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Bruce Dalzell's greatest artistic achievement is his children. After wrestling three kids to bed, he will write a tune or two. In the darkest part of the night, he will apply them to tape. Weekly he will send them out like little prayers at the open mike he has hosted for years at the Front Room Campus Coffeehouse on the Ohio University campus in Athens, Ohio. Or perhaps at the Billy & Brucie Show he produces with partner Billy Rhinehart to support local and regional talent. Or perhaps the jazz/folk shows he performs with wife and driving musical influence, Gayetta. Or he might incorporate them into the soundtrack music he composes for theatrical and video productions he has done for the University of West Virginia, the state of Ohio, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Ohio University's School of Theater, and others. He has a self-produced live album full of them. Accompanying himself on guitar, he is honored to appear again at the showcase.
J.D. Hutchison
is a native of the Appalachian region of Southeastern Ohio. He is
a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of some modest
reputation among peers in his arena of endeavor. He has performed
in clubs, concerts, colleges and universities, and festival
venues all across the United States. His WORK manifests
influences from Bach to Bluegrass, country and country blues,
JAZZ, POP, and FOLK musics.
A number of J.D.'s ditties have been recorded by such diverse
artists as TIM O'BRIEN & HOTRIZE, BILL GRANT & DELIA
BELL, THE HOTMUD FAMILY, K.T. OSLIN, JAN HOWARD, New York's
FLYING NEUTRINOS, ROBERT EARL KEEN, and others,
J.D. makes his home in Athens, Ohio, where he strives daily with
virtually everything.
Despite having a classically trained church organist for a
mother, singer/songwriter
Jim Phillips displayed nary a shred of musical
ability while growing up in a suburb of Cleveland during the
turbulent 1970s. It was only after he dropped out of college in
1978, to pursue his childhood dream of low-paid factory work and
chronic dissipation, that he began to write and perform songs
with a guitar-playing buddy from his high school days.
During an extended falling-out with his musical partner (they're friends again now), Phillips discovered that song ideas were still popping into his head all unbidden. He promptly bought a cheap acoustic guitar and began learning how to play it, a process that continues to this very day.
After moving to Athens in the mid-80's, to enroll in Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism, Phillips made his first tentative stabs at playing music in front of warm bodies. Though his initial forays into the world of open mike performance were unpleasant for both himself and his listeners, and once resulted in his nearly being brained by a thrown beer bottle, he persisted, egged on by the inexplicable support and encouragement of established local musicians such as Bruce Dalzell, Billy Rhinehart, and J.D. Hutchison. He did get better, and almost never has to dodge projectiles on stage anymore.
These days, Phillips serves as associate editor for The Athens NEWS, a local tabloid newspaper, and continues to write and play his songs. His carefully crafted work has drawn comparisons to such artists as Phil Ochs, Leonard Cohen and Alfalfa Switzer, and once an audience member told him he looked kind of like Michelle Shocked. His favorite song topics are animals, Jesus, and pain.
In 1996, he played the Midwest Regional Music Festival in St.
Louis, where he was warmly received by the staff of the Red Roof
Inn, One of his tunes, "So We Can Break Each Other's
Hearts," has been recorded by the Washington, D.C.-area
acoustic duo of Laurie Griffith
Pat White grew
up in Athens, Ohio, listening to his older sisters 45 r.p.m.
records. He got hooked on music at an early age.
"Music is a language of feeling, a strange and mysterious
thing. I write songs to sort out my life."
In his early twenties, he hitch-hiked across the country with a
friend and ended up in California's Los Angeles, where he lived
for quite a few years. There he teamed up with a music partner,
Doug Cotter, and as a duo, they played many venues: clubs,
concert halls, prisons, nursing homes, weddings. They made an
album together.
Since returning to Athens, Pat has concentrated on writing songs.
He makes his living as a produce manager at a local supermarket.
He plays local clubs occasionally and has just finished his first
solo album.
What's up next --
Friday, April 25, 8 p.m. - Steve Hudson, Rich Follett, Alisa
Fienman, and
Douglas Ebert and David Bailey
Friday, May 30, 8 p.m.- Lisa Taylor, David Alberding, Randy
Barrett, Matt Holsen
URL for this page: http://www.mwc.edu/ernie/songwrite.html
Last Time I changed anything on this page:
Sunday, March 23, 1997
Page put together (with info & pics from Bob) by Ernest Ackermann.
Send rants/rave to above mentioned Ackermann at ernie@mwc.edu
FROM the fortune list ...
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it. Friedrich Nietzsche
