Song of the Soul

Manifestive: The Holiday Album is a fund-raising gift to The Community Table from a generous flock of musicians in the Chippewa Valley of Wisconsin. Masterminded and led by Anastasia Vishnevsky and Danno, the songs include work by 12 other musicians.

Idris Phillips has been making superb music with wonderful artists for close to 40 years, and finally he's released his first CD, Star By Moon, this one emphasizing his folk roots, but promising his jazz, blues, and other styles in future recordings. His guitar & keyboards are magic, and his lyrics triple-deep, in the listener's ear, in Idris' personal experience, & in the mystical truths they name.

Let Elizabeth Erin Kemler ride into your heart with her passionate songs related to The Weight of Mortal Skin. Elizabeth champions an array of organizations like Kids for Peace, Songs for a Cause, Hope Sings, and many others, while single parenting her son. The skin may be mortal, but not so the music.

Anastasia Vishnevsky shares her Buddhist soul locally as Manifest Eau Claire and as part of RavenWolf (with Kai Ulrica). Stasia does alchemy, mixing pain, errors, injury, blessings, & vision into golden music. Her CDs Trigger and She are planned for release in 2018, but you can see & hear her music on Bandcamp.

For great folk music north-of-the-border, Dawud Wharnsby is the one. Homeboy of Kitchener, Ontario, with roots also in Syria and Pakistan, Dawud weaves nature, vulnerability, faith, truth, and universality into song, integrally linked to the Islamic path he walks. Occasionally he performs as part of the Abraham Jam, a Jewish-Christian-Muslim collaboration trio.

Jim Page has been a fixture of Seattle's folk music scene since the early 1970's, including his successful campaign to legalize street performing through the city in 1974, and as one of the founder of the Pike Market Performers Guild, and their Busker Festival. In addition to strong folk roots, Jim has spent years in Ireland, and he's produced 23 records, the latest being A Hand Full of Songs.

Alex Mead is My Rap Name Is Alex, and he makes world-healing rap/hip-hop music in Buffalo, NY. A year-round bicyclist in a snowy land, a member of Bloodthirsty Vegans, and a reformed computer programmer, Alex combines tech savy with peace-justice-environmental passions to create absorbing music & videos. Subscribe to his YouTube channel here.

Larry Long is the kind of great musician who brings musicians together, hence his collaborations known as the American Roots Revue. Studs Terkel called Larry America's Troubadour. With flavors of folk, soul, blues, rock, and Native American music, and as a deeply passionate activist, Larry helps transport hearts and create programs like Elders' Wisdom Children's Song. Larry & the American Roots Revue will be performing on Weds, July 6, 2016, in St Joseph, MN, at the annual Friends General Conference Gathering.

Jen Hazen has deep honesty and an awesome laugh, and both come through in the way she lights up the stage as part of the many constellations of music she occupies: Jenny & the Lost Boys, Jenny & the Jets, Girl Band, Milk & Whiskey, and Weapons of Brass Destruction, among others. In Jen's blog, you can learn more about Jen and her Music Heals recovery work with music at Arbor Place (and get the CD too).

Weekdays, Jim Phillips is a mild-mannered Chemistry prof at UW-EC, but after hours to transforms into a singer/songwriter, well-favored bass guitarist who has found a reborn calling to music after dramatic changes in his life.