Joe DeLucia is a self taught, gifted singer/songwriter who brings to you his heartfelt spirit through his lyrics and melodies. He's a James Taylor style guitarist and singer and he would love to share his gift of music with you. Joe is also well-known for his work in running The Wisconsin Singer Songwriter Series, one of the great venues for seeing great creative folk artists.

John Higgins, a United States Navy veteran, is a member of the Stringalong Band and plays solo shows of original songs and covers. We’re glad to say that John is also a long-time Coffee House volunteer. "The power of music is incredible. I believe music is the great peacemaker and allows us to experience creative hope”. https://jphiggins.weebly.com/home.html

Inspired by the winds of Lake Michigan, Green Sails sets an entertaining course of rousing tunes and delightful melodies fueled by Amy Otis-Wilborn's Irish fiddle and Sandy Weisto's guitar and vocals. Their performances offer Irish/Celtic luscious melodies and rousing dance tunes as well as delightful songs, intriguing stories, and engaging opportunities for audience participation. Their name, Green Sails, represents "Green" for Irish music as well as ecological sustainability and "Sails" for the winds that are the spirit Celtic sailing tales and tunes. They can be found performing at local Farmer's Markets and various Irish themed events including Milwaukee Irish Fest.

Opening is Jim Winston, a native Milwaukee singer songwriter, living in Bay View. He has appeared in holiday and benefit concerts and faithfully participated in the “Play Music on the Porch” international event each August for the past 7 years. Winston’s music could be categorized as finger-style, but does not fit a particular mold. Influenced by blues, bluegrass, classical, folk, jazz, and world music, it incorporates a wide range of styles, and includes old standbys, original songs and musical inventions.

Carol Lee Hopkins has been a respected member of the Milwaukee acoustic music community for many years. Her heartfelt vocals have enhanced recordings by Larry Penn, Barb & Tom Webber, and, most prominently, her husband Jym Mooney and the popular band The Moxie Chicks.

Backing up Carol Lee on guitar (and writing the songs!), Brett Kemnitz has been writing and singing wonderfully crafted songs for decades. Living in the heart of the city, he has been a guiding light for The Coffee House from the beginning, and has been an inspiration and support for Milwaukee's folk scene.

Joining in on dobro is Andy Jehly, whose musical loves are old traditional folk, R&B, and country, including Pete Seeger, Doc Watson, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding. She has a passion for music with great harmonies and evocative lyrics.

Smith & Binder Jazz offers a tasteful selection of jazz and pop standards and Jazz Manouche tunes.  Steve (vocals, guitar) and Linda (violin and mandolin) create a vintage, yet updated and accessible blend of music that will please discriminating ears.  

Steve Smith is a Milwaukee born and raised singer/songwriter who has performed a variety of musical styles ranging from folk/rock to choral music to jazz and pop standards.  His smooth and resonant vocal style is ideal for performing classic jazz tunes made popular by great singers, such as Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Joe Williams.  As a guitarist, Steve has lately been working on perfecting his technique as a swing rhythm guitarist to accompany his vocals.  He is particularly interested in learning and performing the music of jazz guitar legend Django Reinhardt.

Linda Binder performs actively in Milwaukee and Chicago on both violin and mandolin.  After working as a violinist with the Omaha Symphony, and continuing to pursue orchestral and chamber music work and study in NYC, she took a left turn into the world of improvisation.  These days she's enjoying playing jazz, free improvisation, and other contemporary styles as well as indulging her interest in Brazilian Choro music.

PLEASE NOTE: THE DATE FOR THIS CONCERT IS NOW FEBRUARY 22!!!

Eccentric Acoustic is a trio featuring Ruth Williams on mandolin, Sandy Stehling on guitar, and Scott Emmons on bass. They perform a wide variety of music, ranging from swing era jazz and country blues to more contemporary country, folk, and Americana. Ruth Williams started singing harmony while doing the family dishes with her sister. She currently sings with Milwaukee’s Bel Canto Chorus. Ruth forsook the autoharp for the mandolin some years ago and has been a stalwart member of the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra for more than twenty years.Sandy Stehling began playing guitar as a way to avoid studying while attending UW-Madison. His transcript shows the success of this strategy. The lively folk music scene on campus at the time was a major influence. He has been heard playing as a soloist and in various groups in the Milwaukee area for many years. Scott Emmons, a multi-instrumentalist, is dean of the UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts. He performs in a classical guitar quartet, plays mando-cello in the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra, and is the director of the New Horizons Band in Waukesha. Ruth and Sandy have been making music together since they first met some thirty years ago. They have played with Scott informally in various musical gatherings in the Milwaukee area, and have enjoyed collaborating with Scott seriously for the past five years. The process of combining three individuals’ musical tastes into an ensemble repertoire yields the serious fun that is Eccentric Acoustic.

Paul Smith & Andy Jehly come from very different musical backgrounds. Paul’s most significant musical influences are 1960’s psychedelic and folk rock, including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Arlo Guthrie, Jorma Kaukonen, the Beatles, Larry Campbell, the Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield. Andy’s are old traditional folk, R&B, and country, including Pete Seeger, Doc Watson, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding. What they share is a passion for music with history, great harmonies, and evocative lyrics.

Led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Gary Kitchin, the Dirty Dishes gather again to bring Americana, blues, bluegrass, and joyous early rock to our stage! Joining Gary are John Granzow (guitar and vocals), Bob Estes (fiddle, mando, guitar), and Ives Iverson (banjo, harmonica). Expect a night of high energy — these Dishes may be dirty but their audiences always leave feeling clean and refreshed!

Folks would walk under the old Coffee House sign to enter a welcoming world of music and poet friends to talk about peace and justice, reminisce, and share their stories and songs. Tonight we invite everyone to join in on an old Coffee House tradition. Bring an instrument, a song or your own book of poems. You can come just to listen or join in yourself. - The Coffee House Friends Gathering and Open Jam is a time to gather together listen, appreciate everybody's contribution, and have fun singing -- that's what it's all about. In a jam session or song circle just try to be observant and feel your way gently. Each person who wants to can take a turn playing a song and they lead the group. The idea is that no one plays louder than the person leading the song. Depending on the size of the group you may be able to lead multiple songs when the circle comes around as each person takes a turn. We love if people just want to come to listen too. Wonderful time to visit with friends.

Early in the new year The Coffee House celebrates the musicians and songwriters who passed away in the previous year. This year's Memorial Show will occur on January 25th, and feature three acts: Dan Geddes, Don Starr, and the trio of Jerry Danks, Jonnie Guernsey and George Kidera. Come celebrate the lives of the musicians who died in 2024 in this benefit show for NourishMKE, Saturday, January 25th, 7:30-9:30 PM. 

Dan Geddes retired and moved from Appleton to Milwaukee in 2020 and is still learning about all the great music opportunities the city has to offer. He was a founding member of the folk group Laughing Whitefish and performed and recorded with that band for many years. He is a past president and currently on the board of the Green Apple Folk Music Society and is also on the board of the MOO Music Gathering organization.

Don Starr began playing at 14. He studied Classical and American Finger Style Guitar and continues playing to enrich his retirement years.

Jerry Danks found a whole new fingerstyle world, hearing Leo Kottke's A Good Egg twice on WBAY-FM out of Green Bay the summer of '74. 

Jonnie Guernsey discovered harmony in her childhood, thanks to intensive exposure to barbershop rehearsals in the living room. After 100+ performances with the Moxie Chicks, she is delighted to have discovered George on her patio, and our collaboration with Jerry began.

George Kidera started playing guitar and singing when he was ten and joined his brother’s band. He enjoys playing all kinds of music with friends.

Some Like It Folk is the trio of vocalists Chris and Lorraine Straw backed up with Jon Pagenkopf’s marvelous guitar work.

Chris Straw has been singing as long as she can remember, and writing songs since she was a teenager. She has performed with bluegrass, folk, traditional/standards, and choral groups over the years, most notably with The Moxie Chicks. She has performed on several CDs, the most recent featuring her own compositions, “Echoes of Home” (2019). Chris has played uke, guitar, and upright bass, but focuses primarily on vocals.

Jon Pagenkopf has played a variety of guitars since he was a teen, in a variety of styles, including rock, bluegrass, folk, classical, and a bit of jazz. He often plays lead guitar in groups, and sometimes plays his home made slide guitar. His guitar idols include Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler. He has performed solo, in duets, and with a number of groups, most recently the rock group City Boy. He was the lead guitarist in The Moxie Chicks. Jon was featured on the recent CD, “Echoes of Home.”

Lorraine Straw has been singing since she was a child, in family harmony sessions, campfire songfests, and in high school, college, church and concert choirs. She loves all types of music, folk to orchestral, and has played guitar and French horn. Lorraine has sung for decades with sister Chris, and was featured singing harmony and lead in Chris’s CD release concert last November.

Opener Lisa Medina is a contemporary folk singer-songwriter with a flavorful hint of Latin rhythm and spice. Lisa’s performance history includes: church choir, theater kid, solo singer-songwriter, vocals and guitar in various duos and bands, and as a vocalist with a Grammy-nominated Latin jazz big band. Over the years Lisa sang on renowned stages, most notably at the Petrillo Bandshell for the Chicago Jazz Festival, Park West, the Old Town School Folk & Roots Festival, the Adler Planetarium, and at Wrigley Field singing the National Anthem for Cubs games. More recently, her children's innocent laughter and musical curiosity became her muse, who inspire stories and dreams into powerful songs that form the heart and the backbone of her latest project, her first studio album, "Wishes" released in May 2024.

Singer/songwriter John Stano’s sound is a distinctive blend of acoustic and slide guitar, harmonica, expressive vocals and insightful songwriting developed over many years of performance and study. He sometimes adds a little mandolin, cigar box guitar or banjo to the mix as well. His style can be described as a combination of folk, blues and Americana. Initially self-taught, John went on to study American fingerstyle guitar at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and harmonica with national blues legend, Jim Liban. John studied English and creative writing at U.W. Madison. A skillful use of language adds an original spark to his lyrics. ‘Green Man Review’ compared John’s music to early Bob Dylan while ‘Dirty Linen’ was reminded of Country Joe McDonald. John also performs his own arrangements of folk and country blues classics by artists such as Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt and Bukka White and contemporary writers such as; Gillian Welch, Bob Dylan, Greg Brown, John Prine and Tom Waits. John is a flexible and engaging performer who works regularly at a variety of indoor and outdoor venues. John has released four recordings of original music.

“His vocal resemblance to John Prine may be a plus for some, but Stano’s songwriting voice is his own, apt for the folksinger’s task of chronicling the local while relating it to the universal.”
-The Shepherd Express

Opener Don & Jack is the duo of Don and Jack Pardee. Don is a singer-songwriter, guitarist and long-time friend of and performer at The Coffee House. Don’s own songs are a joy, as are his fine renditions of James Taylor, Richard Shindell, Cheryl Wheeler and other great folk artists. Brother Jack Pardee will be adding vocals, and backup on guitar, bodhrán and other instruments.

Tonight’s show is a Coffee House benefit featuring three acts performing songs with the theme “Naughty or Nice”: songs about good people and not-so-good people, and, well, some really rotten people. The show will benefit the genuinely good people at Nourish MKE (formerly Friedens Food Pantry).

The not-so-rotten people performing at this show will be Martin Levson, John Jansen, and Pam Kennedy with Mark Peterson,

Pam Kennedy is a former kindergarten teacher, former member of the Redundants, now turned dangerous ukulele diva. Mark Peterson is a long time ukulele-cult member, autoharp player, and social gadfly. 

Martin Levson grew up in San Jose, CA; the child of two hard-core early '60s folkies.  His secular musical influences include Theo Bikel, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Suzanne Vega, but he also has a great fondness for Jefferson Airplane, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, and The Decemberists.  IRL, he serves as the Cantor and Sole/Soul Spiritual Leader of Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha.

John Jansen is a lifelong guitarist and vocalist whose catalogue includes hundreds of covers from the world of rock, folk and Irish music along with an expanding number of original songs. Located in Cedarburg, he has performed at its many annual festivals and in area nightclubs. When not performing as a solo artist, he plays in a popular duo called “Cream City Folk” (www.CreamCityFolk.com), which won the silver medal at this year’s “Best of Blueburg” competition at Gathering on the Green. He can be reached at jfjansen26@gmail.com.

Barb Webber is a natural storyteller, a talent honed by years of listening. She writes a Capella, letting the words choose their own notes, without constraints. It is in singing the songs over and over that the story finds its own rhythm and melody. Off stage, she is a great audience, listening to other people share their life's happenings.

Tom Webber was born and raised in Borger, Texas, just north of Amarillo in the dry dusty Texas Panhandle. His early memories include playing with horny toads and ants. It is clear to all outsiders why music becomes such an important part of a young person's social life in the Texas Panhandle: there is, quite simply, nothing else to do. Tom began jamming in grade school and hasn't stopped. He has developed an interesting 2-finger picking style for the tender love ballads which contrasts dramatically with his country-rock strum. Tom is persistent in finding arrangements that give voice to the personality of each song.

https://fairwebberfolkmusic.com/