Folk Alliance Conference 2004 (continued)

I saw a lot of my close friend Erika Luckett, an amazing guitarist and songwriter originally from Mexico and Venezuela, who lives in the Bay Area. She's incredible.

I met a cool group of women through her who were shooting DVD's on location, masterminded by the very brainy Tay Hoyle of Taytrix (taytrix.com). Tay has designed a number of mega-studios for the elite, especially in the NYC area. Her StackIt Gobos are a super cool product--very attractive and stackable baffles for the studio, made of wood and fabric, or plexiglass for see-through applications. Also very involved with the DVD process and the showcasing going on in that room was the monster guitarist Vickie Genfan, a mindblowing player and singer songwriter. They had a whole TV and sound crew going on, and about eight laptops running, it was a high tech happening for a Folk Alliance hotel room.

In that mix of people I also chanced to meet Ellis, a singer songwriter with an urgent grace and a powerful presence. Sonya Heller from NYC was also very impressive in that group.

I immensely enjoyed hanging out with and listening to Paul Curreri (whom we reviewed last month) and his very talented paramour Devon Sproule (see our review this issue). Their personal and musical chemistry is very illuminating to behold.     continue