ON A WINTER’S NIGHT
with CHRISTINE LAVIN, JOHN GORKA, PATTY LARKIN, CHERYL WHEELER & CLIFF EBERHARDT
Tickets: $30/45 General Admission / $75 Gold Circle incl front center section seats & 6:30pm Artist Reception Onstage
**ASSIGNED SEATING FOR THIS EVENT - CLICK PURCHASE TO SEE A SEATING CHART
Location: GE Theatre at Proctors
This blockbuster ensemble of iconic singer-songwriters LAVIN, GORKA, LARKIN, WHEELER & EBERHARDT takes the stage for their 25th Anniversary concert celebration of “On A Winter’s Night," a hit 1994 tour that spawned a now-classic CD of the same name, and spinoff collaborations among the members. These artists represent the brightest stars of the singer/songwriter movement over the past three decades. In 1994 Christine Lavin gathered them together to showcase music of the Winter Season. The Eighth Step presented The original show in 1994 to a sold-out Page Hall, Albany. Each artist has in the interim released dozens of recordings and continued to tour nationally and internationally. With fond memories of their touring days together, they once again join forces to create a unique, magical and musically stunning evening that welcomes the Winter holidays.
ABOUT CHRISTINE LAVIN
Christine Lavin: singer/songwriter/guitarist/recording artist/author/videographer, she has wowed audiences from New York City since 1984. In 2017, her 23rd solo album Spaghettification quickly rose to #5 on the International FolkDJ charts.
For four years she hosted "Slipped Disks" on XM Satellite Radio, playing CDs literally slipped to her backstage by compatriots. She is now the occasional guest host for "City Folk Sunday Supper" on WFUV-FM Fordham University. In her spare time, she writes freelance for various publications including The Washington Post, Huffington Post, The St. Petersburg Times, The Performing Songwriter, The Finger Lakes Times, and Delta "Sky" Magazine.
The book The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet, written by Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC, includes the complete lyrics to Christine's song "Planet X” (WW Norton, Pub.), detailing Pluto's history and planetary status debate. Despite her D in college astronomy, Christine appeared in concert with deGrasse Tyson as part of his “Astronomers & Comedians” tour, almost certainly the first “D" Astronomy student ever tapped for that honor.
Christine Lavin performs concerts all over the US, Canada and points beyond (Australia, Germany, Israel), often hosting knitting circles and Downton Abbey-style napkin folding backstage at each show [here at The Step, we recall manicures in the Green Room]. Lavin songs have been performed by artists as diverse as Broadway stars Betty Buckley, Sutton Foster, Karen Aiemba and Clea Blackhurst; cabaret divas Andrea Marcovicci, Barbara Brussell and Colleen McHugh; the a cappella Dartmouth Decibelles; and The Accidentals, winners of the National Harmony Sweepstakes Championship.
ABOUT JOHN GORKA
From New Jersey, John Gorka is a world-renowned singer-songwriter who got his start at a neighborhood coffeehouse in eastern Pennsylvania. Though small, Godfrey Daniels was and is one of the oldest and most venerable music institutions and has long been a hangout for music lovers and aspiring musicians. In the late 1970s, John was was one of these aspiring musicians. Although his academic coursework at Moravian College lay in Philosophy and History, music began to offer paramount enticements. Soon he found himself living in the club’s basement and acting as resident MC and sound man, encountering legendary folk troubadours like Canadian singer-songwriter Stan Rogers, Eric Andersen, Tom Paxton and Claudia Schmidt. Their brand of folk-inspired acoustic music inspired him, and before long he was performing his own songs – mostly as an opener for visiting acts. Soon he started traveling to New York City, where Jack Hardy’s legendary Fast Folk circle (a breeding ground for many a major singer-songwriter) became a powerful source of education and encouragement. Folk meccas like Texas’ Kerrville Folk Festival (where he won the New Folk Award in 1984) and Boston followed, and his stunningly soulful baritone voice and original songwriting began turning heads. Those who had at one time inspired him – Suzanne Vega, Bill Morrissey, Nanci Griffith, Christine Lavin, Shawn Colvin – had become his peers.
Now based with his family in Minnesota he continues to tour, playing festivals, theaters and clubs all over North America and Europe.
VISIT JOHN GORKA’S WEBSITE
ABOUT PATTY LARKIN
Patty Larkin redefines the boundaries of folk-urban pop music with her gloriously inventive guitar wizardry and uncompromising vocals and lyrics. Acoustic Guitar hails her “soundscape experiments” while Rolling Stone praises her “evocative and sonic shading.” She has been described as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly) and a “drop dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter). All true.
Descended from a long line of Irish American singers and taletellers, she grew up in a musical and artistic family in Milwaukee, her mother a painter, her sisters both musicians. She herself began classical piano studies at age 7, and by the ‘60s became swept up in the sounds of pop and folk, teaching herself the guitar and experimenting with songwriting in high school. An English major, Larkin sang throughout her high school and college career, starting out in coffeehouses in Oregon and San Francisco. Upon graduation from the University of Oregon, she moved to Boston and devoted herself to music, busking on the streets of Cambridge and studying jazz guitar at Berklee College of Music and with Boston area jazz guitarists. A high point: Boston’s mayor once declared a Patty Larkin Day in Boston, and she sang the National Anthem at Fenway Park.
VISIT PATTY LARKIN’S WEBSITE
ABOUT CHERYL WHEELER
Singer, songwriter and comedienne, she often comes across onstage like two distinct performers, and fans relish watching the two tussle for control of the mic. Poet-Cheryl writes some of the prettiest, most alluring and intelligent ballads on the modern folk scene. Then there’s her evil twin, comic-Cheryl - a militant trend defier and savagely funny social critic. The result: a delightful contrast that makes for a uniquely fascinating performance. She comes on like Groucho-in-a-housecoat, a fiercely everyday woman with a barbed-wire tongue. Shredding the mores of our gossipy, greedy, trend-obsessed culture, Wheeler aims enough darts to never seem sanctimonious, just plain old hilarious.
A gifted songwriter with a beautiful voice, she is a natural storyteller with an understated but often raucous sense of humor and vivid sense of the absurd. Her plain-spun songs have been hits for such mainstream starts as Suzy Boggus and Dan Seals, recorded by everyone from Bette Midler to Maura O’Connell, from Peter, Paul & Mary, to Juice Newton, to Garth Brooks - and on and on.
VISIT CHERYL WHEELER’S WEBSITE
ABOUT CLIFF EBERHARDT
Cliff Eberhardt knew by age seven that he was going to be a singer and songwriter. Growing up in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, he and his brothers sang together and their parents played instruments. His dad introduced him to the guitar and he quickly taught himself to play. Fortunate enough to live close to the Main Point (one of the best folk clubs on the East Coast), he cut his teeth listening to the likes of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt, and Mississippi John Hurt — an early and impressive tutorial in acoustic music. At the same time, he was listening to great pop songwriters like Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Rodgers and Hart, which explains his penchant for great melodies and clever lyrical twists.