Album Notes

You want pyrotechnic folk? Like blues? Long for songs that inspire and touch your heart--that offer a different point of view than just the "common wisdom?"

Then you need to hear Siobhan Quinn and Michael Bowers, and the disc, Dreamers, Lovers, and Outlaws.

The 12 songs on the disc span the range from hopeful desires for peace to hard hitting blues. In between there are songs that introduce you to characters and events that you don't meet everyday--like Bill Ballou, the 92 year old who dies (not surprising, people do die at that age). But what is surprising is how he dies--in a bar fight, as the instigator.

The album contains 8 original songs, written by Bowers, or co-written by Bowers and Quinn, and 4 covers, including Nanci Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime" and Pink Floyd's "On the Turning Away" performed essentially in an a capella version.

It's folk--with an attitude. It's acoustic rock with a traditional foundation. It's campfire music--but around an urban campfire. It's blues at its heart with a 21st century sound. However you classify or categorize it, it's good.

Quinn is a 2006 WAMMIE winner (Washington Area Music Association Awards) for Traditional Folk Vocalist, and Boston Folk Festival Finalist for songwriting. She can sing in Irish, and belt the blues.

Bowers is a 2005 Kerrville New Folk Finalist/ 2006 South Florida Folk Finalist, and known for his songs that literally paint stories...they've even been called "folk operas."

Together, in 2007, they have been selected as Kerrville New Folk Finalists, Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artists, Southwest Regional Folk Alliance Formal Showcase Artists, Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Formal Showcase Artists, Performance Alley (formal showcase) Artists at the International Folk Alliance Conference, and Alternates for the FAR West Folk Alliance Conference. They both were instructors at the Rocky Mountain Song School this year, and performed on the Wildflower stage at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival.

With these credentials, they obviously have talent, but from the geography (Boston vs. Kerrville, Texas), it's clear they bring different influences to their work. Meld them, and you get rich original and traditional music with strong harmony laden vocals over acoustic, resonator, & high strung guitars.

Their music calls you to look at the world, and yourself, in a new and bigger way. That's what good music should do for all of us, and that's what they do best.