Spencer LaJoye & Carolann Solebello Co-Bill – Award-Winning Indie Folk Songwriting For Everyone

Godfrey Daniels welcomes a co-bill performance from Spencer LaJoye and Carolann Solebello, two artists whose songwriting brings honesty, character, and connection to the stage, on Sunday, October 12 at 7PM.

Spencer LaJoye, a queer indie folk artist and loop-pedal performer, has built a following through their crystalline vocals, banter-filled shows, and acclaimed songs like the viral “Plowshare Prayer.” Their storytelling balances humor, vulnerability, and hope in ways that resonate deeply with audiences.

Sharing the evening is Carolann Solebello, known both for her years with Red Molly and her own award-winning songwriting. Her warm guitar style and incisive lyrics reflect her roots in folk traditions while remaining firmly grounded in today’s world. Together, they bring an evening of fresh perspectives and finely crafted songs to Bethlehem’s premier Live Music Listening Room—an intimate atmosphere where every note and story feels close at hand.

2025 Folk Alliance International Official Showcase Artist

SPENCER LaJOYE (la-joy)
spencerlajoye.com

Spencer LaJoye makes queer indie folk music for everyone.

With a coy smile, a wink to the back row, and carefree expertise, they spin their crystalline vocals through a loop pedal while strumming the weathered acoustic guitar they acquired for leading worship in high school. “I don’t believe in much anymore,” they announce to teary-eyed audiences, “except a little bit of everything. And you. And me. And that art can change the world simply by making us feel something.”

LaJoye is a coast-to-coast singer/songwriter and vocal loop artist with Midwest roots, a classically-trained violinist with an inner theater kid’s love of group choreography, and a student of Americana music with a theology degree hanging in their studio. They’ve been writing and touring their own autobiographical folk/pop music for over a decade, but their viral 2021 anthem “Plowshare Prayer” secured them a permanent place in hearts and households across the world, as well as a peculiar career as a veracious songsmith with an unshakeable pastoral presence. Charming and banter-heavy, Spencer’s live performances at theaters, listening rooms, church sanctuaries, backyards, folk festivals, spiritual conferences, and queer clubs keep diverse audiences laughing one moment and weeping the next.

Spencer has a lengthy catalog of recorded music documenting their journey from Christianity through disillusionment, the earliest EP of which won the 2014 WYCE Jammie Award for Listener’s Choice in Grand Rapids, MI. However, after coming out as gender nonbinary and finding peace as a post-Christian, Spencer changed their name and released Remember the Oxygen, a 4-song EP featuring the Denver String Machine with arrangements by China Kent. The collection includes two songs that won Spencer a place among the winners of the 2021 Kerrville New Folk Songwriting Competition.

After appearing as an official showcase artist at Folk Alliance International 2023, Spencer released Plant a Piano, a solo EP of vocally theatrical piano ballads about decay, change, and beauty. As LaJoye’s first effort following the highly-anticipated and mammoth studio recording of “Plowshare Prayer,” this stark piano EP was an invitation for eager listeners to get up close and personal with Spencer and the craft of one song by one voice.

In February 2024, Spencer released Shadow Puppets, their first full-length album under their chosen name. Childhood memories, family patterns, shame, and desire form a cast of colorful characters in this 12-track, indie-folk tale of a formerly closeted queer kid from Southwest Michigan. The album was produced by Chris DuPont in Ypsilanti, MI, and is a clever synth-guided and lyric-driven departure from some of LaJoye’s more universally anthemic offerings. In May 2024, Spencer was the winner of the Songwriter Serenade Competition in Schulenburg, TX. Later that year, they returned to the studio with DuPont to produce their Death Drive EP, a vocally raw and lyrically candid 5-song confessional. 

CAROLANN SOLEBELLO
carolannsolebello.com

Carolann Solebello is a performing songwriter born and bred in New York City. Best known to folk audiences as a founding member of Americana trio Red Molly, she now tours as a solo troubadour and with modern folk foursome No Fuss and Feathers. An award-winning songwriter and proud member of AFM Local 1000, Carolann has five solo albums to her credit and is working on a sixth.

In the twilight of the 20th century, Carolann’s urban mind was blown during long-term theatrical acting jobs in the mountains of East Tennessee and on the Kansas prairie, where she encountered Appalachian music – and the bluegrass and country that grew out of that tradition – for the very first time. Tunes and techniques learned from musicians she met in both places forever changed her approach to songwriting and guitar playing, and ultimately re-charted the course of her career from theatre to music. 

Carolann’s smooth, compelling voice and warm acoustic guitar style nod to rural folk traditions while her rhythmic precision and sophisticated phrasing plant her firmly in the urban present. Her lyrics, always sharp and incisive, delve deeper and wider than ever before on her latest release, Shiver (2018), produced by Joe Iadanza. In each of twelve well-crafted songs, the songwriter digs into existential truth, revealing imperfect, uncertain, frightened, nostalgic, vulnerable, and sometimes unreliable narrators, whose stories – by design or by accident – occasionally intersect with her own.   

Before Shiver, Carolann released four solo CDs – Steel and Salt (2013), Threshold (2011), Glass of Desire (2009), and Just Across the Water (2000). In 2016, she collaborated with her No Fuss and Feathers bandmates Jay Mafale, Catherine Miles, and Karyn Oliver to release Traveling Circus. With Red Molly, Carolann released an eponymous EP and three full-length albums: James (2010), Love and Other Tragedies (2008), and the live-before-a-studio-audience Never Been to Vegas (2006). 

Carolann is a proud member of the Jack Hardy Songwriters’ Exchange in New York City, and has garnered a number of songwriting awards.  She placed first at both the 2011 Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival (MD) and the 2015 Musicians on a Mission Songwriting Contest (NJ), third at the 2014 SolarFest Songwriting Competition (VT), and earned both a Silver Award (Folk/Acoustic category) and the Director's Choice Award at the 2016 Mid-Atlantic Song Contest (DC).  Carolann also performed as an Official Showcase Artist at the Folk AIliance International (FAI), Northeast Regional (NERFA), and Southeast Regional (SERFA) conferences in 2012, 2016, and 2019, respectively. 

During her six years with Red Molly, Carolann was privileged to perform at numerous festivals, including:  Merlefest (NC), Kerrville Folk Festival (TX), Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (NY), Woody Guthrie Folk Festival (OK), New Bedford Summerfest (MA), Musikfest (PA), and Philadelphia Folk Festival (PA).  She’s since performed solo at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (NY), Woody Guthrie Folk Festival (OK), Black Potatoe Festival (NJ), Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival (NY), and Muses in the Vineyard (NJ).    

With No Fuss and Feathers, Carolann has appeared at Kerrville Folk Festival (TX), Roots on the River (VT), Muses in the Vineyard (NJ), and New Bedford Folk Festival (MA). 

Carolann lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and son.