The Monadnock Ledger, May 8, 1986
		HUMOR IN FOLK MUSIC Orrin Star Learns to Mix Orrin Star is a nationally recognized folk performer known for his instrumental prowess on guitar, banjo and mandolin, and for musical tastes that range from fiddle tunes to ragtime to western swing. He will be at The Folkway in Peterborough, Saturday night, May 10. He is also a very funny guy. But only since becoming a solo performer in 1985 did he find the balance between music and humor for which he'd been searching. “I think that all of us are aware at some level of the power of humor. I mean, here is this remarkable function of our humanity which can tickle our brains, convulse our stomachs, release our tensions and bring us closer to whomever we experience it with. You need not look far to figure out why humor is so popular or why it has always been a big part of who I am.” But, as Star is quick to admit, there's many a mile between being a funny person and being a funny person on stage. In 1976, at 21, Star achieved national notice by winning the National Flatpicking Championship, the largest bluegrass guitar contest in the country. He also formed a duo with Gary Mehalick that lasted for eight years and which came to be highly regarded in acoustic music circles. They toured throughout the United States and Europe and made two albums for the Flying Fish label. While in the duo Star first realized that humor could play a role in his own stage life. “It was two years into the duo before 1 fold my first joke on stage. What a release! It was a risky moment for me because my ex- partner was more self-conscious than I was and so I was contending with his nervous vibes as well as with whatever I feared the audience would think. But it worked. And that broke down a wall. I started thinking more about how to injest humor into our show from that point on.” But it wasn't until becoming a solo performer in early 1985 that Star truly came into his own. In making the switch from duo to solo (“perhaps the biggest change in my life”) he realized that he'd need to injest more of himself into his shows–that he'd need to become more of a folk artist than ever before. “I've always had one foot in both folk and bluegrass, and always done a fairly diverse mix of, material on stage. But it's only since going solo that I've given the folk side what I now see to be its proper due.” That folk side, says Star, means sharing yourself in an intimate way with the audience. “The best folk performers have always been able to forge a special bond with their audiences. And they do this by being personal–by sharing who they are in everything they do, from the songs they write and sing, to the stories they tell, to the silences they leave between songs. They draw you into their worlds.” As a humorist Star charts a charmingly wry and sardonic course that is reminiscent of ‘A Prairie Home Companion’, Garrison Keillor's weekly National Public Radio show, on which he has appeared. Many of his observations and stories concern the tribulations of the folkmusical lifestyle. A recent evening included thoughts on the folk musician's net worth ("We're talking four figure incomes across the board"), his clothing (“from the K-Mart Matching-From-A-Distance line of designer apparel”), the reason folk music isn't more popular (“because there's no annual folk music awards program on television. There's the Grammy's and the Emmy's–-there should also be the Earthy's. It'd be great, stretch VW's pulling up to the Plaza”), and the labor of love that playing the mandolin implies (“No parent calls their child aside in, say, junior high school and says ‘Son, your mother and I have been discussing your future recently and we really feel that the mandolin is the direction you should be thinking about”‘). Balancing his personal and musical selves, Orrin Star today combines the humor of the folk entertainer and the drive of the bluegrass instrumentalist. From all indications it is a happy marriage.” -----Steven Block