Singer/songwriter, some typing, no shorthand. Accompany self on guitar, others on harmonica. Active in Local 1000 from Day One. Happily living off the pension.
Social Justice/Labor
Charlie King
Susan Lewis
As a member of the women’s trio Belles of Hoboken in the early 80s (with Janet Stecher and Marcie Boyd), Susan performed throughout the New York City area and recorded numerous songs for the “Fast Folk” musician’s cooperative monthly musical “magazine.” When she moved to Seattle, Susan was a founding member of the quartet Shays’ Rebellion, along with fellow Local 1000 member John O’Connor (as well as Tim Hall and Janet Stecher). Their ‘songs of social movements past and present’ were shared with audiences across the United States and Canada. Their album “Daniel Shays’ Highway” was released on Flying Fish Records (FF427) in 1987.
Susan and Janet teamed up to form the duo Rebel Voices in 1989. They have released 3 albums together: “A Little Look Around”, “Warning: Women at Work”, and “A Piece of the Wall”. They have appeared in concert at coffeehouses, K-12 schoolrooms, colleges, festivals, living rooms, conventions, rallies, picket lines, and union halls across the U.S. and Canada, as well as in England and Portugal. The thousands of hours they’ve spent working together and the love of the material they sing are evident in their confident and inspiring performances. Their performances for organizations and events representing a broad spectrum of political and social causes have gained them enthusiastic fans wherever they go.
Most recently, Susan has begun to delve into musical theatre, as a cast member in the Vashon Repertory Theatre 2021 production of Woody Guthrie’s American Song.
Ken Giles
Ken Giles teaches violin/viola at D.C. Youth Orchestra Program and in private lessons. He also sings with the D.C. Labor Chorus. Longtime peace and civil rights activist, Ken was a member of the topical song group “Bright Morning Star” and played for peace demonstrations, environmental activists, and human rights groups. Ken teaches his students all kinds of music, including classical, folk, blues, labor songs, and civil rights songs.
Rick Goldin
Hello. When I was a kid being a songwriter seemed like a cool thing to do. Now, 500 songs later the world has really changed, but there’s a lot about the music that’s still the same.
Trying to write songs that have heart is a worthwhile destination. It’s hard to know when you’re there, or if you’ve ever been there, but I’m still trying.
My latest recording for adults is called “Crazy In The Heart”, released in 2019.
I also write and perform music for children, and my most “recent” children’s album, “I Like To Read” (1997) features my most popular song “The Sit Down, Stand Up, Sit Down, Stand Up, Sit Down, Stand Up, Sit Down Song”.
When a new LP record cost $2.49 I had twenty, then thirty, then fifty albums, and I listened to them from start to finish with headphones, late into the night. I read the lyrics on the album covers, I fell in love with the musicians, and I went wherever the songs would take me, again and again, and even now the music still takes me there. I’m still listening.
Bev Grant
Bev Grant is a labor and social activist, feminist, singer-songwriter, photographer and 2017 Joe Hill Award winner from the Labor Heritage Foundation for her work as a cultural worker as well as the 2017 winner of the ASCAP Foundation’s Jay Gorney award for her song We Were There. Former leader of the cutting edge 70s and 80s folk/rock & world music band, Human Condition, Bev is also founder and director of the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus.
Bev grew up singing and playing with her two older sisters in Portland, OR. After moving to New York City in the early 60s, she formed her band The Human Condition, who recorded their first album “Working People Gonna Rise,” with Paredon Records, now distributed by Smithsonian/Folkways. Her song “Inez” is included in the Smithsonian/Folkways “Best of Broadside” collection.
As cultural director of the UALE NE Union Women’s Summer School she developed and wrote the theme song for the multi-media women’s labor history show, called “We Were There!”, which she presents throughout the United States and which became global when she presented it in October 2017 in Costa Rica at the United Trade Union Confederation’s 3rd Women’s Conference.
Ron Olesko, WFDU folk DJ and columnist, featured Bev and her recently released CD “It’s Personal” in the May 20, 2017 issue of SingOut Magazine, saying…
”Over the past few decades, Bev and her songs have been part of many social struggles including the labor movement, so it came as somewhat of a surprise to discover that her new solo CD It’s Personal is an introspective and heart-felt collection of personal songs. However, closer examination reveals that the songs in this collection give an insight into what has motivated and shaped this extraordinary artist. It’s Personal features a diverse mix of folk, jazz and good old rock and roll to gives us a glimpse of the world that is fighting to make a better place for all.”
Full Review: https://singout.org/2017/03/20/bev-grant-gets-personal/
In July 1917, Bev begin scanning images from photo negatives she shot as a radical photo journalist in the late 1960s, including some iconic photos of the early radical Women’s Movement (The Miss America Beauty Pageant protest in 1968, and the W.I.T.C.H. Hex on Wall Street on Halloween in 1968), She’s exhibited at OSMOS Gallery in NYC, and received several favorable reviews in main stream media. In December 2021, OSMOS published a monograph of Bev’s photographs called: Bev Grant Photography: 1968-1972.
“What struck me so profoundly was the fact that Grant prefigured this whole notion of intersectionality.” Grant’s images, Gingeras said, “tell the story of this utopic moment before things got very divisive and polarized. And the echoes of the struggles she documented are still being heard right now.” The New Yorker Photo Booth 9/28/2018 https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-photographers-life-changing-encounter-with-political-struggle
Music website: www.bevgrant.com
Kim Harris
Beth Cahill
Beth Cahill is a musical raconteuse with quirky tales to tell. She has found her own, true voice – it can be intimate, explosive, soothing or even forlorn. Her style rises from the broad roots of a cultural tree that spreads its leafy branches high above her Illinois Celtic-ness. It leans casually up against an Americana-esque array of blues, jazz and other traditional influences to come to gracefully rest alongside the river that flows past her Québec home. While she calls Wakefield, Quebec home she tours extensively across North America, both solo and with The Malvinas. She is currently the Secretary Treasurer of Local 1000.
Tom Chapin
“One of the great personalities in contemporary folk music.” – New York Times
In a career that spans five decades, 26 albums and three Grammy awards, Tom Chapin has covered an incredible amount of creative ground. In addition to his work as a recording artist, concert performer, storyteller and activist, he’s acted on Broadway and worked extensively in television, radio and film.
Chapin maintains two long and productive parallel careers, both as a respected contemporary folk artist and as a pioneer in the field of children’s music. During the height of the Covid shutdowns, Tom and his daughters The Chapin Sisters streamed 200 live concerts under the moniker “Mornings with Papa Tom.” All are archived on YouTube.
Simon and Schuster has released three children’s books based upon his songs: This Pretty Planet, Library Song (The Library Book), and The Backwards Birthday Party. A new CD is almost complete, working title “Listen Close” to be released in Spring 2022.
In addition to his musical and media endeavors, Chapin has long been an advocate for environmental causes, issues of hunger and social justice, and a supporter of music and the arts in public schools.
Aaron Fowler
Aaron has been performing since he was 16. Working alongside several musicians throughout his career he has built a breadth of musical experiences from house concerts to festivals and concert halls. His passion for the music and the power it can have with groups of people is part of why he keeps bringing the music to audiences across the country. Aaron brings a polished fingerstyle and rhythm guitar playing to a warm tenor voice. His songwriting tells the stories of common folks bringing uncommon stories to life. Whether one of the more than 100 songs from rural communities across this country or songs of passion and purpose, Aaron delivers a performance that will move you. As an educator, Aaron began his teaching career in 1984 after he graduated from Friends University in Wichita, KS. Aaron intended to teach a couple of years at the elementary level then move to middle school and then high school and then land a career at the college. Well, part of that became a reality. Aaron taught 2 years at the elementary level and 2 years at the middle school level. The problem is that he stayed another 7 years, teaching middle school for 11 years! Some love middle school kids and Aaron is one of them. It was in 1995 when Aaron decided to pursue songwriting and touring more intentional. Now 32 years later he still loves working in the classroom drawing music and stories out of students. Aaron’s work includes work with the itty-bitty one, birth through 6-year-olds through Wolf Trap Early Learning Through the Arts. As a National Trainer, he loves getting these very young ones finding the music and rhythm inside themselves. Aaron is a Certified National Teaching Artist with Young Audiences in New York and a Wolf Trap Master Teaching Artist with Wolf Trap Early Learning through the Arts in Vienna Virginia. His current home in Wichita, Kansas keeps him connected with Arts Partners Wichita working with students K-12. The work of integrating the arts into science, math and language arts is a wonderful way to inspire kids to use the creative space in their heads to think about the world they live in. In early 2020 Aaron began thinking about how to leave some of the stories he was telling students about Bella and Choco, the two classroom therapy dogs that work with Aaron in the classroom. He came up with the concept of a children’s book about the two adventurous dogs that visited the classroom with him as Therapy dogs. The first book, Being YOU-Neek, was written during the 2020 Pandemic. It became the first book in the series The Adventures of Bella and Choco. This book helps children learn about character traits and a variety of academic lessons. The second book is entitled, The Boat, and is about how all us belong on this great plant we call Mother Earth. The 3rd book will come out in the spring of 2022 and is an Alphabet book highlighting local businesses in Wichita Kansas where Aaron and illustrator Peter Mader live.
Kev Corbett
I am an experienced songwriter, freelance sideman (basses, guitars, drums), instructor, performance coach, and host, working out of Eastern Canada. 20 years and 20 countries’ worth of touring experience, much radio and television experience, multiple national tours as a solo artist. Your songs are safe with me. Your stories may become a song.