FOLKGRASS

Folkgrass has been playing bluegrass, old-tyme, country and folk music in and around Montreal and the Eastern Townships for six years now.

Past performances include Montreal's YELLOW DOOR, the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Children's Wish Foundation fund raisers in Ayer's Cliff. The group has and is extensively performing in the Eastern Townships (Lennoxville "Church Street Cafe", Stanbridge East coffee house, the Auberge in Knowlton,...) and the South Shore of Montreal (Greenfield Park, St. Lambert, Beloeuil, Otterburn Park etc.). They have opened for many bands at the Townships Bluegrass winter concert series in Waterloo and even went up North for a 5 day trip to perform for the Innu and Cree population of Great Whale (Poste de la Baleine). Have a look at our scrapbook.

All group members are active members of The Townships Bluegrass & Old-Tyme Music Society. The bands members are:

Roland Berard also known as `Rolly`, originally from Manitoba, plays guitar, mandolin, fiddle and sings lead/harmony vocals. He is a mechanical engineer, a Reiki master and a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. He has a full time practice in healing. Like all of us he loves just about everything about bluegrass and folk music.

Sabine Maher plays guitar, mandolin, fiddle, sings lead/harmony vocals and is the group's main songwriter. Bluegrass was fairly new to Sabine but she has taken to it like a fish to water. She especially loves the purity of the music and the vocal harmonies. She moved to Canada from her native Germany 16 years ago, is married, has 2 young children and is now staying home having fun with her music. Sabine Maher has also just released a new CD this past September of 2002 called EMOTIONS which offers a mix of bluegrass, country, old-tyme and original compositions. This is her first solo project.

Raymond St-Laurent is our master fiddler, mentor and in-house teacher. He taught Rolly and Sabine how to play the mandolin and the fiddle and he is also an excellent bass and guitar player. Over the past 40something years he has played at countless country and bluegrass festivals all over Canada and France, with and also accompanying numerous artists and groups. He still loves every minute of it. Raymond is one the best and most popular fiddlers in Québec especially with the "country festival" crowd and we are lucky to have him.

Perry Beaton is our all time favourite acoustic bass player. Perry is a professional photograper living in Lennoxville and has been enthousiastically playing the bass for most of his life with many different groups and formations. He's got the beat!

Folkgrass has released a CD in October 1999 called "The First Time". The 16 tracks on the album offer a unique blend of bluegrass, traditional folk and original compositions: 1) Morning Sun - 2) Fox on the Run 3) Mountain Memories - 4) Home Sweet Home 5) The First Time - 6) Bringing Mary Home 7) The Ballad of Ste Anne's Reel - 8) White Water Ride 9) Angel From Heaven 10) I wonder how the Old Folks are at Home 11) Steel Rails 12) Big John Macneil 13) Emotions 14) A la Claire Fontaine 15) Will the Circle be Unbroken 16) Who will Watch the Home Place

Links and Friends
- The Townships Bluegrass & Old-Tyme Music Society : http://www.sunnymead.org/tbotms
- Sabine Maher: http://www.sunnymead.org/sabine/index.html
- on mp3.com: http://www.mp3.com/folkgrass.html

Credits-Album
Recorded at: Studio Stetson in Valleyfield , Qué.
Sound engineering, arrangement and mixing by: Folkgrass
Photographie: Blake Maher
Graphiques and design by: Folkgrass
This CD is distributed by SVR.