New CD Launch: April 17

– Sunday, April 17 | 2:00 pm –

Longtime singer-songwriter Ray Porcell and Academy Award-winning writer of ON GOLDEN POND Ernest Thompson will launch their new CD on April 17 at 2:00 pm at the historic Pitman’s Freight Room, in Laconia, NH. Sponsored by Ameriprise Financial and Energysavers of Meredith, this event is a rare opportunity to see these two extraordinary talents live on stage.

Join Porcell and Thompson for a family-friendly afternoon of music from their latest album, WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE, and favorites from their first, THE JOURNEY GOES ON. Porcell will perform and Thompson will share stories about where the lyrics he wrote for both albums came from and lucky audience members will get to see the world premiere of Thompson’s heartrending music video “Brontë Brook,” also written with and sung by Porcell and featuring stars of film and stage, including Thompson’s local productions of ON GOLDEN POND, Frank T. Wells and Vinette Cotter. Opening the show are The Sweetbloods and everyone who attends goes home with a free copy of the new CD.

Accompanying Porcell is his band The Session—Al Hospers on bass, Jarrod Taylor on guitar, Anthony Cimino on drums, Marc Elbaum on sax, Craig Jaster on piano, Phil Sanguedolce on pedal steel, and Janet Sanguedolce on guitar and singing background vocals. Music will run the gamut from aching ballads to kick-ass blues to old-time rock-n-roll and “No Ordinary Joe,” a tribute to the great, late Joe Droukas of The Bombers fame, written by Thompson the night of his death, will be on the set list.

Porcell, former co-owner of Energysavers and a highly regarded musician, has performed with the likes of Tim Buckley, Bruce Springsteen, Alex Taylor, David Johansen (Buster Poindexter), and a string of other legends, including, for more than 40 years, Droukas. Thompson, whose iconic ON GOLDEN POND has been embraced the world over, nowhere more enthusiastically than in the Lakes Region, and who has written for and directed and acted with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Robert Downey, Jr., Julie Andrews, and Shirley MacLaine among them, is an accomplished lyricist too, collaborating with Carly Simon and Joan Osborne, world-renowned fiddler Natalie MacMaster, New Hampshire native, Joe Deleault, composer of the scores to both TIME AND CHARGES and Thompson’s newest film, HEAVENLY ANGLE, and another New Hampshire favorite Justin Jaymes, with whom Thompson wrote the album HARLEY CHICK, released last year.

Pitman’s Freight Room is a BYOB venue, so pack your beer and wine or bottle of juice, and your dancing shoes. Tickets are $15.00, which includes a FREE CD, and may be purchased at the door, online at www.pitmansfreightroom.com or by calling (603) 494-3334. To learn more about the artists, visit www.ThompsonPorcell.com.

Pitman’s Freight Room
94 Salem Street
Laconia, NH 03246
www.pitmansfreightroom.com