It’s nearly midnight, but the party is still going strong. On the front stoop of McDaniel College’s Baker Memorial Chapel, people are gathered in a circle—some seated, some standing—to play old-time traditional music in the sticky July heat, singing and wailing and taking turns leading the improv.

“Key of E, 12-bar, no quick change,” a guy calls out as he starts in on a song. Then a few others, on percussion, bring in a beat. After a few bars, others join in, bit by bit: a guitar, a fiddle, a mountain dulcimer, an upright bass.

Most in the crowd are in their 50s or older, predominately white, middle-class folks, dressed casually in button-downs, T-shirts, and shorts. Occasionally people standing around join in to sing the chorus. Older folks pull up lawn chairs.

These musicians have made the historic Baker Memorial Chapel, with its tall, stately pillars and large cement entranceway, their front porch for some late-night pickin’.

An hour later, the circle is two rows deep. Then it’s leaning toward three rows, as others crowd around to be near the ecstatic, communal energy at its center.

These aren’t McDaniel College students but rather all-ages, lifelong learners from across the globe who have gathered here each summer for the past 25 years for the little-known Traditions Weeks. A three-week summer camp of sorts, the event offers classes in all manner of traditional arts and crafts, from beadwork to basket weaving to wooden spoon carving, as well as a hefty load of music courses—African drumming, Scottish fiddle, tin flute, and countless others.

Traditions Weeks culminates in the Common Ground on the Hill Festival (this year on July 13), a full day of outdoor concerts at the Carroll County Farm Museum that has brought the likes of Pete Seeger and Doc Watson to its stages. Last year, Pete Clark, one of the top fiddlers of Scotland, performed. Acclaimed Baltimore folk singer-songwriter Caleb Stine regularly performs and leads workshops. Another Baltimore treasure, MacArthur Fellowship-winning artist Joyce J. Scott, has also taught classes.

Part of what’s so magical about these loose, late-night jams at the end of each day of camp, before the crowd disperses and people head to the campus dorm rooms for the night, is the general “all are welcome” attitude of everyone involved. Even newcomers say it feels like a family reunion. Young musicians who are taking classes during the day are not only exposed to world-renowned teachers and learning new techniques, they’re also joining in each night, getting a taste of what it’s like to play alongside these legends.

And those who think they are simply watching aren’t really spectators. Everyone’s within earshot. Everyone’s welcome to sing, clap, stomp. There really is no division between audience and performer; even the couples dancing in the grass nearby are playing their parts.

The annual tradition is a bit like the Scottish legend of Brigadoon, a mythical, enchanted village that’s remained unchanged by time for centuries but only becomes visible to outsiders once every 100 years.

“It’s great to come back every year and see familiar faces and just be creative,” Hummel says.

Laurel Hummel, who lives with her family in New Windsor, has been attending the fest almost every summer since its second year. “I heard about it through some friends, and it was a great way to get my kids doing fun stuff when they were little,” she says. “We’d put them in World Village, which is an all-day program for kids.”

Like many others, Hummel often volunteers at the fest to offset the cost of classes, which can otherwise add up (a full-time tuition for one week is roughly $500, with other options for participating in just one, two, or three classes). Over the years, she has gotten to meet a lot of interesting people because of those volunteer hours (one memorable moment was preparing a veggie dish for Arlo Guthrie), and she’s also been able to try her hand at numerous classes—gospel singing, natural dyeing, cast-iron cooking, Native American flute, dance, and, her favorite, wooden spoon carving.

“It’s great to come back every year and see familiar faces and just be creative,” Hummel says. “There’s really nothing else around like it.”

For that, Hummel can thank Walt Michael, the man who founded the festival and continues as its director. Michael, a baby boomer who grew up in Bethesda on Appalachian music, graduated from McDaniel (then called Western Maryland College) in 1968, joined the seminary for a short time, and then joined a band, discovering his true calling. He traveled around the world for more than two decades as a multi-instrumentalist playing in folk bands, and was best known for his skills on the hammered dulcimer. When he returned from touring in 1993, he pitched the idea of starting a festival to Robert Chambers, the president of McDaniel at the time.

“He really understood the vision,” Michael says, telling his story while riding a golf cart across the hilly Westminster campus during Traditions Weeks.

In 1995, Michael held the first Traditions Weeks. A few years in, he grew it to include the Common Ground on the Hill music festival (so named because the McDaniel campus sits atop a hill). But it was always about more than music.

While it’s not written overtly in the festival’s mission statement, if you read between the lines—and certainly if you attend—you’ll notice that what Michael has built is a meeting ground for various cultures to be celebrated and elevated and shared, because he knows intuitively that by learning about different cultures, we gain compassion and understanding of one another, people of all backgrounds. Michael saw the festival as a means for integrating two aspects of himself: the artist and the activist.

“I wanted to create a festival that involved issues of social justice and change, but through the arts,” he says. “I have great faith in traditional arts. I think they speak truth because they’ve withstood the fire of time.”

When the sun is high in the sky again, people lounge in the grass outside the library, read books, nap, work on crafts, and do yoga, while others scurry from one building to the next, carrying musical instruments.

“It’s like a musical Kripalu,” one guest says, referring to the famed yoga retreat in Massachusetts.

Inside Hill Hall, nearly every classroom across three floors is filled—a storytelling lecture, a fiddle class, American singing, Jamaican singing, jazz, blues guitar, beginners guitar, a Celtic jam, an old-time jam, music theory. Rather than focus on one style of music, like a lot of festivals do, Common Ground highlights traditions from cultures as varied as Swedish, Native American, and African.

Across campus, the “wet art” building is buzzing with students working on projects inside.

Robin Tillery leads a small Native American Flute Making class—indeed only two women are there, working on their pieces near a large window, surrounded by assorted piles of seashells, carved pendants, and beads. Tillery also teaches classes on playing the flute that you’ve just crafted with your own hands.

Another popular class is braiding, which has already sold out this year. Its instructor, Carly Miller, brings in models so students can try different styles on them while learning about the history of braiding through various cultures and time periods—from Egyptians to pop culture to African tribes.

“I was an athlete growing up and always braided people’s hair before games. Eventually, I kind of got bored with the normal braids and started experimenting,” Miller says. “What’s fascinating about braids is that they appear in every culture. They transcend time, race, culture, and wealth.”

Like many instructors here, Miller teaches in Carroll County Public Schools. In a partnership with the festival, county teachers are offered continuing education credits by taking courses here, and many also choose to teach.

“They have so many classes—art, dance, music. You can really do anything there and step out of your comfort zone,” Miller says.

It’s true. Nearly every building on campus opens up to another world of classes.

In a large, bright room, Erica Rai Chesnik readies the space for her next yoga class. In the music building, an instructor teaches a prep class to a handful of students interested in learning rock ’n’ roll, all of them wailing on electric guitars at once. “There’s Celtic harp players directly beneath us,” instructor Harry Orlove says with a laugh. In a small auditorium, a dance class practices onstage.

Elsewhere, students gather for the Search for Common Ground class. Two chatty, middle-aged women, waiting for it to begin, practice singing a song they just learned. Michael stands in front of everyone and greets them, saying, “This is our flagship class that we hope creates ripples. We want you to leave this place nurtured and rested but also with tools we can use on the street.” He tells the class, which has filled to capacity, about a recent conversation with his neighbor, who had blurted out that his whole family hates him because he identifies as a conservative. “It was refreshing to hear him be so open, because that’s the kind of conversation that might be our salvation,” Michael says. “But the question is, how do we get to that?”

What starts as a lecture turns into a group dialogue about our country’s current affairs. “I think we need a new narrative about what it means to be an American,” one woman says.

It’s exactly the kind of dialogue Michael wants to foster. “Everyone holds a piece of the truth,” he explains. “If we’re going to survive, we need to talk to each other.”

“I have great faith in traditional arts. I think they speak truth because they’ve withstood the fire of time.”

This year, musicians performing at the fest will come from Mexico, Argentina, Sweden, and across the U.S., including Native Americans from Florida. Among the artists will be Tommy Sands, a singer-songwriter and activist from Northern Ireland whose songs have been recorded by Joan Baez, Kathy Matthea, and Frank Patterson. Paul Dolan, who staged benefit concerts with the likes of John Lennon and Stevie Wonder and went on to become the executive director of ABC News International, will give this year’s keynote.

“Being able to meet these great musicians really shaped my idea of what the music world is,” says Lydia Martin Foy, who started going to the festival in 1996 with her family and now teaches banjo here (her sister, Emily Martin, also teaches). “To see the real African drummers 20 years ago had a huge effect on me. You can never forget that sound. Or to see a real Latin band. Or blues guitar in a room. It’s not enough to consume these things through CDs; you have to experience them in person. And [at Common Ground], it’s not always a concert setting with a big sound system between you and the performers with you sitting in a chair in the audience. They’re right there in the classroom or outside at jams.”

The festival has also expanded in recent years to include year-round Common Ground on the Hill concert series at two locations, the Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore and Carroll Arts Center in Westminster, carrying on traditional music in a more accessible form for those who can’t commit to a full week of classes. These, too, are rooted in Michael’s original vision—that this is about more than the art.

“The name is not just a reference to the literal hill that McDaniel sits on,” Michael says one afternoon, as he takes in the music that’s pouring out of multiple nearby classrooms. “You have to go to that higher place in each other to find that common ground.”

You’ve been referred to as the linchpin of the Baltimore folk scene, but you’re originally from Colorado. How did you end up here?
It was sort of destiny. I truly believe that Baltimore is the greatest American city. There are only a couple I would even put in the same category—New Orleans, maybe Portland. I was just lucky enough to come here in 2000 when there were just enough of the old smells left to let me hunt them down. Growing up in Colorado, I was obsessed with novels and music of old, weird America, always imagining some place other than this very monochromatic, religious, military culture.

When I went on a road trip and looked around, this city had that feeling. I remember the first night I came to Baltimore. I was staying with my cousin and we ended up at the H&H Building where this anarchic punk band was playing, then we went to this after-hours party in what is now the Velocipede Bike Project at like 3 in the morning with fried chicken and strippers getting off work and people hanging out and somebody playing a guitar in the corner. All of those details spoke to the fact that there was a freedom here. People are just themselves and they’re allowed to explore their passions and hobbies and crafts. You’re not going to come here for fame or fortune, but if you’re a craftsperson, Baltimore is a great place to be.  

There’s a willingness to give people—and their art—a chance here.
Despite all the clichés about Baltimore, it’s one of the holiest American cities. There’s definitely a quest for the depth of human experience. Not fame, not fortune, but spirit. That’s the thing we need more than anything right now. In the U.S., we’re a country without a narrative. The stories being told are not great, and we’re going to need to generate new ones. Baltimore is doing a good job of that—any night of the week, you can go hear incredibly well-crafted music. Jazz, hip-hop, rock, country. There might only be 10 to 15 other people there listening to it with you, but you’re going to be illuminated.
 

Did you grow up around folk music?
My dad would play old folk songs on the guitar for me and my sister before we’d go to bed at night. He was always listening to songwriters like Bob Dylan and Neil Young—but also a lot of classical music. Those acoustic sounds were something I was always fascinated with early on. Even on a Beatles album, I was drawn most to “If I Fell” or “Blackbird.” I picked up the acoustic guitar when I was 12 and that became my thing. I started making albums when I was 16 after buying a 4-track cassette recorder with the money I had saved up from working at McDonald’s.  

Was folk the genre you started with?
As a kid, I was into the ’60s, and from The Byrds, I started discovering country music, then blues, and then everything on back from there. By the time I moved here, I was already on the time machine back, in terms of my musical taste, but I didn’t perform any shows of my own for about three years. I was just playing and writing a ton at home and going to see a bunch of live music by other musicians. I was blown away by people like Walker & Jay, who were tapping into that primitive Old-Time American tradition—but bringing a whole new thing to it.  

That was 18 years ago. How would you describe the local folk scene at the time?
It was sort of like this underground community that had always been there. The heart of folk music is people just sitting in their homes, playing, alone and together, rehearsing for a show or just throwing a house party. When I first arrived here, the community was super humbling and eye-opening. It was like this is what I’ve been looking for—a place that takes art and music seriously. At the time, I had been working on a huge movie, Ladder 49, with Joaquin Phoenix and John Travolta.

It was an amazing, intense experience, but also one of those turning points. I realized I can’t not play music every day. When the film was done, I got in my car and took a massive road trip. I remember getting to the Grand Canyon and writing a song and just knowing that music was the path forward. That resulted in an album, a whole new band, and this focus on the American country folk sound. The music I make is soul music. It’s basically reflections and prayers.  

Your music has long had religious undertones.

Music is a communion. That’s what we’re doing. It is an incredibly important part of human interaction. With Moon, I wanted to do an album where I was not the producer. I wanted someone else involved with a vision so I could really focus on the singing and the songs themselves. My friend Kenny Liner [of Believe in Music] said he’d do it, and it started this whole journey. He brought in all these other musicians I didn’t know, and all these arrangements I wouldn’t have come up with on my own, and it spiraled and blossomed into its own community.  

You call Moon, which comes out in early May, a “modern love story.” What inspired it?
“Hollow” was the genesis. I’d worked on that song for years, and when I finally finished it, I realized the whole short story. That song is about the richness of love, and the multiple layers that exist within it. We really need to be like the Greeks and have multiple words for love, because we mean a lot of things. It’s that world of emotions and feelings that is beyond language. It’s that feeling you have so acutely when you’re a teenager, or when a new neighbor moves in two doors down and you see her and just fall in love instantly, and the air around you is magnetic, like the first time you heard “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys. Or even when you pause at the end, and the sun is setting, and the whole sky is a painting, and you look around and no one else is looking at it, and it’s just for you.

It’s a journey in realizing that everyone else is going through the same thing—that fundamental human existential loneliness that we all start from and end at. But then this whole other bright world opens up. Suddenly, there are vivid colors, and it’s not just about your own internal struggle. We can struggle together. That’s really the story of love—that it’s not just me.
 

What comes next?

As an artist, I want to keep pace with at least an album a year. I’m going to a studio this afternoon to work on a new one. It’s already almost recorded. But I also want to try other forms of music, because there are just certain emotions and feelings I can’t quite get across that way. Which is why I’m releasing a coloring book with Moon. I just feel like I won the lottery or something. It’s taken me so long—just in the last couple of years I’ve gotten to a place where I can play my guitar every day and work on my art all the time. I feel so lucky, and I just want more time.  
 

War On Women

Capture the Flag  (Bridge Nine)

It has been three years since War On Women released its last record, which, with the Women’s March, the #MeToo movement, and every scandal in between, must have felt like an eternity for a hardcore feminist punk band. Indeed, there couldn’t be a better time for new music from these Baltimore rabble-rousers who have been tackling sexism, inequality, and oppression since 2011. Through frontwoman Shawna Potter’s ferocious verses, no topic is left untouched—from catcalling and wage gaps to abortion and rape. Their shredding (and NSFW lyrics) might not be for everyone, but it’s hard to deny their fearlessness. In this fieryalbum, filled with scalding guitar, full-tilt drums, and Potter’s outright rage, the band turns its focus toward politics, confronting the likes of gun violence, neo-Nazism, and the gutting of Obamacare. Across 12 tracks, they create an anarchistic call to action. “YDTMHTL” (You Don’t Tell Me How To Live) might be our new favorite acronym, urging women to exist in whatever ways they want to. “Write a letter to your idol,” shouts Potter, “and then cross out their name and write yours in.”

Read our interview with Shawna Potter. 

Wye Oak

The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs (Merge Records)

In retrospect, it seems that all that came before for Wye Oak—all 12 years, six records, and a few shapeshifting evolutions—has been building up to this very moment. This is the album we never knew we’d always been waiting for, and here it is, with a dozen tracks that brilliantly break apart the old Wye Oak and put the pieces back together in a stunning, triumphant new form. What remains is the best of the duo’s abilities, a fusion of their shimmering dream-pop present and their propulsive indie-rock past that blossoms like a dream. Wye Oak revels in reinvention, and in this earthy synth-forward shift, Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack embrace the only certainty: change—that our former selves are inescapable, but there’s also no turning back. Wasner’s trademark guitar returns in radiating waves, and her voice—crystal-clear, even when shrouded in layers of distortion—is on full display as one of the finest in the business. Her lyrical prowess dazzles, too, with meditative wordplay embarking on a quest for deeper truths, while Stack’s energetic drums bring focus and intensity. Through each saturated melody, they push forward. The band’s future is here, now, but the journey inevitably goes on.

It’s been almost three years since your last record, Parts & Labor, in 2015. What have you been up to between then and now? 
Shortly after I released that album, I had some things happen with my family that made me realize I want to spend my time differently. I left my full-time job in D.C. and moved back up to Baltimore. For a while, I lived at the H&H Building with my fiancé, and then he ended up buying a house in Mayfield that needed a whole lot of work. So around that same time that I was going through a lot of change, we were literally knocking down walls and dealing with holes in the roof. That was a big part of where the inspiration for the title came from.

Did those parallels reveal themselves immediately?
I can’t actually figure out when I wrote “Gut It to the Studs.” Sometimes I write a song and a couple months later I realize the messages it has. When I first wrote it, I meant it as more of a political song, and then later realized the personal notions it had. 

You’ve had political undertones to your songs for years now. Was there a new emphasis on that for you with this new record, also named Gut It to the Studs, because of the current political climate?
I recorded this album last November, and I wrote a lot of these songs well before the election but many of the same messages are still relevant today. I believe that, for many of us, what’s going on inside has big implications for who we are as people and how we choose to operate in the world, which brings a lot to bear on what happens politically. 

For myself, I felt for a long time that I needed to get somewhere in my career—that I really wanted to have something to show for myself. I didn’t even know what ladder I wanted to climb, or who I was trying to prove something to, but that’s kind of just baked into our culture. Our sense of self-worth is tied to something external. D.C. culture has this inherent competitiveness and insecurity, so when I left, it was partly me being like, ‘Okay, screw that!’ I’m not going to base my sense of self on where I am in my career. There are lots of ways to look at life. 

Was it scary to let go and give up those ghosts?
Yes. I turned to music, and in my mind, it was this place that was free of all those things. And then I discovered that music also has competitiveness and insecurity. At its best, there’s a lot of camaraderie, mutual support, and inspiration. At its worst, there’s some of the opposite. So I learned that those feelings just follow people wherever they go. It’s an unseen hand and it’s really easy to go through your whole life without really realizing that you’re trying to prove something to somebody who doesn’t exist. For me, I didn’t want those things to be the factors driving me forward.

Is writing music cathartic for you? How do you use your art form to process emotions?
I often write songs from a purely creative standpoint, just to see what phrases and words come out and what concepts emerge. Later on, I can take a look and see it was trying to say. There are some strands of indie-folk that have a lot of abstraction, but I kind of follow the country vein in that you know exactly what that song is about. It’s clear what the point is. 

What is the point of this new album?
If I had to put it in one sentence, let’s get our priorities straight. 

Is there a seminal song on the album for you? 
I’d say the first track, “Where I’m Bound.” That originally came out of learning about an early abolitionist, John Woolman, who went around asking people to free those that they were enslaving. In his journal, there were times where he expressed real doubt, because it was difficult for him to see that things were changing, and he didn’t know if he was doing the best he could. It’s easy for us to look at the leaders of the past and think that they were very certain and surefooted, but leadership is terrifying and uncertain. That’s a big spiritual hurdle for any of us to contend with—not really knowing what the right way forward is but proceeding with faith, in spite of those things.

There’s a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What it’s Worth.” What’s inspired you to include this 1966 song in 2018?  
The people who were part of the civil rights movement in the ’60s and ’70s are huge inspirations for me. I so admire what those folks were doing, and specifically in Baltimore, there’s this woman named Betty Robinson who is kind of a mentor for me here. It is just as important for us to be really active in this moment in time. I wanted to bring up that the same struggles continue today.

You also have a very important song about Baltimore called “Sundown Town.” Tell us a little bit about its inspiration.
It’s about segregation in Baltimore. In 2008, I was in Detroit canvassing for the Obama campaign, and I was paired up with an older black man. One day we were canvassing in a white suburb that to me kind of typified what I grew up to feel like was a safe place. It started to get dark, and I was having trouble finding my canvassing partner, and then when I found him, he was visibly shaken. He said that when he was growing up, that neighborhood was a “sundown town.” I had never heard that term before, but it basically meant that black people were not allowed to be there after dark, and if they were, they might get picked up by police or beat up—whatever it was, it would be bad. After that, I read this book called Not in My Neighborhood and discovered that this wasn’t just small rural towns that had that policies of segregation, but also a lot of urban neighborhoods, like in Baltimore. Some of the suburbs where I grew up still had these racist housing covenants on the books. That was when I first got the idea for the song.

Then during the Baltimore Uprising, I went to some of the protests and I remember a lot of my white friends being afraid to go and using phrases like “stay safe.” But there are some people in this city who don’t ever have the luxury of feeling safe. Growing up in the suburbs, it’s really easy for white people like me to live pretty obliviously to some of the problems that low-income black communities face. If we’re only thinking about our own safety, it’s really a hindrance to the whole movement going forward. And what I hope that we move towards is really seeing that no one is safe until everyone is safe. That’s one of the big messages that I felt the Uprising was trying to tell us: If we want peace, we have to work towards justice—for everyone.

I would also add that, of course, in this conversation, the people who should be at the center of it are the people who are most directly affected by it, like artists who are people of color. But I also think it shouldn’t always be entirely up to them to raise these issues. White communities need to be talking about it, and I do have a platform that reaches, well, a lot of white people. And I don’t think it’s right for a white person to make a profit about any song about oppression, so any proceeds that I make from this song will be donated to people-of-color-led organizations that are working on these issues in Baltimore.

Why now for this nationally distributed debut?
When I left and started really looking at what it takes to be a more serious musician, this was what I decided was the next move. I’m a little old to be doing my first one, but I’m not getting any younger. I write a lot and have a lot of material I hope to release in the future.

Is your old house finished in Mayfield?
Pretty much! Old houses are never done, but we’re very happily settled in.

Beneath the burgundy vinyl awning that reads “Nepal House” in white block letters, a poster of Buddha looks down at the entrance to 920 N. Charles St. in Mount Vernon. “Namaste,” it says. “Welcome.” Gentle, lyric-less music, the type you might hear while face down on a massage table, plays in the background, reverberating through a long, dark dining room on the right, and a cozy bar with booths to the left. 

When you walk in, it’s impossible not to feel the presence of the restaurant’s owner, Prem Raja Mahat. Just inside the door, the contents of a plastic-windowed display case give away a part of his fascinating life story. Dozens of colorful CDs and cassettes bear Mahat’s endearing image: His black, parted hair tops a round face and deep brown eyes, and a thick, bushy mustache prominently sits on his top lip, though it’s not large enough to hide an ebullient grin. A stereo rests on a shelf below, for requests from these albums filled with hundreds of songs he wrote and performed himself over a decades-long career. 

Nepal is a country of more than 29 million people, sandwiched between India and China and smaller in size than half the states in the U.S. It’s a place most known as the home of Mount Everest and, more recently in the spring of 2015, for a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake.

It’s also where—in what must be one of the most unlikely double identities on record—a little-known Baltimore restaurateur is revered, from the highest Himalayan peaks up north, to the big central city of Kathmandu, to the plains along the southern Indian border, and in the remote, hilly villages between.

Simply put, Prem Raja Mahat is a Nepali folk singing legend, considered his country’s equivalent of Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Willie Nelson, even Elvis. “He is too popular,” says Mahat’s brother, Shyam. “Everybody knows him.” Nonetheless, one of Nepal’s most famous exports more or less blends into the crowd in Baltimore, unless you stop to talk to him, and he reveals his varied roles: father of four, immigrant, special consul for his home country, restaurant owner, hit singer and songwriter. He might just be the Most Interesting Man in the World, and that suggestion doesn’t even take into account how his journey started.

“I love this country and I love back home,” the 54-year-old Mahat says from behind his cluttered office desk in the back of Nepal House, while he sips rich Nepalese tea. “This is my workplace, that is my birthplace.”

Forty years ago, and more than 7,500 miles away in Nepal’s west central hills, Mahat grew up mostly parentless. His mother died when he was 7. The cause, according to his wife, Kabita Mahat, reflects Nepal’s status as a still-developing country: an everyday stomach ailment. Two years later, Mahat’s father died of a heart attack.

As a young boy, Mahat and his two older brothers worked the family’s land to feed themselves and their five sisters. Mahat also looked after the cattle. At times, he would listen to the music of the Gaines, the people who make up one of  Nepal’s lowest social castes, as they played music door-to-door, begging for money. “That captivated my mind,” Mahat says. “I started to learn with them.”

His brother, Shyam, bought him a wooden flute, and soon the 7-year-old Prem was figuring out tunes while farming. He eventually learned to play the sarangi, a small, short-necked instrument similar to a violin that’s held upright. He was a natural. 

For 10 years straight, Mahat had Nepal’s top-selling albums.

In the late 1970s, Mahat went to college at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, the country’s capital city, where he performed on what was then the nation’s only radio station, government-run Radio Nepal. His versions of dohori—a popular, conversational style of song that features light drum beats, flutes, and strings—caught on fast, as much for their grooves, rhyming, and pace as for the folk-song themes that describe the human condition. Mahat says he found inspiration from earlier generations of Nepali singers, and in American songs by Bob Dylan and John Denver—he was planning to meet Denver before he died in a plane crash.

In one of Mahat’s hits, “Sim Sime Pani Ma,” Mahat begs (though English translations are difficult): Please don’t leave, you don’t have anyone but me in this world. A female singer replies: I want to be close to you, but I am fearful of what society will say. 

“He portrays love and tragedy in his songs. It’s very consistent with his upbringing,” says Mahat’s nephew, Dig Mahat, who was born in Nepal and is a molecular biology postgraduate student at Cornell University. “The songs are always upbeat, about hope, then regret or sorrow. People connect with him because of that. His songs are ubiquitous.” 

For 10 years straight, Mahat had the country’s top-selling albums. He’s a prolific artist, who so far has created 58 CDs or cassettes during his career, one for just about every year he has lived. And in places only reachable by rubble paths, tunes like the lively, back-and-forth “Paan Ko Paat” and “Banjo Khet Ma” spread by word-of-mouth, says Tara Linhardt, a musician who studied in Nepal during college and later shared the stage with Mahat in Baltimore and the Washington, D.C., area. “It’s a whole different thing than you’ve ever imagined,” Linhardt says. “He would write a song and it would spread to people that didn’t have electricity.”

That’s quite an accomplishment considering more than 100 languages make up the country’s vernacular. “For the people,” Mahat says. “That’s the kind of person I am.”

On a weekday night, before the dinner rush at Nepal House, Mahat takes a break before attending to the kitchen and customers. He and his wife bite into momos—dumplings that are a Nepali delicacy—and discuss life. For them, it revolves around the restaurant. 

Nepal House—which smells delectably of cinnamon and cumin—serves traditional tastes of the Himalayas seven days—and nights—a week. Chicken, lamb, vegetable, and curry dishes dot the menu, as well as the delectable $9.99 weekday lunch buffet. The atmosphere, befitting its owners, is welcoming and friendly. The Mahats and their 14 employees—11 of whom are from Nepal—check in kindly on each table. “Cook for you,” is Prem’s mantra to his staff when he talks to them about his aspirations for quality, cleanliness, and affordability. The priciest dishes on the menu are $21.99, including a skewered lamb prime rib, marinated in ginger, garlic, and yogurt. 

The restaurant’s décor attempts to transport you to Nepal, with carvings, chalk paintings, and bronze casts that hang on the walls. In the hallway outside Mahat’s office that overlooks the kitchen, a portrait of Elvis rests beneath a calendar featuring Mahat’s own likeness. Here he plans to commission a mural featuring 14 of Earth’s highest peaks, all over 25,000 feet and all located within Nepal’s borders.

The Mahats—who had an arranged marriage 30 years ago—also talk about what brought them to the United States. A decentralized government has been a hallmark of Nepal’s history since the 1990s, which is when the government and police lost control. Rebels kidnapped children at school. Public transportation shut down. People were killed in the streets. The Mahats had four young children, and were worried. 

Prem, who was then 35 and in his musical prime, was playing a concert in Texas in 1996 when he decided to leave Nepal for good. “I am here for my kids,” he says. One of his godparents lived in Baltimore, and Mahat decided to begin the U.S. immigration process. He lived in an apartment near Patterson Park before his wife and children could immigrate five years later, in 2001. Then, they all moved to a house in Towson, for the schools. 

Mahat’s family understood what a sacrifice this was for him. “I still feel guilty about it,” says his daughter, Sadikshya Mahat, 25. “He had everything back home, and [music] is what he was meant to be doing. All of my siblings, we regret that he had to give everything up for us. But we were more of a priority to him than his career. He came here and started from scratch.”

Mahat decided to leave Nepal in 1996. “I am here for my kids,” he says.  

Mahat started working as a waiter at Mughal Garden, an Indian restaurant that operated in Nepal House’s current space for about 20 years. With a friend, he later opened a mostly carry-out spot in Locust Point. Kabita Mahat worked at a Royal Farms store for a decade before the couple took an opportunity to buy Mughal Garden, and reinvent it, in August 2014. Their four children—Sargam, 29, Samikshya, 28, Sadikshya, and Sangeet, 23—each helped to open Nepal House two years ago. They have all graduated from college. 

“They are all doing really good, have very good jobs,” Mahat says. “I am very proud.”

As for the future, Mahat first wants his restaurant to make Nepalese food more widely known in Maryland. Second, but no less important, he intends to continue the restaurant’s mission as a Nepali welcome center. 

In the most recent U.S. census, 3,412 Nepalese were counted in Maryland, many driven here by political strife and a poor economy. Many of those immigrants know Mahat. For years, he has helped new arrivals find places to stay or live. “I’ve heard a lot of people in the community sing praise about him,” says Sajeed Poudyal, co-owner of the Nepali news website, DC Nepal. In 2004, Mahat co-founded the Baltimore Association of Nepalese in America, and in 2010 the Nepalese government gave him the volunteer title of honorary consul. Sometimes, he puts up fellow countrymen in his house, which is technically a Nepali consulate. (When they were younger, his daughters Samikshya and Sadikshya shared a bedroom and often wondered why one of them couldn’t take the finished basement downstairs. “I need that for guests,” their dad said.) 

In addition to day-to-day managerial tasks like paying the bills and ordering supplies, Mahat is a job creator. Rajan Ghimire was born in the Pokhara Valley, near where Mahat grew up. Now, the 26-year-old works for the star he heard on the radio. “We have a family environment here,” Ghimire says.

Mahat has even taught a few Nepalese how to drive. “In life, there’s a lot of up and down,” he says. “My thinking is, ‘Hey, friend. I’m here, I can help you.’ That’s more important than the money. Everybody doesn’t have the money, but everybody has the mind, the heart.” 

Adjacent to Mahat’s Nepal House office is a tiny one-room apartment that includes a bed, bathroom, and refrigerator. Visitors are welcome to stay here in Mount Vernon, just like they are at the house in Towson. But sometimes, the private room is for the owner himself. If he works late at the restaurant or on a new song, as he still does, he’ll pick up a sarangi and sing. 

Mahat made a late-November sojourn to Nepal— a “music trip” he called it a few days before he left. He made time for relatives, friends and strangers, but he fulfilled his primary purpose two weeks in, when he visited a recording studio. “It was very good, very good,” he said when he returned. “I am happy.” 

Album 59 is on the way, led by the title track, “Ayo Nepali,” a song of national pride born out of the earthquake that killed thousands nearly two years ago. The CD will soon join the rest on the restaurant shelves, ready to proudly play, while Buddha keeps watch.

Folk music has deep roots in the Land of Pleasant Living, with bluegrass, folk, and Old-Time music stretching back to the earliest days of Appalachia. Father-and-son duo Ken and Brad Kolodner take that legacy to the next level, combining Ken’s lauded experience with Brad’s rising talent to create a homegrown sound that carries on the local tradition in not just their own family but also the greater Baltimore community. We talked with the team about falling into folk music, its effect on their relationship, and the importance of musical stewardship. Catch them live at the Creative Alliance on April 15.

How did you get into playing music?
Ken: I always loved music but through my later years of high school and college, especially in the summers, I would go to fiddlers’ festivals. It looked like people were having so much fun playing music together, and I thought perhaps that’s something I could do.

My goal when I first picked up the fiddle was that it would be great if I could someday play music with other people. I picked it up just before grad school at Johns Hopkins, and within a couple years I was playing music with all sorts of folks and decided that was a great way to spend my life.

And Brad?
Brad: I listened to some of the recordings from my father’s previous band, Helicon, so I certainly enjoyed music, but I didn’t express any interest in trying to play. Nor was it ever pushed on me. I played the cello as a requirement when I was a student at Friends School but I didn’t really start playing folk music until my senior year of high school when I went to a music camp and signed up for a banjo class. It sounded interesting. I thought I might as well just give it a shot.

What was it about the banjo that made you decide to steer in that direction?
Brad: I knew it was going to be a pretty easy way to become a millionaire. [Laughs]. No—I just liked the way it felt in my hands and in my fingers. I was particularly attracted to the way my first banjo teacher, Richie Stearns, approached the instrument. It was very unique, very groovy. I picked it up pretty quickly and I’ve just enjoyed it ever since.

As father and son, how has performing together influenced your music and your relationship?
Brad: We spend a lot of time together, which is really nice in many ways. The band isn’t going to break up, per se. We have a lot of shared experiences and common interests. It’s different working with my dad and working with friends but that being said, any kind of close-knit band has a familial feel to it.

Ken: In every musical relationship, you have to learn how to communicate with each other, to say what you like about each other’s performance and what doesn’t work, and to be respectful. I’ve been in bands and had many musical partners over the years where you evolve that relationship. With Brad, same thing, but we already know how to talk to each other. The one thing I had to learn was to not be the guy in charge, and recognize that Brad has his own musical vision and to let him express that.

Brad: Those first couple of years, I was certainly latching on and trying to soak in as much as I could, and I still do, but now there are certain components of the music and the business side of doing this for a living that we learn from each other. I’d say it’s a pretty equal two-way street.

How has it felt to watch Brad grow as a musician?
Ken: It’s been wonderful to watch. I remember in the early days when I would bring him up on stage, my wife would say, “Is he ready for this?!” And I would say, “Yeah, he’s ready—he’s good!” I said to her a couple of times that I thought he was going to be really good, eventually. I trusted him performing on stage in those early days.

At first he was a little scared, a little stiff, but that’s normal. Now his stage presence is fantastic. I’ve really seen his confidence as a player emerge. As a musician, you hope you never stop developing and growing, and it’s great to see that happening when it’s on stage with you and it’s your own son.

Brad: I am grateful for those early experiences with musicians who were far better than me. You learn a lot, being thrown into the fire.

Now you’re an important part of the local folk scene.
Brad: There’s a whole network of old-time and folk musicians in Baltimore that we’re really grateful to be a part of. We’ve been working really hard to see that community grow, be it with the old-time jam we run at the Five & Dime Ale House in Hampden, or the Baltimore Square Dance I help organize, or the house concerts we help put on. It feels like a responsibility of ours to help keep it alive.

Ken: For me, it’s very gratifying to see so many young players and young folks interested in the music.

Brad: It’s becoming a bluegrass and old-time and folk music town again.

Convergence

Warren Wolf (Mack Avenue Records)

When it comes to jazz, Baltimore has a deep-rooted history, with Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, and Billie Holiday all calling it home. Today, the tradition is still going strong with the help of talented artists like the young Warren Wolf. The rising vibraphonist grew up here, honing his craft at Peabody Preparatory and the Baltimore School for the Arts before moving on to the big leagues at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Having since returned home, he now releases his accomplished third album, full of sizzling soul, dazzling ballads, and full-on funky grooves. Across 11 songs, Wolf not only keeps Baltimore jazz alive, he moves into the future with gusto and skill.

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Mirror Image/Mirage

Big Hoax (self-released)

If you’re looking for a summer band, this four-year-old four-piece has a brand new record that will serve as the perfect warm weather music. Luke Alexander’s earthy vocals lead his bandmates’ instruments—upright bass, cello, trumpet, pedal steel guitar, piano, to name a few—through a range of songs: outright folk, upbeat stomps, sunny bossa nova, a lovers’ waltz. At times, they bring to mind the rich anthemic harmonies of a young Mumford & Sons; at others, they evoke the worldly darkness of an early-album Dave Matthews. But all the while, Big Hoax remains uniquely themselves, experimenting with form and genre, creating a robust medley of Americana sound.

If you were to pick a meaningful date for an annual reunion concert, you could do a lot worse than the winter solstice, a celestial return when the sun begins its cycle anew. But fiddler and hammered dulcimer player Ken Kolodner and flutist Chris Norman weren’t really thinking about that when they staged their first solstice concert in 1986 at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer on North Charles Street.

The duo—who originally met at a local folk-music festival in the early ’80s—were just excited that 400 people had turned up to hear their eclectic mix of American and world folk music. In fact, it went down so well that they returned the next year with another kindred musical spirit in tow—multi-instrumentalist Robin Bullock. And so it was that Helicon—named for the mountain in Greece where the muses were said to congregate—was born.

The group began performing year-round, cultivating an ever-larger fan base. “We moved [the concert] to Goucher College, and NPR came in and recorded it,” recalls Kolodner, 61, who lives in Guilford. The trio’s sterling musicianship and wide-ranging repertoire—“There might be some Israeli tune, then some Christmas music, then something from Ireland,” says Kolodner—attracted special guests such as acoustic guitar virtuoso Doc Watson and bluegrass favorites Alison Krauss & Union Station. Records deals, albums, and more touring followed, but, eventually, the trio disbanded. Bullock, now lives in Asheville, NC, while Norman, splits his time between Nova Scotia, Canada, and New York City.

Still, the solstice always summons them back. Says Kolodner: “We said, ‘Why should we stop doing this? This is a lot of fun.’”

Kolodner is particularly pumped about this year’s back-to-back shows at Goucher College on December 19 because they are both musical and family reunions: His son’s band Charm City Junction will share the bill, as will Norman’s daughter, Marlys, a former Peabody instructor.

Irish dancing champion Jonathon Srour, who grew up attending the concerts, will also take the stage. “It is a true honor to perform with these guys,” says Srour, 27. “They are musical geniuses. This is easily one of my favorite nights every year.”