Passim takes Riccio far

Calling all singers looking to make a musical dent...get a job at Club Passim, the venerated music club in the heart of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass.

Proof perfect: the sold-out show featuring headline Jobi Riccio and opener Rachel Sumner.

Sumner still works at the club. If she's as good at her day job as she was in a solo acoustic performance at night, the club made a great hire. Sumner is the perfect combination of being an excellent singer (the room was pin drop quiet during her entire set) who you want to listen to. Plus Sumner also proved she was an excellent songwriter in putting together alot of good lines. She was ultra serious in one song based on her family's difficult upbringing of losing their house. Ditto for "Radium Girls ((Curie Eleison)," a hauntingly sad story of women who got cancer from their work with paint.

And then she went humorous on a weighty subject – the role of billionaires in today's world with the line "them billionaires ain't worth a hill of beans" (chances are Musk, Bezos and their ilk would not have liked this). She hit the mark without overkill by keeping it funny.

Put simply, in a just musical world, Sumner would be quitting the day job.

Riccio already quit her Passim job about five years ago as a server, a position she held when she attended Berklee College of Music. Riccio clearly has done well for herself, having played Newport Folk Festival last year and now is on her first headlining tour.

Appearing solo on both electric and acoustic guitars, like Sumner, Riccio ably showcased her songwriting and singing skills. Riccio, a Colorado native, has more of an overt Americana bent with folk and country part of the mix.

Her abilities were apparent from the start with the beauty of "Whiplash" with her soft singing and playing picking up a bunch of notches throughout the song, which centers on leaving the past and a fake cowboy. Later, she would get honest about herself in "Sweet" (she's not, she said, although as she said, "I will love you honestly").

Riccio later would get political ("we've let corporations destroy our planet,, and yeah, they've fucked a lot of people over," she opined) and angry in introducing a new song, "Wildfire Season," something she said has plagued her home state throughout her life every summer.

While offering what she said were a bunch of downer songs, including "Summer" (well done, by the way with a healthy dose of intensity), Riccio had the smarts to pick it up either with her often humorous asides or keen lyrics.

With no new album since 2023's "Whiplash," Riccio gave a peak of what's to come with about four new songs. They stood up with her current catalogue.

About her job at Passim...Riccio quickly jokingly apologized at the outset in case she spilled a drink on someone in the crowd in her former life.

Perhaps she hearkened back to those days on the closing song - the closing number "Relief" - where she was accompanied by Sumner and two Passim employees.

Those days may have been difficult to make a go of it. Riccio should have no apologies though. Her career is on the upswing, and with shows like this, it is easy to understand why.