BIO

"I like to condense the things I do into the term Bard:Live!," says Rachel Nelson. "The old bardic tradition was all about the live, oral performance of songs, stories, and poems. And live performance is the center of my work. I'm passionate about it. It's the exchange of energy between audience and performer that interests me. Every performance is unique, a thing we create together in the moment."

Accompanying herself on fiddle, banjo, guitar, hand drum, and washtub bass, Nelson has taken her brand of interactive live performance to venues as diverse as Arkansas' Acoustic Sounds Cafe, Minnesota's Oak Center General Store and Cedar Cultural Center, and North Dakota's WomanSong Festival. She was a featured teller in the 2006 Northlands Regional Storytelling Network Conference in Madison, WI.

Nelson began her performing career in old-time and contra dance stringbands, including Mama's Apron Stringband, Buttermilk Hill, Spider on Ice, and Joe Shannon's Appalachian Acoustic Ensemble. Later, with her solo old-time act, she honed the performance craft, working each show as a blend of songs and stories designed to make a real connection with her audiences. She charmed audiences who had never given two hoots about fiddle and banjo tunes. During this time, she lived in Boone, North Carolina, giving her the opportunity to learn from many Appalachian musicians and storytellers. In 1994-95, she was a North Carolina Visiting Artist, sharing old-time music and stories with three piedmont counties.

Nelson's musical territory has been wide-ranging. While living in North Carolina, Nelson founded the Irish ensemble Bonnie Kate. Vocally, she expanded into solo features and harmony arrangements with the Boswell-style harmonies of the Virtue Sisters, the swing harmonies of the Tony Lama Country Swing Band, and the bluegrass and country harmonies of Wild Mountain Rose.

"Rachel sings from the heart . . . she is irresistible."

Betsy Barnum, Great River Earth Institute

Songwriting is coming to the fore in Nelson's recent work, as demonstrated by her CD of original songs, Change is a Thousand Hearts. Here, her poetry and music meet. Some of her songs come out of the Celtic/Appalachian tradition she has performed for years, while others have a swing or bluesy feel. And in her arrangements of the old traditional tunes, Nelson enjoys "pushing the edges out: My take on folk music is that it has to grow and develop to be a living tradition. When I write songs, whether they have that 'old' feel or a more contemporary acoustic sound, I am participating in the living, breathing folk tradition."

Storytelling broke into Nelson's recorded work with her new CD of songs and stories for young listeners, "I'm Awesome!" said the Possum. Her mix of stories with traditional and original songs recalls the work of Pete Seeger or John McCutcheon.

Theater has been a distinct and prominent thread in Nelson's musical career. She has composed, written songs, been musical director, recorded music, and performed as live musician or actor/musician in theaters from Minnesota to Tennessee and North Carolina. Her theater credits include work with Margolis-Brown Theater, At the Foot of the Mountain Theater, the Radisson Playhouse, Park Square Theater, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater, Appalachian State University's Drama Department and Tennessee's Wood and Strings Puppet Theater. For five years, Nelson studied physical acting techniques with master teacher Kari Margolis.

All these diverse paths are converging on a new focus for Nelson. To describe her live performance mix of songs, stories, and poems, Nelson coined the term BARD:LIVE! "These days, I claim the old Celtic tradition of the bard, which held that a song, a story, and a poem were simply three versions of the same thing - that stuff that bards trade in. Live performance is the heart of what I do. I'm a communicator."

"Come hear the sassy, social-issue-oriented songs of Rachel Nelson."

Jodi Ritter, Granary Girls