Roselyn Lionhart is a Michigan-born songstress in her mid-’70s with long, fierce braids drawn back from her face. When we connect for the first time, she laughs and recalls stories of her hero, Margaret Mead, of train trips through the Jim Crow South with her grandmother, of the coffeehouse jazz scene in ’50s Michigan, and of her experiences singing in a traveling variety show.

For the past several months, Lionhart has been working long hours in preparation for the eighth-annual