Saturday, February 16, 2013

Pistol River Concert Pistol River Concert featuring Kate Power & Steve Einhorn – 8 p.m.
Conference songwriters, Lauren Sheehan will perform at the Pistol River Friendship Hall, tickets $15. Purchase advance tickets online at the Pistol River Concert Association website, or by phone at 541.247.2848, or locally at Gold Beach Books. Venue is approximately 10 miles south of Gold Beach. Lauren will teach songwriting workshops on Saturday. Saturday Schedule.  

With sandy-edged vocals and sparkling guitar, mandolin and banjo picking, Lauren Sheehan plays from an old Songster tradition, combining blues, country, folk, ballads and standards, along with popular as well as her own music. Her shows are unusual for their stylistic breadth and emotional range, masterfully delivered with warmth, humor and passion for the music and its history. Inspired by study with elders, oral tradition and scholarship, Lauren creates the intimacy of a back porch, where singing and playing were regular events. She clearly loves the music she performs, shape shifting through the moods of familiar and the obscure, howling with the werewolf and weeping with the willow. 

Lauren grew up in New England where she studied classical guitar as a child and became infected by the spirit of fiddle music at contra dances in western Massachusetts. She wrote her thesis on American folk music at Reed College before spending a number of years playing in small ensembles touring in New England, Ireland and the Pacific Northwest. She retired from teaching in 2003 and dedicated herself to full-time performing and recording. 

Lauren's passion for learning directly from other musicians has led her into the homes and front porches of the musical legends who passed on much of the material and stylistic qualities she presents today.   

Lauren delivers a wide range of authentic American folk and blues music in a supple and elastic voice and the old lyrics slide through like clear water in a smooth creek bed.  She is a mountain siren sure to lure anyone to her cabin.    

In 2010 Lauren was accepted into the Library of Congress with 80 other female roots instrumentalists as part of the MusicBox Project, “American Women”.  Her reaction, “It’s unbelievable…I am only a little drop in the bucket of oral tradition, but I am a drop in the bucket and wonderful players have passed stuff on to me who have now died.  All this being in the Library of Congress is so cool because other people can hear that.” www.laurensheehanmusic.com