Frogwater / Via Facebook
For Frogwater, their Wednesday, June 26, Summerfest show at Klement's Sausage and Beer Garden was like a family reunion.
At least, it would be easy to get that impression from Susan Nicholson of the husband-and-wife acoustic music duo, what with the way she thanked “everyone from everywhere” for showing up. She referred to several audience members by their first names throughout their set. And though some of the couple’s kin may have been filling seats, the familiarity she displayed with the crowd comes from years of steady local gigging. Frogwater often plays in public places with no cover charge, such as the Fox Point farmers market they were scheduled to play the next morning.
Susan may have been engagingly chatty, but she and husband Jack did play plenty of music, too. Even then, she was likely to have an anecdote to accompany their selections. She spoke of how mistaken she was to not appreciate good country music in her youth after playing Grandpa Jones’ “Eight More Miles to Louisville.”
And if she wasn't chronicling her life and family, she acted as a booster for the arts communities in the cities Frogwater play. Of Milwaukee, she enthused how much there is to do, especially in theater. Frogwater played an instrumental written for First Stage Theater’s production of Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars. It was one of the many numbers for which Susan displayed her virtuoso fiddle playing steeped in Celtic, Cajun, French-Canadian and Appalachian traditions.
But, as she emphasized early on in their set, her and Jack’s curation of those and other traditional music wasn’t mere mimicry. They extended them with their own compositions.
Read more of our Summerfest coverage, including editor picks, concert previews, daily promotions and opinions here.
