WPSU Folk Show - Home Page

HOSTS:

Kris Allen
Program Director at WPSU

Susie Anderson
Susie fell in love with the Folk Show the first weekend after she moved to Pennsylvania from California in 2006. She loves all flavors of folk and world traditional music and then some, and was excited by this great radio show right in her own backyard. Until now, her folk experience has been mostly the auditory variety, but she's jumping right in to participating in the music by acquiring a mandolin and trying to learn a few chords, and by occasionally cutting a rug with her husband Chuck at a contra dance. In her non-music moments, Susie can be found at her job as a GIS technician at Penn State or outside with her husband biking on the local trails.

Jennifer Carmen Jennifer Carman
As a child, Jennifer listened to Mike Seeger and Tracey Schwartz jam at house jams and loved the music. Now she plays dulcimer and jams with friends as much as possible. Her family is from Kentucky, and she loves old timey folk, bluegrass, and civil war tunes, but enjoys all folk music.

Jennifer is a Clinical Dietitian, who works in Baltimore at a non-profit outpatient clinic, and also volunteers her time setting up nutrition classes and services at Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute's Free Clinic. She teaches medical students who've never had a nutrition class, but focuses on the underprivileged population in inner city Baltimore who don't have insurance. She plays with food better than the dulcimer, but enjoys playing with both.

Jim Colbert
An art director by trade, Jim is also a singer-songwriter who helps promote local acoustic music through involvement with the acoustic brew concert series, local open mics and other singer/songwriter events in the WPSU listening area. In 2007, he won 1st place in the Susqueanna Folk Music Society Annual Songwriting Contest. He lives in Bellefonte with his wife Cynthia and cats Boo Boo and Bam Bam.

Joe DeLuca
Joe moved to State College in 2000, heard the folk show his first Saturday here, and was a volunteer within a few months. He likes a variety of acoustic music with a particular interest in old-time music and country blues. In addition to helping with the Folk Show, Joe enjoys spending time with his wife Nancy and their canine friend Baxter.

Ben Drain
Originally from Baltimore, Ben Blakeslee-Drain's main musical love is World and International Folk music. He currently works in State College as a councilor for homeless youth. Ben boasts Pleasant Gap's largest collection of Chinese propaganda from the Cultural Revolution, and publishes his own line of politically inflammatory board games. He can eat 50 eggs.

Leslie Dyer
Leslie joined the Folk Show while she was still living in Forest County and listening to WPSU on 90.1. Leslie is active in the local Folk music scene and plays the acoustic bass with the contradance band Crooked Stovepipe and with friends at local barn dances. A native of Minnnesota, Leslie has lived in eleven U.S. states but prefers Central PA to any other place on earth. Leslie is also a staff member at WPSU. You can hear her Sunday mornings and Mondays-Thursdays at 3pm.

Mel DeYoung
Mel has been a volunteer at WPSU long enough to hear most every definition of folk music. He continues to host broadcasts of the Folk Show, but spends most of his time behind the scenes: training new hosts, scheduling the staff of 15 or so, reviewing CDs, responding to listener requests, and other tasks too mundane to list. His favorite thing? Hearing from listeners who just discovered a terrific song by tuning in the Folk Show!

Will Hancock
Will grew up in Northern California and went to college in North Carolina, where he got hooked on bluegrass music from the David Grisman and Jerry Garcia album "Old and in the Way." After college he lived in Seattle for 10 years, where he played in a couple of bluegrass bands and accompanied a number of Texas style old-time fiddlers. Nowadays he mostly plays guitar for his kids Freddy and Eliza and studies molecular motors in the PSU Department of Bioengineering.

Dave Hermanau
Dave's favorite folk genre's are singer songwriter, acoustic blues and old time (especially when played by young raucous bands such as The Duhks, Old Crow Medicine Show and Crooked Still). Dave teaches English at the Bellefonte Area High School, lives in Pleasant Gap and is happily married with two cats and a dog. He does his best at strumming the guitar.

Cliff Kanz
Cliff became familiar with folk music as a regular listener to the Folk Show back in the mid 80's. His day job is as a community planner in the public sector. Over the last 20 years he has worked in Maryland, Tennessee and Colorado, but mostly in Pennsylvania. When he's not working or hosting the folk show, he likes to get out on his bicycle or cross-country skis.

John Letscher
John grew up in Altoona and now makes his home in Hollidaysburg PA. He's been involved with all kinds of folk music since 1958, and has played guitar, banjo, and mandolin for years. His current focus is on old-time and traditional dance music.

Adam McMillen
Born and raised in Bellwood, PA, Adam currently works for the College of IST at Penn State as an IT consultant. While steadily exposed to acoustic music throughout his childhood, he first REALLY got into old folk, blues, and bluegrass by tracing back his teenage idol Bob Dylan's musical roots. He still loves Dylan every bit as much as he always did, but Dylan's influences took over fulltime from there. Acoustic blues, bluegrass, old-time and singer-songwriters are his favorites, but on any given day he can be found listening to everything from indie rock and jazz to zydeco and eastern European gypsy sounds. He loves it all and, most importantly, loves sharing it with listeners of the Folk Show. In fact... he's probably somewhere right now thinking about how to sequence his next show.

John O'Donnell
John has been singing folk songs since the mid to late 50's, influenced mostly by the Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four, the Highwaymen, and Peter, Paul & Mary. John started playing guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music in the early 90's, and has been involved with various folk music groups and organizations for several years. John works at Penn State teaching various law and management courses to support his bad habits.

Paul Rito
Paul got hooked on folk back in his teens. While his compatriots were into the Stones et. al., he was listening to the pop-folk of James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Simon, with & sans Garfunkel (and who also taught him to play the guitar), and sparked an interest in more traditional folk. Still, it's singer-songwriters that really get his attention; a well-turned phrase, a haunting melody, or an intriguing outlook on the human condition. In everyday life, Paul runs his own database consulting business, and serves as a board member of the Acoustic Brew Concert Series.

Paul Rutter
Paul Rutter grew up around folk music in the foothills and mountains of the Carolinas. He plays guitar and especially likes celtic, bluegrass, and singer songwriters. Some of his favorites are David Wilcox, Nancy Griffith, John Gorka, Cheryl Wheeler, Cry Cry Cry, The Stanley Brothers, and The Clinch Mountain Boys.

Bob Lumley-Sapanski
Grew up in New York during the days of the 60's folk revival thus has a soft spot for Van Ronk, Odetta, Ochs, Paxton, Doc Watson, the Seegers, the Guthries, etc. and has been folk dj here for over 20 years. Beyond folk, his life has been shaped by the musical influence of Frank Zappa, Johnny Cash, Leon Russell, Randy Newman, Bob Marley, and the Beatles and Stones. Years away from New York, he lives on a small farm in the Buffalo Run Valley

Frank Symons
In the summer of 2004 Frank retired as Associate Director of the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. Now he has more time to play guitar and jam with other musicians, especially with his son Greg, who plays banjo, fiddle and mandolin. Frank enjoys all the varietiies of folk music, but especially likes bluegrass and old-time music.

Brian Tomaszewski
Brian grew up during the 1980's/early 90's, and became interested in folk music after volunteering at the 8th Step Coffee House in Albany, NY. Not being content to just sit and watch music, Brian started playing 5 string bluegrass banjo in 1997 and has since added guitar, dobro, and bottleneck to his playing interests. Open to all styles and definitions of folk music, Brian particularly enjoys high-energy, high-lonesome bluegrass, delta-style blues, classic Hawaiian steel guitar, world music and any music of historical or geographical interest. Brian is currently pursing a Ph.D. in Geography at Penn State and lives in Lemont, PA with his wife Michelle and their dog Buddy.

Art Wachter
Art is a resident of York county, PA, where he runs the Wagon Shed Concert Series in New Freedom, PA and a monthly open mic. Art has deep roots in folk music. He plays guitar and sings at coffeehouses and other venues regionally. He is involved in the entertainment business full time as a partner in the Baltimore based Entertainment Consultants, where he designs and produces concerts, festivals and fundraising events for non profit organizations. He is happy to be involved with the folk show. He enjoys finding the connections between the old and new folk music.

Thad Will
Thad joined the Folk Show in the spring of 2004. With an appreciation for the genuine and organic flavor of folk music, he strives to play a wide selection of music that appeals to all folk music enthusiasts. Thad and his wife, Ellen, have a son, Jacob, who enjoys listening to his daddy on the radio on the weekends and during pledge drives on WPSU. When he's not "playing radio" or at work in Altoona at M&T Bank, Thad enjoys hiking, playing golf, and running with the Nittany Valley Hash House Harriers.

Laurel Zydney
Laurel first became a folk and old-time country music fan as a preteen living in Germany when a German friend played a cassette of mixed American music. She says her husband got her an iPod so he wouldn't have to keep fighting with hundreds of CDs for space in their car and home. Because people know she loves music, Laurel's often asked what instrument she plays. Laurel says she plays her ear, choosing to appreciate and share music rather than try to make it herself. Favorites are Bill Staines, Tom Paxton, Johnny Cash, and semi-obscure Texans at the boundries of a folk, country, and rock mix. Almost every May, she treks down to Texas to the 18-day Kerrville Folk Festival for a three generation family reunion and returns loaded with new music to enjoy. The rest of the year, she enjoys listening to and learning about music, cooking, collecting and reading mysteries.