Bringing a Musical Dimension to the Story: How Adam Sweet Transforms News into Songs for His Community

Through the halls of Whitmore Administration Building, picket signs were raised while emotions of rage and determination circled the air on July 16, 2025 as hundreds of UMass union members rallied for fairer working conditions.

Though it may not be everyone’s instinct to write a song about such a charged protest, it was the start of Amherst/Granby singer/songwriter Adam Sweet’s journey to transform these events that were important to his community into beautiful songs. After speaking with participants, he was touched by their passion and commitment so he banded together with other musicians in the area and wrote “UMass Workers Anthem”. 

July 25, 2025 marked the release of Amherst Songs, an album consisting of five tracks inspired by community news stories written by Sweet, a Hampshire College Alum.

Sweet enjoys gathering stories from people involved and transforming them into something deeply meaningful to the community. “Writing a song is a lot like journalism. You have to talk to the people involved,” he said.

Though the song mentioned above was based on an article from the Daily Hampshire Gazette, most of the other songs in the album were inspired by the Amherst Indy, including Amherst Wetlands Plea” and “Atkins Corner Hold”that were written about the proposed  development project at Atkins Corner. Sweet says that he  “took some keywords from the article that struck [his] fancy” and composed a bluegrass song—the style that he most often chooses—that his community could engage with.  Among the lyrics:

No more notifications, no hearings in sight,

DEP rubber-stamps ’em, day and night.

Appeals to the court, costin’ a pretty dime,

Discouragin’ folks from fightin’ the crime.

Contradicts our bylaws, clear as day,

Erin Jacque warns, “It’s slippin’ away!”

Sweet reads all the local newspapers in the area, but the Indy is by far his favorite. He particularly enjoys that the paper writes about things the community cares about. “[The Indy] digs deeply and tries to get to the crux of the story,” he says.

Though drawing upon articles for inspiration might seem unconventional, Sweet grew up listening to political folk artists like Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez who all wrote songs for their communities. After all, that is Sweet’s mission in writing these songs: to captivate his community. He thinks that turning news articles into music is a way to bring another dimension to the story, since “all humans use music in one form or another to communicate.”

Sweet grew up surrounded by music so it’s no coincidence that he values the medium so strongly. He started studying violin at the age of four through a pilot program at the New England Conservatory in Wellesley before moving to The Rivers School Conservatory in Weston where he graduated in 1980. 

“I’m deeply passionate about what’s happening in the community and celebrating that through music,” Sweet exclaims.

After his graduation, he moved to Amherst to attend Hampshire College and has lived here ever since. At the college, he was a member of Pieces of Neck, one of the only bluegrass bands on campus. They performed at Southern Exposure, a Hampshire festival that had pigs roasting over an open fire, and at all of the keg parties. Sweet wrote his first bluegrass song at the college after one of his professors, Ray Copeland, encouraged him to take a trip to Washington D.C. to experience this style of music.

Now, he is the co-founder of Mandolin New England, a non-profit that puts on concerts in the area, and is a devoted violin and mandolin teacher. Sweet’s students and community are the most important thing in the world to him. He says that his students will always be prioritized over anything else, and any profit gained from his songs gets donated to groups involved in the stories he writes about.

In the future, you can expect to see a song about the Mt. Holyoke workers strike that happened this past weekend and a track discussing safety at colleges in the area after the fire that impacted Wheeler Hall at UMass.