‘Where the audience becomes the choir’: A secular ‘church’ for music lovers to debuts at the Iron Horse

The newest Sunday morning service in Northampton won’t require a hymnal or a sermon. Instead, Happy Valley Bluegrass Church is betting on the power of a communal singalong. Debuting Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. at the Iron Horse, the series invites residents to “become the choir,” while lyrics are projected on a screen as the band plays music.

The setlist includes songs by Hank Williams, Gillian Welch, Woody Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, and Stephen Foster, as well as songs by The Beatles, Ray Charles and more. No, it’s not all bluegrass music, but that’s not the point: groups like the latter “have some really good, fun songs to sing along with and everybody knows them,” said creator Jim Henry, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist in the Deep River Ramblers.

“We’re not really trying to push bluegrass,” Henry said. “It’s more about people who like to sing, and the idea is that, really, the audience is going to do the singing. We’ll help them, we’ll lead them, but it’s all about the singing.”

Henry got the idea from the syndicated radio show eTown, which broadcasts out of Boulder, Colorado. There, the “Hippy Bluegrass Church,” led by musician Nick Forster of the bluegrass band Hot Rize, operates similarly, with music, poetry, and storytelling. It has four tenets: forgiveness, compassion, integrity and humor. Forster also happens to be an ordained minister.

In 2019, Forster told the Boulder Daily Camera, “There’s no obvious precedent for something like this, but it’s also ancient. People have always sought out community and joined in song.”

“It’s a chance to put down the phone and get away from the news feed. There’s value just in that,” he told the paper. “When you show up at Hippy Bluegrass Church, it’s a bit of a declaration of ‘This is who I am.’ You’ll make friends.”

One of Henry’s friends attended that bluegrass church, and suggested starting a local version. Henry liked the concept, but that project was abandoned when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

However, “A few months ago,” Henry said, “I went back to him and said, ‘Let’s see if we can get this off the ground.’”

Besides music, every “church service” will feature a poet sharing selected works and a spotlight on a local nonprofit. Coffee will also be provided. In February, the featured poet will be Jane McPhetres Johnson of Amherst, and the featured nonprofit will be Grow Food Northampton.

Johnson said in an email that what drew her to participate in Bluegrass Church was “an invitation and a venue I can’t imagine turning down — and can’t imagine many poets who would!”

Among the original poems Johnson will be reading are “Growing Up Beside the Continental Divide,” an analogy for cultural divides in America; and “Dine-a-Mite Cafe,” which is about a gay couple run out of their small Wyoming town in the 1970s.

Johnson selected her poems in part because Bluegrass Church is about community, and people who want to find it — while sharing the joys of music — are exactly the kind of people Henry wants to see at the “services.”

“They should come if they like to sing, and that’s the bottom line,” he said. “Singing with people — it’s a powerful experience and, particularly at this point in our history, doing things together and being a community is very important.”

Tickets are $18 via ironhorse.org. The next Happy Valley Bluegrass Church events will be at 11 a.m. on Sunday, March 15 and Sunday, April 12.