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Yellow Dog Records recording artist Mary Flower is renowned for a
uniquely personal vision of roots music that blends ragtime, acoustic blues,
and folk – technically dazzling yet grounded in the down-to-earth simplicity
of early 20th century American music.

With eight albums under her belt, Flower has earned rave reviews from
critics and audiences alike for her unassuming vocals, but it’s her
instrumental skill – a mastery of the difficult Piedmont blues guitar that
takes most players a lifetime to hone – for which Flower is most celebrated.

Her fingerpicking forms the basis of a heavily syncopated, ragtime-based
style wherein the thumb plucks a strong rhythmic base as the fingers etch
out the melody. Mary also excels at lap slide guitar, allowing her to infuse
songs with a supremely delicate, plaintive sound that’s hers alone while
recalling the blues giants of the past.

Flower performs and teaches internationally, and has released several
instructional DVDs, including a few for highly regarded Homespun Tapes.

Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

Sorry, this show is completely sold out!  No tickets will be released at the door.

Johnson, Miller,& Dermody have played together for over a decade and have been one of the Pacific Northwest’s best-kept secrets until now. All three have busy solo careers but have found time to gather together to play this rootsy, bluesy, soulful music that they love. Finally they sat down at David Lange’s studio and played the music found on Deceiving Blues all together in the same room, in real time, no headphones, no studio gimmicks, and no attempts to fix things later. Honest, immediate, heartfelt and real, in the tradition of the artists and music that inspired them.

They first played as a trio when all three were on staff at the Centrum Blues Workshop in Port Townsend, WA. They are known among aficionados of country blues as three of the finest teachers as well as players. With the release of this CD the rest of the world should soon find out what a select group already knows…these artists are three of the finest interpreters and creators of acoustic blues working today.

Orville Johnson was born and raised in the southern Illinois heartland. He acquired his love of singing as a youth in the fundamentalist Pentecostal church he attended and, when he later began playing guitar and dobro, responded to the roots music that surrounded him by learning to play the blues, bluegrass, rockabilly, and country music that are all part of the mosaic that characterizes his own mongrel music.

He is a singer, instrumentalist, record producer, songwriter, session player, teacher, and, above all, an instinctive and sensitive musician. As his entry in the Encyclopedia of Northwest Music (Sasquatch Press 1999) states, he has become a vital figure on the NW music scene in the twenty-some years he’s lived there, appearing on over 200 CDs, movie and video soundtracks (most recently the film “The Wooly Boys” with Peter Fonda and the PBS series “Frontier House”), commercials, producing 15 CDs for other artists, hosting a roots music radio show, and appearing in the 1997 film Georgia with Jennifer Jason-Leigh and Mare Winningham, on the Prairie Home Companion radio show and on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.

Orville is also known as a patient and insightful teacher of music and has taught often at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop as well as the International Guitar Seminar, Pt. Townsend Blues Workshop, Sound Acoustic Music Camp, Greater Yellowstone Music Camp, B.C. Bluegrass Workshop and others. He has several instructional DVDs and CDs of his own music available including Blueprint for the Blues, Slide & Joy, Freehand, and others.

John Miller has enjoyed a varied career as a professional guitarist, composer and teacher since he started 35 years ago.  John recorded five solo albums while still in his twenties, focusing first of all on country blues in his releases on Blue Goose records, First Degree Blues, How About Me, and Let’s Go Riding, and transitioning to jazz standards for Safe Sweet Home and Biding My Time, a collection of George Gershwin songs, both released on Rounder Records.

John has a reputation as an excellent teacher, having founded two music camps and produced 6 instructional DVDs on country blues guitar for Stefan Grossman’s Vestapol Videos, focusing on the music of Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, Robert Wilkins, Furry Lewis and Bo Carter.

In recent years, John has recorded collaborative CDs with the acoustic jazz trio, Catwalk, the French cabaret ensemble, Rouge, and in duos with vocalist Rebecca Kilgore, mandolinist John Reischman and violinist Ruthie Dornfeld. John recently released his first solo recording in twenty-five years, Hey There, which is a collection of jazz standards.

Grant Dermody (pronounced DER muh dee) is a harmonica player and singer known for his rich tone, tasteful solos, and solid rhythmic playing. Grant moves through a variety of musical styles while maintaining his own distinctive sound.

A sought after accompanist, Grant has appeared on several Jim Page recordings, plays on Dan Crary’s new album, Renaissance of the Steel String Guitar; and has also recorded with Robin Dale Ford, Scott Law, MichaelGrey (of Pearl Django) and Michael Gettel. Grant has performed with Cephas & Wiggins, Big Joe Duskin, JohnDee Holeman, Robert Lowrey, and Honeyboy Edwards. He was a featured artist with Orchestra Seattle playing the harmonica part in Huntley Beyer’s Symphony, Romantic Lines. He is a member of the blues influenced old-time band, The Improbabillies, whose self-titled CD on the Yodel-A-Hee label is a fine example of Grant’s innovative playing and recently released his first solo CD, Crossing That River.

Grant teaches harmonica at the annual Port Townsend Country Blues Festival and at The Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins , West Virginia.

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Please join us as we help David Jacobs-Strain record a live album for an upcoming release!

Slide guitarist and singer-songwriter David Jacobs-Strain grew up in Oregon, far from Mississippi, but found his first musical home in the Delta blues. “I’ve always been drawn to the dark stuff,” David says. This young roots musician channels age-old wisdom and heartache with such energy and passion that you can’t help but feel good, even about feeling bad.

You also wonder how one man with one acoustic guitar (at a time) can rival the sonic density of a jam band. “I really like getting a big acoustic guitar sound—not loud but with a lot of depth and space. It’s all about having the flexibility to convey all different kinds of emotion,” he says.

There are various references in his music—bluesmen Skip James and Charlie Patton, Afro-pop star Salif Keita, Indian slide guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, rock icon John Lennon—but his work as a whole falls neatly in the gaps between multiple genres. Dirty Linen says that “he doesn’t just rock out: he’s learned the art of crossing musical boundaries from the masters.” Ask David what you should call his style. He grins. “Gangster-grass?” he suggests. “One-man arena rock?” A prankster peeks out from under long, dark lashes before disappearing behind the lanky singer’s polite manner.

His latest release, Liar’s Day, was produced by Kenny Passarelli (Otis Taylor, Stephen Stills), who’s also featured on bass. He’s joined by Joe Vitale on drums. “I wanted a big, aggressive drum sound—a Neil Young or Tom Petty sound—that still allowed space for the Traugott acoustic and National steel guitars. I got it with Joe and Kenny, Joe Walsh’s rhythm section in the 70s.” Together the three lay down solid grooves that massage away the sorrow of lost love.

The music isn’t only about love, though. Long before being green became a corporate cliché, David grew up in a community in Eugene that was centered on cultural change and the health of the environment. He sees a distinct connection between the communal base of his upbringing and the democracy of folk music. “I’m really into hand-made culture—and real people making real music. The voice. One guitar. Even at its simplest, folk music like the blues has always been a vehicle for expressing your own situation, whether as an individual or a community. There’s such power in that.”

In his mid-20′s, David is already a veteran of the national club and festival circuit. In 2008 he was chosen by Boz Scaggs to be the opener for his tour. David has also shared the stage with T-Bone Burnett, Bob Weir, Los Lobos, Lucinda Williams, Taj Mahal, Etta James, Dave Mason, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. His festival credits include the Strawberry Music Festival, MerleFest, the Lugano Blues to Bop Festival in Switzerland, the Newport Folk Festival, the Telluride Blues Fest, the Vancouver Folk Festival, and the Montreal Jazz Festival. He’s also served as faculty at guitar workshops, most notably at Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch. In 2009 he worked on a new album of mostly original songs produced by Nashville-based Ray Kennedy (Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Ray Davies).

Tickets:$13 advance, $15 at the door for either show (tickets sold separately)

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The Toy-Box Trio presents “…charmingly quirky music that shifts from whimsical to creepy, from lullabies to marches. It is the soundtrack to a forgotten circus, a broken childhood memory, a magic music box full of dust and wonder.” (Sarah Shay, Jew-ish.com).

Founded in 2007 by classical composer Harlan Glotzer, the Toy-Box Trio is devoted to helping audiences experience through-composed music in an entirely different way.  The pairing of concertina, toy piano, and tuba is reminiscent of the classical piano trio—a staple in chamber repertoire—but able to extend into the 21st century by creating a sonic landscape evocative of dusty old music boxes and haunted carnivals.  Jordan Block of Sepiachord describes the trio’s sound as “…markedly intimate retro-future circus music, transforming baroque sounds into a stranger version of ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’.”  Toy-Box Trio is committed to approaching time-worn ideas and concepts from unexpected, non-traditional, and rarely-used angles.  The trio fills the space between carnivals, circuses, and classical chamber ensembles, creating a light and fanciful sonic atmosphere.

The Toy-Box Trio is at home in venues ranging from concert halls to cabaret clubs to street corners, and performs for a diverse audience including families, steampunks, and symphony-goers.  Previous performances include the Seattle International Cabaret Festival, Steamcon, and the University District Street Fair, as well as various stages and art galleries throughout the Puget Sound region.  Aside from stage performances, the Toy-Box Trio has been featured on KEXP’s “Sonarchy Radio” and has made a live television appearance on the Seattle Channel’s “Art Zone with Nancy Guppy”.  Sepiachord has commissioned two separate pieces from Toy-Box Trio for the CD compilations The Sepiachord Companion and The Sepiachord Passport.  Music from the trio’s self-titled EP creates the backdrop for Philadelphia’s Olde City Sideshow and provides the soundtrack for various films including My Lucy Charm and Back Ally.

Bakelite 78.