Musical Couple Plans Homecoming Concert At 49 West

Severna Park natives and current Austin, Texas, residents Jim Patton and Sherry Brokus just released a new album and will return home for a concert at 49 West in Annapolis on November 29 from 8:00pm-10:00pm.

The event will serve as a CD release party and birthday show for Patton. The duo will also celebrate 30 years since moving from Severna Park to Austin.

Their third album since the COVID-19 pandemic, “Harbortowne” represents the folk side of the duo's folk-rock, whereas 2023's “Big Red Gibson” was a return to the rock side of the equation.

“The working title for the album was ‘Pattonville,’ the result of a joke our friend and fellow musician Jeff Talmadge made,” Patton explained. “The characters in these songs are all derived from a world I've created in song. I originally wanted the album to be like Sherwood Anderson's ‘Winesburg Ohio,’ or Edgar Lee Masters' ‘Spoon River Anthology’ — a series of seemingly disconnected stories about a town where I resided with characters that could come and go from song to song. This isn't exactly that, though you can still see some of the remnants of that earlier idea.”

“Harbortowne” marks a return of another sort — that is, to their sound as a folk duo.

“Our first acoustic album was called ‘Plans Gang Aft Agley,’ and that's still what I'm writing about, plans going wrong,” Patton said. “Although I think this album takes a lighter approach to that than I usually do.”

Patton and Brokus take sketches of everyday life and transform them into songs that ring and resonate in ways that are both mindful and memorable.

Tickets to the November show are $15. For more information, visit www.49westcoffeehouse.com.