Unbound Booking Where Education meets Entertainment!

Availability Calendar Driftwood Fire  Music - Children/Family/Adult Nov. - February 2012 Marc Black Adult/Children/Seniors - Music Year Round Charles Kiernan Adult/Family - Mark Twain Year Round  Mila Levine Music - Adults Year Round Son Lewis Blues Music Year Round Ed Petersen Music - Children, Family, Adult June 2012 Dextre Tripp Juggling/Ladder tricks/Fun for the whole family! August - September 2012

Hi [first name]!   We are very excited to be rolling out our new website and invite you head over and browse through it to see some of the great performers that will be coming your way.  I would particularly like to highlight musicians Son Lewis & Ed Petersen. Son Lewis is a fantastic Blues musician based out of New Jersey, who does a fantastic tour of blues music for teens, adults and family.   Ed Petersen is a songwriter and producer who does a wonderful program for all ages called The Song of America: US History from 1492 to the Present Day as told through song. He also has several other programs available including a songwriting workshop that is great for Teens.  We are also starting to work on our Summer Reading Programing for 2012.  Coming to your area this summer, Ed Petersen, Marc Black, Mila Levine, and the ever popular Dextre Tripp! Descriptions of all of the programs can be found by scrolling down, or by clicking on the links on the left. As always, all of our performers work on a discounted sliding scale fee for libraries of $300-$600 depending on what you feel your budget can accommodate, and we are happy to work with library & school systems as well as individual branches.  If you have any questions, need further information, or would like to schedule a performance, please don't hesitate to contact us at 888-526-6587 or email me at ...@unboundbooking.com">jess...@unboundbooking.com  You can also follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/unboundbooking or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/unboundbooking  Cheers! Jessica Brawner Unbound Booking www.unboundbooking.com 888-526-6587 x711

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Driftwood Fire

Driftwood Fire is constantly bridging the gap between traditional roots music and contemporary pop.  They are the First Place winner of the 2007 International Narrative Song Competition's category for original Historical music as well as a VH-1 Suggested Artist.  

Like a beach-side bonfire celebrating the last days of summer, Driftwood Fire is at once invitingly lighthearted and poetically poignant. Lynn Scharf's vocals are thick with emotional. Charlotte Formichella's guitar and banjo parts are rootsy, inventive and pop-tastically ear-pleasing, making it nearly impossible to stay seated during songs like 'Blown Asunder' and 'Holes in the Sky,' while songs like 'Appalachian Hills' have a lyrical magnetism that leaves every room entirely focused on the performance at hand

From Appalachia to Jazz – A fun filled musical journey!
Charlotte Formichella, a 5-year children's library veteran, leads the audience as Driftwood Fire performs original songs, famous American standards, and invites the audience to participate in the fun. A performance based program, this fun filled hour includes historical and cultural dialogues about the evolution of Americana and roots music. 

The program begins in the Scottish based traditions of Appalachian music and follows American history through 1920's jazz and explores the continued influence of roots music on contemporary folk, rock and country.  Join Driftwood Fire in a warm and inviting performance on this musical journey.  

Children's Quiet Hour (ages 0-10)

Take a break at your local library.  Join us for an hour of quiet music and stories.  This program provides an interactive musical learning experience that is both relaxing and entertaining.  Material includes familiar and original songs and stories.  A great way to give both children and parents an hour to recharge.

Songwriting Workshop

Join Lynn and Charlotte for a hands on creative journey through the art of songwriting. These two internationally award wining songwriters have received accolades from VH-1, the International Song Contest, Falcon Ridge, Merlefest, and Telluride, among others.

Bring your voice and/or an instrument to explore songwriting inspirations from literature, poetry, current events and our own personal experiences. This workshop is responsive to its participants, questions are welcome and interaction is encouraged.

"You were amazing!!!  I am so very glad you made it to our event and hope you can make it again next year too.  What a sweet addition."
- Jenny Gamble - Festival Director, Hyperactive Festival

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Marc Black 

American Children: Friends and Family Songs with Singer/Songwriter: Marc Black 

The line between songs for kids and songs for adults disappears in this program.  Marc's sense of humor and his ability to make his audience feel good about themselves seems to have no age limits.  

You’ll experience all kinds of songs; one about Marc’s love of his dog, another about the importance of picking up the litter. You’ll hear original songs that Marc has sung at peace rallies with Pete Seeger as well as some surprising sing-alongs from the sixties like Wooly Bully and the Beatles’, Help. 

Marc wrote the lyrics and music to the song, American Children, originally sung by   Richie Havens.  It was the title track to an album that he produced.  It won the American Library Association award for the Best Children’s Album and the title track was featured for several years as the opening song on WBAI radio’s children’s hour.  Beside Mr. Havens, Marc rounded up a super-talented crew for this project including Taj Mahal, John Sebastian, Maria Muldaur and many more.  Marc’s live presentation of these songs is the core of this program. It’s a great entertainment for kids and grownups alike.

“ ‘American Children’ is a beauty,”  Peter Seeger

Workshop for elementary aged children and young adults:

One and a half hour expressive songwriting workshops for kids:

This workshop is designed for the beginning songwriter as well as those that are a bit more advanced.  We will use techniques that build confidence and put playfulness into songwriting.   We'll compose a song as a group and make recordings in mp3 format that the kids can email to themselves to keep if they like.

Marc has experience writing songs in a wide range of styles and for a wide range of purposes.  From commercial jingles to songs for the New York Mets, award winning children's songs to political anthems.  He has taught this workshop at libraries, schools and in private settings.

“Marc led the 3rd grade kids in a songwriting workshop.  They wrote a song altogether, and then sang it and made a recording.  They had so much fun. They must have talked about it for a month!”  

Michele Rappi, Katonah Elementary School parent

Stroke of Genius

Dan Mountain, one of Los Angeles’ premier advertising creative directors, suffered a massive stroke that left him in a coma for 21 days.  His doctors gave him a “zero chance of meaningful survival” and finally pulled life support. That’s when Dan woke up.

Struggling to put his life back together, he found words again.  First, the rhythm, then the meaning. He worked through his aphasia and wrote poems that his friend, Marc Black, put to music and recorded with help from musical luminaries Art Garfunkel, John Sebastian, Steve Gadd, and the Dixi Hummingbirds. They created a richly human CD, Stroke of Genius. 

Inspired by Dan’s courage and by the CD, filmmaker, Bahman Soltani, produced a tender and surprising love story. His film, also entitled Stroke of Genius, expresses both the fragility of our lives and the powerful resilience of the human spirit. 

And now Mr. Black has brought it all together in a presentation that features live performance of his original songs, the documentary film, and finally, a time for questions and sharing of experience. Marc is a seasoned performer that makes his audience feel at home. And leaves them inspired. 

This program is approximately 2 hours in length.

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Charles Kiernan - Mark Twain

Storyteller Charles Kiernan, now retired from gainful employment, performs at theaters, listening clubs, schools, libraries, and arts festivals. He is also coordinator for the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild, Pennsylvania State Representative for the National Youth Storytelling Showcase and Pennsylvania State Liaison for the National Storytelling Network. 

He has, of late, been fobbing himself off as Mark Twain with some success. Twain is wont to ramble on about his boyhood memories, the newspaper publishing business, life on the Mississippi and frogs. Mostly, though, he likes to talk about the river. 

The intent of the show is to give the audience a bit of Twain's biography, his humor and his viewpoint. The subject for his talk is his evolving view on what is man. To illustrate his view on this subject at various points during his life, he feels compelled to give the audience some of his personal history (he being his favorite topic). His conclusions are what you might expect if you know something about Twain. It's the journey to that conclusion that is the fun.  

A Q&A will follow. 

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Mila Levine

Mila Levine is a Kiev-born singer-songwriter and poet from New York, whose Russian and English songs are filled with passion, longing, dreams, hope, and inspiration, and whose repertoire includes Russian, Gypsy, and Yiddish hits. Mila’s songwriting style blends influences from the legendary Russian Bard, Vladimir Visotsky, the world renown Charles Aznavour, as well as from the Russian gypsy and American pop and dance music.  Her singing style has often been compared to Edith Piaf’s and Marlene Dietrich's. She has been writing poetry since she was seven, and songs—since she was thirteen. Her music is a combination of European and American influences. Throughout her singing/songwriting career, Mila has performed all over New York State and beyond, in such famous songwriting venues as The Bottom Line (NYC), Sidewalk Café (NYC),  Café Vivaldi (NYC),  Two Boots (CT), Clinton Arts and Music Festival (Clinton, NY), SS Cape May Festival(NJ), as well as at some international venues

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Son Lewis

Son Lewis has been an active figure on the Blues music scene for some time. His work as a modern day exponent of the Blues, and R&B, has led him to recognition as a performer and recording artist. Son began playing Blues guitar in the 1960’s, influenced greatly by artists as diverse as Robert Johnson, Otis Rush, and Elmore James. His own particular guitar style developed under the guidance of Blues guitarist Danny Kalb (founder of the Blues Project, a seminal Bluesband of the 1960's). Lewis' reputation has been built upon solid live solo performances and with his own SON LEWIS BluesBand, which has featured former members of MINK DEVILLE, THE RICKI LEE JONES BAND, THE JITTERZ, EXUMA, IMPACT, THE SHOTS, and CASTLE BROWNE.

As a solo artist, performing the traditional country Blues, and with his band, rocking juke joints with electric blues, Son has become known as a faithful, and loving interpreter of this nearly lost musical art form. In live performance, TV, radio, and on recordings, Son Lewis has proved to audiences everywhere that the Blues is a vibrant, and exciting form of musical entertainment!

In his performance “Son Lewis- An evening with the Blues” acclaimed performer and recording artist Son Lewis takes his audience on a three hour musical walk down the fabled highways, juke joints, back ally’s and fields in an historical musical retrospective of over sixty years of American Blues music.

Blues are America’s only truly indigenous musical art form. No doubt any number of musical scholars can delineate and identify the formal structure that defines that category of American Music. The flatted thirds, and the I-IV-V chord structure, twelve or sixteen bars, and other theoretical definitions may give some explanation of the Blues, but the real definition eludes us all. It is because, as a musical format, the Blues is the single most consistent musical form in American Music, retaining most all of its original theoretical form, yet able to evolve over seventy years of sociological change reflecting each particular decade as if it were a slice of anthropological study. It form, structure and personal emotional content has most assuredly impacted and influenced all other forms of American Popular Music since the early beginning of our 20th Century.

Programs:

One man - one guitar....

The intensely personal nature of the Blues has always been represented by a man sharing his feelings with his guitar. With this in mind, the Texas blues of "I've had my fun", and "Mighty Crazy" (Lighting Hopkins) juxtapose the sad and happy feelings of the rural world, while John Lee Hooker's Detroit style "Hobo Blues" show the urban blues singer reminiscence's of his rural roots. The Rev. Gary Davis "Candy Man" was selected to represent the up-tempo Piedmont influences in the Blues.

My home is the Delta....

The Delta area of Mississippi is legend as the birthplace of the blues in the US. The material selected from the repertoire of Son House, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Blind Joe Reynolds reflect thirty years of structural and technical development of the Delta Blues (from Solo Acoustic to Electric Ensemble).

Blues came up the river....

As the itinerant workers moved from the farms to the urban centers in the aftermath of World War II, their blues moved with them, and evolved as they moved. The development of a more sophisticated "city/country blues", which surrounded the towns like Memphis, is represented in the selections by Roosevelt Sykes, Leroy Carr, Tampa Red, and Sleepy John Estes.

Down on the South Side...

From 1950 to the 1990's, the urban communities in Detroit, Memphis, Oakland, and Chicago attempted to shed themselves of their "country" roots, and their music developed into a hard edged club and dance oriented blues sound, which itself evolved into more sophisticated Rhythm & Blues variant. The material selected from the repertoires of Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Albert King, Junior Wells, Luther Johnson, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Otis Rush and Elmore James were selected because they represent development and evolution of the Electric Band sound over a thirty year cycle.

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Ed Petersen

Storytelling and Music – A Norwegian American Tale

Ed Pettersen weaves the story of tracing his family’s lost Norwegian roots with songs inspired by his travels and reading of Norwegian literature.  A journey into the cultural identity of modern day Norway with twists and turns into the past, Pettersen’s story connects on many levels.  Pettersen shows how a little willingness to research can uncover fascinating truths (his Sami heritage), how social and cultural influences influence people’s movements, and how one can understand one’s own family better by learning about one’s roots.  Pettersen’s songs have been covered by artists such as Grammy nominated blues singer Bettye Lavette and renowned soul singer Candi Staton and this show is a rare opportunity to present an artist of this caliber in an educational setting.

This presentation can be adjusted for an audience of any age due to the universal themes (where did we come from, how did we get here) and Ed’s ability to connect with children of all ages.   

The Song of America – US history from 1492 to the Present Day as told through song

Songwriter and producer Ed Pettersen was presented with a unique challenge to engage children’s interest in the history of our country through song, by then Attorney General Janet Reno. To craft a compelling story of universal appeal Pettersen collaborated with Dr. Deane Root, Director of the Center for American Music at the University of Pittsburgh, and carefully selected popular songs that were part of the social fabric of each era and which described or alluded to a specific historical event, cultural or social movement. The result was an astonishing fifty song. 3 CD compilation with recordings from current and Grammy nominated artists of all genres released in 2007.   Pettersen performs a selection of songs from the compilation on acoustic guitar and discusses the historical significance of each song.  A classroom copy of the compilation is provided to the teacher or library for follow up study.

www.songofamerica.org

The Art of Songwriting

The connection between literature (and libraries) and songwriting is closer than is often acknowledged.  While some are naturally more drawn to the written word and others more readily drawn to music, songwriters of all stamps are influenced by the great writers of the day.  Whether seeking details on a given subject to lend authenticity to a song setting or devouring acclaimed authors to learn how to craft a great phrase, songwriters draw much of their inspiration from the written word. Literature helps teach the tools of great songwriting including: conveying a universal feeling or theme, the art of subtlety, an expansive vocabulary, and the poetry of language. Discussion includes examples of clever word usage in a song, (does the audience agree or disagree?), illustrations of how subtlety serves the song, and interactive “fill in the word” exercises on verses.

Appropriate for age 8 and up.

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Dextre Tripp - acrobatics, balancing tricks, unusual juggling & prop comedy and fun-for-the-whole-family comedic entertainment! 

Dextre Tripp has been captivating audiences all over the world for more than 20 years, bringing to the stage a blend of acrobatics, balancing tricks, unusual juggling & prop comedy and fun-for-the-whole-family comedic entertainment!

Taking a cue from old-time vaudeville-style live stage entertainment, Dextre believes that the "unpredictabilities" of live stage entertainment are an important part of the magic, and contribute to the enjoyment of both audience and performer.

Dextre has a wealth of material to choose from, and 3 different shows he performs.  He can tailor his performance time from a dynamic 5 minute piece, to a full 2 1/2 hour theatrical show.  His talents and stunts, as well as the show's format are adaptable for ANY venue.  It's true that Dextre has some HUGE skills that require space and rigging options, but these aren't necessary to the Dextre Tripp Thrill Show experience, and he can use alternate performance pieces and finales to meet the needs of your venue.

Dextre's show is designed to bring people in, make them forget their troubles, and inspire them to pursue their own goals and reach their full potential.  It's and experience everyone should have.  The audience is truly involved in Dextre's show as many pieces designed to be interactive.  Dextre performs with his audience, not at his audience.

Unbound Booking ~ P.O. Box 251 ~ Jamestown, CO 80455

888-526-6587 x711

Unbound Booking ~ P.O. Box 251 ~ Jamestown, CO 80455

888-526-6587 x711

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