Singer-songwriter Maggie Doherty will perform at the Saratoga Springs City Center’s New Year’s Eve celebration on Dec. 31.
Courtesy of Maggie Doherty
Saratoga Springs-based singer and songwriter Maggie Doherty has a new EP and will perform live as part of Saratoga Springs’ New Year’s Eve festivities.
Courtesy of Maggie Doherty
The cover art for Maggie Doherty’s debut EP, “Night Words,” released in October.
SISSON/Courtesy of Maggie Doherty
As a longtime singer in various cover bands, Saratoga Springs’ Maggie Doherty is no stranger to the stage. This year, she took a major creative leap from singing other people’s songs to presenting her own.
In October, Doherty released her debut EP of original music titled “Night Words.” Capital Region audiences can hear Doherty perform tracks from that and other selections in her highest profile solo show to date when she provides support for Allman Betts Band as part of Saratoga Springs City Center’s New Year’s Eve festivities.
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Saratoga Springs New Year’s Eve
When: Events begin at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 31; Maggie Doherty’s set is at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Saratoga Springs City Center, 522 Broadway Entrance, Saratoga Springs
Tickets: $26
More info: discoversaratoga.org or @maggiedohertymusic on Instagram
If all goes well, the night will help Doherty and her compositions find a new audience.
“It’s really, really exciting; I’m thrilled to represent Saratoga as a homegrown act,” she said. “I’m hoping I’ll be able to connect with new fans and people in the community who may not know me.”
Music has been a passion of Doherty’s since a young age. She grew up in a musical home; her mother and aunts regularly sang together, performing “this beautiful sister-harmony thing.” Doherty inherited that gift of voice, and by the time she was 17, she was singing in her uncle Rick Bolton’s rootsy band Big Medicine and offering up renditions of Dixie Chicks tracks and “Me and Bobby McGee” at open mic nights at Bailey’s cafe.
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In 2008, Doherty relocated from Saratoga Springs to New York City for college and a career in communications, keeping “music close as a side hustle.” Primarily, that meant performing in the wedding band The Chromantics with her college friends.
Until relatively recently, Doherty was content performing with that group. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, she moved back to Saratoga. With that change in location came a change in artistic focus.
“I picked up a guitar during the pandemic out of necessity and taught myself basic chord progressions,” Doherty recalled. “I had written several songs over the years, but it was never the right time to tackle them when I lived in New York City.”
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She slowly plugged away, learning guitar and workshopping her material, singing in Big Medicine and Soul Session in the meantime. After giving birth to her daughter in April 2024, Doherty finally found herself in the headspace to record her music.
When 2025 started, Doherty was ready to “leap off the edge a little bit” and told her friend, local producer and musician Chris Carey, that she had some originals she wanted to share and possibly release.
“I played him a couple scratch tracks,” Doherty said. “He took them, formed grooves and laid down the bones.”
The five songs that comprise “Night Words” comfortably fit in the alt-country/Americana genre. As a body of work, Doherty wanted to present a “cohesive narrative about a woman coming of age and making her way in the world.”
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Sonically, they’re inspired by the music she grew up hearing and listens to now: Bonnie Raitt, Indigo Girls, Chris Stapleton and “hugely Brandi Carlile.”
Doherty describes her lyrics as “journal entries that evolved and changed shape over the years.” Whether it’s the series of vignettes that comprise the title track or the tumultuous country-rocker “Heart of Gold and a Black Soul,” Doherty started with a concept rooted in her own life and honed it to tell a more universal story. Well, more universal with one exception: the ode to her toddler daughter that concludes the EP.
“I sharpened them to be more relatable than just my experiences,” Doherty explained. “Except for ‘Winnie Girl.’ I could have replaced ‘Winnie’ with ‘baby’ but it wouldn’t have been the same for me.”
A full band show in October at the Cock ’n Bull in Galway to celebrate the release of “Night Words” was “super encouraging” for Doherty. While she “already had a comfort level being onstage” due to her time singing in various other groups, playing her own original fare was a new, invigorating experience.
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“You are the proprietor and creator of these songs; to have them be well-received is so rewarding,” Doherty said.
While the release show featured a full band of area musicians, the New Year’s Eve outing will be an acoustic duo set with Doherty’s friend Pat Perkinson playing bass. Doherty is hopeful that the evening will serve as a “springboard” for future gigs in the Capital Region, whether those be solo, duo or with a full band.
“I’m open and ready to rock,” she said.
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