[NEohioPAL]upcoming concerts

Tue Nov 2 15:25:16 PST 2004

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Below is a listing of concerts currently scheduled for The Kent Stage.

SAM BUSH

Friday, November 12
8:00 PM

Twenty-seven years ago, the producers of the first Telluride Bluegrass Festival began looking for magic. They had a terrific location. They had vision; some called it nerve. But something else was desperately needed. It didn't take them long to find it. For their second year, they booked New Grass Revival, headed by master musician and bluegrass rebel Sam Bush. 

Today Bush, the only artist who has performed at 26 of the 27 legendary events, is considered more than simply the "magic" the festival producers were looking for. Sam Bush has, in fact, become the "cosmic glue" that has defined the festival's maverick spirit from the very start. 

Perhaps best known as the founder and driving force behind the legendary New Grass Revival, Bush's ability to make music that exceeds all expectations is evident by listening to his work over the past year. For example: two diverse projects - Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza (with David Grisman, Ronnie McCoury and Ricky Skaggs, among others) and Short Trip Home (with Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell and Mike Marshall) - were each nominated for a Grammy - for Best Bluegrass Album and for Best Classical Crossover Album, respectively. The Short Trip Home project lead to a performance on the national broadcast of the Grammy Awards. Meanwhile, Bush stays incredibly busy recording and touring with pal / former NGR bandmate Bela Fleck (for the Grammy-nominated The Bluegrass Sessions), as well as Lyle Lovett, Left Over Salmon, Emmylou Harris, Linda Rondstadt and Dolly Parton, among others.

Bush made his recording debut, POOR RICHARDS ALMANAC, in 1969 when he was 17 years old, after holding title as the National Junior Fiddle Champion for three consecutive years. At age 19, he founded New Grass Revival, a band of inventive and aggressive high caliber musicians that for 18 years challenged the preconceived notions of traditional bluegrass instruments by fusing a wide range of styles that included gospel, rock, pop, reggae, jazz, country and bluegrass. NGR blazed a trail of change with their three releases on Capitol Records in the 1980s and seven before that on Flying Fish and Sugar Hill. 

After NGR, Bush went on to lead Emmylou Harris' Grammy-winning Nash Ramblers for five years. An in-demand session player, Bush, who plays mandolin, fiddle and guitar, has recorded on albums by Leon Russell, Doc Watson, Steve Earle, Garth Brooks, Steve Wariner, Trisha Yearwood, Left Over Salmon and Pam Tillis, among many others. Bush has also produced albums by Jon Randall (RCA) and Chris Thile (Sugar Hill).

RESERVED SEATING
Advance discount tickets: $25.00
Day of Show: $25.00

---------------------------------

ROOMFUL OF BLUES

Saturday, November 13
8:00 PM

Roomful of Blues occupies a unique place in the annals of American popular music. The band has been working non-stop since its inception in 1968 — surely a record in itself. Throughout its history, Roomful has consistently earned and maintained an unparalleled reputation for excellent musicianship and has built a thorough mastery of many blues styles that blend to make great entertainment.

This enviable position has been sustained for all these years through the comings and goings of a myriad of gifted musicians. Roomful attributes its longevity to the band's enduring policy of hiring only the very best players available. They have also always put the band as a unit ahead of any particular individual, thus making Roomful of Blues consistently greater than the sum of its parts.

Today's line-up continues this incomparable tradition. Chris Vachon (guitar), Mark DuFresne (vocals & harmonica), Rich Lataille (tenor & alto sax), Mark Earley (baritone & tenor sax), Bob Enos (trumpet), Mark Stevens (piano & organ), Brad Hallen(bass), and Jason Corbiere (drums) together infuse the band with influences new and old, giving that much loved Roomful sound a soulful strut and a fresh, all-star quality!

Roomful's 2002 release, Live at Wolf Trap, captures the highlights of the 2001 line-up's performances at The Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia (January 20 & 21). The selections include material spanning the majority of the band's history — plus previously unrecorded Roomful covers of two musical gems.

Their 2001 album, Watch You When You Go, features a Chris Vachon original, The Salt of My Tears; and a remake of Earl King's "Your Love Was Never There" which Roomful originally recorded on the Grammy-nominated Roomful of Blues/Earl King collaboration, Glazed.

Fall 2000 saw the release of The Blues'll Make You Happy Too, a compilation of cuts from the band's many Rounder releases, including two previously unreleased tracks, one with previous singer Mac Odom and a live 1982 performance with Big Joe Turner. 

Since 1983, Roomful of Blues has been nominated for four Grammy Awards (in the Traditional Blues and Contemporary Blues categories), the most recent of which was for Turn It On! Turn It Up! in 1996. The band has won numerous awards over the years, including twice being voted Blues Band of the Year in the Down Beat International Critics Poll. In 1998, 2001, and again in 2002, Roomful's horn section, led by veteran sax man Rich Lataille, won the W.C. Handy Award for Best Instrumentalist. . 

RESERVED SEATING
Advance discount tickets: $20.00
Day of Show: $20.00

---------------------------------

KARLA BONOFF
and JESSIE WINCHESTER

Thursday, November 18
8:00 PM

Singer/songwriter Karla Bonoff grew up in Los Angeles and briefly attended UCLA. Emerging from the Monday night hootenanny scene at the ~Troubadour nightclub, she was a member of Bryndle, a folk-rock group also featuring Wendy Waldman, Andrew Gold, and Kenny Edwards, that formed in 1969, signed to AM, and cut an album that was never released. Edwards, a former member of the Stone Poneys (a band featuring Linda Ronstadt), and Gold were later part of Ronstadt's backing band, and they brought Bonoff to her attention. Ronstadt recorded three of Bonoff's songs on her 1976 album, Hasten Down the Wind, leading to a recording contract for Bonoff and the release of three albums on Columbia Records, the last of which, Wild Heart of the Young (1982), featured the Top 40 hit "Personally." Bonoff worked on movie soundtracks during the '80s, notably on Footloose (1984) and About Last Night (1986). She released her fourth album, New World, in 1988. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Jesse Winchester was the music world's most prominent Vietnam War draft-evader, though his renown came from a body of wry, closely observed songs. 

After growing up in Memphis, Winchester received his draft notice in 1967 and moved to Montreal, Canada, rather than serve in the military. In 1969, he met Robbie Robertson of the Band, who helped launch his recording career. In the same way that James Taylor's history of mental instability and drug abuse served as a subtext for his early music, Winchester's exile lent real-life poignancy to songs like "Yankee Lady," which appeared on his debut album, Jesse Winchester (1970). He became a Canadian citizen in 1973. 

Despite critical acclaim, his inability to tour in the U.S. prevented him from taking his place among the major singer/songwriters of the early '70s, but he made a series of impressive albums — Third Down, 110 to Go (August 1972), Learn to Love It (August 1974), Let the Rough Side Drag (June 1976), and Nothing but a Breeze (March 1977) — before President Jimmy Carter instituted an amnesty that finally allowed him to play in his homeland. By that time, the singer/songwriter boom had passed, though Winchester continued to record (A Touch on the Rainy Side [July 1978], Talk Memphis [February 1981], Humour Me [1988]) and even scored a Top 40 hit with "Say What" in 1981. 

His most prominently covered songs include "Yankee Lady" (Brewer & Shipley), "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz" (Joan Baez, Ian Matthews), "Biloxi" (Tom Rush, Jimmy Buffett), "Mississippi, You're on My Hind" (Jerry Jeff Walker, Stoney Edwards [for a Top 40 country hit]), "Defying Gravity" (Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris), "Rhumba Girl" (Nicolette Larson [for a pop chart entry]), "Well-A-Wiggy" (the Weather Girls [for an R&B chart entry]), and "I'm Gonna Miss You, Girl" (Michael Martin Murphey [for a Top Ten country hit]). In 1999, Winchester returned from a long recording hiatus with the new album Gentleman of Leisure. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide 

RESERVED SEATING
Advance discount tickets: $25.00
Day of Show: $25.00

---------------------------------

FOLK ALLEY PERFORMANCE
by PAT DONAHUE

Friday, November 19
8:00 PM

Nationally acclaimed fingerstyle guitarist Pat Donohue has earned prominent recognition for his mastery of acoustic fingerstyle guitar, which he exhibits weekly as the guitarist for the Guys All Star Shoe Band on Garrison KeillorÕs radio program "A Prairie Home Companion." Chet Atkins called him one of the greatest finger pickers in the world today; Leo Kottke called his playing "haunting."

Though he considers himself foremost a folk guitarist, Pat manages to blend jazz and blues with folk, and the mix is seamless. Over the years he has captivated audiences with his unique original compositions, dazzling instrumentals and humorous song parodies, including Sushi-Yucky and Would You Like to Play the Guitar? 

Honors include several Minnesota Music Awards and the prestigious title of 1983 National Finger Picking Guitar Champion. His original tunes have been recorded by Chet Atkins, Suzy Bogguss and Kenny Rogers. Pat has also been a featured performer at major music festivals including the Newport, Telluride, Philadelphia and Winfield Folk Festivals. 

Tickets sales only at the door $10.00

BO DIDDLEY

Friday, December 3
8:00 PM

He only had a few hits in the 1950s and early '60s, but as Bo Diddley sang, "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover." You can't judge an artist by his chart success, either, and Diddley produced greater and more influential music than all but a handful of the best early rockers. The Bo Diddley beat is one of rock & roll's bedrock rhythms, showing up in the work of Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones, and even pop-garage knockoffs like the Strangeloves' 1965 hit "I Want Candy." Diddley's hypnotic rhythmic attack and declamatory, boasting vocals stretched back as far as Africa for their roots, and looked as far into the future as rap. His trademark otherwordly vibrating, fuzzy guitar style did much to expand the instrument's power and range. But even more important, Bo's bounce was fun and irresistibly rocking, with a wisecracking, jiving tone that epitomized rock & roll at its most humorously outlandish and freewheeling... 

His very first single, "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" (1955), was a double-sided monster. The A-side was soaked with futuristic waves of tremolo guitar, set to an ageless nursery rhyme; the flip was a bump-and-grind, harmonica-driven shuffle, based around a devastating blues riff. But the result was not exactly blues, or even straight R&B, but a new kind of guitar-based rock & roll, soaked in the blues and R&B, but owing allegiance to neither. 

In addition to singing and performing, he also did some songwriting. His hambone beat [shave-and-a-hair-cut, six bits] was his trademark, and was often copied by others in their music. Although he had few hit songs in the pop vein, his powerful delivery, somewhat intimidating songs, and the pounding rhythm of his guitar caused him to be a performer in demand. He toured with Dick Clark's road shows, and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

Bo Diddley took his name from a one-stringed African guitar, and usually played a guitar with a rectangular box shape. He managed to work his name into some of his songs. He is still singing and performing, and took his place in the Rock-and-Roll Hall Of Fame in 1987. 

Advance discount tickets: $30.00
Day of Show: $35.00

---------------------------------

PETER ROWAN and TONY RICE
with special guest SLAID CLEAVES

Saturday, December 4
8:00 PM

Grammy-award winner and five-time Grammy nominee, Peter Rowan was born in Massachusetts to a musical family. He began his professional career playing guitar, singing lead vocals and co-writing as a member of the Bluegrass Boys, led by the founding father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. 

After his departure as Monroe's guitarist and lead vocalist, Rowan formed folk-rock band Earth Opera with David Grisman, recording two successful albums for Elektra Records and subsequently joining Richard Greene in jazz-rock fusion group SeaTrain. In the early '70s, Rowan, David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Vassar Clements and John Kahn formed a bluegrass band christened Old & In the Way. 

He embarked on a well-received solo career in the late '70s, releasing such diverse and critically acclaimed albums as Dustbowl Children and Bluegrass Boy, as well as much-admired collaborations with ace Dobro player Jerry Douglas, Flaco Jimenez, and his brothers Christopher and Lorin Rowan. 

Rowan's songs have also been recorded by hit country artists and featured in motion pictures. His recent projects include a recording at Jamaica's famed Tuff Gong Studios with an imposing array of hardcore reggae and bluegrass musicians, and select performances touring as Peter Rowan and Crucial Reggae, featuring members of both the Burning Spear and Peter Tosh bands.

Arguably the finest flat-picking guitarist of all time, Virginia-born and California-raised Tony Rice is revered as perhaps the single most important bluegrass guitarist alive. Introduced to the genre by his musician father, he formed the seminal band Bluegrass Alliance and later joined J.D. Crowe's New South, one of the best, most progressive and commercially successful bluegrass bands of all time. 

Rice left to join the David Grisman Quintet, working on original material that blended jazz, bluegrass and classical styles. He then embarked on a highly respected and successful solo career that included a part-time venture in bluegrass supergroup, The Bluegrass Album Band. With his signature subtle touch, beautiful tone, amazing speed and imaginative phrasing, Rice has inspired guitarists far and wide for decades, as both a peerless lead player and the quintessential rhythm player. His inventive syncopation encompasses many acoustic music genres in addition to bluegrass, including jazz, blues, classical, folk, and swing, as is evident in his numerous solo and collaborative recordings. 

Twice nominated for a Grammy Award, he won for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 1986 as a member of New South. In 2003, Rounder Records released Tony Rice's 58957: The Bluegrass Guitar Collection. "Guitar World Acoustic" gave the collection 4 stars stating "Remarkable guitar, remarkable guitarist; it's a combination that can't be beat." 

Slaid Cleaves grew up amid dairy farms, abandoned sawmills and the ever-encroaching suburban strip malls. The first of four kids, Cleaves was picking though the family record collection at the age of three, beginning a lifelong fascination with the music of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, The Everly Brothers and Woody Guthrie. 

He began his career as a "busker," singing on the streets of Cork, Ireland, while attending college there in 1985. Returning to the U.S., he formed the roots-rocking Moxie Men in 1989, playing extensively throughout New England and winning a semi-finalist slot in Musician Magazine's best unsigned band contest. Having outgrown the small but vital music scene in Portland, Maine, he landed in the roots-rock Mecca of Austin, Texas, in 1991. There, he rose swiftly through the ranks of the local singer-songwriter scene.

In 1992, he won the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk competition, an award previously given to such striking talents as Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen and Steve Earle. By 1996, he had signed to Rounder Records and released No Angel Knows, which attracted widespread critical acclaim. 

Advance discount tickets: $
Day of Show: $

---------------------------------

BRIAN HENKE'S
WOODCHOPPER'S BALL

Sunday, December 5
8:00 PM

The Woodchopper's Ball features 12 of the nation's top guitarists, playing round robin style — 4 artists on stage at a time, each taking turns playing until everyone has played three selections.

Complete lineup coming soon.

Advance discount tickets: TBA
Day of Show: TBA

---------------------------------

MELANIE

Friday, December 10
8:00 PM

With guitar in hand and a talent that combined amazing vocal equipment, disarming humor, and a vibrant engagement with life, she was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations, where delegates greeted her performances with standing ovations. The top television hosts of the time — Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett — battled to book her. (After her stunning performance on his show, Sullivan goggled that he had not seen such a "dedicated and responsive audience since Elvis Presley.")

Accolades rolled in, from critics ("Melanie's cult has long been famous, but it's a cult that's responding to something genuine and powerful — which is maybe another way of saying that this writer counts himself as part of the cult too," wrote John Rockwell in The New York Times) as well as peers ("Melanie," insisted jazz piano virtuoso Roger Kellaway, "is extraordinary to the point that she could be sitting in front of us in this room and sing something like 'Momma Momma' right to us, and it would just go right through your entire being.")

In the years that followed Melanie continued to record, continued to tour. UNICEF made her its spokesperson; Jimi Hendrix's father introduced her to the multitude assembled for the twentieth anniversary of Woodstock. Her records continued to sell — more than eighty million to date. She's had her songs covered by singers as diverse as Cher, Dolly Parton, and Macy Gray. She's raised a family, won an Emmy, opened a restaurant, written a musical about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane...

She has, in short, lived a rare life. But all of it was just a prelude to what's about to come.

Advance discount tickets: $20.00
Day of Show: $25.00

---------------------------------
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<DIV>Below is a listing of concerts currently scheduled for The Kent Stage.</DIV>
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SAM BUSH
Friday, November 12 8:00 PM
Twenty-seven years ago, the producers of the first Telluride Bluegrass Festival began looking for magic. They had a terrific location. They had vision; some called it nerve. But something else was desperately needed. It didn't take them long to find it. For their second year, they booked New Grass Revival, headed by master musician and bluegrass rebel Sam Bush. 
Today Bush, the only artist who has performed at 26 of the 27 legendary events, is considered more than simply the "magic" the festival producers were looking for. Sam Bush has, in fact, become the "cosmic glue" that has defined the festival's maverick spirit from the very start. 
Perhaps best known as the founder and driving force behind the legendary New Grass Revival, Bush's ability to make music that exceeds all expectations is evident by listening to his work over the past year. For example: two diverse projects - Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza (with David Grisman, Ronnie McCoury and Ricky Skaggs, among others) and Short Trip Home (with Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell and Mike Marshall) - were each nominated for a Grammy - for Best Bluegrass Album and for Best Classical Crossover Album, respectively. The Short Trip Home project lead to a performance on the national broadcast of the Grammy Awards. Meanwhile, Bush stays incredibly busy recording and touring with pal / former NGR bandmate Bela Fleck (for the Grammy-nominated The Bluegrass Sessions), as well as Lyle Lovett, Left Over Salmon, Emmylou Harris, Linda Rondstadt and Dolly Parton, among others.
Bush made his recording debut, POOR RICHARDS ALMANAC, in 1969 when he was 17 years old, after holding title as the National Junior Fiddle Champion for three consecutive years. At age 19, he founded New Grass Revival, a band of inventive and aggressive high caliber musicians that for 18 years challenged the preconceived notions of traditional bluegrass instruments by fusing a wide range of styles that included gospel, rock, pop, reggae, jazz, country and bluegrass. NGR blazed a trail of change with their three releases on Capitol Records in the 1980s and seven before that on Flying Fish and Sugar Hill. 
After NGR, Bush went on to lead Emmylou Harris' Grammy-winning Nash Ramblers for five years. An in-demand session player, Bush, who plays mandolin, fiddle and guitar, has recorded on albums by Leon Russell, Doc Watson, Steve Earle, Garth Brooks, Steve Wariner, Trisha Yearwood, Left Over Salmon and Pam Tillis, among many others. Bush has also produced albums by Jon Randall (RCA) and Chris Thile (Sugar Hill).
RESERVED SEATING Advance discount tickets: $25.00 Day of Show: $25.00
<A href="http://www.ticketweb.com/user/?region=oh&query=schedule&venue=kentstage" target=new_window></A>
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ROOMFUL OF BLUES
Saturday, November 13 8:00 PM
Roomful of Blues occupies a unique place in the annals of American popular music. The band has been working non-stop since its inception in 1968 — surely a record in itself. Throughout its history, Roomful has consistently earned and maintained an unparalleled reputation for excellent musicianship and has built a thorough mastery of many blues styles that blend to make great entertainment. 
This enviable position has been sustained for all these years through the comings and goings of a myriad of gifted musicians. Roomful attributes its longevity to the band's enduring policy of hiring only the very best players available. They have also always put the band as a unit ahead of any particular individual, thus making Roomful of Blues consistently greater than the sum of its parts. 
Today's line-up continues this incomparable tradition. Chris Vachon (guitar), Mark DuFresne (vocals & harmonica), Rich Lataille (tenor & alto sax), Mark Earley (baritone & tenor sax), Bob Enos (trumpet), Mark Stevens (piano & organ), Brad Hallen(bass), and Jason Corbiere (drums) together infuse the band with influences new and old, giving that much loved Roomful sound a soulful strut and a fresh, all-star quality!
Roomful's 2002 release, Live at Wolf Trap, captures the highlights of the 2001 line-up's performances at The Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia (January 20 & 21). The selections include material spanning the majority of the band's history — plus previously unrecorded Roomful covers of two musical gems.
Their 2001 album, Watch You When You Go, features a Chris Vachon original, The Salt of My Tears; and a remake of Earl King's "Your Love Was Never There" which Roomful originally recorded on the Grammy-nominated Roomful of Blues/Earl King collaboration, Glazed.
Fall 2000 saw the release of The Blues'll Make You Happy Too, a compilation of cuts from the band's many Rounder releases, including two previously unreleased tracks, one with previous singer Mac Odom and a live 1982 performance with Big Joe Turner. 
Since 1983, Roomful of Blues has been nominated for four Grammy Awards (in the Traditional Blues and Contemporary Blues categories), the most recent of which was for Turn It On! Turn It Up! in 1996. The band has won numerous awards over the years, including twice being voted Blues Band of the Year in the Down Beat International Critics Poll. In 1998, 2001, and again in 2002, Roomful's horn section, led by veteran sax man Rich Lataille, won the W.C. Handy Award for Best Instrumentalist. . 
RESERVED SEATING Advance discount tickets: $20.00 Day of Show: $20.00
<A href="http://www.ticketweb.com/user/?region=oh&query=schedule&venue=kentstage" target=new_window></A>
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KARLA BONOFF and JESSIE WINCHESTER
Thursday, November 18 8:00 PM
Singer/songwriter Karla Bonoff grew up in Los Angeles and briefly attended UCLA. Emerging from the Monday night hootenanny scene at the ~Troubadour nightclub, she was a member of Bryndle, a folk-rock group also featuring Wendy Waldman, Andrew Gold, and Kenny Edwards, that formed in 1969, signed to AM, and cut an album that was never released. Edwards, a former member of the Stone Poneys (a band featuring Linda Ronstadt), and Gold were later part of Ronstadt's backing band, and they brought Bonoff to her attention. Ronstadt recorded three of Bonoff's songs on her 1976 album, Hasten Down the Wind, leading to a recording contract for Bonoff and the release of three albums on Columbia Records, the last of which, Wild Heart of the Young (1982), featured the Top 40 hit "Personally." Bonoff worked on movie soundtracks during the '80s, notably on Footloose (1984) and About Last Night (1986). She released her fourth album, New World, in 1988. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music
 Guide
Jesse Winchester was the music world's most prominent Vietnam War draft-evader, though his renown came from a body of wry, closely observed songs. 
After growing up in Memphis, Winchester received his draft notice in 1967 and moved to Montreal, Canada, rather than serve in the military. In 1969, he met Robbie Robertson of the Band, who helped launch his recording career. In the same way that James Taylor's history of mental instability and drug abuse served as a subtext for his early music, Winchester's exile lent real-life poignancy to songs like "Yankee Lady," which appeared on his debut album, Jesse Winchester (1970). He became a Canadian citizen in 1973. 
Despite critical acclaim, his inability to tour in the U.S. prevented him from taking his place among the major singer/songwriters of the early '70s, but he made a series of impressive albums — Third Down, 110 to Go (August 1972), Learn to Love It (August 1974), Let the Rough Side Drag (June 1976), and Nothing but a Breeze (March 1977) — before President Jimmy Carter instituted an amnesty that finally allowed him to play in his homeland. By that time, the singer/songwriter boom had passed, though Winchester continued to record (A Touch on the Rainy Side [July 1978], Talk Memphis [February 1981], Humour Me [1988]) and even scored a Top 40 hit with "Say What" in 1981. 
His most prominently covered songs include "Yankee Lady" (Brewer & Shipley), "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz" (Joan Baez, Ian Matthews), "Biloxi" (Tom Rush, Jimmy Buffett), "Mississippi, You're on My Hind" (Jerry Jeff Walker, Stoney Edwards [for a Top 40 country hit]), "Defying Gravity" (Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris), "Rhumba Girl" (Nicolette Larson [for a pop chart entry]), "Well-A-Wiggy" (the Weather Girls [for an R&B chart entry]), and "I'm Gonna Miss You, Girl" (Michael Martin Murphey [for a Top Ten country hit]). In 1999, Winchester returned from a long recording hiatus with the new album Gentleman of Leisure. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide 
RESERVED SEATING Advance discount tickets: $25.00 Day of Show: $25.00
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FOLK ALLEY PERFORMANCE by PAT DONAHUE
Friday, November 19 8:00 PM
Nationally acclaimed fingerstyle guitarist Pat Donohue has earned prominent recognition for his mastery of acoustic fingerstyle guitar, which he exhibits weekly as the guitarist for the Guys All Star Shoe Band on Garrison KeillorÕs radio program "A Prairie Home Companion." Chet Atkins called him one of the greatest finger pickers in the world today; Leo Kottke called his playing "haunting."
Though he considers himself foremost a folk guitarist, Pat manages to blend jazz and blues with folk, and the mix is seamless. Over the years he has captivated audiences with his unique original compositions, dazzling instrumentals and humorous song parodies, including Sushi-Yucky and Would You Like to Play the Guitar? 
Honors include several Minnesota Music Awards and the prestigious title of 1983 National Finger Picking Guitar Champion. His original tunes have been recorded by Chet Atkins, Suzy Bogguss and Kenny Rogers. Pat has also been a featured performer at major music festivals including the Newport, Telluride, Philadelphia and Winfield Folk Festivals. 
Tickets sales only at the door $10.00
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BO DIDDLEY
Friday, December 3 8:00 PM
He only had a few hits in the 1950s and early '60s, but as Bo Diddley sang, "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover." You can't judge an artist by his chart success, either, and Diddley produced greater and more influential music than all but a handful of the best early rockers. The Bo Diddley beat is one of rock & roll's bedrock rhythms, showing up in the work of Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones, and even pop-garage knockoffs like the Strangeloves' 1965 hit "I Want Candy." Diddley's hypnotic rhythmic attack and declamatory, boasting vocals stretched back as far as Africa for their roots, and looked as far into the future as rap. His trademark otherwordly vibrating, fuzzy guitar style did much to expand the instrument's power and range. But even more important, Bo's bounce was fun and irresistibly rocking, with a wisecracking, jiving tone that epitomized rock & roll at its most humorously outlandish and freewheeling... 
His very first single, "Bo Diddley"/"I'm a Man" (1955), was a double-sided monster. The A-side was soaked with futuristic waves of tremolo guitar, set to an ageless nursery rhyme; the flip was a bump-and-grind, harmonica-driven shuffle, based around a devastating blues riff. But the result was not exactly blues, or even straight R&B, but a new kind of guitar-based rock & roll, soaked in the blues and R&B, but owing allegiance to neither. 
In addition to singing and performing, he also did some songwriting. His hambone beat [shave-and-a-hair-cut, six bits] was his trademark, and was often copied by others in their music. Although he had few hit songs in the pop vein, his powerful delivery, somewhat intimidating songs, and the pounding rhythm of his guitar caused him to be a performer in demand. He toured with Dick Clark's road shows, and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. 
Bo Diddley took his name from a one-stringed African guitar, and usually played a guitar with a rectangular box shape. He managed to work his name into some of his songs. He is still singing and performing, and took his place in the Rock-and-Roll Hall Of Fame in 1987. 
Advance discount tickets: $30.00 Day of Show: $35.00
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PETER ROWAN and TONY RICE with special guest SLAID CLEAVES
Saturday, December 4 8:00 PM
Grammy-award winner and five-time Grammy nominee, Peter Rowan was born in Massachusetts to a musical family. He began his professional career playing guitar, singing lead vocals and co-writing as a member of the Bluegrass Boys, led by the founding father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. 
After his departure as Monroe's guitarist and lead vocalist, Rowan formed folk-rock band Earth Opera with David Grisman, recording two successful albums for Elektra Records and subsequently joining Richard Greene in jazz-rock fusion group SeaTrain. In the early '70s, Rowan, David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Vassar Clements and John Kahn formed a bluegrass band christened Old & In the Way. 
He embarked on a well-received solo career in the late '70s, releasing such diverse and critically acclaimed albums as Dustbowl Children and Bluegrass Boy, as well as much-admired collaborations with ace Dobro player Jerry Douglas, Flaco Jimenez, and his brothers Christopher and Lorin Rowan. 
Rowan's songs have also been recorded by hit country artists and featured in motion pictures. His recent projects include a recording at Jamaica's famed Tuff Gong Studios with an imposing array of hardcore reggae and bluegrass musicians, and select performances touring as Peter Rowan and Crucial Reggae, featuring members of both the Burning Spear and Peter Tosh bands.
Arguably the finest flat-picking guitarist of all time, Virginia-born and California-raised Tony Rice is revered as perhaps the single most important bluegrass guitarist alive. Introduced to the genre by his musician father, he formed the seminal band Bluegrass Alliance and later joined J.D. Crowe's New South, one of the best, most progressive and commercially successful bluegrass bands of all time. 
Rice left to join the David Grisman Quintet, working on original material that blended jazz, bluegrass and classical styles. He then embarked on a highly respected and successful solo career that included a part-time venture in bluegrass supergroup, The Bluegrass Album Band. With his signature subtle touch, beautiful tone, amazing speed and imaginative phrasing, Rice has inspired guitarists far and wide for decades, as both a peerless lead player and the quintessential rhythm player. His inventive syncopation encompasses many acoustic music genres in addition to bluegrass, including jazz, blues, classical, folk, and swing, as is evident in his numerous solo and collaborative recordings. 
Twice nominated for a Grammy Award, he won for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 1986 as a member of New South. In 2003, Rounder Records released Tony Rice's 58957: The Bluegrass Guitar Collection. "Guitar World Acoustic" gave the collection 4 stars stating "Remarkable guitar, remarkable guitarist; it's a combination that can't be beat." 
Slaid Cleaves grew up amid dairy farms, abandoned sawmills and the ever-encroaching suburban strip malls. The first of four kids, Cleaves was picking though the family record collection at the age of three, beginning a lifelong fascination with the music of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, The Everly Brothers and Woody Guthrie. 
He began his career as a "busker," singing on the streets of Cork, Ireland, while attending college there in 1985. Returning to the U.S., he formed the roots-rocking Moxie Men in 1989, playing extensively throughout New England and winning a semi-finalist slot in Musician Magazine's best unsigned band contest. Having outgrown the small but vital music scene in Portland, Maine, he landed in the roots-rock Mecca of Austin, Texas, in 1991. There, he rose swiftly through the ranks of the local singer-songwriter scene.
In 1992, he won the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk competition, an award previously given to such striking talents as Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen and Steve Earle. By 1996, he had signed to Rounder Records and released No Angel Knows, which attracted widespread critical acclaim. 
Advance discount tickets: $ Day of Show: $
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BRIAN HENKE'S WOODCHOPPER'S BALL
Sunday, December 5 8:00 PM
The Woodchopper's Ball features 12 of the nation's top guitarists, playing round robin style — 4 artists on stage at a time, each taking turns playing until everyone has played three selections.
Complete lineup coming soon.
Advance discount tickets: TBA Day of Show: TBA
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MELANIE
Friday, December 10 8:00 PM
With guitar in hand and a talent that combined amazing vocal equipment, disarming humor, and a vibrant engagement with life, she was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations, where delegates greeted her performances with standing ovations. The top television hosts of the time — Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett — battled to book her. (After her stunning performance on his show, Sullivan goggled that he had not seen such a "dedicated and responsive audience since Elvis Presley.")
Accolades rolled in, from critics ("Melanie's cult has long been famous, but it's a cult that's responding to something genuine and powerful — which is maybe another way of saying that this writer counts himself as part of the cult too," wrote John Rockwell in The New York Times) as well as peers ("Melanie," insisted jazz piano virtuoso Roger Kellaway, "is extraordinary to the point that she could be sitting in front of us in this room and sing something like 'Momma Momma' right to us, and it would just go right through your entire being.")
In the years that followed Melanie continued to record, continued to tour. UNICEF made her its spokesperson; Jimi Hendrix's father introduced her to the multitude assembled for the twentieth anniversary of Woodstock. Her records continued to sell — more than eighty million to date. She's had her songs covered by singers as diverse as Cher, Dolly Parton, and Macy Gray. She's raised a family, won an Emmy, opened a restaurant, written a musical about Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane...
She has, in short, lived a rare life. But all of it was just a prelude to what's about to come.
Advance discount tickets: $20.00 Day of Show: $25.00
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