August 2021

Otter’s Holt are Barbara and David Denz, who met in graduate school in Oregon, and have been part of various permutations of traditional folk music groups in Oregon, Alaska, Maryland, Washington, and Canada for the past thirty-eight years.  Their preference as a duo is “eclectic Celtic music” that follows the Celts through their times and influences across Europe and North America, and the seas in between.

Noah Boys are Emmy award winning children’s performer and singer/songwriter Tim Noah and his son Jude Noah.  They perform some original tunes on violin and mandolin from the porch at the Pond Beyond.

Tim and Jude have been playing music with each other for 20 years since Jude picked up the violin at age 7.

Nathaniel Chapman is a singer/songwriter and recording artist native to the Pacific Northwest.  In 2015, he released his debut album “From Higher Ground To The Other Side,” and has recently released his second album through BentBeat Productions.  He is excited to be able to share his music with the Tumbleweed Music Festival!

Mo Mack, I confess, is a nickname. Legally I’m known as Morris McClellan. I mention it to introduce two older brothers, who dragged me into music. Mike, some five years my senior, was doing a credible imitation of Leadbelly when he was 15. He left the family three years later to embark on the life of a folk singer, after having indoctrinated the middle brother Bill in the joys of Bluegrass and old-timey music. Later, Bill made me learn to play the guitar, so he’d have someone to keep the rhythm while he played banjo, mandolin or fiddle. The three of us still play together when we can, and you never know what’s coming next: Cajun, Hawaiian, Gospel, Bluegrass, Blues, Dixieland, R&R, a Corrido of Mike’s or some strange hybrid Bill has thought up.

Once hooked, I delved into all forms of the blues and country, discovered Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, and fell hard for Honky Tonk music, Chicago Blues and early Rock & Roll. Anything close to the roots grabbed my attention. I was also listening to pop radio and was a dedicated Lovin’ Spoonful fan. As for schooling, it took me ten years and six different colleges, but in 1976 I finally escaped from the University of California at Santa Cruz with a degree in the History of Country & Westem Music and went to LA to start a band and be a songwriter.

By 1982, I had built a recording studio in my basement, and a friend of mine and I recorded an album called “A Collection of Favorite Christmas Carols.” We called Lewis Ross, who played all the parts, the “new American Guitar Ensemble.” It was the start of a business that came to be called the Revere-Lifedance Company.  This delightful Christmas album sold well enough for me to start a record label and a distribution company. We introduced the idea of playing music in a non-record retail store which the store would carry for sale. It came to be called “In-Store Play & Sell” marketing. It was a good run through the late 80’s and early 90’s, but then the internet began to happen, and the music business changed. Besides, I was selling primarily instrumental music, and where had my song-writing dreams gone? When the opportunity was offered by my partners to buy me out, it made sense.

I released my first album, “New & Used Tunes,” in 2000. For the next 10 years I worked with a couple of folk trios that performed around Portland. The second trio with John and Cynthia Boelling formed the basis for my second album, entitled “Dancing in the Light,” released in 2014. I continue to perform when and where I can, though the Covid pandemic interrupted that for all of us.

Mike Notticello is the stage name of Michael Eytcheson.  He is a versatile singer and multi-instrumentalist, who performs rock, pop, jazz, and blues.  His instruments include ukulele, guitar, and upright bass.

Hailing from the evergreen Pacific Northwest, Michael Henchman’s thoughtful, imagery-rich songwriting often draws inspiration from roads less traveled that have beckoned since childhood – living across the U.S., in Europe, and many years in central Alaska – to create a contemporary sound that is at once warm and reminiscent. His music has been described as “progressive folk, mixed with redwoods, diners, grassy plains, a dash of longing, and a bit of road dust for texture.” His experiences instilled a deep fascination with open landscapes and with how the heart becomes entangled by time and distance.

“It is in these quieter places that what is true and real becomes more apparent,” Michael says. “One can feel the unbroken connection to the pulse of life.”

Michael’s latest recording “Near and Far” is a mostly-acoustic album, continuing to explore characters finding their footing along wayward paths. He paints both the tangible and the elusive – what is perceived directly and what is laid across a wider cinematic canvas, waiting to unfold. He is currently working on his next full-band record project.

He began writing songs early, falling under the music spell of an eclectic range of artists in folk, jazz, funk, gospel, and the long-form orchestral compositions of prog-rock, eventually being inspired by the work of such insightful writers as Jackson Browne, John Gorka, David Wilcox, Shawn Colvin, Richard Shindell, and Dave Carter.

As part of his travels, Michael headed to Alaska to work as a pipe laborer during the early days of the TransAlaska Pipeline construction. The project was, in many ways, like the Gold Rush era of 80 years prior… people wending their way north to work hard, chasing their dreams, sometimes losing it all. The wild was always just over one’s shoulder, waiting for both the hardy and the foolish to test their mettle and their luck. Michael was inspired by the certainty and continuity of which life hangs on in such an unusual place.

Over the years, Michael has performed in various folk, rock-n-roll and jazz bands – as bassist, vocalist, and guitarist – and he has also composed instrumental music for several public television programs about Alaska. He continues to search for stories from the many places that people call home. Whether performing solo or with full backing band, Michael brings a sense of emotional truth to his songs and to the ongoing theme of ‘roads less traveled’.

“Pure Americana magic… full of cautionary tales and a passion for life… narrative lyrics and sincere performances [from] an artist who embraces each moment.” –  Gashouse Radio

With over 50 years of performing experience, Michael “Hawkeye” Herman exemplifies the range of possibilities in acoustic blues, and personifies versatile musicianship, originality, and compelling artistry as a blues storyteller. His dynamic performances have won him a faithful following, and he leads a very active touring schedule of performances at festivals, concerts, school programs, and workshops.  Hawkeye performs a wide variety of traditional blues, ballads, swing, and original tunes, on six-string and twelvestring guitar, and is an adept and exciting practitioner of slide guitar and slide mandolin. His music has been included in video documentaries and in three hit theatrical productions, and his solo CD, Blues Alive!, released in 1998, was greeted by rave reviews and greatly increased the demand for his live performances at major blues and folk festivals. His newest CD, It’s All Blues To Me!, was released in May of 2005.

Hawkeye was born in Davenport, IA, on January 11th, 1945. As a teenager, he discovered a broad variety of blues music in late night radio broadcasts from Memphis, Shreveport, Dallas, New Orleans, Little Rock, Chicago, Detroit, and other points beyond the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities, in the upper Mississippi River Valley area where he was growing up. Hawkeye got his first guitar in 1959, at the age of fourteen, and was performing two years later. Seeking to broaden his musical horizons, he relocated in the San Francisco Bay area in 1968. He sought out, and learned at the feet of many icons of the blues, including:  Son House, Brownie McGhee, Bukka White, Mance Lipscomb, Furry Lewis, Lightin’ Hopkins, John Jackson, K.C. Douglas, and Sam Chatmon. He became a staple in the Bay Area blues scene as both a solo artist and a back-up guitarist and worked with Charles Brown, Haskell “Cool Papa” Sadler, Sonny Rhodes, Jimmy McCracklin, Buddy Ace, Charles Houf, Little Joe Blue, Boogie Jake, and many others.

Hawkeye began touring outside of California in 1984, and has performed at blues and folk festivals, and in concert, across the US/Canada and Europe. His dynamic performances have won him a faithful following and he leads a very active touring schedule. Hawkeye performs a wide variety of traditional blues, ballads, swing, and original tunes, on six-string and twelve-string guitar, and is an adept and exciting practitioner of slide guitar and slide mandolin. His 1989 album, Everyday Living, featuring Charles Brown and Cool Papa, received much critical acclaim. His song, The Great Flood of ’93, has been used on the sound-tracks of two video documentaries on that Midwest disaster, and has been included in a compact disc anthology of singer/songwriters produced by the New York based music magazine, Fast Folk.

As a music educator, Hawkeye has taken his love of blues music to students of all ages, from pre-school to university campuses through his enthusiastically received “Blues in the Schools” programs, which he initiated in 1980. He has taught guitar for over 25 years, and has presented blues and slide guitar instructional workshops at major folk and blues festivals as a part of his frequent concert touring schedule. In May of 1998, Hawkeye received the “Keeping the Blues Alive” Award for achievement in education from the Blues Foundation in Memphis. The award was the result of many years of blues educational programs he has done for students of all ages. He began this effort long before most blues support organizations and blues festivals even existed. Hawkeye has helped to initiate in-school educational programs for many blues societies and has single-handedly introduced blues music workshops to major festivals. He is the co-founder of the Rogue Valley Blues Festival in his home area of Southern Oregon.

Hawkeye was the composer/musical director/musician for the hit play El Paso Blue, which has had successful runs in San Franciso, Seattle, San Diego, Chicago, Portland, at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Philadelphia, where he was awarded the prestigious Barrymore Theater Award for Best Original Music in a play for the ’99/’00 season, and at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR, the largest theater complex in the US. In 2004, Hawkeye performed off Broadway in the New York City production of El Paso Blue. He collaborated with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan on the music for the 2002 West Coast premiere of Schenkkan’s play, Handler, also produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Hawkeye served for six years on the Board of Directors of the Blues Foundation in Memphis, and was chairperson of the Foundation’s education committee. He has contributed blues historical articles and personal memoirs to many national and regional blues magazines, as well as contributed to the recent book/CD anthology, Up the Mississippi/A Journey Of The Blues, published by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society in 2003.

Hawkeye has provided musical soundtracks for a number of video productions, most recently, Tying Bob Quigley’s Signature Flies / Volume One (Pegasus Productions).

Hawkeye served for six years on the Board of Directors of the Blues Foundation in Memphis, and was chairperson of the Foundation’s education committee. He maintains an active touring schedule performing in concert and at blues festivals throughout the US/Canada/Europe, and his original articles about blues history appear in numerous national and regional blues magazines and newsletters.

In November of 2004, Hawkeye was inducted into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame in Des Moines, IA.

In September of 2005, Hawkeye composed Katrina, Oh Katrina (Hurricane Blues), detailing the hurricane disaster on the Gulf Coast, at the request of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).  The song was aired to over 7 million listeners on BBC Radio news’ Today program.

This musician has definitely carved out a spot for himself in the contemporary acoustic blues/folk field, and has earned a reputation as one of the most accomplished artists in the genre. Michael “Hawkeye” Herman has been called “The Midwest’s Blues Ambassador,” and audiences throughout the US, Canada, and Europe have come to know and appreciate Hawkeye’s talent, dedication, and captivating performances.

Portland, Oregon-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Megan Cronin blends sweet and sadness with heartache with renewal in her pointed lyrics and ethereal string arrangements.

Megan grew up listening to all types of music with her family in Michigan. She learned to play the violin in middle school and, though she was quite squeaky at first, she kept with it and eventually made it to first chair in high school, lettering in orchestra as well as learning classical string bass along the way.

After graduating from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, Megan joined a bluegrass group and taught herself fiddle style.  In 2008 she moved to Portland, Oregon and started playing in various rock and folk groups while studying classical violin and viola.  Now working as a violin, viola and composition teacher, Megan has also added a singer/songwriter set to her repertoire.  She can be seen performing solo and with groups in the Northwest, playing violin, viola, acoustic guitar or her new love, tenor guitar.  Megan is celebrating the release of her fourth EP titled “Home,” realeased April 2021.

“Driving down a two-track backroad with the windows rolled down: a warm summer breeze whisping through your hair: the sun shining through the bright pigments of summer leaves:  a soft smile on your lips at your inner feeling of peace.  The music of Megan Cronin is like this.  A sound so smooth and pure, it lulls one into a simple bliss with delightfully effortless tunes.”  Fallon Gates – The Michigan Daily