Martha Redbone Brings Congregational Soul to Miner Auditorium
The Afro-Indigenous singer and composer combines Harlan County roots with Brooklyn grit, inviting San Francisco to sing, testify, and heal together on Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Martha Redbone is headed to SFJAZZ with a sextet and a goal: to turn a Sunday night into a shared experience of memory, rhythm, and relief—part gathering, part homecoming, and completely alive.
“I’ve always called it soul music—like a gumbo,” she says, letting the ingredients unfurl: “It embodies all American roots music… blues and jazz and traditional Southeastern music from my ancestral roots.” Then she smiles at the bigger picture. “I really feel like I am the all-American girl… I’m Indigenous to the Southeastern states—Cherokee, Choctaw, and others—and African American, with English and Irish roots as well. When you have a fifth great-grandfather who fought in the War of 1812, we go way back.”
Those roots are real. “When I was a kid in Harlan County—that’s coal country—my grandpa was a coal miner. We heard, played, and sang those mountain songs. We did the square dancing,” she recalls. Then came Brooklyn in her teens: “The beginning of hip-hop and rap… a culture shock to me, being from a tiny coal mining town. But the rhythms were undeniable, and the storytelling in those raps—writing about the world around you—that’s what every songwriter does.” Her music is where the hills meet the streets, where square-dance steps find a backbeat.
Redbone’s story also includes celebrated projects that highlight her versatility and broad reach. Her album The Garden of Love: Songs of William Blake—produced by John McEuen, founder of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band—was praised as “a brilliant collision of cultures” by The New Yorker. Alongside her longtime collaborator and husband, Aaron Whitby, she composed, arranged, and orchestrated the original score for the 2022 Broadway revival of For colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, earning seven Tony nominations for the production and winning Drama Desk and Audelco awards for their music during its Off-Broadway run. She is a 2021 United States Artists Fellow and an educator who treats songs as living history.
If the lineage is the map, the destination is communion. “We need music and we need storytelling,” Redbone insists. “Elders’ stories are significant… behind all the food we’re eating, there are stories in those recipes. We’ve got to listen to who we all are.”
Her compass points to examples: “Aretha Franklin is number one for me, and a close 1.1 is Ms. Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers. During the civil rights era, the songs they sang helped us through difficult times. Now’s the time you sing like the Staples—songs of peace, people getting together, resilience, and joy.” She extends the circle: “Pete Seeger, too—who I worked with before he passed. It’s about bringing everyone together in the name of love and peace.” During the pandemic, she adds, “we were healing the healers,” with music in hospital radios and break rooms. “Nothing is a greater healer than music.”
That ethic drives her Blake album. “The Garden of Love” was a great track from *Songs of William Blake*. John McEuen played over nine instruments,” she says. “I wanted the sound of Appalachia, the sound of Black Mountain—not only a sound of the past, but how it is today.” The tribute was personal and corrective: “Very seldom are the Black coal miners—like my grandfather and uncles—mentioned. There was an integrated union that people rarely discuss. I wanted to honor Black Mountain and Appalachia, which included everybody—because that’s my bloodline.”
Her roots-and-soul palette can also take on a playful tone. “*Stick With Me*—from Skintalk—was a sassy love song with an open mind at the core,” Redbone says. “It could be a song for a broader community. The chorus—with Stephanie McKay, Raul Midón, and me—was explosive and free-spirited. It harks back to Stevie with Minnie Riperton—that kind of vibe.”
“We make congregational music—teaching a little call-and-response from my roots in the Southeast. We don’t want people to sit and be completely silent”
Ask what to expect at SFJAZZ, and Redbone lights up. “I have one of the most incredible bands a girl could wish for,” she says of her sextet led by Whitby on keys, with guitars, bass, and drums anchoring the Chicago-forged backbeat. “They’re badasses,” she laughs, “and we make congregational music. We teach a little call-and-response with Southeastern traditional singing from my background, and we put all of that into the music.” The aim is participatory: “We don’t want people to sit and be completely silent. We want them to have a good time.” Then she lays out the arc: “Take you to the mountaintop and bring you back home. All warm and fuzzy.”
That intimacy is intentional. “I’ve been an independent artist throughout my career because I wanted to champion the causes I believe in,” she explains. “I include a lot of education… cultural preservation. Without that big machine, it’s important to share the stories behind who I am and why someone has taken a chance to come see our show.” She is honest about scale—“I’m not a Lady Gaga or a Beyoncé”—but not about impact: “It’s more intimate, more grassroots; maybe a kind of female Bill Withers. I’m honored to share the stories that inspire the music.”
And yes, it’s a Sunday. “So you know it’s gonna be church,” Redbone jokes. “We’re bringing the revival vibe.”
Martha Redbone: Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration - Ticket Info
When: Sunday, October 12, 2025 — 7:00 PM
Where: Miner Auditorium, SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco
Tickets: https://www.sfjazz.org/tickets/productions/25-26/martha-redbone/
Artist: https://martharedbone.com/
