Urban folk country and blues artists Porch Party Mamas make their debut at the Me&Thee on Friday, March 7th at 8pm. Inspired by playing and singing each other’s songs at their porch parties, these established Boston-area musicians and singer-songwriters combined talents to create a brand new type of band.

Concert starts at 8:00 pm

Upbeat and moving original songs accompanied by guitar, piano/accordion, fiddle and percussion give hoe-down fun a fresh sophistication. A sound montage of harmonies, clever arrangements and repartee take audiences away from it all. The Porch Party Mamas have performed sold out shows all over New England: from Connecticut’s Northwest Park to Maine’s Vienna Union Hall, with venues in between including Club Passim and The Burren.

The Porch Party Mamas are Ksenia Mack (voice, guitar and banjo), Felicia Brady-Lopez (voice, piano and accordion), Elizabeth Burke (voice, fiddle and guitar) and Katrin Peterson (voice, cajon, bongo, snare, pandeiro, kick and more).

Felicia Brady-Lopez is a tour de force of musical abilities and creativity. Raised in Oklahoma and Texas in a household where her mother and piano teacher were one and the same, Felicia started early on the road to her unique musical style and expression. She benefited greatly from the public school music program in Amarillo, Texas in which she sang, and played piano and upright bass. After earning her degree in classical piano at Texas Tech University, Felicia was recruited to Boston University where she earned an Artist Diploma in piano performance. Felicia wields a smokin’ accordion and is an accomplished singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with two beautifully crafted CDs to her name, Magazine Street and Pretty Soon.

While getting her degree in classical guitar at U Conn, Ksenia Mack covered the local bar circuit and opened for Arlo Guthrie while still in her teens. Ksenia moved into the Boston music scene, and developed a strong solo career with regular appearances at Passim, Cape Cod Melody Tent, Music Circus, and Paradise Rock Club. Over the course of her career, Ksenia has opened for Willie Nelson, Indigo Girls, Warren Zevon, Marc Cohn, Robert Cray, The Who, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Ferron, Paula Poundstone, Aleka’s Attic, Aimee Mann, and Marti Jones. She has also performed with Patty Griffin and Catie Curtis, and was a Lilith Fair Finalist.

Katrin Peterson is a percussionist force in her own right, who integrates the rhythms of South America with the necessities of American Folk music. A Swiss national, she received her formal training in music and percussion in Germany and Holland and continued her studies in Brazil, Cuba and New York. She has performed extensively and has appeared on radio and TV including “The Late Show.” Her debut CD weightless was recorded in New York with Jazz giants Danny Gottlieb and Mike Richmond amongst others.

From Minnesota and Pennsylvania, multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, Elizabeth Burke was inspired early on by her grandmother to play the violin and recalls the desire ‘to make those sounds.’ She has received a Master of Music Degree in Violin Performance and Pedagogy from the Longy School of Music, performed several times with the famed group The Irish Tenors, and recorded with a Grammy-award winning producer on the released CD, With One Voice. Following her classical training, she formed a hot club duo playing improvised and original jazz manouche tunes and dove into old-time fiddle and improvi­sational music. As a songwriter, she writes in the Americana-folk style and gravitates to writing songs that take a listener on a journey by exploring feelings that are widely universal but uniquely personal.

This will be an exciting night at the Me&Thee.