Mickey Hart Band

CRYSTAL MONEE HALL

Crystal Monee Hall is one of the most extraordinary vocal talents to emerge in recent years. Her voice, an intoxicating synthesis of effortless clarity and raw, soul-bearing grit, is an instrument capable of tremendous power and sensitivity. Matched with a down-home songwriting style marked by poetic lyrics and simple, elegant arrangements, Crystal’s music smoothly combines the sounds of folk, gospel, jazz and blues. Before she began her solo career, Crystal was a featured vocalist with the nationally touring and Broadway productions of the Tony Award winning musical RENT.

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Only one year out of RENT, Crystal has broken onto the scene in 2010 with performances at major festivals such as the Montreal Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, and the Playboy Jazz Festival.

Crystal Monee Hall’s debut album, “River Train”, is full of strikingly candid songs of love, heartbreak, and sepia-toned memories of her southern roots. She is backed by an all-star ensemble of some of the Bay Area’s finest musicians including drummer Scott Amendola and members of the Jazz Mafia. Featuring beautifully stripped-down production and soulful instrumental accompaniment, River Train showcases Crystal’s remarkable vocal talent and songs that grow more and more captivating with each repeated listen. Rachel Swan of the East Bay Express says that the title track (River Train) “sounds like an old spiritual”, and that “Hall sings in a style that recalls protest singers of the Sixties and Seventies: liquid, chillingly pure, full of vibrato without being ostentatious.”

Despite her new residence in the Bay Area, singer/songwriter Crystal Monee Hall is proud to be a southern woman. A daughter of Richmond, VA and a self-proclaimed “church girl,” she grew up singing with her mother in church every Sunday. As her remarkable talent continued to blossom she became involved in music in school. She went from starring in musical theatre in high school to directing the gospel choir at her alma mater, the University of Virginia. After earning a master’s degree in English, she went on to perform with Disney Entertainment and with the nationally touring and Broadway productions of the Tony Award winning musical RENT.

Her work has been presented at Rivers of Honey, The Laurie Beechman Theatre’s “After Party,” The Triad Theatre’s “Just a Piano” series hosted by Lee Summers, The LGBT Community Center’s Poets and Playwrights Series, and many other top venues including the Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena, Yoshi’s in San Francisco, Joe’s Pub in NYC, and the Napa Valley Opera House. In Spring 09, NYC choreographer Camille A. Brown & Dancers debuted a new piece set to Ms. Hall’s original music at The Joyce SoHo, entitled “One Second Past the Future.”’ Ms. Hall was also a featured vocalist in Ahrens and Flaherty’s score for the Hurricane Katrina documentary, “After the Storm” and in Michael McElroy’s Broadway Inspirational Voices choir. Other major artists she has worked with include Jason Mraz and Sir Elton John.

CrystalMoneeHall.com

TIM HOCKENBERRY

When Tim Hockenberry opens his mouth to sing, all talk ceases, faces turn towards the stage and hearts quicken. Out of this movie-star handsome face comes an impossibly emotional voice redolent of Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Louis Armstrong and Tom Waits. Singing, arranging, writing and playing; Tim expresses a voice and musical sensibility of irresistible power and harsh beauty.

Tim’s musical odyssey began in Michigan, where he sang in the choir, taught himself to play the piano and fervently played the trombone; and circuitously landed him in Northern California 17 years ago.

DAVE SCHOOLS

Dave Schools is the bassist for the band Widespread Panic.

WideSpreadPanic.com

GAWAIN MATHEWS

Gawain has played with and produced well over a hundred artists. Highlights from his varied career include performing with the Utah Symphony, appearing on the David Letterman Show with Australian indie pop singer Ben Lee, and a recent series of studio collaborations with Transiberian Orchestra lead singer, Tim Hockenberry. Gawain’s original compositions have been featured frequently on Fox’s “SoYou Think You Can Dance” and “American Idol”.

“I enjoy many areas of music but most of all I love songs. It’s the most rewarding experience to start with a lyric/melody and add all of the musical elements, with the end result being a work of sonic art that is satisfying on many different levels.” -Gawain

GawainMathews.com

SIKIRU ADEPOJU

The man whom Mickey Hart calls “the Mozart of the talking drum,” Sikiru Adepoju (Seek-ee-roo Ah-deh-poh-joo), first came to the focus of the American music scene through his involvement with Hart in the Grammy Award winning Planet Drum project. His technical mastery of the talking drum and various indigenous percussion instruments (dundun, gudugudu, gome, omele, sekere, etc.) have gained acceptance and respect among music listeners of all tastes. Yet, it is his unique spirit, discipline, and commitment to the moment that have gained him respect among his musical peers, and have contributed to his ability to engage and draw in audiences, body & mind, all the over globe.

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Born in Eruwa, Western Nigeria, Sikiru grew up in a “talking drum family” where he began his tutelage of the instrument at his father’s side, at the age of six years old. He then went on to tour and record several albums with renowned Nigerian Juju artist Chief Ebenezer Obey and his Inter-Reformers Band. Obey, who called his personal style the miliki (enjoyment) sound, began where noted juju entertainer I.K. Diaro left off. Obey drew in such Western elements as multiple guitars and a Hawaiian steel guitar soloist, adding them to the traditional rhythmic foundation.

Through his work with Obey, and subsequent work as a studio musician in Nigeria, the young Sikiru quickly won himself appreciation as a leading force on the talking drum throughout his homeland. In 1985, rising afrobeat artist, and nephew of I.K. Dairo, O.J. Ekemode, approached Sikiru to join his band. Sikiru agreed & later the same year Ekemode brought Sikiru and several other musicians from Nigeria to the United States to record and tour.

After he moved to the Bay Area in 1985, Sikiru, soon met world-renowned percussionist and leading African music artist Babatunde Olatunji. Shortly after meeting Olatunji, Sikiru joined his Drums of Passion ensemble and began a 17 year period of productivity with the group, recording & touring extensively throughout the world, until a year before Olatunji’s death in 2003.

While a member of Olatunji’s Drums of Passion, Sikiru recorded with Stevie Wonder, & Carlos Santana, and performed with the Grateful Dead, where he met Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. It was after meeting Hart that Sikiru also joined Hart’s Planet Drum ensemble to record & tour. In 1991 the group’s debut release “Planet Drum” hit #1 on the Billboard World Music Chart, remaining there for 26 weeks, and went on to receive a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album. In 2002 Sikiru joined Mickey Hart’s Bembe Orisha (party to the spirits), where he continues to tour & perform.

In 2003 Sikiru joined Trinidad born steel pan wizard Val Serrant to create Afrika Heartbeat. Afrika Heartbeat melds the musical influences of Yoruba culture across the African Diaspora with a foundation in Nigerian Juju music and Highlife.

Sikiru.com

IAN “INKX” HERMAN

Ian “Inkx” Herman was the house-drummer at the legendary Shifty Records in Johannesburg, South Africa during the Anti-Apartheid uprising of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Shifty Records recorded mostly anti-establishment and politically active artists who the mainstream media wanted silenced such as Mzwake Mbuli, Lesego Rampolokeng with the Kalahari Surfers, The Genuines and Vusi Mahlasela. In 1994, Ian left South Africa for New York City. At that time he was working with Ray Phiri, a South African producer who co-wrote and produced some of Paul Simon’s Graceland album.