RALPH LITWIN (banjo, harmonica, guitar, jug);..
ALAN PODBER [www.alanpodber.com] (guitar, mandolin, harmonica, slide resonator guitar);
Featured on the CD are:
Bob Sacchi: tuba and bass saxophone (check out: "Built for Comfort");
Giboney Whyte: vocals, fiddle and dulcimer;
Lenny Pat (Podber): vocals, guitar (check out: "Six Guys in a Telephone Booth" AND THE VIDEO of he and Giboney performing some vaudevillian repartee on "Don't You Come Home, Bill Bailey" [Gib wouldn't play the song with the original sexist lyrics unless she could write a couple of new verses!]).
Influences
Alan's main musical influences: Dad (a.k.a. Lenny Pat [professionally]); Lead Belly; Rev. Gary Davis; Gene Meade (back-up guitarist for Clark Kessinger); Blind Willie McTell; Big Bill Broonzy; Lightnin' Hopkins; Martin, Bogan and Armstrong; Woody Guthrie; Phil Ochs; Dave Van Ronk; Mississippi John Hurt; Doc Watson; Pete Stampfel and Steve Weber (for starters). We can add Fairport Convention/Dave Swarbrick (and I finally made it to Cropredy).
Ralph's musical influences: The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles, The Coasters, Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Holy Modal Rounders, Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole, Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys and many more.
Sounds Like
"It feels like finding a new, slightly gentler Holy Modal Rounders record. This album is a lot of fun. Great, varied old songs, and a few new ones, played with winning wit and warmth. Congratulations!" All the best, John Weingart, Music You Can't Hear On The Radio, WPRB-FM
Ralph Litwin (Mendham, NJ) and Al Podber (Brooklyn, NY) have performed as a duo and in larger groups since 1985, playing "a wild mix of ragtime, jugband, swing, blues, old-timey country, rock n roll oldies, and originals" (Don Kissil, former editor-in-chief of Pickin). They have played at The New Jersey Folk Festival, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Lincoln Center Crafts Fair, Brooklyn's Dumbo Arts Festival, The Minstrel Coffeehouse, as well as at numerous other coffeehouses, concerts, private parties, fairs, and other events. They lightheartedly refer to themselves as The Furry Harmonica Brothers because they sport beards and sometimes play harmonica duets while accompanying themselves on stringed instruments. The Furry Harmonica Brothers have released a CD, which includes 7 tracks from their live appearance on WFMU with radio host Irene Trudell.
Ralph Litwin took first place in the NJ Old Style Banjo Championship in 83 & 86 (last year of the contest). At the 1996 Uncle Dave Macon Days in Murfreesboro, TN, he was a National Old Time Banjo finalist, took 2nd place in Harmonica and 1st place in Uncle Dave Macon Freewheelin' Style. Litwin is also producer and host of "...Horses Sing None of It!", a non-commercial half-hour cable television series, which has won three 1st Place Awards from The Hometown Video Festival.
Al Podber is an accomplished guitar player, mandolinist, and harmony vocalist, a founding member of both the Wretched Refuse and Delaware Water Gap string bands, a former host of "A Taste of the Blues" on WBAI-FM (Pacifica radio in NY), the lead accompanist for labor singers George Mann and Julius Margolin, and one quarter of the Big Road Blues Band. He also sings with the New York City Labor Chorus and holds a Masters Degree in Music (concentration in ethnomusicology) from Hunter College.
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