Bill Staines
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.
Jason Shelton
The Reverend Jason Shelton is a composer, arranger, conductor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, workshop and retreat leader and Associate Minister for Music at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has served since 1998. His compositions have been performed in churches and concert halls throughout North America, and his workshops for choirs, musicians and ministers are helping to redefine music ministry in the liberal religious tradition for the 21st century.
Jim Scott
Jim Scott has brought his contemporary and multicultural music to more than 500 UU Churches over 27 years. His much loved Gather the Spirit and a number of others are included in the UU hymnbooks. Former Co-chair of the UU Ministry for the Earth, Jim was involved in creating the “Green Sanctuary” program. He was awarded a grant from the Fund for Unitarian Universalism to compile and arrange the Earth and Spirit Songbook, a collection of over 100 songs of earth and peace that has been acclaimed as a great resource for worship and RE programs.
In concerts and Sunday services, Jim speaks with passion on ecology, justice and peace, and often works with choirs, inspiring singers to new levels of expression. His lyrical poetry and stories are calls to action, full of hope and gentle wit. Though Jim is often brought in as the “speaker,” his services are always very musical. As song-leader he lifts joyous participation from congregations.
Jim Scott, P. O. Box 4025 Shrewsbury MA 01545, Tel. (508) 755-0995.
Dan Schatz
Dan Schatz has been playing folk music since his childhood in Kensington, Maryland. Nurtured by the active folk music community in the Washington, DC area, he has performed concerts, festivals and workshops since the age of 12. Since then, Dan has become a GRAMMY nominated singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and interpreter of traditional and contemporary folk music. He combines a strong voice with instrumentals that have been described as both “brilliant” and “yummy.”
Sally Rogers
Sally Rogers is a musician/educator with a big life and long history. She has been a performing and recording artist in the world of folk music for over thirty years, with fifteen recordings left in her wake, and many with national awards. She is a well-known songwriter whose songs have been featured in both the Unitarian Universalist and Quaker Hymnals as well as in both national music textbook series. Her children’s picture book, “Earthsong” was published by Dutton/Penguin, based on her song “Over in the Endangered Meadow.”
Since 2001, Rogers has spent more of her musical energy in the classroom rather than on the road. She taught PK-4 music at Pomfret Community School for 9 years, spent a year in a pilot arts-based literacy program in the Bridgeport, CT public Schools, and now is teaching K-2 music at the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley, MA. She is also an adjunct professor at Lesley University in their Creative Arts in Learning Master’s Degree program. Rogers has served as a Master Teaching Artist with the Connecticut Office of the Arts since 1997. She lives in Northeastern Connecticut with her husband, winemaker and musician Howard Bursen.
Suzzy and Maggie Roche
Suzzy and Maggie Roche have been singing together for over forty years. As founding members of The Roches they have made over fifteen recordings (along with their sister Terre), written music for TV and movies, and performed across the United States and Europe. Zero Church, an unusual collection of prayers, came out of The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University. Interested in the idea of how individual people pray, and what those prayers are like, Suzzy and Maggie asked people in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts for prayers, with no limits on what defines a prayer. They made those prayers into songs and the result is Zero Church. The project took on a life of its own, taking shape as one entire piece, although gathered from many individuals. Zero Church has been performed around the country.
Doug Robinson
A guitarist, bass player, singer and producer, Doug has had a lengthy career as a performer and studio musician. He has toured frequently in the US, Canada and Europe with the Burns Sisters Band, British acoustic guitar virtuoso Martin Simpson, ragtime guitarist Bob Brozman, latin bluesman Tino Gonzales and Austin songwriter Billy Eli. In 2003 he performed at Carnegie Hall with Johnny Russo’s East Hill Classic Jazz Group and has been featured in festival performances with European gypsy-swing guitarists Stochelo Rosenberg and Romane. He also performs frequently with the Ithaca-based “Djug Django” gypsy-swing band, the Molly MacMillan Jazz Trio, and singer Sally Ramirez.
Ann Reed
A touring musician for more than 30 years, Ann has gotten to know a bit about the geography of the United States and Canada. She has toured North America coast to coast, doing concerts, clubs, and festivals including Bumbershoot, Winnipeg, Black Mountain, and National Women’s Music Festival. And she’s met wonderful fans and made friends all along the way
Jennifer Pratt-Walter
Jennifer Pratt-Walter communicates her reverence for her instrument and music with her hands, searching to define and transcend human experience. Her musical background includes instrumental, choir, and madrigal performance. Her true love since 1995 has been the Celtic harp. She studied classical harp before forging out on her own with the folk harp, and has been building a repertoire of Celtic, Early, contemporary, original, and light classic pieces. Jennifer has garnered praise and prizes for harping and composing, winning the Advanced/Professional title at the Pacific NW Scottish harp competition twice. She also won the Sacred Oak Grove Eisteddfod in 2000 for original music. Jennifer most recently captured the new regional Pacific NW Scottish harp championship in 2003, and has been an adjudicator.
Jennifer is a Certified Healing Musician and Thanatologist, providing therapeutic music for the dying and those anxious or in pain. She finds this particular ministry very rewarding. Her recording “Ancient Slumbers” reflects this type of music. Jennifer teaches and performs on the harp, and collaborates with Valerie Blessley in the duo Celtic Muse for three recordings, plus released solo albums “Ancient Realms” and “Ancient Muse,” which are available from CD Baby.
Polyphonic Spree
Tim DeLaughter formed The Polyphonic Spree in 2000 in the wake the demise of his former band, Tripping Daisy, after guitarist (and close friend) Wes Berggren died of a drug overdose. It was a combination of trying to find a light in the darkness that followed, and childhood memories of psychedelic vocal groups like The Fifth Dimension, that formed the genesis of the Spree. From the time their debut album The Beginning Stages Of… was released, it was a whirlwind trip to international acclaim, tours of the world, and a unique place in the popular consciousness for their music, their ecstatic performances, and their always-unique style (be it matching robes or the matching military fatigues they later adopted for The Fragile Army). For more than a decade now, The Polyphonic Spree have been cutting a singular swath through the pop culture landscape, spreading a positive energy that makes people scratch their heads and ask questions while presenting music in a way that’s colorful to the ears and eyes.
