James Maddock: August 19

A rock & roll lifer, the British-born singer/songwriter has been carving his path since the 1980s with a raw, soulful voice; a storyteller’s sense of narrative; and the ability to blur the lines between folk, classic pop, and rock.

James Maddock

Since those early days in London, James has ridden the wave of a music industry that’s ebbed, flowed, peaked, and crashed. Maddock has stayed afloat throughout the entire ride, enjoying a brush with commercial success during the late 1990s — including a major-label record deal, a Top 5 AAA radio hit, and a song placement on Dawson’s Creek — before transforming himself into an independent solo artist during the decades that followed. If you’re not familiar, you’ll find Maddock’s large catalog full of great tunes on your favorite streaming outlet. More about James Maddock…

The concert will take place outdoors in the Riverside Amphitheatre. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Picnic tables are available.  

$10 suggested donation.  Gates open at 5 pm, music begins 6 pm.

For directions, check the map on our home page. The property address is 140 Route 46, Delaware, NJ, located at the intersection of Ramseyburg Road and Route 46, east of the village of Delaware. From Interstate Route 80, Exit 4, take Route 46 eastbound approximately 4 miles.

Yarn: July 30

Returning to Ramsaysburg on Sunday July 30th, 2023 at 3pm will be Yarn, an Americana/jam/rock group with a large local following. The Brooklyn and Raleigh based band — which is currently comprised of Blake Christiana, Rod Hohl, bassist Rick Bugel, and drummer Robert Bonhomme — have made their mark, and in dealing with their emotions, scars and circumstances, they find themselves in a position to share those experiences with others who have juggled similar sentiments.

If you expect that a band that calls itself Yarn to, naturally, tend to spin a yarn or two, you’re right! “That’s what we do, we tell stories, live and in the studio, truth and fiction” singer/songwriter Blake Christiana insists. “We don’t always opt for consistency. There’s a different vibe onstage from what comes through in our recordings. There’s a difference in every show as well, you never know what you’re going to get.”

Yarn have never been content to simply ride a wave and see where it takes them. Yarn’s ability to persevere ought to come as no great surprise, especially for a band that spent two years honing their chops during a Monday night residency at the famed Kenny’s Castaway in New York’s Greenwich Village. In effect, it allowed them to rehearse onstage, mostly in front of audiences that often ranged in size from five to a hundred people on any given night. 

Indeed, the accolades piled up quickly along the way. They have landed on the Grammy ballot 4 times, garnered nods from the Americana Music Association, placed top five on both Radio and Records and the AMA album charts, garnered airplay on Sirius FM, iTunes, Pandora, CNN, and CMT, and also accorded the “Download of the Day” from Rolling Stone. Shine the Light On found shared song writing credits with John Oates (the Oates of Hall & Oates fame), and when audiences expressed their admiration, it brought the band a populist following of diehard devotees, popularly known as “the Yarmy.”

Explore Warren History Trail

Many of Warren County’s historic sites have coordinated plans for the second annual self-guided county-wide tour, with family activities at each location, on the weekend of November 4-5, 2023. Join us for a weekend of fun and discovery as each stop along the trail offers something different and exciting for the whole family. Start at any site and pick up your map and guide. Mark your calendar, and keep an eye on warrenhistorytrail.org for more information!

At Ramsaysburg, trail visitors will enjoy interpretive tours of the grounds as well as seasonal family activities and live music on Saturday, Nov. 4, 10am-4pm.

As it approaches its bicentennial in 2024-2025, Warren County will celebrate a remarkable history as well as its reputation for the cleanest waterways and richest farmland in New Jersey. Stemming from wilderness times well before the county’s official formation through 1824 legislation, the area’s earliest settlements were in Greenwich, Oxford Furnace, and Pahaquarry. Situated at the confluence of the Delaware and Musconetcong Rivers, Greenwich was the gateway for the northward migration of Quaker, German, and Scots-Irish settlers landing at Philadelphia. Oxford Furnace’s first pioneers arrived in 1726, but real growth followed the building of the furnace in 1741, creating Warren County’s first hub of commercial activity and population growth. In 1732, Abraham Van Campen built a mill in what became the tiny village of Calno in Pahaquarry, the southernmost settlement in a chain of Dutch villages extending down the Minisink Valley from Esopus (now Kingston), New York. Warren County’s agricultural heritage, in combination with eighteenth and nineteenth century innovations in transportation and industry, are important chapters in the rural American tradition.