: Vienna Carroll & The Folk Return to The Bitter End

Friday, September 18, 2026 | 6:30 PM

Joyous, Genre-Bending Celebration of Funky Black Folk music and storytelling

New York, NY — Vienna Carroll & The Folk return to the legendary Bitter End on Friday, September 18, 2026 at 6:30 PM, to serve up a toe-tapping good time with a vintage gospel-funk groove in the spirit of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Backed by an all-star lineup of veteran musicians, Carroll delivers a joyful blend of blues, gospel, funk, and folk with politically-charged storytelling and an electrifying stage presence. Her music is deeply rooted in Black history while remaining boldly relevant and forward-looking.

The Folk features:

• Keith Johnston (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Jon Hendricks) – guitar
• Stanley Banks (George Benson) – bass
• Washboard XT / Newman Taylor Baker (Matthew Shipp, McCoy Tyner, Henry Grimes) – washboard
• Special guest David Joyce – trumpet

As New York Music Daily notes, Carroll is known for “politically-charged reinventions of classic blues and gospel themes,” while Neon Jazz host Joe Dimino calls her a “Harlem-based vocal powerhouse.”

Tickets: $20, available now at bitterend.com
Seating is limited; early arrival is encouraged.

Venue:
The Bitter End
147 Bleecker Street
New York, NY

Event Details:
Friday, September 18, 2026
6:30 PM | Doors open at 6:00 PM

Media & Press Inquiries:
viennacarrollmusic@gmail.com | 646-763-4587

Press Kit:

viennacarrollmusic.com/press-kit

Tues., May 13, 2025,
6:45 pm Doors Open,
7 – 9 pm. $15.

3 Performers, Vienna Performs Last @ 8 pm. Come early & hear everyone for the same price.

147 Bleecker St. (bet. Thompson & LaGuardia), NYC 10012 • Map & Directions

Successful Fundraising Concert for the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza

St Michael’s Anglican Church in Anderson’s Bay Dunedin was packed for a concert on 20 March 2024, and you can still donate to this hospital appeal. Over $1200 was raised for this on the night, and further donations can be made to the hospital via Anglican Missions.

Bishop Kelvin Wright reflected on social media:
There were performances from Paul Allen and Bella Bloomfield and the Dee Street Band. But the real showstopper was Vienna Carroll with her mesmerizing mix of story and African American music. Rula Yousef from the Dunedin Palestinian community was MC. It was a powerful, deeply moving evening.

See a peak at a livestream of the evening on Facebook.

About the Performance

Experimental Blues pairs artists of juxtaposing styles in intimate concerts to create, highlight, and explore the intersection of Blues with other Black American music and musical genres—such as Negro spirituals, gospel, jazz, R&B, soul, hip hop, and more.

This season’s three Experimental Blues concerts begin with the pairing of two blues powerhouses: Vienna Caroll and Melody Angel. Together, these celebrated women of the blues will escort audiences through a musical journey of catharsis and revitalization that is sure to soothe your soul and energize your body.

Frederick P. Rose Auditorium,
41 Cooper Square (on Third Ave. bet. 6 & 7th Sts.),
New York, NY (see directions).
FREE. Must register.

Vienna Carroll and The Folk — whose soulful Afro-Future Roots music presents African American spirituals, work songs, and the blues through a modern lens — perform a special program honoring ordinary and extraordinary women, such as Harriet Tubman, Clara Lemlich, Big Mama Thornton, and Audre Lorde, in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Visitors must register and show security proof of (1) vaccination, or (2) a negative PCR test by a third party (no home tests) within three days of their visit to campus, or (3) a negative rapid test result taken by a third party (not home test).

A griot who mixes song, storytelling, and history, Carroll’s sound takes you back to her roots in the Black church. At the same time, her message examines American history and questions from whose perspective that history is told. Her stirring and powerful performances invite audiences to sing along in the African call-and-response tradition, adding emotional resonance to the stories shared.

Her band, The Folk, features Stanley Banks (George Benson, Esther Phillips) on bass; Washboard XT/Newman Taylor Baker (Matthew Shipp, Ebony Hillbillies, Henry Grimes) on washboard; and Keith Johnston (Jon Hendricks, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam) on guitar. Their latest album, Harlem: Afro-Future Roots, is a special collection of spirituals that honor 31 shackled-and-chained enslaved ancestors who in 1826, on a boat from Baltimore to deep south death, threw their captors overboard and escaped to freedom.

Carroll formalized her musical studies at Yale University with a B.A. in African American Studies and served as an artist-in-residence at the Hudson River Museum. She also received an Audience Favorite Award from the NY International Fringe Festival for Singin Wid A Sword In Ma Han, a musical docudrama she wrote and starred in, about a family escaping slavery. She conceived of and produced the First Annual NYC Underground Railroad Festival Juneteenth Celebration with the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrim, a nationally certified Underground Railroad site and the Brooklyn Historical Society, which WBGO broadcasted, NYC’s premiere jazz station.

This performance is presented by The Cooper Union Black Student Union, Student Affairs, and Public Programs.

By: Vienna Carroll & The Folk – Stanley Banks, bass. Newman Taylor Baker/Washboard XT, washboard. Keith Johnston, guitar. and Me!

In honor of 31 enslaved Africans headed from Baltimore to certain Deep South death in 1826 who overthrew their captors and escaped to freedom.

Review

Jazz Lives
Jan. 27, 2023,
Reprinted from https://jazzlives.wordpress.com…

The late Sam Parkins used to say of certain powerfully emotional music, “Gets you right in the gizzard, doesn’t it?” We all have our personal collections of Gizzard Music. To them, I would like to add SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT, as performed by singer Vienna Carroll and the Folk.

A friend sent me this recording and I was enthralled. So many recordings are over-produced, tinkered with, and electronically fussed-over, that their essence is obliterated. Not this utterance — deep, unaltered, aimed directly at the listener.

“Swing Low Sweet Chariot” is Vienna Carroll & The Folk’s new single from their upcoming CD, Harlem: Afro Future Roots, a special collection of Spirituals honoring 31 enslaved Africans headed from Baltimore to certain Deep South death in 1826. Instead, they took their future into their own hands, threw their captors overboard, and escaped to freedom.

Vienna is joined by her “groovetastic” band, The Folk: Stanley Banks (George Benson) on bass; Washboard XT/Newman Taylor Baker (Matthew Shipp, Ebony Hillbillies, Henry Grimes) on washboard; and Keith Johnston (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Jon Hendricks) on guitar.

“We freed ourselves from slavery. We are the center of our own freedom stories. The Spirituals are our liberation songs,” says Carroll.

Now, hear the music: haunting, compelling here.

Keith and Vienna created this passionate sound during the award-winning run of Singin Wid A Sword In Ma Han, Vienna’s musical docudrama about a family escaping slavery. This was followed by Vienna’s first album of the same name, a reprise of Spirituals from the play, in collaboration with Washboard XT. The CD Harlem Field Recordings, recorded with the Folk and released in 2020, celebrates early Black music and its influence on the music of today.

“Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” to be released on Friday, February 10, 2023, will be available on viennacarrollmusic.com, Spotify, Bandcamp, and Apple Music.

For more information visit www.viennacarrollmusic.com & https://viennacarroll.bandcamp.com/track/swing-low-sweet-chariot-2.

Vienna Carroll and the Folk will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art NYC, to celebrate the Met’s Seneca Village exhibit with their Afro-Future Roots music on February 24 and 25th, 6-8:30 pm, Petrie Court Cafe. Read more on The Met’s website.

Background of the Combahee River Raid

Tubman partnered with the Second South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment of the United States Colored Troops to plan and execute this raid to destroy wealthy confederate rice plantations and rescue enslaved people.

First, she forged a relationship with the local enslaved community among whom were the folks who had placed torpedoes in the river to blow up Union boats. They gave her the torpedo locations. She also spread the word throughout the community that folks should be ready to escape to freedom when the raid took place.

On the night of June 1st, 1863, and into the 2nd, Tubman and around 300 men including the Second South Carolina Volunteers and a Rhode Island Regiment set off on three ships: the John Adams, the Sentinel, and Harriet A. Weed. When the Sentinel ran aground troops from that ship transferred to the other two boats.

They proceeded upriver to the plantations where they successfully set fire to and destroyed the houses, mills, and outbuildings; and took or torched the stores of commodity rice and cotton, as well as supplies of potatoes, corn, and livestock

Harriet Tubman rescued to freedom nearly 800 people. 

They then went on to rescue to freedom nearly 800 people. Folks didn’t at first believe, but when the ships actually turned up, they were soon on the verge of being sunk, so vigorous was the response. Ms. Tubman brought order, calming folks with a song. She said about that day:

“I nebber see such a sight. We laughed, an’ laughed, an’ laughed. Here you’d see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin’ in it jus’ as she’d taken it from de fire, young one hangin’ on behind, one han’ roun’ her forehead to hold on, t’other han’ diggin’ into de rice-pot, eatin’ wid all its might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag with a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one an’ a black one; we took ’em all on board; named de white pig Beauregard, and the black pig Jeff Davis. Sometimes de women would come wid twins hangin’ roun’ der necks; ‘pears like I never see so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin’ behin’, all loaded; pigs squealin’, chickens screamin’, young ones squallin’.”

Harriet Tubman

Mary Had A Baby

Storyteller Corinthia starts her tale with the 1863 Combahee River Raid. In her story, the song her family and neighbors waited for was the now-classic Spiritual “Mary Had a Baby.” When they heard it they knew “Moses” had really come.

Corinthia follows the trail and trials of her family and community to the Union camps, transitioning to freedom, learning to read and write, getting paid to work, and being granted the right to vote (men). She celebrates the 16 Black congressmen of the Reconstruction era and highlights their accomplishments – roads, public schools, 13^th, 14^th, and 15th amendments, and Civil Rights bills.

Setbacks also are duly noted: the withdrawal of the Union Army troops from the South, the re-establishment of the Southern landowner class, and the Black Codes which practically re-established slavery in all areas of life: land ownership, voting, work and personal liberties.

Spirituals and work songs are interwoven throughout. We had great fun with our audiences singing along at Hofstra University, Gowanus Dredgers, Bayou Theatre, and The Essex and Portsmouth Sea Music Festivals.

“Mary Had a Baby” is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.  

February 24 & 25, 2023,
6 – 8:30 pm (come early, there will be lines),
Petrie Court Cafe, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028.

With proof of a New York State residency (NY driver’s license/ID card; IDNYC; current bill or statement with a NY address, NY student ID, NY library card) any sized donation. Read more.

Come on out and sing Afro-Future Roots music with us: the classic Spirituals and work songs you know and love, through a modern lens. Celebrate your pride at Black History Month.