Artists:Bill Lauf

Bill Lauf is a singer songwriter who is also an innovative player on the tenor (4-string) guitar. Born in Danbury, Connecticut, he has played in bands, duos and as a soloist for over 35 years.

He grew up with both sacred and pop music, jointly singing in the church choir and covering Everly Brother’s tunes at age 12. His father taught him some basic chords on the tenor guitar at age 10 and Bill learned the rest by trial and error.

After playing in bands throughout his teens and early twenties, he migrated to the folk music scene and began to write his own songs. In coffeehouses throughout the northeast and eastern Canada, he improved his solo abilities. During several of these trips, he met a handful of writers who had a profound effect on him, notably Bruce Cockburn and Paul Lauzon of Canada and Susan Osborn and David Darling (formerly with the Paul Winter Consort), folk legend Dave Mallett of Maine, Vermont native Lui Collins, and especially, Horace Williams who lives and runs a recording studio in South Starksboro, Vermont.

After co-producing and playing on Collins’ first LP “Made in New England”, Williams and Lauf teamed up to create the Follow the Fire autumn minstrel walks, three successive musical walking tours of New Englad and Quebec. The first, in 1980, was spawned by Lauf’s single “Vermont is Afire in the Autumn”. The two troubadours walked the length of Vermont Route 100 from the Canadian border to the Massachusetts border in 14 days, performing at grange halls, churches and schools at each town they walked to.

The duo released their only LP in 1981, “The Weight of the Rose” and walked from Sherbrooke, Quebec to New Haven, Connecticut following the Connecticut River valley. The trip took 23 days and covered some 390 miles.

Their final walk together, in 1982, was the longest-from Montreal to Manhattan. The two performers played day shows as well as the traditional evening concerts, completing 86 shows in 26 days over a span of 430 miles.

Lauf released his first solo album in 1983, “Songs From the Heart” an continued to play sporadically both as a soloist and with Wlliams. He also appeared on Susan Osborn’s Living Music release “Susan” and performend with her in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Boulder, Colorado and Orcas Island, Washington. His appearances then took a back seat to raising a family though he occasionally played in local venues throughout the late 80’s and mid 90’s. During that time, he mapped out a new CD project with friend and producer Chris Brown. Gray Diner at 5am was released in September of 2001. The CD features mostly new material from his songwriting efforts over the past years. He also re-mastered Songs From the Heart on CD.

Writer Bill Chretien from Keene, New Hampshire says of “Gray Diner”: “The music is wonderful. The lyrics are clean and moving. (Gray Diner at 5am is) particularly powerful. The song is so well written. I cannot separate out the lyric from the melody. They seem bound (and) that connectedness runs throughout the CD.”

BILL IS AVAILABLE FOR PERFORMANCES & HOUSE CONCERTS (For bookings, email Bill at: mail@musicodyssey.com )