Folk Matters
PFS celebrates 15 yrs. w/national & local mix
The Portland FolkMusic Society celebrates its 15th season with a great mix of national and local performers who are known nationally--representing the best in folk/acoustic/old-time/roots music. Carvlin Hall is located at 1636 S.E. Hickory St., just north of S.E. Division at 16th; near the New Seasons Market. No smoking or alcohol are allowed, but food and beverages are available. It is a relaxed spot to bring the family, or meet friends, or make new friends who love folk music!
On Friday, Oct. 16, the PFS welcomes Linda Waterfall with Portland’s own Richard Columbo opening the show. Waterfall’s great grandfather emigrated from Switzerland with his surname, Wasserfallen. It was anglicized to Waterfall when he came through Ellis Island, causing thousands of people in subsequent generations to ask the question, "Is that your real name?"
Waterfall grew up in a musical family in the suburbs of Chicago and had extensive training in classical piano, composition, voice and theory. She began teaching herself to play guitar while in high school and her unorthodox guitar style reflects this. Paradoxically, her family was strenuously opposed to her pursuit of a musical career. Due to this pressure, Waterfall attended college at Stanford University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa, majoring in visual art. After college, she began to perform professionally. Her first successful band was Entropy Service, one of the best musical groups in Seattle, Portland (and sometimes, Cambridge, Mass.) in the mid ‘70s.
Windham Hill Records released Waterfall’s first solo album in 1977. She also worked as a bass player in The Skyboys, a very successful country-rock group playing the club scene in the Northwest; and later fronted her own band, releasing two more albums during this period. In 1979, Waterfall was voted Seattle's Best Solo Artist by the Seattle Sun-KZAM Arts and Entertainment Poll. In 1983, she released a duo album with guitarist Scott Nygaard. During these years, she soaked up influences from many different musical traditions.
Waterfall also began composing for grants and commissions, in vocal and instrumental styles that reflect her early classical training, but clearly contain elements of the vernacular musical vocabulary. Body English, her fifth album, released in 1987 by Flying Fish, continued this synthesis of popular and jazz harmonic structures into through-composed, classically-structured pieces, mixed in among energetic blues- and rock-influenced rhythms. Critics have often commented on the impossibility of categorizing her music.
Waterfall currently performs occasionally, does recording studio production in her hometown Seattle and teaches guitar and piano privately. She also composes choral music for area choirs. She brought her energy and expertise to Singtime Frolics, a spring campout produced by the FolkMusic Society at Camp Adams. Waterfall ran workshops on songwriting, on singing harmony and Hispanic songs. Her workshops were a standout at this excellent annual gathering, drawing over 100 participants.
Waterfall has released 12 CDs (and LPs) on Trout Records. She has just released Welcome To the Dark that includes Calling the Spirits, which “began with the rhythm the ferry makes as the metallic body resonates the engine rotation; and developed through the addition of harmonic overtone singing and meditation practice,” Linda notes. “Fishing for Kisses is an unabashedly sentimental love song. Way of Beauty and Fly, Hawk, Fly somehow resemble my prayers for our healing, all of us and the planet.”
Richard Columbo is known by many Portlanders for his continuing work at the helm of Artichoke Music. Columbo’s's professional music career began in the early 1980s when he started performing in coffeehouses and clubs in the San Francisco Bay area. He later formed a duo with Miche Evans called Richard and Miche. In 1982, the singer-songwriter duo recorded its debut album, Take a Chance on Daphne Records, consisting of all-original music. The album led to a busy performing schedule and Richard and Miche soon became mainstays in the Bay Area folk music scene.
Moving to Portland in 1985, Columbo continued to perform and in 1991 he enrolled in the music program at Portland State University to study classical guitar and earn a B.A. in Music. In 1994, Columbo opened his own music studio in Southeast Portland, teaching guitar, music theory and songwriting. About three years ago, he also began leading the weekly “Song Circle” at Artichoke Music. Columbo’s compositions blend influences from Spanish to Celtic, new age to classical. His melodies are rich and delightful with frequent surprises that are complex and breathtaking. He plays with confidence and pride.
Admission for these shows is $10 for PFS members, $12 general admission, $5 ages 12-18. Kids under 12 years of age are free. Membership in the Portland FolkMusic Society offers a variety of experiences. Details can be found at the PFS website (www.portlandfolkmusic.org), a fascinating site that will help amateur and professionals interested in Portland’s diverse folk scene and see what is going on every week of the year.