Drew Calvin
Friday March 13, 2009
(always the 2nd Friday, Sept-June)
This Month’s Featured Performer is Drew Calvin (See description below.)
7:30-10:30 pm
Free admission (donation collected for artist’s appreciation)
Held in the TPUUF Sanctuary.
Flyers are available in the TPUUF lobby.
Schedule:
7:30-8:40 Open circle sing (songbooks provided or bring your own song sheets to share)
9:00-9:45 Featured performer
9:45-10:30 Open Stage
ABOUT OUR FEATURE:
DREW CALVIN has graced the Philadelphia-area folk music scene ever since 1995. He brings to his listeners the experience of a life lived around the world in practically every life condition except rich and famous. Prior to Philadelphia, he lived for four years in Taipei, Taiwan, where he earned the majority of his income as a street busker.
Calvin’s original songs are rooted in the music that most closely mirrors the American soul: country, bluegrass and the blues – with a strong dash of Woody Guthrie populism and Bob Dylanesque poetry. His lyrics are fresh and clear, avoiding clichés, reflecting a continual search for the core of life beneath surface appearances. He is capable of both great tenderness and acerbic wit, sometimes in the same song. Whatever the tone and theme, his songs share a mood of celebration of the human spirit and anger at all that would diminish it. He sings in a rich baritone, sensitive to emotional nuance, and accompanies himself with virtuoso guitar fingerpicking honed over more than three decades of playing.
Over the years, his music has garnered praise from artists such as Robin & Linda Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. He won first prize in the 1988 Florida Original Folksong Competition and in the 2003 Performing Songwriter’s Contest at the Wildflower Music Festival in Texas. Come hear him!
