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For most of the past two decades, the city of Lowell has hosted one of the most innovative and varied summer concert series in the Northeast.

The Lowell Summer Music Series is held in a historic national park and attracts topflight talent in a wide variety of musical styles. This year's lineup begins June 28 and runs through Sept. 6. Star performers include Richard Thompson, Bela Fleck, the Indigo Girls, Bruce Hornsby and Arlo Guthrie.

Ticket prices are relatively low - $25-$30 for most concerts - and there's plenty to do when the music's not playing.

Concerts are held in Boardinghouse Park, an urban national park dedicated to the textile industry that once dominated the Merrimack Valley. The Boot Mills factory has been preserved and visitors can witness cotton looms in action. Tours are available and boat trips trace the development of the canals that once provided a key both to transportation and waterpower for the region.

Open cars on a historic electric trolley line (the original form of air conditioning) provide transit in the downtown area. The weekly attractions also include a Shakespeare play and the legendary Lowell Folk Festival July 25-27.

More from the festival front:

Plans are in the works for a scaled-down Pawtucket Arts Festival that will run from Sept. 5-14 with dragonboat races, a Slater Mill Labor and Ethnic Heritage Festival, a Stone Soup Folk Festival and a performance by the Rhode Island Philharmonic.

For more information and updates, visit www.pawtucketartsfestival.org.

Music lovers ought to be able to "squeeze" in a couple of days of fun at the 2008 Northeast Squeeze-In scheduled for Sept. 19-21 in the tiny Berkshires town of Washington.

Squeeze-In?

The annual end-of-summer event is a celebration of the concertina - the "squeeze box" - in all its glory and variety. The event is held on 350 acres surrounding Bucksteep Manor, with concerts, contra dances and an endless variety of workshops and spontaneous jamming.

There's also a museum of squeeze boxes from the curious to the purely bizarre, not to mention limerick and haiku contests. For more information visit www.buttonbox.com.

In other business:

Chan's Jazz and Blues Concert Series features blues-rocker Tinsley Ellis at 8 and 10 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $20 and $15 with $25 for both shows. Chan's is at 267 Main St., Woonsocket, R.I. Patti Rothberg will be featured with opener Sarah Borello Saturday, June 14 at Steve's Backstage Pass, 15 School St., Taunton. Cover is $10 for the 9 p.m. show.

Steve's has Shaky Foot on Friday and the Sunyata Jazz Quartet Sunday in the conclusion to this year's Sunday Night Jazz series.

The Dixie Diehards bring their Dixieland and traditional New Orleans music to the Taunton Public Library at 7 tonight for a free concert.