Railway Concerts Presents: Bernice Lewis

With almost four decades of performing festivals, concert halls, coffeehouses, colleges, and house concerts, along with a half dozen acclaimed CDs, Bernice Lewis has built a solid national fan base. She is also a storyteller, published poet, producer, and educator extraordinaire. Lewis — who studied vocal improvisation with Bobby McFerrin, guitar technique with Alex DeGrassi and Guy van Duser, and songwriting with Rosanne Cash and Cris Williamson — has been a featured performer on NPR’s Mountain Stage program, as well as at the Kennedy Center. In 2008, she was awarded an Artist in Residence position by the National Park Service. In 1987, she was a finalist in the prestigious New Folk Songwriting Contest at the Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival, where she continues to be a main stage favorite. Her ballad, “Bridges That Hold,” was included in Peter, Paul and Mary’s Lifelines video (PBS). She was featured in Yoga Journal for her work with sound and yoga, and has shared the stage with many renowned artists, including Dar Williams, Dixie Chicks, Patty Griffin, Pete Seeger, Ellis Paul, Rory Block, Livingston Taylor, Odetta, Christine Lavin, Marty Sexton, Patty Larkin, Catie Curtis, Mary Gauthier… it’s a long list. She has a forty-eight year old daily yoga practice, loves strong coffee, and her religion is the Grand Canyon.

About Special Guest Davey O:

It’s no surprise that Buffalo, NY born and bred songwriter Davey O. has been described by Buffalo News critic Jeff Miers as having “a journalist’s eye for detail and poet’s ear for the well-turned observation”. Embarking on a twenty year journey that has resulted in a collection of justly-earned, highly introspective songs, Davey crafts pure Americana that is not of the social and political consciousness, but drawn from the deep well of experience and human emotion – no hackneyed story lines, no insincere polish, just an unflinching poet’s look at life. The characters woven seamlessly into stories of which the song itself becomes the soundtrack for the movie playing inside the listener’s head.

Armed with a steady, rhythmic pulse on his Gibson guitar, and a no apologies rust-belt work ethic, Davey puts rubber to asphalt, entertaining attentive, diverse audiences at listening rooms, coffeehouses, nightclubs, festivals, colleges and universities throughout the Northeast, Midwest, Midsouth and Atlantic U.S. – performances that result in engagement and communion between performer and audience through story and song.