SAXTONS RIVER — The folk duo Neptune's Car, featuring Holly Hanson and Steve Hayes, will bring their “watertight harmonies, tasty guitar and solid songs” to Main Street Arts for a performance Saturday, Aug. 27, at 7:30 p.m., according to a news release.
The duo's down-to-earth music has earned the praise of the Great American Song Contest, which called their “Fly Fishing the Big Hole” “...vivid, focused and engaging.”
The name Neptune's Car comes from the true story of a clipper ship captained by Mary Patten, who in 1857, despite being pregnant, caring for her sick husband, and fighting off mutiny from the first mate, successfully navigated the ship Neptune's Car around Cape Horn to San Francisco.
Hayes is an award-winning guitar player and a multi-instrumentalist. From his first gig at age 13, to his 10-year association with Hanson, he has played all kinds of music, including rock, country, jazz, funk, blues, and folk.
Hanson played music in school and then took a 20-year hiatus to raise her children. She started writing music for their lessons, resulting in “In the Blue Room” (Letters from the Road), that grew out of a lesson about the constellations. After a successful open mic appearance, she jumped back into performing.
Together, the duo has released three albums and is working on a fourth. They have played intimate house concerts and on the main stage at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and have shared the stage with Bill Staines, Anne Hills, Archie Fisher, and many others. Their songs have charted on the Folk-DJ list, with their CD The 45th Parallel number 20 on the CD chart in 2015. Public radio's popular CarTalk has featured their songs three times.