Roots Café - April 2022

Recorded on 4/24/22

Singer-songwriter Geoffrey Himes
celebrates his 70th birthday
with Billy Kemp, Willem Elsevier & Friends

Though he is best known as a music critic for the Washington Post, Baltimore City Paper, Jazz Times, No Depression, Paste and others, Geoffrey Himes is also a longtime singer-songwriter who has co-written songs with Fred Koller, Walter Egan, Si Kahn, Sonia Rutstein, Billy Kemp, Stephen Wade, James Von Lenz, Jim Patton, Ken Kolodner, Andrew Grimm, Tony Denikos, John Seay and others. Himes, a singer-pianist, performs in a duo with Love Riot violinist Willem Elsevier. This month Himes will premiere the new song, “Old Wedding Rings.”   http://www.facebook.com/RootsCafeBaltimore

Billy Kemp was born and raised in Baltimore, where he led the area’s best country-rock band of the ‘70s and ‘80s (the Paradise Pickers) and its best rock'n'roll band of the ‘80s and ‘90s (the Paradise Rockers). The singer-guitarist has played with Tommy Conwell at the Meadowlands, with Jeanne Pruett at the Grand Ole Opry and with Tommy Overstreet in Europe. He produced albums for Edge City and Linda Nelson and composed music for “Bo and Mo: A Rockabilly Musical,” Maryland Public Television and the American Visionary Art Museum. For most of this century, he has been writing, recording and touring North America and Europe as half of the Appalachian folk duo Jeni & Billy. He has relaunched his solo career with his first solo album in 12 years: “Another Life,” a celebration of his roots in Maryland, followed by an anthology of unreleased vintage tracks, “The Painter's Bucket” and the 2020 album “The Craig Demos.” Each of these albums features co-writes with Geoffrey Himes, who will join Kemp for this show.

Willem Elsevier is a trained violinist who has found success in both the classical and jazz worlds. He is best known, however, for his role in Love Riot, the Baltimore rock band that recorded with producer Eric Ambel and toured widely. Elsevier’s sophisticated solos helped the band beat out 2,500 other bands from around the globe to win the Yamaha Music Quest competition  in Japan in 1994. Elsevier has also recorded with such acts as Billy Kemp and Milkshake. Since 2012, he has been performing and songwriter in a duo with Geoffrey Himes.

Streaming cost: $12
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