Seattle Folklore Society

Saturday, March 13

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Heidi Muller w/Bob Webb & Dan Maher

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $15
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

Songwriter Heidi Muller and multi-instrumentalist Bob Webb will return from West Virginia to team up with Eastern Washington’s favorite folksinger, Dan Maher, for a night of round-robin solos, duets and trios. Formerly from Seattle, Heidi is well-known to local audiences for her award-winning songs and clear alto voice backed by guitar and Appalachian dulcimer. Bob, who played in the Mountain Stage Band of public radio fame for nine years, adds skillful accompaniment on mandolin, guitar, dulcimer and electric cello. Dan is a high-energy singer, guitarist and song collector whose repertoire runs from Celtic ballads to cowboy songs and cover tunes. Together the three share harmonies, storytelling and spontaneous humor that spring from their years of friendship and love of the music.

This concert is the seventh in the Good Road Tour that Heidi, Dan and Bob have been doing since last November. Heidi’s song "Good Road" has been the theme song of Dan’s Inland Folk radio show for the last 20 years. For almost three decades, Dan has hosted the weekly show heard on Northwest Public Radio and broadcast over the internet. "Good Road" has become a favorite of his radio audiences and one of Heidi’s most-requested songs. Heidi and Dan have performed concerts together over the years, including sharing sets at Northwest Folklife, Yakima Folklife and Tumbleweed festivals, and they have recorded several duets together.

Heidi and Dan’s CDs, songbooks and Good Road Tour t-shirts will be available for sale at the concert. For more information, please visit www.heidimuller.com.

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.

Saturday, March 20

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Si Kahn

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $15
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

Si Kahn comes to the Phinney Neighborhood Center to celebrate his music and his retirement as the Executive Director of Grassroots Leadership. The Farewell to Grassroots Leadership Tour is Si's most ambitious U.S. concert tour ever and will focus on reconnecting with fans of many years, both personal and organizational; making new friends; sharing a host of recent songs in a warm concert setting; and raising funds to help ensure the organization's sustainability after his retirement.

Si Kahn has worked for 45 years as a civil rights, labor and community organizer and musician. His songs of family, community, work and freedom such as Aragon Mill, Wild Rose of the Mountain and Gone, Gonna Rise Again have been recorded by hundreds of artists. The farewell tour features Si’s 16th CD Courage about the quiet heroism of everyday people, with Kathy Mattea, harmony vocalist, and Jens Krüger of the Krüger Brothers accompanist.

Also featured on the tour is Si’s new book Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble-Rousers; Activists and Quiet Lovers of Justice, with forewords by Angela Davis and Jim Hightower.

Purchase tickets in advance at www.brownpapertickets.com

Saturday, March 27

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Ellis Paul

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $15
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

SFS is thrilled to welcome Ellis Paul back to the Phinney stage on March 27! His last show a few years ago to a full house of very happy listeners. Get your tickets soon to make sure you don't miss out!

Ellis Paul is one of the leading voices in American songwriting. He was a principal leader in the wave of singer/songwriters that emerged from the Boston folk scene, creating a movement that revitalized the national acoustic circuit with an urban, literate, folk pop style that helped renew interest in the genre in the 1990's.

His charismatic, personally authentic performance style has influenced a generation of artists away from the artifice of pop, and closer towards the realness of folk. Though he remains among the most pop-friendly of today's singer-songwriters - his songs regularly appear in hit movie and TV soundtracks - he has bridged the gulf between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger more successfully than perhaps any of his songwriting peers.

Between 1993 and 2004, he won an unprecedented 13 Boston Music Awards, and his songs were heard on hit TV shows Ed and MTV's Real World; and in the soundtracks of several Farrelly Brothers films, including "Me, Myself, & Irene," starring Jim Carrey, and "Shallow Hal," with Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow. Director Peter Farrelly has called Paul "a national treasure." www.ellispaul.com

For this show there will be no reservations taken online or by phone. Some tickets will be available at prior SFS shows, and tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets.

Direct link to the Brown Paper Tickets website to buy tickets for this concert:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/91837

Or you can call BPT at 1-800-838-3006, 24/7, to buy tickets over the phone.

Saturday, April 3

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $15
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

From Salem, Oregon, acoustic power duo Kristen Grainger and Dan Wetzel deliver what Neal Gladstone has called, "Great guitar playing, great singing, powerful harmonies, and most of all terrific, smart original songs." Kristen and Dan are known as members of bluegrassers, True North, and they have branched out, recording their duet CD, Part Circus, Part Rodeo, in 2008.

Join them at the Phinney Neighborhood Center for the great songs and singing.

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.

Saturday, April 10

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Tim Grimm

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $14
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

Singer-songwriter, actor, hay-farmer ... "In his home state, the Indianapolis Monthly magazine has described Tim Grimm in their year-end "Best of Indy" issue as their singer-songwriter of choice. "The way this talented artist can paint pictures dripping of time-honored Americana images with his words, you cannot help but evoke comparisons to everyone from Woody Guthrie and Steve Goodman to Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen", said Midwest Beat Magazine. Recently, he has shared the stage with artists as diverse as Richard Thompson, Carrie Newcomer, and friend Ramblin' Jack Elliott.

A few years ago, Tim Grimm returned home to southern Indiana after several successful years as an actor in Los Angeles. He co-starred in the NBC series Reasonable Doubts and appeared in half a dozen feature films, including Clear and Present Danger opposite Harrison Ford. He had left behind (in the Midwest) a reputation as an up and coming singer/songwriter whose skills were honed at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.

Tired of living in LA, Tim and his wife bought an old farm not far from where he grew up. It was during the time they were deciding to leave behind their lifestyle in LA, that Tim began to write songs again, inspired by the area in which he grew up.

Tim is a musical storyteller, whether writing of his own journey back to the land, describing those who never left it, or honoring those who came before. Rich with descriptive details, these are songs sung with warmth and intimacy, recognizing the inextinguishable national romance with the idea of the family farm and the realities of the vanishing landscape of rural America.

See Tim in concert at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, Saturday, April 10 @ 7:30. He’ll entertain you with songs from his recently released his CD, "Farm Songs". Visit his website at: www.timgrimm.com and be sure to catch his interview Thursday, April 8, at 1:00 on The Outskirts, with Iaan Hughes on KBCS, 91.3fm.

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.

Saturday, April 17

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

David Roth

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $15
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

We are delighted to welcome back former neighbor and award-winning singer/songwriter David Roth to the Phinney Neighborhood Center on April 13th. It is a rare chance to see him in Seattle. David’s concerts are funny, moving, topical, inspiring… and the guy can sing! His stories and songs are delivered with humor and grace, the perfect antidote to these difficult times. The New Haven Folk Alliance says "David's pure, smooth voice, unsurpassed instrumental ability, incredible humor, and heart-piercing, intelligent lyrics brought a feeling into our concert hall that cannot be described - except perhaps by the word "harmony". It was as if folk music, New Age, comedy club, coffee house, and a bit of heaven had all come together for one evening."

David celebrates his 23rd year of full-time music-making. His songs have found their way to Carnegie Hall, churches and music festivals, several Chicken Soup for the Soul books, the NASA space center, the United Nations, and countless venues worldwide. Don't miss this rare opportunity to enjoy David Roth and his music in person!

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.

Saturday, April 24

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Kenny White

with opening act Angela Reed

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $14
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

Kenny released his new cd, Comfort in the Static, at Boston's Club Pasim in February, and he’ll be sharing it with us April 24. He sandwiched in the release between a three week tour in England and Ireland, complete with interviews on the BBC, before heading to Folk Alliance in Memphis. Busy guy.

New Yorker Kenny White has been in the music business for more than 25 years as a producer and studio pianist, and during that time he’s written hundreds of television and radio commercials. He has only more recently developed his singer-songwriter career. A dazzling piano player, he's performed with a range of artists -- Keith Richards, James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Jonathan Edwards, and the Neville Brothers. He’s been opening a lot for Cheryl Wheeler and Judy Collins the last few years, and is recording on Judy’s label, Wildflower.

"White’s impressionistic songs grow on you over time, as his images evoke your own memories and associations, and the subtly insistent grooves and instrumental textures stay with you well after the record stops spinning," said Sing Out! magazine. {para] Representative of the many blogs on Kenny’s website is this one: "I've had the good fortune to see Kenny White twice now. He has to be one of the best small venue performers around. His lyrics are dryly humorous, sometimes heart wrenching, sometimes laugh-out-loud ironically funny. Vocals are unpolished and real. How do his hands move over the keys so fast? My Recurring Dream is an especially interesting song, wry and funny and strange. Don't miss this guy. See him live; you won't be disappointed."

Local favorite, Angela Reed, opens. www.angelareed.com

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.

Saturday, May 1

Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge

Krista Detor

Phinney Neighborhood Center (Brick Building), 7:30PM

General Admission: $15
$2 off for SFS & PNA members and seniors, kids half price

Musical styles and influences abound in Krista’s writing. Her songs are vignettes, telling stories of time and experience. Her quiet musical intensity has been compared to that of Leonard Cohen and Laura Nyro.

Touring the U.S. and Europe consistently, Detor has shared stages with Joan Armatrading, Suzanne Vega, Aaron Neville, Loudon Wainwright, Luka Bloom, Slaid Cleaves, Peter Mulvey, The Wailing Jennys, Jakob Dylan, Carrie Newcomer, Lucy Kaplansky, and John Gorka, among others.

Her diverse songwriting draws on blues, folk, country, rock and jazz, reflecting years of experience spent soaking up musical influences. Detor's rich vocals and earthy piano playing, meanwhile, helped give substance to the cast of surreal characters populating her songs. She is produced and accompanied by her partner, David Weber.

She’s reached #1 on the Euro-Americana chart, and her music’s been featured at the Cannes Film Festival, on NPR, the BBC, Dutch National Radio, German National Radio, Belgian National Radio.

Krista released "Chocolate Paper Suites" – her 4th solo album – in March 2010 with a whirlwind tour throughout Northern Europe and the United Kingdom. Enjoy a night of lush lyrics, engaging stories, and great music with her at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North in Wallingford. Doors open at 7:00, show at 7:30.

Reserve online, or by calling 206/528-8523.