Karen Collins & Geoffrey Himes_June 2025

The Roots Cafe Singer-Songwriter Series presents:

KAREN COLLINS & GEOFFREY HIMES 
THE STORIES & SONGS OF IN-LAW COUNTRY

Two of Maryland’s finest songwriters, present an evening of songs from Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs and Guy Clark -- the major figures in Himes’s new book, “In-Law Country.” A book signing will follow the concert.

IN-LAW COUNTRY: This past winter, the Country Music Hall of Fame published Geoffrey Himes’s latest book, In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music. To celebrate the volume, Himes and fellow country-music expert Karen Collins will not only discuss the book’s themes but will also play songs by those artists (plus Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs and Guy Clark) as well as Himes’s and Collins’ own songs in the same vein.

KAREN COLLINS grew up in the mountains of Southwest Virginia in a coal mining community where she spent a lot of time listening to country music on the radio and singing in the local Baptist Church. The echoes of those early country sounds stand out in her singing and her song writing. Her songs are written and delivered in that classic country style on topics ranging from love and heartbreak to being stuck in traffic. Karen is lead singer with the honky-tonk country Backroads Band and the Cajun/Zydeco band, Squeeze Bayou. She also sings in an acoustic country quartet and plays as a duo with her guitar player, Ira Gitlin. She has won multiple Wammies (Washington Area Music Awards) for “Country Vocalist”, “Country Duo/Group” (for the Backroads Band) and “Country Recording”. Karen and the Backroads Band have recorded three CDs of her original music; the most recent release (2023) is "Daddy Can I Use The Car.” https://karenbackroadsband.com

Though he is best known as a music critic for the Washington Post, American Songwriter, Jazz Times, No Depression, Paste and many more, GEOFFREY HIMES is also a longtime singer-songwriter who has co-written songs with Si Kahn, Fred Koller, Walter Egan, Sonia Rutstein, Billy Kemp, Stephen Wade, Jim Patton, Tony Denikos, Alan MacEwan, James Von Lenz, Ed Pettersen, Andrew Grimm, Bob Kannenberg and others. As the founder of the Roots Café, he has served since 2008 as the host of Maryland’s best singer-songwriter series. http://www.facebook.com/RootsCafeBaltimore

Showtime: 3 pm ET/2 pm CT/1 pm MT/12 pm PT/8 pm GMT 
Book signing to follow the concert

In-person seats: $15 / $10 full-time students with valid ID
In -person attendees receive a link to the recording to view for one week. Advance ticket sales end 1 hr prior to show. Remaining tickets may be purchased at the door.

Streaming  Cost is $12
The link will be revealed to live stream participants 15 minutes before the show
and will remain active thru June 29

Donations welcome