Album Notes

A native of Staten Island, New York Bob has been playing music since childhood. He is a multi-instrumentalist steeped in the American musical roots traditions often referred to as Americana. A long time member of the Risky Business Bluegrass Band, Bob often branches out to perform solo or in diverse, acoustic, musical settings following a restless creative urge.
He has been an awardee in all of the grant categories for the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI). These grants are underwritten by both New York City and New York State. He has been awarded a Premier grant, several Encore grants, a Junefest performance, and an Original Works grants in 2004 to write and produce a CD of songs about Staten Island. The resulting CD Harbortown is available and has garnished excellent reviews. Several of those songs have become favorites with singers in the UK and Ireland. The group ‘Harbortown Revue’ was formed in direct response to the collaborative efforts that went into producing the CD. The current line up includes Bob Conroy, Norm Pederson, and Bill Doerge.
In 2003 Bob was a finalist in the bluegrass songwriting category of the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Competition at the Merlefest festival in North Carolina, finishing 3rd out of an international field of close to 900 entries and was invited to perform his song at the festival. He also ran a mentoring program at several of the Maryland Banjo Academy events run by The Banjo Newsletter based out of Annapolis, Maryland. In 2005 he was invited to Nashville as a member of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) Bluegrass Leadership Class of 2005.
As a result of a successful engagement at the Everyman Folk Club in Liverpool, UK, Hughie Jones, a legendary member of the British folk group ‘The Spinners’ published Bob’s song, ‘The Daughter of Water Street’ and recorded it on his latest CD Liverpool Connexions (sic).
Bob continues to perform, both here and abroad, and to write new material that explores the places he knows best. He expects to release his 3rd solo CD, The Diver, at the beginning of 2008 and is also working on a project about immigration for which he was recently awarded a 2008 COAHSI Encore grant.