Ann Arbor Songwriters in the Round III

featuring Dave Boutette, Jim Roll, Kyle Norris and John Latini

Dave Boutette's Midwest is full of passion, humor and shaken grace. Influenced by songwriters that span from Chuck Berry to Lyle Lovett, Dave Boutette documents the trips and triumphs of life between the coasts. Boutette calls up images of parking lots, college towns and Camaros to reveal a Midwest experience worthy of space in any collection of latter day American songwriting. Before stepping out on his own, Boutette spent ten years with the Detroit-based alterna-rock bar band, The Junk Monkeys. The band toured the nation relentlessly and recorded under the Warner Bros./Metal Blade label from 1990-93.

Novelist Rick Moody-author of "Demonology" and "The Ice Storm" called Jim Roll's 2000 CD, "Lunette," "one of the best singer-songwriter albums of the last five years." Jim had given Rick that CD to spark interest in a songwriting alliance. The first fruits appear on "Inhabiting the Ball"-and Rick's not the only guest lyricist, either. Poet and fiction writer Denis Johnson (of The Name of the World and Jesus' Son fame) was actually the first author Jim enlisted. Don't miss this chance to see why the LA Times, National Public Radio, and the New Yorker have raved about this CD.

Kyle Norris' world shattered after seeing Ani Difranco play an acoustic show at The Ark in 1995, as Norris pledged her commitment to seriously study and pursue the singer-songwriter genre. Norris blends her writer's keen ear for detail (she makes her living as a freelance writer,) with a poetically rich sensibility, and then matches these aspects with an original and gutsy guitar style. She has opened up for Oakland performer Noe Venable at The Ark, and for Rose Polenzani (Voices on the Verge) at the Concert Q House Series.

John Latini left his lifelong home in New York City to seek his fortune and musical future in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Talk about swimming against the current. Many people have seen him perform as a backup musician for many local artists and in his band own Crowbar Hotel.