Nields sisters play Marblehead coffeehouse Friday

MARBLEHEAD – The Nields, a sister folk music act, will hit the stage at the me and thee this Friday.Nerissa and Katryna Nields have been performing at folk festivals and in coffeehouses since 1991 but the sisters said they have been singing and writing for as long as they can remember.”I knew I wanted to be a singer and songwriter from the time I was 7,” said Nerissa. “I remember I wrote my first song that I was really proud of when I was 13, and right away I had a harmony for it, so I dragged Katryna out of her room and taught her the harmony. It was instinct – I knew that my sister should be there.”Nerissa added their parents were folk music aficionados and both girls grew up around acoustic music.”Our parents were total folkies,” says Nerissa. “We used to go to a family camp in the Adirondacks every summer where people sat around a fire. That’s where I learned how to finger pick. We grew up on simple folk songs.”Katryna also shared fond memories of the music camp.”The thing about that camp was that it was just part of the community,” Katryna said. “One of my top five musical memories in my entire life was one night at camp when it was cold and the fire was blazing and everybody sang ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ just a couple guitars or maybe a banjo and people swapping songs with everybody singing along. Woody Guthrie and Weavers songs, Odetta. ‘Charlie on the MTA,’ ‘The Frozen Logger,’ ‘Goodnight Irene,’ ‘This Land is Your Land,’ ‘Wabash Cannonball.’ Maybe a little Bob Dylan. Bill Staines would have been considered really edgy. I know people think those old songs are quaint, but when everybody is singing them, it becomes such powerful music. Music you eventually can’t even remember where you learned it, but it becomes part of your vocabulary – I love that.”Seth Glier, a 21 year-old singer/songwriter from Western Massachusetts is scheduled to open for the Nields.IF You Go?The me and thee is located in the Unitarian Universalist Church at 28 Mugford St., Marblehead Tickets forthe 8 p.m. Friday show are $20 at the door.