MP3 Beverly J. Smith - Almost An Island

American Roots Music, Original Old Time

12 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Traditional Folk, KIDS/FAMILY: General Children's Music



Details:
Beverly J. Smith is a well known area composer, performer and educator. She has performed and presented workshops at regional festivals such as Festival of the Wild Rose Moon, Portage Family Fest, The Kalamazoo Suzuki Festival and Coopers Glen Festival. She has performed in a series of Old Time Bluegrass bands on fiddle, banjo, guitar, ukulele and autoharp. Some of these bands are The Barn Owls, Root Bound, Tumble Home, J.S. Bach Family Band, Pioneer Society, Crazy Quilt , The Pod Auger String Band and Four Quart Still. Crazy Quilt, Pioneer Society and The Pod Auger String Band have their music available on CD or cassette tape. She has shared the stage with such notables as Ann Hills, Ralph Stanley and BeauSoleil.

Beverly is also a theater fanatic. She has directed and pitted in plays such as Quilters, Damn Yankees, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, Jungle Book and How to Eat Like a Child. The Quilters production played in Kennedy Center, Washington DC. She was a co-writer of the play, "The Monster That Stomped Cassopolis", and wrote the musical score to the play, "Rough Bark". Her most recent play, "The Brave Little Rooster", recently debuted in Cassopolis, Michigan. This musical is about a Rooster who was not "chicken", and a rich man who hates being parted from his money. It is possibly the first and only Old-Time Bluegrass musical for children and families.

After many years as a behind the scenes player and "one of the band", Beverly is finally stepping out on her own. She has recently released the solo album, "Almost An Island", which is full of songs and music from and about Michigan's past. This CD features Beverly on banjo, piano, fiddle, recorder, drum and guitar. Through the miracle of modern technology, sometimes she plays all of these instruments at the same time!
If you were to catch one of her live performances, you might hear a new song right out
of her vivid, sometimes warped, imagination, or a foot-stomping old-time banjo or fiddle solo. Maybe you would hear some Hawaiian Slack Key or a traditional Hawaiian song. Or, possibly, a novelty song from her sheet music collection of tunes from the 20's and 30's performed on her tiny Martin Ukulele. Beverly is nothing if not Eclectic.

Beverly has been the Elementary Music Specialist for the Constantine Public Schools for 20 years. She is responsible for the music instruction for students pre-K to Fifth Grade. Her 80+ voice children's choir, The Riverside Choristers, perform regionally to delighted audiences. She lives on a small farm with her husband, Mike, and their three young men, Zachary, Anton and Nathan. Besides boys, they grow flowers, prairie plants, corn, soy-beans, chickens, sheep, cats and lots of flowers and herbs.