The Words and Music Songwriter Showcase is an intimate acoustic concert series hosted by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, featuring a stellar lineup of regional and touring artists.

Nov. 2, 2023: Austin MacRae and Muhammad Seven

Seneca Street Brew Pub, 315 E. Seneca Street, Manlius, NY
7 pm. Suggested donation $15.

Austin MacRae

With shimmering lyrics, deft finger picking, and soaring melodies, Austin MacRae is a troubadour whose songwriting is characterized by poetic lyrics and poignant stories from rural upstate New York. He has performed at venues such as Club Passim, Kerrville Folk Festival (New Folk Finalist), Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (Emerging Artist), Turtle Hill Folk Festival (New Voices Showcase), Ithaca Festival, Oswego Music Hall, Homer Center for the Arts, Bill Knowlton's Bluegrass Ramble Picnic and many other venues. He is a two-time Sammy award winner for Best Folk Recording and for Best Americana. 

“An extraordinarily talented songwriter.”

—Kelly Walker, Sundilla Radio Hour

Muhammad Seven

Muhammad Seven is a blue-collar Americana singer-songwriter hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, and currently living in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The son of an Iranian immigrant father and French-Canadian mother, he and his music were born in the fallout of the ’79 Islamic Revolution and the Reagan/Bush era, and draw influences from ’60s protest music, ’70s rock and roll, ’80s pop, ’90s hip hop, and 20th century folk.

“Resplendently crafted and elegantly simple…undertones of struggle and adversity are buoyed by notions of hope.”

—Music Connection

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Series host Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers is a grand prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, the founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine, and author of The Complete Singer-Songwriter and other books and videos for musicians.

“JPR may be the quintessential acoustic singer-songwriter, but he colors with a full palette of folk, rock, blues, and soul.”

—NYS Music

The venue

Seneca Street Brew Pub, in the village of Manlius, New York, specializes in New York craft beers and local ingredients. The Words and Music shows are in the pub’s events room (upstairs next to the retail shop), an elegant and quiet space that's ideal for an intimate acoustic concert.

Parking is available on Seneca Street and in a small lot behind the building. The pub offers a menu of light foods. You are also welcome to bring take-out into the concert room (pizza, Chinese, and more is available very close by).