For 30 years, Deb McWethy, founder of Peterborough Folk Music, has carried on the region’s rich folk music legacy created by the Folkway Restaurant.
Back in the 1970’s, McWethy would drive all the way from Brattleboro to see live music in the Monadnock region.
“In the late 70’s and early 80’s, I would drive all the way to Peterborough to see shows at the Folkway,” McWethy said. “Then I moved to Harrisville in 1981; it was like, I’m so much closer to the Folkway! I was there all the time as a patron.”
The first show McWethy saw at the Folkway featured Canadian folksingers and brothers Stan and Garnet Rogers. She also remembers seeing Dave Mallet, Bill Staines, Odetta, and many other folk luminaries.
In 1988, The Folkway closed following the death of founder Widdie Hall from cancer, at just 44 years old. After a group led by Hall’s mother, Cornelia (known as Cia) Iselin, re-opened the Folkway in 1990, McWethy continued to attend shows regularly, and gradually got more involved.
“At one point, someone on the board asked me, ‘Would you like to have (Croatian folk musician) Radoslav Lorković stay at your house tonight? And I said, oh my gosh, would I! And that started me on volunteering for the Folkway, and one thing led to another, and soon I was on the board,” McWethy said.
McWethy said her children grew up around musicians.
“My children loved having dinner with Bill Staines, Greg Brown – they loved all that,” McWethy said.
The new Folkway continued for about six years, until the owners and the board decided it was financially infeasible to keep going.
“Cia Iselin, Widdie’s mother, came to the board and said, ‘We have to let the Folkway go,’ ” McWethy recalled. “Cia owned the building, and we didn’t have enough money to pay the rent and to take care of the building the way it needed to be taken care of. So looked at the board members and I said, ‘We’re going to keep the music alive.'”
The Folkway closed for the final time on January 1, 1996.
“I closed it with a show by John Gorka,” McWethy said.
Following the final closing of the Folkway, McWethy sprang into action to keep bringing live folk music to Peterborough.
“I had been doing the booking for the Folkway for the past six months, so I asked one person from each month to come and play for Peterborough Folk Music, and 10 days later, we had Dar Williams and Peter Mulvey at the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, and it was a totally sold-out show. That was our first concert,” McWethy said. “The next might have been Vance Gilbert, and it just kind of went from there. And here we are, 30 years later.”
At the time, McWethy was still working full-time as a business manager at Dublin School.
“All those years I worked, I was also running Peterborough Folk Music. I was going from Dublin School straight to the Folkway, listening to the answering machine and booking acts,” McWethy said. “It’s a labor of love. I’ve never made a penny out of doing any of it, but that’s ok. We weren’t making money. I don’t know if Widdie ever made any money. It’s not about the money. It’s about the love and the passion for the music, and about supporting the musicians, and about giving the music to the Monadnock region.”
Peterborough Folk Music has hosted concerts in many of the region’s venues over the years, including the Peterborough Players, Bass Hall, the Peterborough Unitarian Universalist Church, and more recently, the Park Theater.
In 2002, McWethy began hosting house concerts in her backyard to create exposure for up-and-coming musicians.
“That was incredibly popular. It was kind of like a mini-Folkway, only it was a potluck. People loved the potlucks,” she said.
McWethy hosted regular concerts until the COVID pandemic, and has continued to host two concerts every summer and one or two inside in the winter as well.
While McWethy’s goal with house concerts was to introduce lesser-known musicians, her house concerts became so popular that some of folk’s best-known artists began to request to play in her backyard.
“The house concerts were interesting. Garnet Rogers, Aztec Two Step, even Tom Rush have played in my yard or my living room. It was funny how that evolved. I tried to have people who aren’t well known and build them up so they could play at the Peterborough Players–and that’s what happened, with people like Red Molly, Mark Orelliu, and Peter Mulvey,” McWethy said. “People love the intimate setting.”
McWethy says while the PFM’s original audience stemmed from fans of the Folkway, the organization has created its own audience.
“When we started, it was definitely the audience from the Folkway; that is how we got our start. Thirty years later, we have all our own people, and it’s a big audience,” McWethy said.
McWethy said she is grateful to the support of her board over the years, including longtime board member Bill Goodwin, now retired, who had been on the board since day one. The current board includes Kate Coon, Diane Goodman, Jim VanValkenburgh, Yvonne Gifford, and Paul Allen-Webber.
“We’re very excited Paul has joined us; he’s young and brings a ton of new energy,” McWethy said. “We’re just very excited to keep going in the future.”
PFM is also supported by community businesses and local professionals, including Harlow’s, which donates meals for musicians; Riverhouse by Weekender, which donates rooms; graphic designer Jill Shaffer-Hammond; Greg Scerbinski, who manages the website; and Ruth Benedict, who manages social media, and sound engineer Ben Rogers.
The next Peterborough Folk Music show, on Saturday, August 22, is a house concert at McWethy’s home, featuring Paul Klemperer and Band. For tickets, go to pfmsconcerts.org/debs/paul-klemperer-band-082226.
A video honoring PFM’s 30th year will be shown before every concert this year.