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Special Guests
Saturday, October 14, 2000
MIKE DOWLING taught himself to play guitar at an early age in his native Wisconsin. While still in high school, he launched a professional career that took him through the ranks of bluegrass, blues, jazz, and Dixieland music. Dowling’s alter ego, Guy Roy Raye, billed as the “world’s fastest guitarist”, was a member of the popular Chicago-based rock ‘n’ roll band, Dr. Bop and the Headliners. He met and worked with some of the best musicians in a variety of genres, including Jethro Burns and jazz violin legend Joe Venuti. Master fiddler Vassar Clements hired Dowling to play guitar in his first touring band. Among the dozens of recordings on which he can be heard is Clements’ 1979 grammy-nominated Nashville Jam. Dowling spent ten years living in Nashville, where he had a string of songwriting successes, including tunes recorded by such artists as the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, and Del McCoury. He and his wife Jan wrote a #1 hit for Canadian country artist George Fox and have four tunes listed in “The Decade’s Top 200 Bluegrass Songs” (Jan. 2000). In 1996, Dowling packed up his guitars and fishing gear and moved to a little cowboy town in the mountains of northwestern Wyoming. He and his wife started a guitar school in their log cabin, where they host students who stay with them for a week at a time. Since leaving Nashville, Dowling has focussed on teaching and writing instrumental music for the guitar. His compositions have been featured in Fingerstyle Guitar and Acoustic Guitar magazines, and his arrangement of a Civil War era melody he calls “Rosalie” is included on the Acoustic Guitar compilation CD, Habits of the Heart. Dowling divides his time fairly equally between teaching and performing, and he continues to write and record from his mountain retreat. He maintains a busy tour schedule playing concerts and festivals in the U.S. and Europe, and teaching at a variety of camps and clinics throughout the country. Earlier this year, he formed the independent record label Wind River Guitar and released his fourth album String Crazy.
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Dan Newton
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DAN newTON is a Nebraska native who began his professional career playing recorder in an early music consort, and tin whistle, hammered dulcimer, and piano with a Celtic music group called Paddywhack. He studied folklore at the University of Nebraska, where he began playing accordion for the school’s international folkdance club. In 1987, he moved to Minneapolis and turned his focus to solo work for the accordion. He also performed with a number of dance bands, including the Cajun-influenced group Jumbo Ya-Ya. Newton’s 1993 solo release Café Accordion led to the formation of the Café Accordion, which he directs. The five-piece band tries to recreate the music that was popular in the dance halls and bistros of Paris in the 1920s through the ’50s. They have released three CDs, Dancing on the Moon, On Holiday, and Café Christmas (all on the Orchard label). In addition to his dates at numerous venues around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, Newton plays an average of 300 programs for senior citizens and nursing home residents in the Twin Cities. He has also performed at such events as the Winnepeg Folk Festival, Augusta Heritage Institute, Lark in the Morning Music Celebration, Monmenee Accordion Festival, and hundreds of cafes, bars, private parties and social events.
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