September 3: Open Stage
All acoustic performers invited. Fifteen acts are selected randomly from those who sign up to perform 8 minutes (or 2 songs) each. The most talented and popular Open Stage performers are offered their own evenings at the Ark. $3 (members & students, $2). 7:30-10 p.m.

September 4: Slaid Cleaves
Highly regarded New Hampshire-bred, Austin-based country-rock singer-songwriter known for his soulful, yearning vocals and his songs about the often tragic struggles of common people. $15.

September 5: The Ragbirds
Inventive local country-rock band, fronted by singer-songwriter Erin Zindle, whose music mixes in elements of world music, groove rock, and edgy pop, using a diverse mix of instruments, including violin, mandolin, banjo, accordion, acoustic guitar, and percussion elements from around the world, as well as the old-fashioned drumkit. $10.

September 6: Janis Ian.
Known for her affecting blend of rapt introspection and social consciousness, this veteran folk-pop singer-songwriter scored her biggest hits with "Society`s Child" (1967) and "At Seventeen" (1975). Since then she's written songs that have been recorded by everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Kathy Mattea, and the songs on her acclaimed 2006 CD Folk Is the New Black range from protest songs and self-critiques to the breakup song "All Those Promises." $23.

September 7: Orpheum Bell
Orpheum Bell is a local self-styled acoustic "country and eastern" quintet that features a richly musical, often ravishing blend of country-folk rhythms with Gypsy and other Eastern European melodies, drawing on a diverse range of influences from the Carter Family, Grandpa Jones, and Gillian Welch to Kurt Weill, Tom Waits, and the Pogues. Its core sound blends vocals, accordion, guitar, and double bass, with additional texture and luster from violins, clarinet, percussion, and autoharp. $13.50.

September 8: Global Jazz Trio
Upbeat, inspirational contemporary jazz by a trio of local jazz veterans: saxophonist Mark Hershberger, percussionist Muruga Booker, and bassist Richard Smith. The Metro Times calls their music "high-energy contemporary funk and traditional jazz with a global interpretation." $12.50.

September 9: Sam Phillips
Critically acclaimed pop-folk singer-songwriter with a powerful, expressive voice whose songs blend psychologically penetrating lyrics with seductive melodies. Her new CD Don't Do Anything is a collection of spare, darkly textured meditations on the vicissitudes of romance and what All Music Guide critic Michael Deming calls "the uncertain navigation of the soul." $22.50.

September 10: Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys.
Led by accordionist and vocalist Riley, the Mamou Playboys are a south Louisiana Cajun band that plays steamy, sinewy bayou music. Riley was named best accordionist at the 2003 Cajun French Music Association Awards. With fiddler David Greeley (winner of a CFMA best fiddler award), bassist and saxophonist Brazos Huval, percussionist Kevin Dugas, and guitarist Sam Broussard. $20.

September 11: Millish
Local quartet that plays a brand of Irish-worldbeat fusion that explores the links between traditional Irish music and roots music from Scotland and Brittany, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Spain, and America. Led by All-Ireland champion uilleann piper Tyler Duncan, whose composition "The Mighty Pickle" won 1st place in the open category of the 2005 International Acoustic Music Awards, the band also includes guitarist Jesse Mason, fiddler and mandolinist Brad Phillips, and percussionist Mike Shimmin. Opening act is Breathe Owl Breathe, a local duo originally from East Jordan, Michigan, who perform acoustic folk-rock set to atmospheric, intricately textured instrumental and vocal landscapes. $15.

September 12: The Barra MacNeils.
(See review.) Traditional and original Celtic party music and ballads by this award-winning veteran sibling sextet from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, that features multiple lead vocalists, resonant vocal harmonies, and ace musicianship on a variety of wind, string, and percussion instruments, along with storytelling, dancing, and some Gaelic songs. The MacNeils' latest CD, Racket in the Attic, enriches their Celtic lilt and drive with touches of folk, rock, and jazz. $17.50.

September 13: David Lindley
This multi-instrumental virtuoso is a world music pioneer whose repertoire includes African, Arabic, Asian, Celtic, and Turkish traditions, as well as a wide array of traditional American forms. His performances also feature an amazingly wide array of acoustic and electric acoustic instruments, including Hawaiian lap steel guitar, Turkish saz and chumbus, Middle Eastern oud, Irish bouzouki, and more. In 1967 Lindley founded the world's first world music rock band, Kaleidoscope, and since then his career has been shaped by lengthy collaborations with Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, guitarist Henry Kaiser (with whom he recorded 2 Grammy-nominated CDs of collaborations with Malagasy musicians), and Jordanian percussionist Hani Naser. $17.50.

September 14: Garnet Rogers.
(See review.) This veteran Canadian folkie is known for his resonant baritone and his poetic, emotionally potent original songs. His performances also include superb interpretations of songs by the likes of Bob Franke, Archie Fisher, and Bill Caddick. He accompanies himself on guitar, fiddle, flute, and synthesizer. $15.

September 15: Jayme Stone & Mansa Sissoko.
Bluegrass-African fusion by the duo of Stone, a Canadian banjo virtuoso who has studied with Bela Fleck and Tony Trischka, and Sissoko, a Malian griot singer and master of the kora (a 21-string African harp) whom Stone met while in Mali exploring the banjo's African roots. The duo has released a CD, Africa to Appalachia. $13.50.

September 16: Dougie MacLean
A former member of the Tannahill Weavers and Silly Wizard who was dubbed "Scotland`s greatest living songwriter" by Celtic World, MacLean is known for an extravagant lyricism that draws on Celtic traditions on both sides of the Atlantic. His best-known song, "Caledonia," has been called Scotland's second national anthem. He's a virtuoso on guitar, bouzouki, Scottish fiddle, and Australian didgeridoo, and his repertoire also includes traditional Scottish songs. $30.

September 17: Dar Williams
A longtime favorite with local audiences, this acclaimed young singer-songwriter from western Massachusetts with a sweet, ringing soprano writes brightly melodic songs with sophisticated, vividly insightful, and often tartly humorous lyrics on a wide range of personal and social themes. Her new CD Promised Land features a varied array of originals, along with covers of "Midnight Radio" from the rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Fountains of Wayne's "Troubled Times." Opening act is Shawn Mullins, a highly regarded singer-songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia, known for his folk-styled ballads and confessional narratives. Kris Kristofferson calls him "a great songwriter and an original thinker." $36.

September 18: Bodega
Traditional Scottish music, sung in Gaelic and English, by this quintet of musicians from the Scottish Highlands and Islands. $15.

September 19: Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet.
A member of the Ann Arbor-bred old-time music group Uncle Earl, this Illinois native began to immerse herself in traditional American music after hearing Doc Watson play "Shady Grove." She had also lived in China for a while in her early 20s, and the result is a repertoire of traditional and original songs, sung in English and Mandarin and accompanied on banjo in sparse arrangements that have some of the concentrated quiet of the music she heard in China. Her new band is an all-star string ensemble that includes the legendary newgrass banjoist Bela Fleck, cellist Ben Sollee, and fiddler Casey Driessen. $22.50.

September 20: Fred Eaglesmith
This acclaimed Canadian country-rock singer-songwriter is known for brilliantly realized tales of rural and small-town life that are alternately dark, tender, terrifying, and savagely hilarious and are brought to life by canny rhythmic and melodic settings that draw freely on a variety of idioms from folk and bluegrass to rockabilly to dissonant avant-rock. His new CD Tinderbox is a collection of songs Eaglesmith calls "alternative gospel (gospel for non-believers) - it's full of backsliders and people living on the margins." $20.

September 21: Dana Fuchs
Blues-rock band led by this heralded young singer-songwriter whose vocal style draws on a range of classic influences from Etta James and Bobby Bland to Aretha and Mavis. "Imagine a sultry, more emotive Janis Joplin, backed by a higher-energy version of the late-60s Rolling Stones," says Stereophile magazine. "Rock 'n' roll doesn't get any better." $11.

September 22: Rachel Unthank & the Winterset
Widely acclaimed young English folk band whose arrangements of the traditional music of northeastern England draw on the impassioned, bawdy harmony singing of male Northeast bands and inflect it with elements of blues, jazz, burlesque cabaret, classical, and left-field contemporary music. The Observer Music Magazine calls the music on the band's latest CD The Bairns "as tough as it is gentle, as ancient as it is modern, and as coldly desolate as it is achingly intimate." $15.

September 23: Krista Detor
Highly regarded young Indiana singer-songwriter whose emotionally rich and resonant songs reflect a variety of influences from Leonard Cohen and Laura Nyro to Tom Waits and Kate Bush. FREE.

September 24: Monte Montgomery
Alabama-bred, Austin-based folk-rock singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar wizard whose virtuoso fretwork and blend of finger- and pick-style playing have earned him the title of "The Evel Knievel of Guitar." $15.

September 25: Steve Forbert
Folk-rock singer-songwriter from Meridian, Mississippi, who took New York City by storm in the mid-70s with his neo-Dylanesque blend of rough-mannered plain talk and romantic self-mythologizing. He's still best known for the songs on his early LPs, Alive on Arrival and Jackrabbit Slim, but his 90s CDs, The American in Me and Streets of This Town, have earned him greater critical favor as a deft chronicler of ordinary lives. Tonight he showcases songs from his new CD, Strange Names & New Sensations. $20.

September 26: Loudon Wainwright III
This veteran singer-songwriter is known for his mordant, occasionally bitterly self-mocking, often poignant, and usually very funny original songs about himself, other people, and contemporary culture. His recent CDs include Little Ship, a deliciously unsettling tour of the soulscape of middle age, and Strange Weirdos: Music from and Inspired by the Film "Knocked Up," a collection that provoked New Yorker reviewer Ben Greenman to observe that "[Wainwright] has not only retained his sharpness of wit but has also learned to cut with greater skill." Opening act is Wainwright's daughter, singer-songwriter Lucy Wainwright Roche. $20.

September 27: North
Local semiacoustic folk-rock ensemble led by singer-songwriters Joe Mancuso and Markus Nee. They are joined tonight by veteran local singer-songwriters Brian Lillie and Jim Roll. $12.

September 28: The Gibson Brothers
Upstate New York bluegrass ensemble that was named 1998 Emerging Artists of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association. "These guys completely captured my heart without so much as a nod to newgrass," says a Music Row Magazine reviewer. "This is the pure stuff, the way bluegrass sounds best." $15.

September 29: Leo Kottke
Sold out. $30.

September 30: Frigg
Traditional Nordic music, with American Appalachian and country accents, by this young 7-piece acoustic ensemble that contains 2 sons and a daughter from the most famous Finnish fiddle family and 2 brothers from a renowned Norwegian fiddle clan. $15.