Stuart Mason
&
John Weed
(of Molly’s Revenge)
Ireland to Appalachia

John Weed (fiddle) and Stuart Mason (guitar, mandola, banjo) will be performing traditional Appalachian, blues, and Celtic music that digs deep into the roots of American music. Long before the time of Bill Monroe or Ralph Stanley or the Carter Family, rural Americans were singing and fiddling the ballads and dance tunes of Britain and Ireland, as well as the sentimental and comedy hits of the wildly popular minstrel shows. These sources provided a wellspring of material that later formed the basis of the bluegrass and early country repertoire.

John and Stuart have just recorded a new album project–their first CD as a duo. Material for the project ranges from early American ballads and songs newly composed by their peers to beautiful melodies with Celtic and French roots. They will remain true to their love of American old timey music and Irish trad while expanding the repertoire with tunes and songs that reflect their life-long love of traditional music from all eras and all regions. The audience can expect a few surprises along with some familiar favorites, and maybe even a singalong or a humorous party piece dating back to the minstrel era. Along with brand new pieces, these concerts will showcase material from the new Molly’s revenge album “Lift” as well as songs from the lively repertoire of Little Black Train and from Stuart’s two solo albums. 

Doors open 6pm with a potluck reception.

There will be daytime workshops – Irish fiddle & DADGAD Guitar $25.  Contact Lisa for more information.

A house concert is an excellent opportunity to hear great music in a very intimate setting.

Irish Duo
Tommy and Saundra O’Sullivan

Tommy O’Sullivan has been aclaimed as “one of the great contemporary folk voices of Ireland” and “a stellar guitarist.” Tommy has recorded albums with Sliabh Notes and with Bothy Band piper, Paddy Keenan as well as 2 solo albums. He and his wife Saundra have matched her alto harmonies with his tenor lead vocals and they are very much a part of the vibrant music scene in Dingle, Ireland, as well as owning O’Sullivan’s Couthouse Pub.

Come and hear them in this cozy and intimate setting.

Roy Zimmerman

There’s lots of new grist for Roy Zimmerman’s song-writing mill with the election results and everything going on in the world.  This should be interesting (and entertaining).

Roy Zimmerman is a satirical songwriter in the Tom Lehrer/Phil Ochs tradition with a great gift for clever and funny lyrics that really rhyme and an incredibly entertaining banter between his songs.

“You’re brilliant. Just brilliant!” — Terry Jones, Monty Python

Tom Lehrer himself says, “I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs.  And the rhymes actually rhyme, they don’t just ‘rhyne.'”

Joni Mitchell says, “Roy’s lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection.”

He spent the Comedy Boom years of the Eighties doing stand-up in San Francisco, sharing stages with George Carlin, Bill Maher, Kate Clinton, Dennis Miller and many others. He wrote all the material for his funny folk music quartet The Foremen, recording two albums for Warner/Reprise Records. He’s done several shows with The Pixies’ Frank Black, swapping songs in a solo acoustic setting.

“Roy Zimmerman simultaneously inspires me and makes me laugh my ass off,” says comedian/author Paul Krassner.

Zimmerman tours almost constantly, taking his funny songs about fracking, creationism, marijuana laws, government shutdown, same-sex marriage, guns, taxes and abstinence across the country, often playing in some of the least Progressive places in America for the most Progressive people there.  “I get accused of preaching to the converted,” he says, “but I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as entertaining the troops.”

In thirteen albums over twenty years, Roy has brought the sting of satire to the struggle for Peace and Social Justice. His songs have been heard on HBO and Showtime. He has recorded for Warner/Reprise Records. He’s been profiled on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Zimmerman’s YouTube videos have amassed over seven million views, and he’s a featured blogger for the Huffington Post.

Sing Out! Magazine writes, “Zimmerman is a guy on the left skewering folks on the right with rapier-sharp lyrics … underneath the caustic satire is a man who is surprisingly optimistic.”

The Martha Room at the First Presbyterian Church is in the basement, most easily accessed through the 11th Street entrance near the parking lot.

Del Rey
&
Suzy Thompson

The music, the chemistry, the talent, the fashion, the FUN!

With a fashion sense that would make Minnie Pearl smile and a virtuoso fingerpicked resonator guitar style (and resonator ukulele!) that packs a whole orchestra into just 6 (or 4) strings, fabulous country blues chanteuse Del Rey teams up with blues fiddler extraordinaire and vocalist deluxe Suzy Thompson for a few shows every year.

“Del Rey, who plays a syncopated style of guitar based on prewar blues and barrelhouse piano traditions, is one of the best fingerpickers of this or any generation. Suzy Thompson is a consummate blues fiddler who’s stolen more than her fair share of music festivals with her room-filling, vibrato-laden vocals. The pair has known each other for decades as members of the West Coast blues community, and that familiarity adds to the richness of their debut album as a duo… a welcome treat from two of the finest instrumentalists and arrangers in the business. ”
– Ian Zack, Acoustic Guitar

Please join us for an evening of music not-to-be-missed, or heard very often, especially here!

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

West My Friend

Described as everything from indie-roots to chamber-folk, West My Friend has an acoustic blend of instruments and four-part harmonies that challenges the conventions of popular music. The band features pure and thrillingly elastic vocals with catchy arrangements of bass, guitar, mandolin, and accordion that draw from jazz, classical, folk, and pop influences. Inspired by artists such as Owen Pallett, Joanna Newsom, Bright Eyes, The Decemberists, and the Punch Brothers, and forged from a sonically adventurous acoustic music scene on Canada’s west coast, West My Friend is proving to be a key part of a new generation of grassroots folk music.

Please join us for an evening of music not-to-be-missed, or heard very often, especially here!

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

Multiple Grammy-nominee John McCutcheon charms audiences with “story telling that has the richness of fine literature” (Washington Post) and his mastery of a stage full of folk instruments is simply amazing. He plays guitar, fiddle, autoharp, banjo, jaw harp, (hambone if we are lucky) and is best known for his hammered dulcimer playing. A John McCutcheon concert is always energizing, fun, uplifting, community building, and his audiences leave with a renewed sense of hope for humanity. “This notion of telling stories of ordinary people who have done great things, and carrying those stories from one place to another, of telling people ‘this is where I’ve been, these are the stories I can bring you,’ is the heart of what I do,” McCutcheon sums up. “That’s my goal. If you can recognize yourself in my songs, then I’ve done my job.” He lives in Georgia but keeps moving, toward wherever he senses there’s still a story yet to be told.

His 30 recordings have gathered many honors including 7 Grammy nominations. His most recent honors the centenary of Joe Hill’s death on November 19^th, 1915. John McCutcheon brings Joe Hill’s music to a whole new audience. With fresh arrangements, stunning musicianship, and released on a palette that makes these songs feel as though they were written today rather than a century ago, there is a life and vitality that is both rare and refreshing. In honor of Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday John recorded THIS LAND: Woody Guthrie’s America. He assembled an all-star cast of songs and musicians to honor America’s most enduring folksong writer: Willie Nelson, Tommy Emmanuel, Kathy Mattea, Tim O’Brien, Stuart Duncan, Tom Chapin, Tom Paxton, Maria Muldaur and more. McCutcheon offers fresh new arrangements and exciting new interpretations of many of Woody’s most well-known songs. He has so much material we never know what he might perform, and of course he gives the audience a chance to request their favorites so plan ahead!

But it is in live performance that John feels most at home. It is what has brought his music into the lives and homes of one of the broadest audiences any folk musician has ever enjoyed. People of every generation and background seem to feel at home in a concert hall when John McCutcheon takes the stage, with what critics describe as “little feats of magic,” “breathtaking in their ease and grace…,” and “like a conversation with an illuminating old friend.”

So if you want to laugh, cry, be inspired, and feel like you are a part of a big community, then don’t miss this concert. More information about John McCutcheon his website is at www.folkmusic.com For info or to volunteer, call Chere Pereira 541-753-9224.

Whether in print, on record, or on stage, few people communicate with the versatility, charm, wit or pure talent of John McCutcheon.

Libby Roderick

an internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter, poet, activist, teacher and lifelong Alaskan. The surprising power and depth of her music and the humor and spontaneity of her performances have attracted large and enthusiastic audiences across the continent and fans all over the world. Her six recordings have received extensive airplay on Earth and, in 2003, NASA played her song “Dig Down Deep” on the planet Mars as encouragement to the robot “Spirit.” Libby is an exhilarating and witty artist who offers a remarkable blend of passionate music, wry humor and incisive commentary on social and personal issues.

Cassandra Robertson

a muse with a message, has the heart of a lion, and the mane to match.  Accompanied by her acoustic guitar, she floors the audience like a sonic boom with captivating messages of peace, prosperity, hope and above all, inspiration.  Her unique style of “acoustic conscious folk” kick starts the heart and levitates the soul; reminding us all that we CAN positively affect the world we all share, as long as we choose planet over profit and remember to be ourselves.

Libby Roderick has composed a bunch of new socially-engaged music and got a big grant to tour it, so Spring Creek is hosting a concert by her in collaboration with the Corvallis Folklore Society.

The challenge of the Spring Creek Project is to bring together the practical wisdom of the environmental sciences, the clarity of philosophical analysis, and the creative, expressive power of the written word to find new ways to understand and re-imagine our relation to the natural world.

Thompsonia

combines Eric & Suzy Thompson’s deep devotion to southern roots music with daughter Allegra’s fresh perspective, creating feel-good music that richochets between the rowdy and the sentimental, with an abundance of groove and a bit of a quirky edge. Suzy and Allegra’s genetically-matched vocals (dubbed “The Everly Sisters sound” by Geoff Muldaur) are featured, along with stellar lead playing from Eric on mandolin and guitar. In addition to the Cajun, blues and old-time music for which Eric and Suzy have long been acclaimed, the trio also performs witty originals alongside obscurities in styles ranging from rockabilly to hokum to Americana.  Standouts from their new Thompsonia CD include Suzy’s acoustic rock anthem “Very Bad Mood” (guaranteed to have just the opposite effect on the listener), Allegra’s bawdy 1920’s “He May Be Your Dog But He’s Wearing My Collar,” Eric’s proto-zydeco “French Fries” and a lovely duet rendition of Hugh Moffatt’s “Rose of My Heart.”

​Eric and Suzy Thompson have performed and recorded in collaborations with David Grisman, David Nelson (New Riders), Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, Geoff Muldaur, Jim Kweskin, Michael Doucet, Del Rey, Dave Alvin and Joel Savoy, to name just a few, and their bands have included Any Old Time, Black Mountain Boys, California Cajun Orchestra, Blue Flame String Band and many others. Allegra Thompson is the bass player of choice for multiple Bay Area bands, including the Cajun band Midnite Ramblers and the bluegrass band Wendy Burch Steel & Redwood.

Please join us for an evening of music not-to-be-missed, or heard very often, especially here!

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

David Roth

David Roth strikes many chords, hearts, and minds with his unique songs, offbeat observations, moving stories, sense of the hilarious, and powerful singing and subject matter. As singer, songwriter, recording artist, keynote speaker, workshop leader, and instructor, David has earned top honors at premier songwriter competitions – Kerrville (TX) and Falcon Ridge (NY) – and taken his music, experience, and expertise to a wide variety of venues in this and other countries full-time for more than two decades.

David’s songs (“Rising in Love”, “Earth”, “Manuel Garcia”, “May the Light of Love”, “Nine Gold Medals”, “Spacesuits”, “Rocket Science”, “I Stand for Love”, “That Kind of Grace”, and many more) have found their way to Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, several Chicken Soup for the Soul books, the Kennedy Center, Peter, Paul, & Mary’s “Discovered” (Warner Brothers), the Kingston Trio’s “Born at the Right Time”, NASA’s Goddard Space Center (“Rocket Science” went up on the Space Shuttle Atlantis’s May 2009 mission to repair the Hubble Telescope), the classic folk song books “Rise Up Singing” and “Rise Again” (sequel), and 13 CDs on the Wind River and Stockfisch (Germany) labels. Winner of 4 Positive Music Awards and the 2015 Grace Note (Unity Worldwide Ministries) for Outstanding Contribution to New Thought Music, David has also been featured on many of Christine Lavin’s seminal Rounder Records compilations.  The former artist-in-residence at New York’s Omega Institute has also been a songwriting judge at Kerrville, Napa Valley (CA), Tumbleweed (WA), Eventide Arts (MA), the Avalon Festival (WV), and the South Florida Folk Festival.

David has also taught singing, songwriting, and performance at the Augusta Heritage workshops, SummerSongs and WinterSongs (NY), Common Ground on the Hill (MD), the Woods Dance & Music Camp (Canada), WUMB’s Summer Acoustic Music Week (NH), Moab Folk Camp (UT), Rowe Center (MA), Pendle Hill (PA), Lamb’s Retreat (MI), the Swannanoa Gathering (NC), the National Wellness Institute (WI), and for many other songwriting groups and associations around the country.  David is also founder/director of the Cape Cod Songwriters Retreat and creator/host of Cape Cod’s “Full Moon Open Mic” which, for the past 10 years has provided a forum for musicians to connect and be heard while at the same time collecting donations ($12,000 to date) for local non-profits to help neighbors in need.

Please join us for an evening of music not-to-be-missed, or heard very often, especially here!

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

Kate Power
&
Steve Einhorn

Kate Power and Steve Einhorn are lifelong musicians, songwriters, teachers, and were the owners of the world renowned performance venue, music school, and instrument shop, Artichoke Music in Portland, Oregon (1981-2006). Vocal Cut of the Year 2017 for Paddy’s Lament on their new release, Portland Romance, their ninth album of original and traditional folk. They won the Music2Life award for the song,”Travis John” at the Kerrville Folk Festival and have shared stages with folk luminaries including Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Odetta, and Garrison Keillor.

Go to https://lisalynne.com/cedarhouse-concerts/ for location details.

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

Noctumbule
– Marla Fibish and
Bruce Victor –

Original and Traditional, harmonized poetry songs, lots of humor.

 This incredible duo are our best friends from where we lived in the bay area. That could make us partial, but indeed they make some of the most beautiful acoustic music you will ever hear. Marla is my idol. She is one of the foremost Irish mandolin players in the world. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Bruce is the funniest guy we know, a great guitarist with a side hobby as a psychiatrist. They are a songwriting duo that layers incredible sounds and virtuosity with their clever and brilliant songs.   They use musical settings of a broad array of poetry that they sing in harmony, original instrumental pieces, and traditional Irish tunes and songs.  Aryeh recorded their first album in our home studio and whenever they play, we get to sit in. You will get to hear an unusual array of strings  — fine guitars in varied tunings, mandola, mandolin, bouzouki, cittern, tenor guitar — and their blended voices. More about their music: https://www.noctambulemusic.com/us

Go to https://lisalynne.com/cedarhouse-concerts/ for location details.

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

yOya

alex pfender – vOcals, guitar
noah dietterich – keybOards, vOcals

yOya is the project of longtime songwriting partners Alex Pfender and Noah Dietterich. Natives of Corvallis, and friends since the fifth grade, Pfender and Dietterich grew up to the sound of rain in the fir trees and ‘Graceland’ on cassette. When the duo moved to California to study music they found themselves absorbing the electronic sounds of the LA scene. What emerged was yOya’s unique mix of folk-hearted songs, intricate vocal harmony, gritty synths, and electronic beats. The LA Weekly describes yOya as “one of LA’s top 3 Live Bands”.

Combining classic folk songwriting with contemporary electronic beats, yOya’s latest single “The Heartwood” evokes “a cabin high in grassy hills or a rooftop overlooking a gleaming city,” according to Consequence of Sound. The trio has recently shared stages with Bleachers, Moses Sumney, Avi Buffalo and many others. Learn more at their website: yoyatheband.com.

JE Sunde is a well known indie-folk singer-songwriter who has appeared on NPR’s “All Songs Considered”.

“J.E. Sunde is one of the greatest indie-folk singer-songwriters around.”
-Daytrotter

 

 

The Fire

is a trio with Rebecca Lomnicky on Scottish fiddle, David Brewer on Highland pipes and whistles, and Adam Hendey on guitar & bazouki.  The Fire performs captivating Scottish music as a heartfelt and rousing musical experience. Between their entertaining and informative stage banter, vast array of instrument combinations and extensive repertoire, including everything from soaring slow airs to intricately arranged dance tunes, these charismatic performers will leave you on your feet with your hands together. In 2009, Rebecca won the 20th Annual Glenfiddich International Scottish Fiddle Championship held at Blair Castle, Blair Atholl, Scotland. David Brewer is unarguably one of the most energetic and charismatic performers of the Highland pipes in the world today. Adam brings an innovative contemporary approach to traditional music.  (Rebecca is from Corvallis)

Juliet Strong

is a New York City based singer-songwriter, with a background in Folk, Classical and Jazz piano and voice. With a voice like butter and a body of original, folk-soul inspired melodies, Juliet touches audiences with her depth of sound, musicality, poetic imagery and eclectic style. Juliet’s energetic sound is underscored by rhythm piano, counter melodies, vocalize, and ukulele. She has spent years absorbing a variety of styles in a traditional folk setting, supplementing with her love of Bebop, Soul, Funk and R&B, and travel to Turkey, Spain, Portugal, and Argentina. The result is a unique, infectiously uplifting sound often likened to that of Norah Jones, Carol King, and Carly Simon.–
She will be playing with our own Dave Chiller on percussion and Michael Proctor on upright bass.

The show will open with Aeryn Brassfield (vocals) accompanied by Ray Brassfield on upright bass.  The show starts at 7 pm, gate at 6:30.  Please bring low chairs or blankets, and something munchy or liquid to share at the break if you wish.

Click on the Tickets link for concert address.

A house concert is an excellent place to hear and meet great musicians in a very intimate setting.

Bill Staines

Anyone not familiar with the music of Bill Staines is in for a special treat.

For more than forty years, Bill has traveled back and forth across North America, singing his songs and delighting audiences at festivals, folksong societies, colleges, concerts, clubs, and coffeehouses. A New England native, Bill became involved with the Boston-Cambridge folk scene in the early 1960’s and for a time, emceed the Sunday Hootenanny at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge. Bill quickly became a popular performer in the Boston area. From the time in 1971 when a reviewer from the Boston Phoenix stated that he was “simply Boston’s best performer”, Bill has continually appeared on folk music radio listener polls as one of the top all time favorite folk artists. Now, well into his fifth decade as a folk performer, he has gained an international reputation as a gifted songwriter and performer.

Singing mostly his own songs, he has become one of the most popular and durable singers on the folk music scene today, performing nearly 200 concerts a year and driving over 65,000 miles annually. He weaves a blend of gentle wit and humor into his performances and one reviewer wrote, “He has a sense of timing to match the best standup comic.”

Bill’s music is a slice of Americana, reflecting with the same ease his feelings about the prairie people of the Midwest or the adventurers of the Yukon, the on-the-road truckers, or the everyday workers that make up this land.

Many of Bill’s songs have appeared in grade school music books, church hymnals, and scouting campfire songbooks; he is one of only a few songwriters to have eight songs published in the classic song collection, Rise up Singing. Composer David Amram recently described Bill as “a modern day Stephen Foster…his songs will be around 100 years from now.”

Over the decades, you have heard Bill singing on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, HBO’s award winning series Deadwood, and Public Radio’s Mountain Stage. Additionally, his music has been used in a number of films including Off and Running, with Cyndi Lauper, and The Return of the Secaucus Seven, John Sayles’ debut as a writer- director.

In 1975, Bill won National Yodeling Championship in Kerrville Texas. Another important recognition was given to him in 2007. Presented by the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association, The Jerry Christen Award recognized Bill’s contribution to New England folk music.

Currently, Bill has recorded 26 albums; The Happy Wanderer and One More River were winners of the prestigious Parents’ Choice Award, taking a gold medal and silver medal respectively. His songs have been recorded by many artists including Peter, Paul, and Mary, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy, The Highwaymen, Mason Williams, Grandpa Jones, Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith, Glen Yarborough and others.

As well as recordings, over 100 of Bill’s songs have been published in three songbooks: If I Were a Word, Then I’d Be a Song, Movin’ It Down the Line, and Music to Me, the latter published by Hal Leonard Corporation. His song, All God’s Critters, has been recently released as a Simon and Schuster children’s book with illustrations by Caldecott honor-winning artist, Kadir Nelson.

“Folk music is rich in the human spirit and experience. I’ve always wanted to bring something of value to people through my songs.” With these thoughts, Bill continues to drive the highways and back roads of the country year after year, bringing his music to listeners, young and old.

In the fall of 2015 Yankee Magazine, New England’s premiere magazine, published it’s “80th Anniversary Issue.” In the issue, along with the likes of Stephen King and Katherine Hepburn, Bill was chosen as “One of the 80 gifts New England has given to America.”
A true honor.

Mike and Carleen McCornack

Mike and Carleen have been entertaining adults and children in Oregon for decades with original and traditional folk tunes.  While they live in Eugene, it’s become rare to see them in Corvallis, and we should take advantage of every chance we get.