She was always told she sounded like Joni Mitchell. So she started performing her songs

Throughout her long career as a performer and music teacher, whenever Dawna Hammers covered one of those Joni Mitchell songs she loved, listeners would remark about how uncannily her voice sounded like the music icon’s.  About 10 years ago, Hammers decided to explore that fortuitous resemblance a bit more, crafting a show entirely devoted to her interpretations of Mitchell’s songbook.

“Back to the Garden: An Evening of Joni Mitchell Music” comes to the Spire Center in Plymouth on Saturday night. The Spire Center is located at 25½ Court St. in downtown Plymouth, and the show begins at 8 p.m., with tickets priced at $27 and $30. Check spirecenter.org, or call 508-746-4488 for more information.

Although she lives in Vermont now, Hammers is well known all over the South Shore, beginning with the fact she’s a proud graduate of the old Weymouth South High School.  After a year at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Hammers left to become the vocalist and keyboardist in the rock band Polaris. But as Polaris reached the end of its run, she transitioned into teaching, most notably teaching music at the Old Colony Montessori School in Hingham from 1987-2000, and at the Thacher Montessori School in Milton from 1998-2001.

Hammers always loved studying the impact of spirituality in music, and spent time studying Cherokee and Buddhist traditions with Dhyani Ywahoo, and Nigerian rhythms with famed percussionist Babatunde Olatunji, who worked with Santana and the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart.  In fact, Olatunji was in Boston where his friend Hammers was taking him to a doctor’s appointment on Sept. 11, 2001, and coincidentally later that week they recorded a single of the Nigerian rhythm master’s “One Spirit,” a song celebrating the things that unite all humanity.

Sept. 11 forced her to re-evaluate

Sept. 11 also prompted Hammers to re-evaluate her life and led to relocating to Vermont. She bought and lived in a log cabin without utilities for two years in Stockbridge. Eventually she moved into Burlington, attracted in part by its thriving music community. She currently teaches music at three schools in Vermont, and also works with The World Unity Choir, a Burlington group that seeks to be an ‘inter-generational, international group’ of singers.  Along the way, Hammers has released six albums and three cassettes, including both original and cover material.

“The Burlington music scene is very lively, lots of good clubs, good bands, and a jazzfest where there’s actually music in the streets,” Hammers noted when we connected by phone. “My two years in the log cabin were challenging, with no heat or hot water, and snow sometimes up to the windows. But I was looking for a healthier place after 9/11, and it was just time for a change. Vermont is beautiful and I love it, except for no ocean. Growing up on the South Shore, I really do miss the ocean but I come back to the Cape a lot in the summer.”

Hammers spends much of her time teaching younger kids and encouraging them to write their own songs. That has cut into her own songwriting a bit, but she has been releasing videos to Youtube of her own music at a steady pace.

“I have piles of unfinished songs,” Hammers said with a chuckle. “Teaching songwriting to young kids doesn’t give me as much time as I would want for my own work. I do have a lot of songs I want to record. I have been using IMovie to make videos, and I always liked combining lyrics with visuals. On my next record I want to do more acoustic guitar. I’m not the best guitarist, and piano is my first instrument, but it is a different vibe that fits the folk and country side of me.”

A longtime comparison with Mitchell

The Joni Mitchell comparison is something Hammers has heard for years.

“My first musical touchstone was The Beatles, but then of course I was drawn to the Joni Mitchell stuff too,” Hammers related. “People would always say ‘You sound just like her ... or she sounds like you.’ Joni has had a great resurgence in recent years, and it’s really remarkable. She had to learn to sing again, how to walk again, after her health issues. But her early voice is just so beautiful, it’s easy to see how so many people loved her music. Thankfully, I’m still able to hit all those high notes.”

The Joni Mitchell connection started early and really gained momentum about a decade ago.

“I had always enjoyed using Joni’s music in my teaching,” said Hammers. “Little kids loved singing ‘(The) Circle Game,’ or ‘They paved paradise and put up a parking lot (“Big Yellow Taxi”), and her music was a constant. I’d play some of her songs when I performed out in local pubs, when I was on the South Shore, and one of my most regular gigs was at Charley’s Eating and Drinking Saloon at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree. It continued up here in Vermont, and then about 10 years ago, during the Jazzfest, the Radio Beam club let me do a Joni tribute.”

“I started doing annual Joni shows in 2020 at the Cochituate Center for the Arts, and that first year was the pandemic so we had to do it virtually,” Hammers continued. “The next year we were able to do it with an audience, outdoors, and it sold out. In 2022 and ’23, we did it on a stage in the woods down there, under the stars with a full band. I also do a solo Joni show at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, and I can do almost all of her songs solo, by transposing some of her guitar parts to piano. But the whole Joni show concept keeps growing and evolving, and I’m constantly adding songs.”

A gift gives performances a new element

“Not long ago, I was doing a show at the Unitarian church I attend, and an elderly couple gave me a dulcimer that someone in their family had left them,” Hammers added. “That gave me a whole new element, along with the piano and guitar, to perform her songs, because she utilized dulcimer in a lot of songs during different periods.”

Hammers will be accompanied at the Spire Center show by Michael Dunford on drums, Rich Hill on bass, Pat Ryan on guitar, and NRBQ alumnus Klem Klimek on saxophone, and there will be a special guest appearance by Manomet’s own blues star, Tall Richard on harmonica.

“We’ll do a bit of everything,” Hammers noted. “I’ll start solo, with the dulcimer, because that is really hard to tune. Then I’ll move on to piano and then we’ll bring Klem out. Gradually we’ll keep building the band up until we get to the full band. We’ll play everything from her earliest, stripped down numbers to the later period, jazzier ones like “Coyote.” You find that musicians love to play her later, cool jazz songs, from her long association with (jazz-fusion star bassist) Jaco Pastorius. What we try and show is that Joni Mitchell is a fantastic musician, along with being the brilliant lyricist and vocalist we all know.” 

Compelling songwriters take over Narrows Center

Last Tuesday night the Narrows Center in Fall River played host to two of the most compelling songwriters in the Americana genre, as Hayes Carll and Brandy Clark, accompanied by just their two acoustic guitars, delighted a sellout crowd for two hours. The duo’s tour might seem unlikely, as Clark’s music might be termed somewhat alt-country but rooted in Nashville traditions, while Carll is out of the rich history of iconoclastic Texas songwriters, but in practice it meshed perfectly. The duo also devoted some thought to their setlist, as a final tally would reveal their 26-song set included a dozen songs from each, one they’d penned together, and a rousing final encore of Lefty Frizzell’s “That’s the Way Love Goes.”

The night was structured so that the two started off together, and then Carll stepped away while Clark did a six-song solo mini-set. Later on, she’d step off while Carll did his own solo turn, and then they reunited for the marvelously invigorating homestretch. The pair probably had the crowd of almost 500 fans transfixed right away, as they opened with Clark’s plaintive “Who You Thought I Was,” followed by Carll’s slightly tongue-in-cheek-but-warmly affecting “You Get It All.” Clark’s sharp eye for detail was evident on her “Big Day in a Small Town,” and “Three Kids No Husband,” while Carll’s blend of wit and warmth could be seen in his “Grateful for Christmas” and “Not the Love We Need.” There was a big crowd reaction to Clark’s hit “Pawn Shop,” but that tune’s tale of lost-and-redefined dreams was leavened by Carll’s following it with his “(This Is Why We Can’t Have) Nice Things,” which he had explained was inspired by misadventures with his fast-growing rescue dog.

Clark’s solo turn was highlighted by her touching “She Smoked in the House,” and the finger-picked majesty of “Dear Insecurity.” Carll didn’t do some of his old boozy raveups, but had a couple new tunes about smoking pot, including the woozy anthem “Nobody Dies from Pot.” Clark responded with her own “Get High,” which takes the smoking of grass into more desperate-housewife territory. Carll’s rowdy roadhouse past was recalled for “I Got A Gig,” and his surreal “KMAG YOYO,” while Clark touched hearts with her “(A Really Good Time to) Hold My Hand.” Carll’s “Beaumont” might have best encapsulated the mix of humor and heart the night included, but that final romp through Frizzell’s classic clinched it.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Former Weymouth woman Dawna Hammers to perform music of Joni Mitchell