Season 2, Show 8, on May 16, 2026
Text by Sylvia Mallory; photo by B. Jacobsen
May 16 brought the Boston-based string trio Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light to New Song. Known for their inventive bluegrass/folk fusion, the multi-award-winning combo performed two sets featuring Rachel Sumner on guitar, Kat Wallace on fiddle, and Mike Siegel on upright bass.
Their playlist tastefully interspersed reinvented traditional folk tunes and covers with original songs. The band’s musicianship and onstage chemistry were superb, as were their vocals, with Wallace and Siegel rounding out Sumner’s expressive, edgy singing with mellow harmonies.
Sumner warmed up the crowd by noting that although she had never before been to Bedford, she was impressed that it’s the home of the country’s oldest flag. “We’re all from Bedford tonight,” she enthused to the audience’s delight. The band then segued to their first selection, Lead Belly’s blues/folk standard “When I Was a Cowboy.”
Highlights of the evening included Sumner’s “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison),” a biting ballad commemorating 20th-century female factory workers who were poisoned by exposure to radiation on the job. The lyrics told the sad tale of authorities who “kept the public from the truth” as the women’s “sore mouths began to bleed” and the disease “settled in their bones.” A similar theme of worker exploitation came with the yet unreleased “Cowboys’ Turtle Association,” a Sumner tune named for the first professional rodeo riders’ union. Formed in 1936 by striking cowboys at the Boston Garden, the union members had adopted the turtle theme because they had been slow to organize—until they finally “stuck their necks out” and began conspiring against the powers-that-be.
Other high points included two currently unreleased songs—the haunting “Book of Judith,” featuring a soaring fiddle solo by Wallace, and “Yodelay,” with its sweet harmonies (and yes, yodeling). The toe-tapper classic “I’ve Been Everywhere” (written by Geoff Mack and popularized by Johnny Cash), with its rapid-fire litany of geographic names, added a light note as Sumner drolly invited the audience to “sing along if you know the words!”
The playlist turned personal as the combo presented the Sumner original “Head East,” an autobiographical plea to her younger brother to leave their small California hometown because “there ain’t nothing better than the East” for finding good fortune. “Anything Worth Doing” assessed a failed love affair, arguing that the pain of breaking up did not diminish the value of the love that had been shared. A standing ovation brought the trio back to the stage to deliver a beautiful a capella piece about the loss of a pet dog—a peaceful ending to a powerfully rousing performance.