Abbie Gardner brings her dobro to Peninsula's G.A.R. Hall

The former Red Molly singer plays the Voices in the Valley series Saturday, Nov. 7 — one voice and one resonator guitar in a 175-year-old hall.

The G.A.R. Hall on Peninsula's Main Street has been a schoolhouse and a Civil War veterans' post, and on Saturday night it will hold about as much as a solo musician could ask for: a quiet room, a hundred-odd people, and a dobro. Abbie Gardner plays the hall's Voices in the Valley series on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. (tickets).

Gardner is a resonator-guitar player and singer who calls her act, simply, DobroSinger. That is also the title of her most recent album, released May 13, 2022: just her voice and her dobro, recorded at home without a band. It reached No. 11 on the Billboard blues chart. It is a stripped-down record by design, and a room like this one is where that kind of record makes the most sense live.

Before going solo, Gardner spent more than ten years as one-third of the folk trio Red Molly, returning to solo touring in 2016. Her previous solo album, *Wishes on a Neon Sign* (2018), went the other way, with full-band production and a song co-written with Chris Stapleton, per a Rambles review. We did not find a new record announced since *DobroSinger*, so expect songs from both albums and whatever she has been working out on the road.

A quiet room, a hundred-odd people, and a dobro.

The setting matters as much as the bill. The hall was built in 1851 as one of Peninsula's original schoolhouses and was remodeled in 1888 into a meeting place for Civil War veterans, Grand Army of the Republic Post No. 272, named for Peninsula native George L. Waterman, according to the Peninsula Foundation and the village's historic walking tour. Today the foundation runs it, and its Voices in the Valley program brings traditional roots music, from local players and national touring acts, into what it calls the intimate setting of a grand old hall. Our records put the room at 140. Ticket money also helps: the foundation is raising funds to rehabilitate the building.

Gardner is not a Northeast Ohio native; her biography places her as a New York City native. That makes Saturday less a homecoming than a visit, and a rare one: in our records this is her only listed Akron–Canton date. For people in the Cuyahoga Valley, that is the argument for going. A touring player of this caliber, in a room this small, is not something that comes around often.

The hall is at 1785 Main St. in Peninsula. Seats are limited, so buy ahead on the series' Eventbrite page rather than counting on the door.

Saturday night in the valley: an old building, a resonator guitar, and a singer who knows how to fill a quiet room.

Sources: Abbie Gardner at G.A.R. Hall – Eventbrite (eventbrite.com); The Peninsula Foundation – Voices in the Valley at the GAR Hall (Eventbrite organizer) (eventbrite.co); Voices in the Valley – Peninsula Foundation (peninsulahistory.org); Peninsula Foundation (peninsulahistory.org); Peninsula Ohio Walking Tour – Clio (theclio.com); Abbie Gardner – DobroSinger – Sing Out! (singout.org); Abbie Gardner – Passim (passim.org); Rambles: Abbie Gardner, Wishes on a Neon Sign (rambles.net)