Music Folk is proud to present (in addition to other events) a Concert Series featuring national and regional live acoustic acts in the smoke free and intimate setting of our store. (They're listed with the above logo.)

All concerts are scheduled for the second and fourth Sunday of the month. All tickets are $7.00 and there will be a B.Y.O.B. policy. So if you would like to kick back, have a cocktail or a glass of wine and listen to talented musicians come and join us.

Rich Simmons with

Prairie Soul

Sunday July 27th

7 pm

$7

Like parts that don't fit, but somehow work beautifully together... A little country, some folk and acoustic rock with just a touch of bluegrass... A veritible stew of songs-- some familiar, some not, all American... Guitar, mandolin, fiddle, harmonica, bass, and voices... This patchwork quilt is Prairie Soul.

Writing songs for over twenty years, Rich Simmons has honed his craft and gained regional attention for his insightful, finely wrought songs. His sense of melody and strong, multi-layered lyrics have caught the ears of audiences and critics alike. Coupling his sense of humor with his unique rhythm guitar style, his live shows have been enjoyed by a growing number.

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Just got a pile of new stuff and FLESH BLOOD AND BONE is on the top of the rotation."
Ken Raisanen, WOAS

"Anyone who's got an [acoustic] show, I cannot imagine them not playing this."
Naomi Soule, co-host of the Acoustic Edge, KCLC

Ottoman Underground

Sunday August 17th

7 pm

$7

Ottoman Underground

Ottoman Underground is a duo featuring Will Soll (mandolins, guitar) and Jeff Briggs (bass, doumbek). They perform tunes emanating mostly from the stateless peoples of the former Ottoman Empire.

"The core of our repetoire is klezmer," says Will, "and we emphasize its roots as melodic eastern European dance music as well as its contemportary possibilities. Other pieces have their origins in more southern climes, in the Mediterranean music of the Sephardic Jews and their neighbors. More recently, we've been working with Yiddish song, where we've been able to tap a vein surprisingly close to the blues.

"Ottoman Underground started when I wanted to play klezmer on mandolin. The best fit for me was to peel back the jazz layer that klezmer acquired when it came to America and look at it more as a folk music. I formed a klezmer band Kol Sasson (sound of joy) and Jeff was my bass player.

Kevin Bilchik

Sunday August 24th

7 pm

$7

“I was a writer first. I didn’t know I wanted to sing until I started putting my words to music,” says Bilchik, of St. Louis, Missouri. Blending rock and contemporary folk, his words and music offer a personal perspective with wide appeal. “When I perform my songs, it’s like taking a tour of what I’ve learned about life in the past 10 years. Every time I play, it’s a reminder that your whole life comes along with you wherever you go. You can’t run away from it. I’m hoping that people who hear my music feel that I’ve said something they’ve been thinking about, too.”

Kevin’s life path swerved significantly from the expected. “Like a lot of people, I knew there was something out there for me, but I didn’t know what or where it was,” he says. “That’s when I started taking my own route. I caught rides to random places out West. I followed bands around on festival tours. I apprenticed in non-traditional jobs and lived in unconventional communities. Those times and places and people led me to some of the ideas and lessons that drive my songs today.”

But there was always a guitar, he adds. “As a little kid, I took about two piano lessons before I quit, and I played the trombone for a couple of days. But I grabbed a guitar whenever things were uncomfortable socially, or when nothing was happening. So there was always the opportunity to channel my experiences into a song.” And he did. “I’ve spent the past 16 years finding my voice as a singer and writer, playing music on back porches, in basements, coffee houses and bars, working restaurant jobs, and writing lyrics on napkins and take-out order forms.”

A chance meeting in a St. Louis guitar shop jump-started Kevin’s official music career. “The people I met that day are still some of my best friends, collaborators and critics,” he says. “And I still look at every day as another chance to pick up my guitar and see what happens.”

Listen to the very first track “Long Ride” on Kevin Bilchik’s CD Paper Money and you’re hooked for the rest. Kevin’s songs and vocal style are a simple pleasure that you want to indulge in again and again. Good songs. Good writing. Good style. I really enjoyed listening to this CD and will certainly add it my collection of to enjoy on a regular basis. -Angie Chaney, Vision Music Group Nashville , Roots Music Report

97th Regimental String Band

Friday August 29th

7:30 pm

$15

$12 for reanactors, students and seniors

The 97th Regimental String Band recreates an actual string band of the Civil War Era singing a wide variety of traditional American songs in authentic, "living history" style.

Audiences at fairs, festivals, conventions, concerts and schools experience a "Musical Time Machine," through which young and old enjoy the same lively minstrel show that brought entertainment to soldiers and civilians before radio and television-shows with spirit, sentimentality, and exuberance- and very strong on audience participation.

These are popular songs of the 19th century the old-time musical heritage that became today's bluegrass, folk, and country-western music that is still a familiar part of Americana.

The Civil War has always been a national fascination, and the 97th has been presenting its songs with flair and fun for over a decade, playing and singing just as they would have sounded 130 years ago rich vocal harmonies accompanied by guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, bass fiddle, bones, and tambourine.

Noah Earle

Sunday September 14th

7 pm

$7

Noah was born in Topeka, Kansas, “a good place to dig potatoes.” His musical involvement began in early childhood when he would listen to the traditional country and country-gospel music that his family would play and sing at their gatherings. By around age six, his uncle had taught him some chords and he’d sit in the corner with his miniature guitar, struggling to mimic the chords that they fretted. Between the ages of about 5 and 18 he underwent classical training for piano, voice and fiddle (his grandpa said “never let anybody call it a violin”). By the age of 10, he had decided that he wanted to write songs, like his uncle and grandfather, starting with gospel lyrics (at a very young age) and moving on to sappy love songs with piano accompaniment. Throughout this time, he was also exposed to blues and jazz by his dad and another uncle, both of whom sang and/or played in a number of bands.

He and his brother Nathan spent several years singing contemporary R&B in junior high and high school, then got into alternative rock ‘n’ roll. In 1996, the year Noah graduated from high school, they went to Hollywood and worked with Mr. L. Entertainment (then a subsidiary of Disney). Dissatisfied with the synthesized production of their songs, and unable to crank out enough songs that seemed like pop single material, they came back to the Midwest, traveled to Europe and South America, and played around the Kansas City area for a couple years with the various bands they put together, including the Great Plains Weathermen.

Noah has been touring as a solo performer throughout the Midwest for over two years. His debut cd, “Six Ways to Sunday,” has garnered him praise in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as at home. Most recently, Noah won the solo category of the Kansas City Blues Challenge and was a finalist in the International Blues Competition in Memphis in January of 2006.

Mark Dvorak

Sunday September 28th

7 pm

$7

His roots are in Chicago but since 1981, Mark Dvorak has been crisscrossing the country
performing,teaching and learning all the while. He's visited big cities where his concerts and recordings have been hailed as "a refreshing portrait of the living folk tradition,"and he's traveled many a back road to some out-of-the-way place or little town where the sounds and songs of the American experience seem more deeply rooted; where his performance comes across like a friendly conversation with neighbors.

He has been called “a folk singer’s folk singer who follows unerringly in the footsteps of PeteSeeger and Woody Guthrie,” and his song writing has been called “wondrous” and “profound.”

Dvorak’s latest CD, Every Step of the Way was recently released on the Waterbug label is receiving wide acclaim in the United States and abroad.

“Every Step delivers some unexpectedly exquisite pleasures...’My Rose of Jericho’ is the sort of song that reminds you why we have songs...” RAMBLES.NET

“I loved your record...great songs and great singing; wonderful playing...” MICHAEL SMITH

“...Quietly powerful...” SING OUT!

“... is easy-going, affectionate and all-embracing, with effortless traces of good-time country,
blues, old-time pop, swing and back-porch; I hear everything from Johnny Cash and Billie
Holiday to the Everlys and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee...” NET RHYTHMS REVIEW

Ricko Donovan

Sunday October 12th

7 pm

$7

A virtuoso hammered dulcimer player (www.myspace.com/hammerdulcimer) of folk music from all over the world! Mainly Irish traditional. Has Nashville trio called Ricko Donovan and The Lost&Found, with Jennifer Halenar on violin and Dave "Move Over" Stover on the big double bass. Also an accomplished songwriter and guitarist who has lived and performed all over Europe*** “He renders ballads with the greatest sensitivity and the rest with the reckless abandon of a steamrolling train with no brakes…”–The Clare Champion*** "A skillfull master of a unique and beautiful instrument."-Cormac MacConnell, Clare FM Radio Ireland***Ricko's Devil At My Door won Nashville's Spree Song Contest in the Alt/Country category in 1998. Two Irish releases received critical acclaim in Ireland Belgium and Germany. The Kilmoon Road is a fine folk album of Ricko's songs which featured some great West Clare musicians. It has sold over 500 copies at shows and in select stores! The Hidden Well, a hammered dulcimer record of Irish tunes garnered regular airlplay on Clare FM in Ireland. It has sold over 1000 copies worlwide. Ricko was the featured musician at Gregan's Castle Hotel in the Burren, County Clare from 2003-2005, delighting audiences regularly with his extensive Irish repertoire. He has busked on the streets of Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin. Madrid, Brussels, Barcelona, Dublin, London, Birmingham, Edinbugh and loooooooves Europe! The Hot Press in Ireland described Ricko's live performance as "a steamroller of a show, he gracefully rendered Irish songs. His own songs were engaging and captivating...

Wil Maring and Robert Bowlin

Friday October 17th

7:30 pm

$15

As Wil Maring sat for long summer hours as a teenager at her family's roadside vegetable stand, picking out self-made tunes on her Sears guitar to pass the time, she never dreamed of the path she would one day follow. Wil has become a highly acclaimed songwriter, a previous winner of the prestigious Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest, and has appeared on the Grand Ole Opry with her original music, in addition to touring extensively in Europe and Japan. She honed her songwriting skills playing music professionally in Europe with her group Shady Mix.

Wil Maring and virtuose guitarist and fiddler Robert Bowlin have been recently combining talents to create beautiful original acoustic music which straddles the fence between bluegrass, folk and country music. Wil’s beautiful airy vocal style and heartfelt lyrics have raised the eyebrows of the acoustic music world in recent years with the release of her three solo cds and four band cds with her band Shady Mix. Robert, a two-time National Fingerpicking and Flatpicking Guitar contest winner, has been a band member with legendary artists like Bill Monroe, Maura O Connell, Kathy Mattea, the Osborne Brothers, and many more. Their music will leave audiences spellbound long after the show is over. For bigger venues, Wil sometimes appears with whole band, Shady Mix, which includes instrumental lineup of upright bass, fiddle, mandolin, and sometimes banjo.

"I think Wil is one of the most talented singer/songwriters around… love her music." - Carl Jackson, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter/producer