IMPORTANT See Lamplighter post regarding these shows.

Peter Mulvey “All I hear is Peter Mulvey, Peter Mulvey- enough already.” Anonymous

Dayna Kurtz‘s depth is akin to the Nina Simone not only as a vocalist but as an interpreter and writer. A real equal opportunity purveyor of human musical expression, she defies categorization while giving a big-boned, highly emotive concentration to all she interprets or originates. “I’m not of the jazz, blues, folk, R&B, rock, or pop worlds enough to belong to any of them, but all of those things are in there,” she says.

Kurtz began performing as a teenager, and has had a solo touring career ever since. She opened for Richie Havens, who became a fan and lent vocals to her debut studio album, Postcards from Downtown. Dayna keeps winning over new fans in the music scene. In the past two years she has been invited to open up for Rufus Wainwright, Antony & the Johnsons, and Keren Ann. Additionally, she has an admirer in fellow “Living Room” habitué Norah Jones, who sings a duet with her on “I Got It Bad…” (From Beautiful Yesterday). The legendary Richard Thompson invited her to open up for a coast-to-coast nationwide tour that found Dayna converting some of his faithful fans.

And she’s not just a riveting singer. Her guitar playing is flexible enough to take her to the musical places she visits, whether she’s plucking an open pattern with an oddly cabaret feel or strumming some attitude into the bluesy realm.

Her latest recordings are Secret Canon Vol. 1, a late night smoky collection of lost nuggets from the mid-century jazz and early R&B cut out bins, and American Standard, which leans a little more toward country blues, and is mostly original music despite the title.

Paul Cebar Some idea of what Paul is about: “Milwaukee native Paul Cebar is a singing, strumming, and dancing museum of musical culture and a self-styled historian of myriad musical forms. Countless sounds pour forth when Cebar and his Milwaukeeans take the stage. New Orleans, Chicago, New york, Africa, Brazil, Cuba, jump-blues, gospel, jazz, reggae, calypso, soul and vintage R&B are sterting points for something that becomes uniquely Cebar. This mishmash helps reimagine and liven up obscure classics, and the band’s originals present new viewpoints on established styles.” The Onion AV Club

John Sieger, who was in the R&B Cadets with the above-mentioned Cebar, is a prolific and excellent songwriter with a semi-country bent whose songs have impressed Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Harrison, The BoDeans, Robbie Fulks and Flaco Jimenez enough to record them.