Written over nearly 50 years of journaling, esteemed folk-music concert promoter and producer Peter Johnson’s new memoir, The Laughing Lesson, details his bizarre and anachronistic upbringing in the halls of privilege in Newport, Rhode Island, to his transformation into an instigator and eyewitness to a seminal period in American musical history: The Folk Revival.

His book, The Laughing Lesson, will be released at an event at 7 p.m., November 20, at Belmont Books, in Belmont, with a reading and traditional sing-a-long. “It is a story of transformation as Peter goes from [being a] child of Newport and Boston privilege to Cambridge Bohemian in literally a turkey suit to become a champion and tireless promoter of folk music,” says Dave Palmater, former announcer for “Downeast Ceilidh,” WUMB radio. “That’s working-class music, the music of the poor.”

Location: 79 Leonard St, Belmont. For more information on The Laughing Lesson, call Deidre Randall, CEO at Peter E. Randall Publisher, at 603-431-5667 or email [email protected].