Concerts

Hear some small-town, country folk-pop from Susan Werner

The singer-songwriter visits Club Passim in Cambridge Nov. 5-6.

Susan Werner. Denise Maccaferri

2 minutes to read

In her latest release “Flyover Country,” Susan Werner takes on the pandemic and yearning for a return to normalcy, plus musings on what it means to come from a small town.

“‘Flyover Country’ celebrates the power of place, even as it points out that the places we hold special in our memory sometimes have their shortcomings,” according to an album review by Folk Alley.

Then there’s the fact that the album is at least partially about what it’s like to identify as queer, and grow up in rural America, as Werner did. But it’s not as if that’s the record Werner intended to create. In fact, it wasn’t until she sat down with Country Queer that she realized what she had created, as she says in the interview with the publication.

“But resolving my farm upbringing with my queerness has certainly been one of the driving forces in my career,” she told the publication. “Behind my writing is this desire to integrate these elements that were set apart, not by myself, but by the culture I grew up in — rural society and farm communities.”

Though it seemed like live music completely disappeared during the height of the pandemic in 2020, Werner — who released her first live album in 1993, followed by her debut studio album, “Last of the Good Straight Girls” in 1995 — did manage to perform. She was the first to play at the Avalon Foundation’s Stoltz Pavilion in Easton, Maryland, according to The Chestertown Spy.

During the performance, Werner played through the various genres her music has encompassed for decades – folk-pop, with blues and ballads, and, of course, country.

“Alternately accompanying herself on piano and guitar, Werner – in a sleeveless denim outfit – opened with a rollicking New Orleans blues ode to ‘Oysters Rockefeller at Antoine’s,’ after which she recalled playing Easton’s Farmer’s Market where she was surprised and delighted to find a vendor selling oysters,” Steve Parks wrote in the review for the Spy. “‘It’s not what a girl from Iowa expects to see at a farmer’s market,’ said the farmgirl turned troubadour, French for a singing poet.”

Werner is to take the Club Passim stage on Nov. 5 and 6, with King Margo opening.