Joyce Andersen and Harvey Reid have compiled impressive solo careers and they often combine their talents in shared concerts. In 2004, after a busy holiday season performing Christmas music, the duo spent the actual holiday putting together a wonderful CD, “Christmas Morning.” How appropriate that they visit the coffeehouse for a holiday flavored concert.

Harvey Reid started playing guitar in his early teens in Maryland, and fell in with the now-legendary DC-area bluegrass scene. After street-fiddling and playing old-time and bluegrass music for close to 8 years, he moved into his van in the late 1970’s and began pursuing solo acoustic songs and instrumental music, primarily fingerstyle acoustic guitar and autoharp. After stints in a bluegrass band in Colorado, playing Telecaster in a country band in Virginia, and a winter in Nashville, Reid migrated to northern New England, playing five nights a week on the “blue-collar” folk circuit in Maine and New Hampshire, while developing his own personal blend of American acoustic music.

Reid’s skills and versatility on the guitar alone mark him as an important new voice in acoustic music. He won the 1981 National Fingerpicking Guitar Competition and the 1982 International Autoharp competition. Yet he’s also a veteran musician with a long list of studio and band credits, a strong flatpicker who has won the Beanblossom bluegrass guitar contest, a versatile and engaging singer, a powerful lyricist, prolific composer, arranger and songwriter, a solid mandolin and bouzouki player, and a seasoned performer and captivating entertainer. And he plays the 6-string banjo and the autoharp like you’ve never heard.

After a decade as a “side-gal” fiddler playing in country bands (out of Nashville) as well as swing, bluegrass and celtic groups and playing a dizzying number of studio sessions, Joyce Andersen moved swiftly to center stage as a solo artist. Her six critically-acclaimed CDs (three, collaborations with Harvey Reid) shine the spotlight on her guitar, her sophisticated songwriting, her haunting and unique voice, and her powerful fiddling. Her clear and powerful vocal/fiddle duets are a sound that is all her own.

Bluegrass Unlimited has this to say about their “Christmas Morning” CD: “As talented as Harvey Reid and Joyce Andersen are individually, somehow the interlacing of their musical souls creates a potent magic that is more than just the sum of one plus one. Add to that the combination of 18 Christmas songs, most of which are old friends, and you have a warm, luscious album that comforts, entertains, and transports.” One can say the same about all their work together – as a duo it seems as though they are far more than the sum of their parts.

 

 

Harvey Reid is the quintessential musical jack of all trades. . .
Reid is a charismatic solo minstrel who sings, tells tales, and plays 3 guitars, a banjo and an autoharp in concert. Labeled a folkie, he rips into the blues like a rock star. Boulder Daily Camera

. . . Harvey Reid’s simply a musician more people need to know exists. Call it culturally enriching if you wish, but once you hear him you’ll have a better idea about what’s actually possible in the realm of the stringed instrument Bennie Green, Face Magazine

That neo-traditional current is starting to be felt among the ranks of New England songwriters . . . among the hottest . . . New Hampshire fiddler-singer Joyce Andersen. The Boston Globe

Youth and strength flow through her voice. She’s got power and conviction . . . She’s writing new songs and retelling old stories, and there’s still something mysterious in her music that sounds like it comes from an ancient and pure source. Minnesota Public Radio