**FOLK SINGER**MUSICAL PETTING ZOOKEEPER**
**AUTOHARP EXPERT**FOLK MUSIC PROMOTER**EDUCATOR
Folk music took up residence in my soul when I was a kid listening and singing along Chad Mitchell Trio, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, etc. LPs. It has never left me. I am a folkie. I am not a rocker or bluesman or singer-songwriter. I sing and play folk songs, old and new.
Woody Guthrie once said, “It is the job of the folksinger to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable.”
Often in my life folk music has provided me with great comfort. When I have been sad, it has lifted my spirits. When I have been angry, it has given words to feelings I could not express any other way. When I have felt happy, it has made me exuberant beyond measure.
Early on, I also connected with the politics of folk music and the way it often brings dignity to the stories of the poor and dispossessed. Whether a Civil Rights Era protest song or an old Irish ballad about English oppression, folk songs tell a history not often found in the history books. As a folk singer I want to be part of the oral tradition that gives voice to the struggles men and women have faced to promote peace and justice in an often-troubled world.
In the summer of 2008, I turned 55, qualifying me for the Denny’s AARP Early Bird Blue Plate special. With this milestone, I feel ever more indebted for what folk music has given me. Performing at open mics and small festivals has opened a range of doors in the Universe I never imagined possible when I first started singing as a kid. I’ve become a regular on the West Coast autoharp festival circuit and at Common Ground on the Hill in Westminster MD. I have shared the stage with such folk icons as Mike and Peggy Seeger, Bryan Bowers, and Andy Cohen. I have had the privilege of teaching peace and protest songs to the beautiful children of migrant workers in the mythical San Joaquin Valley.
To me, a folk song, like a good piece of writing, is a living organism with breath, a pulse, and something even more ineffable we can only call a soul. In the Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell writes: “Anyone writing a creative work knows that you open, you yield yourself, and the work talks to you and builds itself. To a certain extent, you become the carrier of something that is given to you from what have been called the Muses – or, in Biblical language, ‘God.’ This is no fancy, it is a fact.” (58)
Singing a folk song is as much a creative act as writing a poem or painting a picture. When I sing a song, if I really listen, it starts to talk to me and does build itself. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how I do what I do. I’m often asked to sing Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees” to the point where I wonder if I’m overdoing it…except that every time I sing “Deportees” something new happens. It will always be a work in progress, but that’s what I love most about singing. I guess I like being just the “carrier of something given to me.”
I have found the diatonic autoharp, first introduced to me by my friend Bryan Bowers more than a quarter century ago, to be the perfect accompanying instrument for the songs I sing. The autoharp lets me keep the instrumental part of the song simple, so the words in story and poetry can take center stage. I have since added mountain dulcimer and bouzouki to my repertoire, but the combination of voice and autoharp remains my primary vehicle of expression.
Finally, without great folk songwriters, there would be no great folk songs to sing. So from all the unnamed traditional songwriters to Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to Tom Russell to Nanci Griffith and a host of others in an unbroken circle, I give thanks and honor for the songs I love.
-TC September 28, 2008
Update
In the Summer of 2009, I took Todd’s Musical Petting Zoo on the road to festivals all across the United States and Canada. The Musical Petting Zoo is a collection of more than 100 folk instruments from different cultures that is a tangible representation that folk instruments, like people, share a common DNA. This thoroughly interactive and hands-on exhibit for children and adults like gives folks a chance to try everything from a guitar to a vihuela, a ukulele to a mandolin, a djembe to a yidaki.
First introduced at the Common Ground on the Hill Festival in 2007, Todd’s Musical Petting Zoo has now appeared at over 50 folk, blue grass and community festivals. It has become a mainstay at the Summerfolk Festival, Old Songs, the California Autoharp Gathering, the Ottawa Folk Festival, Podunk BG Festival and others.
In 2010, Todd’s Musical Petting Zoo opened its doors on the shores of Lake Erie in North East PA at 5 West Main Street. When not touring, the Musical Petting Zoo is a cultural and folk life center in the Greater Erie area. Song swaps/ jams, concerts, open mics, instrument workshops, school field trips are just some of the many activities that take place in this converted storefront. Anyone passing through or planning to visit the Erie PA area is welcome to stop by to “pet” the instruments.
