These days I'm mostly involved with my band, The Rivers Rockabilly Trio. I started it as a side project and then got caught up in the mission to preserve the rockabilly and rockabilly-influenced rock'n'roll of the 1950s; music that changed the world. I've been doing that for four years now and it has kinda pushed aside everything else. But it is truly joyful work! I am humbled by the great songs that just light people up every single time you play them: Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Cash, and those Blue Moon Boys, of course! Only to name a few... It's music I had never before got the hang of but now seems very important to me; the coming together of many American styles; blues, country, jazz, gospel; a musical melting pot like the very country of it's birth.
Meanwhile, this page represents the part of me that went before, all the way back to high school, when I wrote my first songs.
I'm a child of the 1950s who grew up with the Main Point just a train ride away. Conestoga '71. Got to play at Philly Folk when I was just about to ship out with the US Coast Guard. Thanks to the USCG, I've played in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Kodiak, Alaska, among other places. We had a heck of a good band on the USCGC Munro and I stayed in Seattle for a while after my discharge. I tell my sons I helped found the grunge movement! They are very amused by this...
So, I've been a folkie and a rocker and, not many know, a lead baritone in several musical theater productions (how's that for contrast?). Got my music degree at West Chester during the disco era. I was manager of the Valley Forge Music Fair from 1980-1984, career changes, children, etc...
I rejoined the singer-songwriter community in the mid-nineties. I am most proud of my years at the Doghouse Coffeehouse, where we produced a 5-episode TV program, "Open Mike Night", for local cable. During and following the Doghouse years, I was honored to play in some fine places, The Point, Lansdowne Folk Club, The Mermaid, Steelcity, and others, both as a feature and opener for Lucy Kaplansky, Phil Roy, Chuck Brodsky, John Flynn... then life kinda turned upside-down for a while...
I turn 57 this June and it's only been four years since I finally found a true mission in music, preserving music that I think of as coming from the Heart of America. When I play it, singing songs about bein' a teenager, it makes me laugh everytime!
These years, every Spring feels like the first I've ever seen. I am grateful for each one!
I visited with the wolves today at Lakota Wolf Preserve! This is who we are playing for - this pup below, this grandfather wolf beside - and all Beings who are endangered!!
Your debut with "Journeys of the Wolf" was stunning! What a beautiful narration, great visual presentation and excellent sound production!!!!!
Thanks for your good humor through it all too - much appreciated!!!!!!
The Wolves howl for you.......
Journey Well, Christine .. Want this badge?.. "If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. ” Chief Seattle
Hey Stu! Great to hear from you! I LOVE Room for Annie. It's a classic and it always gets me swaying in my chair. I didn't know you opened for Lucy Kaplansky! I opened for her a couple months ago - what a talent! Hope all is well.
