Picker's Supply Presents

Fredericksburg Songwriters' Showcase 
A Monthly Concert Series Featuring Original Acoustic Music

Friday, September 24 at 8 p.m. in the Concert Hall above Pickers' Supply (902 Caroline St.,Fredericksburg, VA). This month we present Tom Vincent, Steve LaSala, Jesse Paledofsky, and Akire Bubar.

** First Showcase of the Fall Season**

This Month's Songwriter/Performers ...

Tom Vincent Steve LaSala Jesse Paledofsky Akire Bubar

Picker's Supply Concert hall 
902 Caroline St., Fredericksburg, VA (entrance in alley around back) 
Admission $6.00

Call (540) 898-0611 for
information.
About the songwriters
Tom Vincent | Steve LaSala | Jesse Paldofsky | Akire Bubar 

Thomas G. Vincent is a singer/ songwriter who has been living in Maryland since 1988. A talented perfomer, Tom was a recipient of a 1996 award from the Maryland State Council for The Arts for Solo vocal Performance. Tom has also produced two albums of original folk music. The latest, entitled Teddy Bear is a compilation of his most requested children's songs with 7 originals, including two songs which placed as finalists in 1996's Mid Atlantic Songwriter's Contest. Teddy Bear has been honored by Parents Choice Magazine as one of their approved albums of 1996.

Thomas Vincent was born December 5th, 1953 in New York City. He grew up in northwest Connecticut and graduated high school in 1992, the last year of the draft for the war in Vietnam. Tom's father, a church organist and choral director provided him some early vocal training and exposed him to a lot of really good music. Both mother and father were active in a local summer stock theater where Tom learned much about performing as a profession. Tom started playing guitar at age 14. Early influences were folk heroes such as Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, and Peter Paul and Mary. After graduating from high school, Tom attended classes at a number of schools in Amherst and Boston where he studied oil painting, acting, guitar, and harmony and composition. In addition Tom began to perform his original songs at coffeehouses around New England. After marrying his wife Catherine in 1977, Tom moved to Seattle where he attended The University of Washington, graduating with a degree in Architecture. For the next several years Tom worked in the field of Architecture in Seattle and here on the East coast. During this time he performed little music. In 1990 Tom left the field of architecture and went back to performing full time. In 1992 He released his first CD of original folk songs entitled Dreaming Again. Two songs from that album were also finalists in that year's Mid Atlantic Song Writing Contest sponsored by the Washington Songwriters Association.

His wife Catherine is Outreach Coordinator for the National Aquarium in Baltimore. His son Collin attends Sudbrook Magnet middle school in Baltimore County as a drama major. When not performing or writing music, Tom harbors a secret passion about the game of Golf, for which he offers absolutely no explanation at all.


In the place where country, folk, and bluegrass meet, you will find the music of Steve LaSala. Steve blends his gift for musical storytelling with a unique style on acoustic guitar. His performance includes an exchange of friendly banter with his audience and a lively mix of requests, with a few less well-known tunes by popular artists, and his own compositions.

Steve began playing guitar at the age of thirteen immersed in the country and folk revival of the sixties and the US invasion by the Beatles. He performed in. coffeehouses in the North Jersey area where he grew up, and while majoring in English at Rutger's, worked as a DJ on the college radio station. With his love of words, stories and music it was only natural that he begin to write songs. Each of Steve's original songs convey and underlying honesty, simple truths about lives that come together, and loves that fall apart.

His debut recording Taking the Moon for a Walk is a collection of all original music ranging from the sweet and sentimental title cut, to the outrageous hit Is the Chicken Done Yet a sad but funny story about a marriage done in by BBQ'D chicken, and the old time country sound of Our Love Has Been a Jukebox (Full of Old Hank William Songs). The tape also includes the hauntingly beautiful song Mommy, Can You Hear the Rain? the story of the short and tragic flight of Jessica Dubroff, the little girl pilot.

Steve has recently appeared at the Cornerstone Cafe in Freehold, at Barnes and Noble in Brick Township and at the Java Joint in Toms River. He also was featured with Terre Roche in a Songwriter's Showcase at the Ocean County Library.


Jesse Paledofsky has played his original music in both the Detroit and the Washington, DC area. He's opened for Bob Franke and Lee Murdoch. He's played on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater with Pete Seeger. He was the proprietor of the "Compared to What" Coffeehouse in Detroit. Performing Songwriter magazine credits him with bringing "the house to its feet with cheers and applause" in North Carolina with his song I've Got the Swannanoa Gathering Sleep Deprivation Blues.


Akire Bubar is a highly spirited performer with engaging presence and polish. She is blessed with a strong and moving voice which she couples with seasoned guitar playing and frequent audience participation to provide a fun and illuminating show. She has a wide repertoire ranging from traditional folk to the work of contemporary songwriters such as Bob Franke and Joni Mitchell, tastefully interwoven with her own material. From the stark, crystalline clarity of an a capella song, to a bouncy delta blues or a silly singalong, to intricate tales of the spirit deftly illustrated in smooth, delicate guitar work and a voice that is sure and flowing, Akire composes an evening to remember.

Akire has opened for a variety of well known performers including Vance Gilbert, Fred Small, Martin Simpson, Leon Rosselson, Greg Greenway, and Mike Agranoff. She has performed at numerous venues in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area, including The Minstrel Coffeehouse (Basking Ridge, NJ), The Folk Project Festival (NJ), Centerfold Coffeehouse (New York, NY), The Uptown Coffeehouse (The Bronx, NY), The Rhinecliff Hotel (Rhinecliff, NY), The Borderline Coffeehouse (Spring Valley, NY), The Gryphon (Wayne, PA), and La Tazza (Manayunk, Philadelphia). She twice won the Fellowship of Reconciliation's Arts for Peace Prize in the music division, and has won the People's Choice Award from the Folk Factory in Philadelphia, PA. In addition to her work as a solo performer, Akire has four album credits to her name: she sings harmony vocals on albums by Mike Agranoff, Susan Bush, Liza DiSavino, and Patrick Regan.


Tom Vincent | Steve LaSala | Jesse Paldofsky | Akire Bubar 


Want more Info?

For more information call (540) 898-0611 or send email to Bob Gramann at showcase@bobgramann.com.

Past Shows

1998  1999 
January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
September 
October 
November 

January 
February
March
April
May


Links to other Songwriters' Showcase Web pages

Sites on the WWW with links to Federicksburg Songwriter's Showcase (Thanks!)

URL for this page: http://www.mwc.edu/ernie/songwrite.html
Last Time I changed anything on this page: Thursday, May 20, 1999
Page put together (with info & pics from Bob) by Ernest Ackermann.
 

Send rants/rave to above mentioned Ackermann at ernie@mwc.edu

 
 

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