If you’re lucky, there will come a time when a passion begins to burn so hotly that you have to open up and let it out. Emily Weitz of Sag Harbor knows this firsthand because it’s pretty much the origin story of the folksy bluegrass band she founded in June 2025, M Takes the Mic.
For Ms. Weitz, who can often be found with protest signs and maracas at rallies for freedom and human rights, the time was simply now, the passion was songwriting, and the end result is a 14-song album titled “No Song Left Behind.”
“Music is doing everything for me right now,” she said, citing the very heavy feelings of powerlessness and longing spurred by the chaos that defines American society at present. One piece of that “everything” is connecting with her fellow humans. “Right now, I think that nefarious forces are trying to make that harder for all of us, harder to find the humanity in each other. And I think that music is a tool to remedy that.”
“No Song Left Behind” is being released piece by piece — one song per month in 2026 — on all the usual streaming platforms as a way to “musically hold the listeners’ hand throughout the course of this year, which promises to be a doozy.”
The band’s first official single, “Brave Girl, New World,” debuted in January on Gianna Volpe’s WLIW morning radio show. The second single, “Your Deep Heart,” described by Ms. Weitz as a song “honoring your own inner life and strength,” premiered on Valentine’s Day.
There are uplifting songs, there are romantic songs, there are angry songs, there are protest songs, and they were all recorded over three days last November with Robin Ross of Baa Baa Leaf Studios in Dingmans Ferry, Pa. The album’s name is a reference to an achievement: Friends had advised Ms. Weitz to “pick four or five and you’ll get them down,” instead of attempting to record them all. “We recorded all 14 of them in one night” and spent the rest of the weekend playing with variations, trying a bigger guitar, a different mic. Johnny Blood of East Hampton handled the mixing and mastering.
This fast-rising group features Liz Joyce on banjo (when she’s not puppeteering with Goat on a Boat, her nonprofit puppet theater company), Kate Albrecht on percussion, Jeff Marshall on bass, and Bosco Michne on electric guitar, with forthcoming collaborations with Klyph Black as well. Ms. Albrecht and Ms. Joyce also sing with Ms. Weitz, adding three-part harmonies to the band’s resumé.
The recording process brought them together quickly. “We got so tight in that time, and we said, ‘What are we doing with this energy? We’re a band,’ “ Ms. Weitz said. “I don’t want to play without them. I want us to be together because we are putting something special out in the world.”
Ms. Albrecht, who lives in Riverhead, began her musical journey studying African djembe drums for a decade, often taking part in drum circles and teaching workshops that combine drumming and dance. She then branched out to full kits, box-drumming, shakers, “and all that fun stuff,” she said.
“A big challenge for me was being able to drum and sing at the same time,” she said. “That has been a journey and something that I’m really grateful to be able to develop. And the three of us have beautiful voices. When we combined them, we were like, ‘Wow, let’s really work on this.’ “
Even though she’s played with other local bands, Ms. Albrecht said this one feels different. “It’s fate that we got together. The chemistry between all of us feels magical and effortless to play with them. I couldn’t ask for better.”
Mr. Michne, who lives in Southampton, needs little introduction as a musician. He’s played with nearly everyone on the South Fork, including G.E. Smith, Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers, the late Rick Davies of Supertramp fame, Brad Penuel in Friday Night Traditional, Jettykoon, and many others. He also writes and performs his own music in a group called Unsung Heroes.
Asked what appealed to him about playing with Ms. Weitz and co., Michne said, “That’s a tough one because I’ll play with anyone. I just like to play. I always play with anyone that asks, but I’ve come to really like the connection among the five of us, musically and personally, in M Takes the Mic. It’s a great group of personalities and musicians that kind of just clicks.”
For Ms. Weitz, M Takes the Mic is a way to engage a younger version of herself who’d been hesitant to major in music in college. “It felt like for some reason I couldn’t do that for myself. It was too indulgent or something.”
So she went into journalism. Over the course of 20 years, and through hundreds of interviews with interesting people — including Ani DiFranco, John Scofield, even the Irish Tenors — Ms. Weitz described studying and learning from “the experts, the masters.”
“I’ve interviewed some of the greatest musicians in the world, and I ask them the things I want to know,” she said. “The skill of interviewing has served me well because it makes me a perpetual learner.”
As the chief songwriter of the group, Ms. Weitz draws inspiration from some of her favorite groups and artists across genres, including the Grateful Dead, Nina Simone, DiFranco, and Joni Mitchell.
M Takes the Mic will play its first New York City show at the Delancey, at 7:30 p.m. on March 21, and will return to the Stephen Talkhouse on May 7.
“My music comes directly from the depths of my heart, expressed through lyrics which are a deep part of my sensibility,” Ms. Weitz said. “Through collaboration with other incredible musicians, it allows me to reach out from my voice to the world and hopefully touch other people’s hearts.”
