Irma.
A child of Mexican immigrants, the singer didn’t hold back when asked about her feelings on the loud anti-immigration sentiment in current political discourse. “It’s disappointing and sad that we haven’t progressed more in the years of facing the situation. With Trump in office, it’s reached a new level of insane. My mother was very patriotic to America. Our country has caused a lot of the problems that have caused people in Latin American countries and Muslim countries to go somewhere else. In many cases, we could be helping instead,” she said.
IF YOU GO
What: Tish Hinojosa in concert.
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 13.Where: Oxford Friends Meeting, 260 S. Third St., Oxford.
Tickets: $15 (cash or check only), free to children 12 and under.
Info.: (610) 869-8076, friendsfolkclub@aol.com, www.facebook.com/Friends-Folk-Club.
