White winter wolves survive the harsh Arctic cold because they have adapted to survive; they also rarely walk through life alone. That makes them the quintessential symbol of resilience and community in Rose Guerin’s new album, “Death and the Winter Wolf,” which details her experience with loss and the love that prevails.
Guerin found her own path, or rather, her own pack, with a family she chose. She’s an Islander, a vocalist, and a guitar player. She has performed with a variety of bands besides her own, like the Dock Dance Band and Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish, plus acts that tour internationally, like Vandaveer, Jim Kweskin, Joe Pug, and even Ringo Starr. She often performs as a duo with Buck Shank, another local guitarist. To many other musicians, Guerin is a master collaborator. To the Island community, she’s family.
Her impact on the Vineyard runs deep, and her new album is about the way others have impacted her, too. In an interview with The Times, Guerin discussed some of the people who have inspired her, those who are featured in the album, and those who have passed on — the losses that informed the songs themselves.
“I think that maybe speaking about grief, and writing about grief, makes it easier to write songs that are completely open and vulnerable,” Guerin said. “I’ve become a lot more comfortable with death, and honestly with the celebration of the life that somebody has lived.”
The 10 songs on the album are folk- and blues-inspired, featuring resonant lyrics and vocals from Guerin herself. The album was produced by Justin Craig, and is Guerin’s second solo album; her first was self-titled, and was released in 2022.
Each track on “Death and the Winter Wolf” is an expression of raw emotion. The song “To Be Golden,” featuring Willy Mason, is about Guerin’s chosen uncle, a Wampanoag of Gay Head (Aquinnah) man named Horatio Malonson, who Guerin said passed away in 1984 when he was 30 years old and she was 9. Malonson was deaf, but used to tell Guerin stories by vocalizing sounds and motioning with his hands. “I see him on the beach, I see his footprints next to mine, and it’s a great comfort to me,” Guerin said of Malonson.
Another track that features Mason, titled “It’s Not Too Late,” is about the passing of Mason’s father and Guerin’s friend, Michael Mason, as well as Guerin’s stepmother, Jessie Benton.
Many of the songs feature Guerin’s drummer, Robby Cosenza, who passed away in 2024 from a rare form of cancer. The mastered tracks were sent to John Forté, a beloved Islander, mentor, and record producer, right before he died suddenly this winter at the age of 50. Some of the losses that inspired Guerin’s music are forever woven into the songs themselves.
The track titled “Home,” featuring her chosen sister Samoa Wilson, is an homage to Guerin’s history in the place she chose to experience all the highs and lows of life: the Vineyard. “It was steep and rocky from the start … When fear would steal my sleep and dreams from me, she always had the sweetest songs to sing of home,” lull the lyrics of “Home.”
Guerin grew up in Chilmark. Her childhood, she said, was “less than conventional,” but taught her the value of friendship and the natural world. As a 19-year-old, she moved to Spain. It was in that faraway country, by the waves of the Mediterranean, that she fell in love with performing.
“I met a lot of really incredible musicians, and started touring incessantly,” Guerin said. She spoke Spanish, made her way to Mexico, wrote songs, and eventually found her way to Washington, D.C. Finally, she felt the pull back to the familiar shores of the Vineyard.
“I moved home because I realized it’s where I wanted to be,” she told The Times.
Since moving home, Guerin has written music and performed often. That’s how many Islanders know her. From behind the mic, her signature hair flip is a wash of color, occasionally a bright red wig or light, soft blond. She’s an emotive performer, her hands moving with the rise and fall of her voice. Her lyrics are descriptive, bold, and full of her history.
“I think that the only place that I’ve ever felt like I was supposed to be was onstage. It’s the most comfortable place for me there is. I can see everything, and I can just be my most authentic self,” Guerin said.
However, there’s another side to Guerin: the self-described “hippie” who loves others passionately. She communes with plants — which, she added, she’d be more than happy to discuss more often — towering trees, and the sand under her feet. “That is kind of my joy — [I’m] not as much of a social butterfly as people think I am,” she said with a laugh.
But along with that softness in her love of nature, Guerin has been a strong presence in the music scene on the Island. Guerin’s energy has made her a force to be reckoned with. Her passion led Guerin to start Ladyfest, a festival that features women and nonbinary musicians, and even pushed some now-famed locals to start performing.
Delanie Pickering, for example, met Guerin on one of her first nights after moving full-time to Martha’s Vineyard. Pickering said she ducked into the Ritz on a “gray, drizzly June evening” when Guerin was working behind the bar. Guerin told Pickering to come back the next day for blues music. “So I did,” Pickering said. The rest is history; Pickering is now a full-time musician, touring around the world with her own band and playing locally with Johnny Hoy and Jeremy Berlin.
“She was the first one to hire me to play gigs,” Pickering said. “She took a chance on a stranger.”
Pickering and Guerin played together for years after that initial meeting, both in Guerin’s band and with Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish. Guerin has also performed in a trio with beloved local musicians Jemima James and Kate Taylor.
“Once you meet her, it’s as if you’ve always known her. She is a vibrant life force indeed,” Taylor said of Guerin. “Her songs are filled with her passion. She doesn’t hold back. I’ve loved all her songs, and I find [“Death and the Winter Wolf”] expresses her natural growth as a singer, a performer, a writer, and a woman. A glittering star of, and for, the Island.”
In her new album, Guerin reflected on the people who changed her, the love that stayed, and the losses that have left behind unfathomable grief, along with new perspectives. Her family, like a wolf pack, continues to walk with her, both in life and in the remembered imprint of their footprints in the sand.
“For me, with my family, it’s always been the people that I love, the people that I’m with — and we take care of each other,” Guerin said.
Rose Guerin’s upcoming shows:
Friday, May 29 at the Black Dog Tavern
Wednesday, June 3 at the Portuguese-American Club
Friday, June 5 at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum
Wednesday, June 10 at the Portuguese-American Club
Friday, June 12 at the Black Dog Tavern
Wednesday, June 17 at the Portuguese-American Club