Railway Cafe Presents: Amy Speace

Heralded by Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Billboard Magazine and NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” singer/songwriter Amy Speace is one of contemporary folk music’s leading voices and widely considered one of the best songwriters in Folk and Americana. A classically-trained actress, Amy was cutting her teeth in the NYC theater scene and playing songs in the folk clubs in the West Village when she was discovered by Judy Collins, who signed her to her Wildflower Records label in 2005, took her on the road as her opening act, and recorded her song “Weight of the World.” Amy is the 2020 winner of the AMA UK’s International Song of the Year for her song “Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne.” “The Blue Rock Session,” her 10th solo album, was released in December 2025 and reached #1 immediately on the Folk Radio Charts, as did her last three albums. “Blue Rock” is a truly solo acoustic project Amy recorded in 3 hours in Wimberley, TX during a writer’s retreat She has been featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and in a segment for “Marketplace.” Craig Havighurst of Nashville’s WMOT radio calls her “Sublime and inimitable…Speace has been one of premiere folk artists of the last decade.” Amy has played many festivals around the world, including Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Glastonbury Music Festival, legacy stages like The Grand Ole Opry and The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and is a favorite of “Mountain Stage Radio.” A well-respected writer, she’s had essays published in The New York Times, No Depression, Working Mother Magazine, Salon.com and leads workshops in songwriting and performance. Her forthcoming debut collection of poetry, The Cardinals, will be published by Red Hen Press on September 1, 2026. In 2025 she published To The Performer: A Handbook for Singer-Songwriters. She holds an MFA in poetry from Spalding University.