Women Rule the Archway Stage at the Brooklyn Americana Music Festival

The fourth annual edition of the three-day/four-night (Sept. 20-23), multi-venue Brooklyn Americana Music Festival included a new feature — the Women’s Archway Stage. Brooklyn Roads was there, under the Manhattan Bridge, for that Saturday event and here are some of the highlights:

Neha Jiwrajka / Photo by Quincie Hydock

India-born Neha Jiwrajka, who has resided in Dumbo for the past five years, took the stage following stellar performances by returning local favorites Stella Branstool, Ali Dineen and Abby Hollander. Accompanied on harmony vocals by another Brooklyn transplant, Katie Seiler, Jiwrajka’s set included original songs about “being caught between two cultures” (her description of “Sandalwood”); love and longing (“Baby Come Home to Me”) and New York subways (“The Train Song”). When the MTA provided unsolicited, rattling accompaniment on the latter, she quipped, “It’s not often I get to sing a song about the subway while it’s going overhead.”

Karen Dalhstrom / photo by Quincie Hydock

The trains proved no match for the strong alto vocals of Bobtown’s Karen Dahlstrom. Stepping out for a solo gig, she offered a generous sampling of her new EP, “Gem State,” including the a cappella “Streets of Pocatello,” as well as her powerful and liberating feminist anthem, “No Man’s Land.”

Annie Keating, with an assist from Trina Hamlin of harmonica and percussion, also shared songs from her new album, All the Best. All Brooklyn bias aside, our favorite was “Coney Island,” a love song to both a lover and a place, laced with references to summertime, the boardwalk, the Wonder Wheel, arcades and the Mermaid Parade.

Tone Johansen /photo by Quincie Hydock

Sabine McCalla, a New Orleans-based Haitian-American singer who has played gigs at Jalopy over the past few years, let the crowd know that “I’m originally from around here.” She was born in Queens, to be precise, but has a strong Brooklyn connection in the person of Eli “Paperboy” Reed, with whom she has performed. Reed, who happened to be sitting at our table, told us emphatically that McCalla deserves greater recognition — and we heartily agree.

“I’ve Got Me,” a song that explores the “very small thin line” between “self-hatred and self­-awareness,” was a highlight of Joanna Sternberg’s set.

Tone (pronounced “tuna”) Johansen, owner of Sunny’s Bar, one of the festival’s indoor venues, shined with a set that include two numbers in her native Norwegian tongue. Her performance, along with those of Jiwrajka, Ireland’s Leila Keeney and Amsterdam’s Pieternel, showed the far-reaching global influence of Americana music —at least as presented in Brooklyn.

Little Leatherwood / photo by Quincie Hydock

Little Nora Brown, introduced as “a newly minted teen” by her Little Leatherwood bandmate, Stephanie Coleman, is a bluegrass banjo-playing phenom who croons and wails like an Appalachian woman thrice her age. Brown’s mastery of such mature material as the whiskey, women and gambling classic, “Drunken Hiccups,” was jaw-dropping, to say the least.

Cricket Tell The Weather / Photo by Quincie Hydock

The sweet “Sweet Friend of Mine”  and thoughtful “I Think of You” were among the standouts in Cricket Tell the Weather’s set of all-new Andrea Asprelli tunes. They did throw in one fan favorite, “Remington,” co-written by Asprelli’s stage partner for the evening, Jason Borisoff.

Queen Esther brought the event to a fitting close with her gospel-tinged brand of black Americana. She used the acoustics of the Archway to great advantage, most notably on her a capella rendition of “John the Revelator.”