Hard Luck Café
HALLEY NEAL AND SAM ROBBINS
Wednesday, September 20th at 7 PM
$20 Public | $15 Members
Nashville-based singer-songwriters Halley Neal (https://halleyneal.com/) and Sam
Robbins (https://samrobbinsmusic.com/)
will kick off the 2023-2024 season of the monthly Hard Luck Café series
co-presented by the Folk Music Society of Huntington and the Cinema
Arts Centre (423 Park Avenue, Huntington) in the Cinema’s Sky Room
on Wednesday, September 20, from 7-10 p.m. An open mic,
for which sign-up is at 6:30 p.m., precedes the concert.
Halley Neal, who cites Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin
among her inspirations and whose sound is influenced by classic folk music and
modern-day singer-songwriters, was recently named the winner of the SolarFest
2023 Singer-Songwriter Showcase. Since graduating from Berklee College of Music
in 2019, she has released two albums featuring her original songs. Neal
performed at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas Hill Country this year as
a finalist in the prestigious Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition, as
well as in Colorado as part of the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Songwriter
Showcase and the Telluride Troubadour competition. Closer to LI, she shined
during the Grassy Hill Emerging Artist Showcase at the Falcon Ridge Folk
Festival in Goshen, CT.
Sam Robbins describes himself as an “old soul
singer-songwriter.” His music evokes that of classic 1970s singer-songwriters
like James Taylor and Neil Young, while he adds a modern edge to the
storyteller-troubadour persona. An avid performer who plays more than 150
shows a year across the country, Robbins has gained recognition from his
extensive touring and as a winner in the Kerrville New Folk Competition for
Emerging Songwriters in 2021. This summer, he performed at the Falcon Ridge
Folk Festival as one of the artists voted “Most Wanted to Return” following
last year’s Grassy Hill Emerging Artists Showcase. Like Neal, he is a 2019
graduate of Berklee College of Music, also originally hails from New England,
and has released two albums.