A Legendary Songwriter Returns to Caffe Lena

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The word “legend” is tossed around quite a bit, but it’s hard not to apply the term to Eric Andersen. The singer-songwriter has collaborated with people like Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, the Grateful Dead, Lou Reed, and Johnny Cash, to name a few. 

His career, documented in the 2019 PBS film “The Songpoet,” began in the famed Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, the same time and place fictionalized in films like “A Complete Unknown” and “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Andersen himself appeared in front of the camera in Warhol’s 1965 underground film “Space,” as well as “Festival Express,” a music doc chronicling a 1970 train tour that featured the Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, and many others.

But it’s Andersen’s remarkable gift for crafting elegant, lovely, sometimes haunting songs for which he’s most recognized. His 1972 album “Blue River” remains his most acclaimed. The release of his latest LP, “Dance of Love and Death,” preceded a fall 2025 tour that will bring him to Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs on Sept. 5. The performance will also include Steve Addabbo on lead guitar and Cheryl Prashker on percussion.

Prior to the start of his tour, Andersen answered a few questions for Saratoga TODAY. Below are his responses.

Saratoga TODAY: You’ve played at Caffe Lena before. In your experience touring the globe, do you find that there are many traditional folk music venues like Lena remaining? 

Eric Andersen: It’s been a while, but I think Passim still operates in Cambridge. No more Bottom Line, Gaslight, or Folk City in New York. Otherwise, I think there are very few left.

ST: The Grateful Dead hold an important place in Saratoga’s music history, having played to the largest-ever crowd at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. What was it like spending time with the Dead during the Festival Express? Are there any memories that stand out in your mind?

EA: On the Festival Express, I got to be friends with Jerry Garcia and Bobby Weir. (Janis Joplin, Ian and Sylvia, and Rick Danko were the only friends whom I knew from before). All very nice, talented, good people to know. I wrote the song “Weather Report” with the Dead.

ST: “Dance of Love and Death” is your first album of all-new material since 2003. How do you determine when a collection of songs is ready to be released into the world? What makes an album feel complete?

EA: Complete? Good question! In my judgement, I think most works of art (songs, recordings, albums–maybe even paintings and novels…) are all more or less abandoned rather than ever “finished.” Each project just sort of reaches its own conclusion and becomes a song, album, painting, or novel. In this case, the album “Dance” is a collection of New York recordings I made when I was in town from my home in Europe and we did keep adding songs and recordings over the course of twelve years.

Finally, after arriving at seventeen good works, we called it quits and put out the double album “Dance of Love and Death.” It kind of ended itself and became a sort of a love song album. Maybe the best one since “Ghosts Upon the Road” and “Blue River.”