Grammy Award winner Amy Helm will be taking the Earlville Opera House main stage at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 18. (Submitted photo)

EARLVILLE — Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Amy Helm will play on the historic Earlville Opera House Main Stage on Friday, November 18, at 7 p.m.

Her third album, What the Flood Leaves Behind, is her most autobiographical yet, both in content and creation, representing a gathering of ideas and experiences, friends and collaborators. Yet, the album also marks a landing - a pause for the traveling musician and mother of two young boys who was seeking clarity in her calling and career.

After making multiple albums and performing in far-flung places, Helm returned home to Woodstock’s Levon Helm Studios just before the pandemic to record What the Flood Leaves Behind and reclaim a sense of self.

“Going back to the place where I learned so much about how to express music, how to hold myself in music, how to listen to music,” she begins. “It was humbling in a funny way. I could see clearly where I came from and where I am now in my life. I was singing from a different place now and for a different reason.”

An impressive group of friends and collaborators joins Helm on What the Flood Leaves Behind. With musical polyglot Josh Kaufman (whose credits range from Taylor Swift’s Folklore to the Grammy-nominated Bonny Light Horseman) producing and contributing on piano, guitar, and mandolin, the record brings Helm’s powerful, emotive vocals to the forefront.

“We tried to make it about her voice and about the musicians responding to her, and not the other way around,” explained Kaufman. “I wanted her to feel like she had that freedom to be herself on the recordings and she just filled up the whole room. Her singing was coming from this deeply-rooted place of family and music and wanting to convey a beauty.”

In fact, Helm considers Levon Helm Studios itself to be “the tuning fork” for the record — an ethereal, elemental component that helped her and musicians Phil Cook (keys, harmonica), Michael Libramento (bass, organ, percussion), Tony Mason (drums), Daniel Littleton (guitar), Stuart Bogie (saxophone), Jordan McLean (trumpet), and her son Lee Collins (congas) summon courage and comfort.

From there, the vivid, narrative verses swell, building up to a chorus with deep resonance for Helm. She repeats back the lyrics: What the flood leaves behind is what we've got to make.

“I like that reckoning,” she said. “Of the good and the bad and everything in between.” Helm sings stories of life’s relentlessness.

Tickets are $45 general admission, $40 for members (become a member!), $10 for youth (17 and under), with college students half off general admission. Tickets are available at EarlvilleOperaHouse.com or by calling 315-691-3550.

Thank you to our sponsors: Community Foundation for South Central New York; Live Music Society; NBT Bank; Preferred Mutual Insurance Company; and Bruce Ward, Architect. Special thanks to our hospitality sponsor Poolville Country Store B&B.

Earlville Opera House is located at 18 East Main Street in the charming Village of Earlville, NY and is handicap accessible. Vaccine proof no longer necessary, masks mandatory due to no ventilation in the 1892 historic theater. Please check our website for the latest COVID protocols, updates, and for further information on our programs and services, and like us on Facebook!

Events are made possible, in part, with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor of New York and the New York State Legislature, and through the generosity of EOH members.

-Information provided by EOH