NO ADVANCE TICKET SALES. ADMISSION IS FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED AT THE DOOR. $15 GENERAL ADMISSION, $8 MEMBERS.
Buddy Mondlock writes songs. He does it so well that some great songwriters have recorded his songs on their own albums. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, and Janis Ian, to name just a few. You might’ve heard his song “The Kid” (recorded by David Wilcox; Peter, Paul and Mary; and Cry, Cry, Cry) and maybe even sung it yourself around a campfire. He draws you into his world - where a single snowflake follows the trajectory of a relationship, where you get your pocket picked by a Roman cat, where you might swim over the edge of the world if you’re not careful, and where dreams that don’t come true still count.
His latest album, Filament, finds him exploring some new territory, both sonically and rhythmically. Songs like “Problem Solved” and “Sunlight In My Pocket” are propelled along by drums and percussion. Others are painted with woodwinds and string arrangements. Buddy is at heart a storyteller and the songs cover a lot of territory, ranging from a young artist who finds fame too soon in the title song, to the wonders and mysteries found in “The Dark,” a song he co-wrote with the great Guy Clark.
When Buddy’s not on the road you can find him in Nashville, but he grew up in Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After college he moved to the city, playing open mics at Chicago’s famed Earl of Old Town, where he once opened for the amazing Steve Goodman. Buddy was 21. Says he could have walked out of there that night and gotten hit by a bus and he wouldn’t have felt like life cheated him at all.
When Buddy made his first trip to Texas from his native Chicago, Guy Clark heard him singing one of his songs under a tree at the Kerrville Folk Festival and liked it. So Guy went back to Nashville, opened the door and said, “listen to this kid, he’s good!” A publishing deal and a U-Haul headed south soon followed.
People were starting to pay attention. In 1987 he was a New Folk Award Winner at Kerrville and he released his first album, On the Line. Over the next few years David Wilcox recorded “The Kid” on his first record for A&M. Buddy did some writing with this other new kid in town named Garth Brooks. Janis Ian heard him singing at the Bluebird Cafe and asked him if he’d like to write with her. Their song “Amsterdam” got recorded by Joan Baez. Nanci Griffith asked Buddy to sing on a show she was taping for Irish television. She ended up liking that song so much that she recorded “Comin’ Down In the Rain” on her Grammy Award winning collection Other Voices, Other Rooms. Once Garth became a star, “Every Now and Then” ended up on his album The Chase.
Buddy has toured all over the U.S. and Europe. Buddy’s second album got picked up by Son Records, a small label in Ireland started by the band U2, and he’s toured there consistently ever since. In 1996 Peter, Paul and Mary recorded “The Kid,” and then asked the kid himself to sing with them on their “Great Performances” TV special. He won a Kerrville Music Award for Song of the Year with “The Kid” that year as well.
Since then he’s released a string of critically acclaimed solo recordings on his own label and on EMI. In 2003 Buddy toured North America and Europe with Art Garfunkel and Maia Sharp in support of their album Everything Waits To Be Noticed. Filament will be his seventh album. In recent years Buddy has been writing songs with military veterans through a program sponsored by an organization called Music Therapy of the Rockies, and he includes several of those songs in his shows (and one on his new album). “This has been such a powerful experience and I’m honored to have been trusted with these stories of trauma and of triumph too,” he says.
In addition to writing and touring Buddy also teaches songwriting. Along with one-day workshops across the US and Europe, he has also been a staff instructor at the Swannanoa Gathering, the Kerrville Folk Festival Song School, the Sisters Folk Festival Song Camp, and retreats like Ellis Paul’s New England Songwriter Retreat and Cedarsongs in Tennessee.
Opening acts: David Boye, Mark Gillick
(+++ ABOUT OUR OPENING ACTS +++)
+++ NO ADVANCE TICKET SALES. ADMISSION IS FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED AT THE DOOR. +++
Doors open at 6:15 p.m.; concert starts at 7 p.m. with two opening acts. $15 general admission, $8 members and students with ID; free for ages 12 and younger (Become a member before or at the show and $tart $aving right away!).
No advance ticket sales. Admission only at the door.
+++ Free, off-street parking is available in the church lot across the street from our hall. +++
Baked goods, coffee, tea, and water available for purchase in the Community Center.