Carol Noonan has a dream. And that’s fair enough, since her music has been inspiring dreamers since she was the voice of the popular ’90s Boston-area band Knots and Crosses — a group whose concept of beauty was based on whispering dynamics, superbly controlled guitar craft, and, of course, Noonan’s gracefully sculpted melodies.
Noonan, who returns to Club Passim in Harvard Square this Saturday, March 18, for her annual appearance there, is about to realize her dream, in August, with the opening of the Stone Mountain Arts Center. The performance space and restaurant will reside in a barn that her husband, Jeff Flagg, used for constructing commercial fishing nets in Brownfield, Maine, where they live. It will be a musical gathering place for their neighbors. In rural Maine, that means just about everyone within an hour’s drive — though Brownfield is also close to the New Hampshire tourist mecca North Conway.
“I have to drive 20 minutes just to get groceries,” Noonan says. “I’ve lived around here since 1979, so I know that people here are used to traveling to do anything.”
Plus, Maine is having a live-music renaissance. “There are small arts centers all over Maine. Towns like ours are renovating grange halls and doing shows in churches, and I’m finding the shows are always sold out.”
Noonan’s shows always sell out too, whether they’re with her full band, with guitarists Duke Levine and Kevin Barry (whom she’ll play with at Passim), or in a duo with pianist Dana Cunningham. Her latest album is a collaboration with Cunningham, a neighbor whose musical approach twines handily with her own style of vocalizing. Called The Water Is Wide, it’s mostly softly poetic tunes that the two wrote together (there’s also a cover of Sting’s schmaltzy “Fields of Gold”), fusing Cunningham’s spiritual bent with the blend of retro and contemporary that Noonan developed through her affection for traditional Irish music and the years she’s devoted to her songwriting. Noonan has also self-released Sampler, Volume One, all but one of whose 14 tracks are culled from her six post–Knots and Crosses releases. The new tune, “Captain Concrete,” is an Ennio Morricone–flavored Western number that pays tribute to the guy who poured the basement floor of Stone Mountain Arts Center. Sales from both albums benefit the completion of the space.
“I’ve worked in kitchens all my life, so it’s not out of the realm for me to put on an apron and work in the restaurant. I’m planning on being the chef on the nights I’m not in the show. Jeff and I think the Center’s a good way for us to do something that would make us a living and maybe build a future for ourselves and the community. Each year I tend to play less and less, too. I’m not interested in being on the road anymore.”
