Amy Speace

About this event

Heralded by Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Billboard Magazine and NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” Amy Speace was discovered in 2005 by Judy Collins, who signed her to her record label and released her debut “Songs For Bright Street” on her own Wildflower Records. Judy championed Amy early in her career, taking her on the road with her and recording her song, “The Weight of the World,” calling it one of the best folk songs she’d heard in decades. Amy had been living and playing the NYC downtown coffeehouse scene, having moved to NYC after Amherst College to study classical acting. In the mid-1990’s, she co-founded Five Points Theater Company, which produced works of unknown plays by voices out of the demographic of the lower east side, introducing work by Hispanic and African American authors, as well as new versions of Shakespeare’s plays recasting them in the voices of the immigrant experience. A classically-trained singer (she almost went to Eastman Conservatory, but wanted to be a writer as well as a singer, and didn’t want to commit to opera at the time) and a long time musician and poet, she picked up a used guitar in a pawn shop on St. Mark’s Place and learned a few chords from the “boyfriend in a band.” After writing only a few songs, she was invited to play a gig at The Bitter End by Kenny Gorka who’d heard her and compared her to Joan Baez. In 2009, Amy relocated to Nashville after signing a record and management deal with Thirty Tigers and has since, released 8 critically-acclaimed records, most in collaboration with Grammy- nominated producer/songwriter Neilson Hubbard. “The Blue Rock Session,” her 10 th solo album, was released in December 2025 and reached #1 immediately on the Folk Radio Charts, as did her previous three albums. She’s the 2020 winner of the AMA UK’s International Song of the Year for her song, “Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne.” She has been featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and in a segment for “Marketplace.” Craig Havighurst of…