Album Notes

Live at Strings is what it says--a live album recorded at Strings, a cool little club near Berkeley where everyone comes to listen. Calaveras' first album, it was recorded by the band to capture the spirit and variety of their live show, with the addition of the amazing percussionist, instrumentalist and mouth-drummer Joe Craven. In Live at Strings, the band demonstrates its penchant for eclectic, wildly varied sets, dipping into country, bluegrass, folk, folk-rock, jazz ballads and novelty songs. Like good home cooking, the music always starts with great raw ingredients-superior songwriting, singing and playing. But ultimately what makes it so satisfying is that you can tell it was home-made, put together with painstaking care, straight from the heart. Calaveras is a band that loves to get the crowd into the show and give them a great evening--and Live at Strings is the proof.

The band's members have gone on to some notable things--Greg Beattie won the Kerrville New Folk competition on his first try, Victoria Blythe won Northern California Songwriters Association Song of the Year honors with "Dancing with You All by Myself," (which was also placed in the movie "Anywhere but Here" with Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman), Greg won the Napa Wine and Music Festival Emerging Songwriter award, and he recently won three individual categories (country, Americana and humor) and the grand prize in the West Coast Songwriters Association 2005 song contest.