By 12 years old, Marblehead native Hayley Reardon had begun establishing herself as a songwriting prodigy and wanted to share her creations. There was just one problem.
“My dad was my biggest supporter, and I told him that I wanted to play my songs and go to open mics,” Reardon recalls. “But I was scared.”
Enter Don White.
When Pete Reardon learned that the award-winning singer-songwriter, comedian, author and storyteller was offering a performance class at Club Passim in Cambridge for people new to the stage, he quickly enrolled his daughter. The class would be canceled, but White assured Reardon that he would be happy to work with her one on one.
In the 16 years since, the relationship has evolved into a mutual admiration society. The warm feelings they have for one another will be on full display as Reardon and White help Me&Thee Music celebrate its 55th anniversary this Friday night, March 21 at 8 p.m.
When she and White first started meeting, his initial lessons involved “super practical stuff,” like how to move the microphones and how to get comfortable on stage, Reardon says.
“Then it grew into like storytelling and so many things that are integral to my take on performing,” Reardon adds.
White says that when he first spoke to Pete Reardon, his first inclination was to presume the father was overstating his daughter’s talent.
“All dads think their daughters are great,” he says.
But it did not take long to figure out Hayley was the real deal.
Hayley and her father would sit on White’s couch every Wednesday for about six years, with White serving as a sounding board, and not just for Hayley’s performance skills. White also offered his thoughts on navigating the music business.
“I had been around longer, so I just tried to give her information where she could make her own good decisions,” White says.
Late last month, Reardon played in Barcelona to celebrate the release of “After Everything,” an album she had recorded in Spain with a band of Spanish musicians, including brothers Pau and Arnau Figueres. Later this spring, Reardon will head back overseas for a series of shows in Germany, where she previously spent six months as an artist-in-residence in Dachau, and a pair in Spain.
“Her story is very impressive because she’s chosen to be fiercely independent and protective of her creativity and her ownership of her material and have a career that moves forward at a regular pace rather than signing something and jumping ahead quicker and then giving up that freedom or some of it, anyway,” White says.
Reardon recently announced the launch of “Hayley Reardon Song School,” offering one-on-one songwriting sessions for teens. White believes it is a rare opportunity.
“They are going to be studying with somebody who has an understanding of how to move a career forward without signing your life away, with protecting your independence as a primary goal,” White says. “I just can’t imagine that there’s a parent out there that wouldn’t want their kid to see how some other young person did that.”
But first, there is the show at the Me&Thee, a treasured venue for both Reardon and White.
In addition to connecting her to White, Reardon says the other big thing her father did for her early on was introduce her to Jeanie Stahl, which led her to the Me&Thee.
“The Me&Thee has been a supporter of me forever,” Reardon says.
White has lost count of the times he has graced the Me&Thee stage over the past two-plus decades. One of his fonder memories of coming to Marblehead occurred in 2012, when the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association surprised him by presenting him with the Jerry Christen Memorial Award, which honors the memory of one of the most important and well-liked figures on the local folk scene.
There has never been a better time to see one of White’s shows, Reardon says.
“He will have you laughing and then crying, and the storytelling and the arc of what he does is magnificent,” she says. “He’s so gifted at bringing messages home in this really artful way. It’s very uplifting. I think Don is a perfect show for these times, where everyone is so freaked out and everything is so chaotic.”
Reardon plans to share some songs from “After Everything” and some older material, along with some new, unreleased songs that she was “feverishly working on” before pausing to chat with the Current.
She and White have also been rehearsing songs that they will perform together after doing their solo sets, something that has never happened before, despite their long history with one another.
“It’s an unlikely combination — we have decades between us — so it’s quite exciting, actually,” White says.
Both say part of the joy of the show will be the chance to offer a hearty “thank you” to the dedicated volunteers who have sustained the Me&Thee for 55 years.
As a young artist, Reardon says she was surprised when she realized that she did not need to travel to “wherever I was seeing the Jonas Brothers,” like the TD Garden in Boston or Xfinity Center, to see amazing touring musicians. Instead, they were coming into her backyard, to the Unitarian Universalist Church, 28 Mugford St.
“We’re very lucky to have it, and we’re lucky that it’s survived,” Reardon says. “And we need this type of thing more than ever.”
