Some of the voices I love: Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, Los Lobos, Steve Earle, Elizabeth Cotten, John Prine, Asie Payton, Blind Willie Johnson, Edith North Brown, The Cowboy Junkies, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Garcia, Paul Pena. Less famous, but no less great: Anita Suhanin, Steve Sadler, Tim Gearan, Dwight Ritcher and Nicole Nelson, Danielle Miraglia, Tom Bianchi. And the poets; Wislawa Szymborska, Billy Collins, James Fenton.
I started writing songs at the end of ‘03 at Dwight Ritcher’s suggestion. Before that, and still, I’m a family doctor, wife, mother. After I wrote a few songs Dwight told me to buy a good guitar, then he told me to buy a good amp.
I lived in New York City in the 1980’s, worked in a psychiatric hospital, went to the Mud Club, Dan Lynch’s, Irving Plaza, and studied medicine. Talking Heads, Marianne Faithfull, the Clash, Mary Lou Williams, Marion Brown, Bill Braynon, Patti Smith, Tracy Chapman, Al Green, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the Pretenders.
Before that I worked in restaurants and bakeries, picked apples, and photographed in western Massachusetts. Jimmy Cliff, Eno, Peter Gabriel, Tom Waits, Miles Davis, John Coltrane.
Late 70’s I taught photography in Utica, New York. Van Morrison, Joan Armatrading, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Traffic.
Undergraduate at Hampshire College in western Massachusetts , I studied art and photography. Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, The Grateful Dead, Cream, Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, Doc Watson, Bonnie Raitt, Fairport Convention.
High school in New Jersey, the Whole Earth Catalogue, pottery, weaving, sewing and Foxfire. Joni Mitchell, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, Steppenwolf, the Stones, Carole King. I taught myself to play guitar and sort of sing with the chord charts and music in the Bob Dylan songbook and the Joan Baez songbook and my father’s old Gibson guitar.
Growing up, my father, singing and playing his guitar. His is ever the most profound influence. Classical piano lessons for 9 years. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Beatles, Peter Paul and Mary, Josh White, Harry Belafonte, Hank Williams, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and Woody Guthrie.
Life goes on, the list goes on. I listen to more, love more, hear more, and learn from more. I hope you hear it all in my songs.
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