Bringing Good Vibes to the Rhode Island Music Scene

It’s a place where young queer kids and old white men become best friends”

Corinne Wahlberg

Folk music of the 1950s and 1960s did more than entertain. It sparked conversation, built communities, and fueled social change. The coffeehouse movement, influenced by singer-songwriter and activist Pete Seeger and his peers, brought folk music into urban settings, where many music lovers became active participants. 

In the early 1980s, some of the old guard of the Rhode Island folk scene took the coffeehouse idea and ran with it, creating their own locally born, community-supported, volunteer-run house concert series called Stone Soup Coffeehouse. The moniker originates from a folk tale of the same name, which highlights the value of cooperation and resource sharing.

Corinne Wahlberg was just seven years old when they started attending the concert series with their parents at Church of the Redeemer, the series’ original home. “My parents were committed volunteers, so they would drag my sister and me along to these concerts every week,” Wahlberg says. “It was like having an extended family of folks to hang out with. [Activist and Stone Soup co-founder] Richard Walton was practically an extra grandfather to my sister and me.”

As Wahlberg grew, so did the coffeehouse. It moved from venue to venue, but true to its roots, it maintained its break-even financial model and always found a home in public spaces. Meanwhile, Wahlberg found homes in New Orleans, London, and New York, pursuing a career in theater and earning an MFA in creative producing. “I gained practical skills in marketing, promotion, and public relations and learned how to put on a show,” they said. “I was doing some volunteering with those skills, but it was Stone Soup that needed me.”

So Wahlberg stepped into a leadership role at the organization. “I’m not going to devote decades to it like my parents did,” they say. “But the coffeehouse is part of my ecosystem, and I’m going to use my practical and historical knowledge of the organization to shepherd in the next generation of leadership. It’s a lot of work to do for free, but I was brought up on this. And this is what I can offer as a human being to my community.” 

Since 2019, The Music Mansion, a performance space on Meeting Street in Providence, has been Stone Soup’s stage for its 10 to 12 performances a year. “I’m committed to booking local talent, but balance that with bringing in larger regional acts who help support the local acts,” says Wahlberg.

This fall, Wahlberg is excited to host Ellis Paul and Catie Curtis at the coffeehouse. “Ellis was one of the first acts my mom booked when she started volunteering at the coffeehouse 30 years ago. And Catie pursued a career in music because she was introduced to Stone Soup when she was a student at Brown,” Wahlberg says. “Neither of these artists plays around here too often, and it’s going to be an incredibly special experience to have them in the chamber music hall in The Music Mansion.”     

Equally important are the coffeehouse’s community events. Ed Dean hosts a monthly open mic night for new and experienced folks in the genre who want to share their talents with others. Wahlberg describes it as a wonderful and welcoming night of music. “It’s a place where young queer kids and old white men become best friends,” they say. Stone Soup hosted another community event, the Rhode Island Banjo Festival, late last summer, and Wahlberg is still experiencing an emotional high from it. “I have this incredible feeling that what we’re doing at Stone Soup is bleeding into the community to be experienced by the fantastic Rhode Island music scene,” they say. “All of what I hoped for is coming true, and I couldn’t be happier.” Learn more at StoneSoupCoffeeHouse.org