Photo by Pete DeMola
Don Boyajian, a Democratic candidate for New York’s 21st Congressional District, performs at Valcour Brewing in Plattsburgh on Saturday, March 31.
PLATTSBURGH | The musician hurried in, a slight figure who quickly made his way through the dinnertime crowd and slipped into an open pocket at the end of the bar.
After a brief soundcheck, the man began plucking away at an acoustic guitar.
The man sang “That’s The Way The World Goes Round” by John Prine, his voice carrying with it a strong rustic twang.
His guitar was soft and twinkling, and the man generated polite applause from the dinnertime crowd, most of whom appeared to several beers deep into their Saturday night at a lakeside venue.
“My name’s Don Boyajian, and I’m running against Elise Stefanik,” said the musician.
“We can’t hear you,” mouthed a woman at the bar.
Don Boyajian hopped down from his stool, tinkered with a speaker and launched into a second song.
It was bolder and heartier this time, sending a slight amplified rumble into the floorboards and oak-barrel furniture.
“I just happened to be in Plattsburgh on an early spring night,” Boyajian said.
Boyajian, 33, is seeking the Democratic nomination for New York’s 21st Congressional District.
If successful, the first-time candidate will go up against Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Willsboro) this November.
The candidate has spent the past month fundraising and circulating petitions to get on the ballot, and he said he has gathered enough signatures for ballot access ahead of the April 12 deadline.
“It’s going well, tremendous. It’s very smooth,” he said. “We’ve ramped up very nicely. We’re well past the goal we needed to hit, and we’re still out getting more and more signatures and recruiting people and already doing voter outreach as well.”
The top Democratic fundraiser for two consecutive quarters says he looks forward to another strong quarter, which concluded on Saturday.
But Boyajian was at Valcour Brewing primarily to connect with people who are not ordinarily engaged in politics.
“We live in this incredibly divisive time where a lot of people are so turned off by the divisiveness, they tune out and don’t want to participate,” Boyajian told The Sun before the event. “And I don’t blame them.”
He launched his “Bluegrass and Politics Tour” last month with a performance in Waddington, St. Lawrence County with a local lawmaker’s country-western outfit.
Music, Boyajian said, is the “great unifier.”
“We may have slightly different political views or affiliations, but we can connect over Patsy Cline or Merle Haggard or whoever.”
Boyajian’s Democratic opponents include Tedra Cobb, Emily Martz, David Mastrianni, Patrick Nelson, Dylan Ratigan and Katie Wilson.
Some of them also play instruments, including Nelson — who posted photos of himself on social media performing at an Easter Mass over the weekend — and Martz, who is known to play the fiddle.
More than one successful ballot drive will trigger a primary election on June 26.
Lynn Kahn is also circulating petitions to run as an independent and on the Green Party line.
For now, Boyajian was intent on penetrating the protective barrier of 20-somethings seated around the U-shaped bar.
He launched into a third song, seemingly content to pluck away and provide soft background music, which he did in an unassuming fashion with tremendous dexterity.
Boyajian has immense respect for folks like Chet Atkins, a guitarist whose style was rooted in completing full arrangements on just a single instrument.
The progenitor of what’s known as the Nashville Sound pioneered a trademark style on the guitar, playing bass, chords and melodies all at once.
Atkins was a landmark influence for Boyajian alongside folks like Haggard, whose “Working Man Blues” the candidate has promised will be his campaign theme song if he sews up the nomination.
Themes in country, folk and bluegrass resonate with working class voters, he said.
“Merle Haggard is probably my biggest influence in music,” Boyajian said. “He had an honesty and authenticity to his sound and he really sang about the things that affected all of us as Americans. Just trying to pay the bills, trying to get a job. He was a very honest musician.”
Boyajian was in full music nerd mode at the Valcour, growing animated as he discussed his lifelong journey through a broad section of genres, starting with classical as a young violinist with the Empire State Youth Orchestra. He flirted with rock and roll as a teen, aping Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton — “I wanted to play really loud” — and has since dabbled in country, bluegrass, folk and gypsy jazz, playing the steel guitar and banjo.
The admitted workaholic uses music as a relief valve, performing solo and with a number of causal weekend warrior outfits, including a bar band that rips into Creedence Clearwater Revival and Van Morrison covers on the weekend in Cambridge, Washington County, where he lives.
“Genres are very fluid, just like people’s views are fluid,” Boyajian said. “I constantly go from genre to genre and genre, and really that’s one of the best things about America, our culture, and the diversity of music genres that we have created.”
While the “Fortunate Son” experiments with writing, arranging and composing, the multi-instrumentalist does not consider himself to be a fully-fledged songwriter.
He’s never satisfied with his compositions and always tinkers with them during private moments.
He fingerpicked through a nimble instrumental in the Atkins vein, bringing a hint of Bakersfield to the polar opposite end of the country.
“Can you hear me now?” he told the crowd.
“Ar-tic-u-late,” said the woman at the bar.
“I’ll try to articulate as much as I can,” Boyajian gamely responded.
With the help of a staffer, a campaign aide carried over a table and placed the PA on top of it.
“This is turning out to be a real adventure,” he said. “You didn’t think you’d sign up for this to get a beer, did you?”
“We’re not audio experts here — I usually play unplugged,” he said before powering through a Tony Rice tune.
The woman nodded and the crowd chattered.
“Upstate New York has been good to me,” Boyajian said before diving into a modified stump speech.
“Eighty percent of the ingredients for success are here,” he said. “We just need some leaders to fight for us.”
Boyajian works as an environmental and municipal attorney at Dreyer Boyajian LLP, a law firm co-founded by his father that is representing numerous counties across the state in a class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers — including Clinton County.
“That’s why we need someone fighting for us. Congress has done nothing,” Boyajian said.
He looked around.
“I think Pete is listening,” he said, referring to this reporter.
“I’m going to play some new tunes.”
A number called “Sitting on Top of the World” followed, as did a repeat of the first song — but louder this time.
Boyajian set down his instrument and waded into the audience.
An aide handed campaign literature to the 20-somethings, who expressed a mild sense of polite interest.
“I just want people to know who I am,” Boyajian said. “I’m someone who loves where I’m from, I love the outdoors, I love music, and I want to fight for this place I call home.”
This is the third in a series of dispatches from the campaign trail as candidates for New York’s 21st Congressional District travel the district during the petition process.
