Jean Rohe has created an alternate (and much better) National Anthem: Arise! Arise! and she shares the songs from the US, Cuba, Brazil, & Republic of Georgia that got her there. She'll share much more of her own music on her next Song of the Soul visit.
Michael Hough has been making music with Mustard's Retreat since 1974, and as part of The Yellow Room Gang for the past decade. Michael is honest. He's straightforward. He's got a good heart. And he's talented. You will surely find both depth & enjoyment in his songs.
Some things just beg to be called evil, and when we see them we cry out "Why?" Charlene Embrey Burns traces 1000's of years of answers to that question in
Christian Understandings of Evil: The Historical Trajectory, and talks of her grappling with evil in both personal and wider religious experience.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences:
Buddhism, Episcopalian, Meditation, UCC - United Church of Christ
North Carolina in 2017 is surely not the most welcoming place for a trans guy, yet it's where Liam Hooper is doing the work he's called to do. As Minister of Welcome & Beyond at Parkway UCC, Winston Salem, NC, Liam delivers a message of inclusion and strength to government, institutions, and individuals all around the state, rabble-rousing, preaching, and lecturing to make a difference.
Billy Jonas is more fun and spiritual depth than you can hardly imagine. Sometimes described as doing neo-tribal hootenanny, industrial re-percussion, and soul-spelunking, he started as part of the Oberlin College Big Bang Theory performance art collective, was part of The Billys, sometimes shares as part of the Abraham Jam, and is at the core of the Billy Jonas Band.
Joe Luginbill is a prodigy and unstoppable dynamo. As Eau Claire's youngest ever elected official, he joined the school board at 20, powerfully influencing policies on transgender, homeless, sustainability issues, and much more. Strong, young, local, progressive officials are crucial in healing our nation, and Joe stands high among them. With a special leading to create a safety net or launching pad for young people with few or no other good options, he has established the Luginbill's Children Foundation, including a transitional home for youth called Smile House. Joe has also created a book, Chip the Cat Goes to Bat and has many other projects on the burner, promising to protect and enrich the most vulnerable youth of our society.
Kim Callinan is Chief Program Officer of Compassion & Choices, an organization that works for and attempts to empower personal choice in end-of-life decisions. After Oregon approved the Death With Dignity Act in 1997, other states have continued and advanced the ways in which medical consumers were put in control of their own life decisions. The latest initiative by Compassion & Choices is Truth In Treatment. Kim Callinan's degrees include government, public policy, & public health, and she clearly works in the field of her passion.
Listen to Nici Peper and you'll know why she won the title of Minneapolis's most authentic artist at the Wholly Guacamole contest. Whether performing solo, as part of Firefly, with The Big Smooch, or in other configurations, Nici radiates. Titles like indie, Americana, folk, etc, do not capture the reality of this love-based, Lutheran-raised, intense and deep woman who delights in performing in rowdy dive bars.
David HB Drake has deep Wisconsin roots, and deep knowledge of Wisconsin's music, wonderfully exhibited in his Wiscon-Sing history of the state's music. His decades of endeavors have included his years dancing with the Milwaukee Ballet & Betty Salamun's Dance Circus, and serving as shantyman on the tall ship, HMS Bounty. He leads music & worships with the Congregation of the Great Spirit.