Mill Valley Goes Country With Nell Robinson, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott

Nell Robinson had a chance encounter in Nashville a few years ago with the celebrated singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, who was ready to listen when she described her ongoing project, “The Rose of No Man’s Land,” a rich mix of American songs and personal letters and stories — most from Robinson’s soldier-filled family — tracing a “musical journey” from the American Revolution to right now. A Bay Area singer-songwriter with a clear, pleasing voice and a way with roots and country music, Robinson told Crowell her Scots-Irish folk were “fighters and drinkers.” Elliott also sings the lead vocal on Cash’s Vietnam-era “Drive On,” which the veteran troubadour will probably reprise at Mill Valley’s Throckmorton Theatre on Saturday, A former fundraiser for Mother Jones magazine and other progressive causes, she grew up singing in church choirs but never sang publicly as an adult until eight years ago, when she booked a band and sang to her husband at their anniversary party. A 2013 performance of “The Rose of No Man’s Land” taped at Freight & Salvage is airing on PBS stations around the country, and Robinson has begun playing dates with Your Good Luck Charm, the new band with percussionist Jon Arkin and pedal steel player Pete Grant. “Jim and I wanted to have a country band, to play the kind of country music we love,” she says, from the era of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, George Jones. Robinson, whose real name is Hilary Perkins — she took her stage name from her maternal Alabama grandmother — loves making music with Nunally, who plays guitar like it’s another voice. The 35th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival features several movies with musical subjects, including director Kevin Kerslake’s As I Am: After the Castro screening, Mix Master Mike, who’s in the film, will spin music at a DJ AM celebration at Public Works. Erez Miller’s “East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem,” about Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza’s efforts to create a connection between Palestinians and Israelis through music, screens Aug.