May Erlewine’s songs speak of love, loss, and life’s dilemmas. Some have supported social causes, expressed the pain of women’s history, and voiced political worries about “being lost in the land of the free.”
But the Michigan-based folk singer-activist believes her music — influenced by pop, rock, blues, and soul — can inspire positive change simply by bringing people together. Her May 17 concert is the musical kickoff to Twenty Summers’ 11th season at Provincetown’s Hawthorne Barn.
“Music has the power to connect people who believe different things,” says Erlewine, 41. “I’ve tried to use that power for good, to remind people to be in their hearts.” Sometimes a song’s political message can move people to action, she says.
Alice Gong, Twenty Summers’ program director, says she wanted to bring Erlewine to Provincetown because her soulful music feels like a warm embrace: “I knew that’s how we wanted to welcome everyone back to the Hawthorne Barn.” Gong thinks Erlewine’s songs that call for environmental and social activism are a perfect match with the mission of Twenty Summers.
Erlewine’s top cause this year is Gaza relief efforts through the United Nations World Food Programme. She collaborates with a Michigan coffee company called Higher Grounds (which sells a blend, Shine On, named for one of her songs), and she’s donating 100 percent of her coffee profits to the humanitarian organization. She’s doing the same with proceeds from the Tender Badass bracelets she sells at her concerts. They’re beaded by a small army of volunteer women, she says.
Growing up in a musical family — her father was a member of Michigan blues-rock band the Prime Movers — Erlewine began writing songs at an early age and started performing in her teens while hitchhiking across the country. She has recorded multiple albums, sometimes as Daisy May, since the early 2000s, when she became part of Michigan’s Earthwork Collective of artists. Her music has won praise from reviewers and fans for being heartfelt, uplifting, poignant, and thoughtful.
Many of the songs are personal, speaking to relationships, feelings, and the way love moves through human lives. The title and tone of her 2022 album Tiny Beautiful Things were inspired by Cheryl Strayed’s book of essays on love and life. But Erlewine has long wanted to use her voice for social and environmental causes. In 2007, she wrote and recorded “A Letter from Downstream” about sulfide mining in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
She continued to speak out in the face of political pushback and the cancellation of some of her gigs after her 2019 album Second Sight addressed an America in peril. Her song “That’s My Home” lamented the harm she saw resulting from Donald Trump’s presidency.
“We have a culture that is very aggressive, and there needs to be room for the quiet, gentler, more holistic voices,” which are often women’s, says Erlewine.
A key reason for Erlewine’s desire to make a difference is her 10-year-old daughter, who’s already showing her own musical talent, loves Taylor Swift, and is “kind of over the fact” that her mother is a musician.
“As a parent, you have this amazing opportunity to try to create some change in what you’re going to pass down to your children,” Erlewine says. “If what I’m saying aligns with my life, my community, my being a mother, and my work, I know I’m doing what I need to do.”
In gigs around the country, and on her recent first short European tour, Erlewine continues to collaborate with other musicians. But it will be the solo work and storytelling she started her career with — and her chops on the piano and acoustic and electric guitar — that she’ll bring to her first-ever Cape Cod show.
“Solo shows are very personal, very intimate,” she says. “It’s just you and the audience. There’s no hiding and no embellishment. I love venues that create a space where music and the audience have less separation, and it’s more of a mutual experience.”
Erlewine expects to play selections from her 2023 album The Real Thing, which she describes as full of “tender, honest, vulnerable songs,” as well as older songs. But she’s also been writing new songs for a planned fall album release, and she’ll likely try those out in Provincetown, too.
Erlewine is unsure how she’ll spend her nonperforming time here but is eager to explore the nature she loves and finds peace in.
“I was obsessed with sea life when I was a kid,” she says. “I think because I learned so much about what’s in there, I’m very respectful of getting in the ocean.”
Personal and Political
The event: May Erlewine in concert
The time: Friday, May 17, 7 p.m.
The place: Hawthorne Barn, 29 Miller Hill Road, Provincetown
The cost: $35 at 20summers.org
