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Joel Mabus in Concert

Presented by Arts Council Member Artist at The Clover Room, Kalamazoo MI

Sep 23 2023

Joel Mabus

Joel Mabus, musician and songwriter, giving a rare local concert in intimate setting.

TICKETS / REGISTRATION

Joel Mabus is a longtime fixture in the American folk music scene. He’s a songwriter with roots deep in tradition, and a risk-taking multi-instrumentalist with a well-travelled voice. He’s toured the major folk clubs and festivals all over North America but is firmly centered in the Midwest.

Joel was born in 1953 to a family of old-time country music performers, who had worked in the 1930’s in a traveling “Hillbilly” troupe for Chicago’s radio station WLS, the home of the famed “National Barn Dance” radio show. His father was a champion fiddler, his mom a singer and banjo & accordion player. Widowed when Joel was 2 years old, Ruby Lee Mabus raised her three kids in a small Southern Illinois town on meagre survivor-benefit checks from Gerald’s social security, plus income from accordion lessons and other odd jobs.

Joel started playing melodies on the family mandolin at age 9 and played bluegrass and sang harmonies with his older brother at home; he learned his gospel by singing in a store-front Pentecostal church. Guitar, banjo & fiddle were soon in Joel’s mix. There was no money from home for college, but he earned a National Merit Scholarship and attended Michigan State University. Studying cultural anthropology and English Lit by day, he made his spending money at night as a folk & blues performer in local bars.

Making Michigan his home after college, Mabus traveled the folk & bluegrass circuit, playing festivals and small concert venues. Beginning his recording career in 1978, Joel has since traveled all over America (and parts of Texas, he adds) performing at the fabled folk clubs and festivals of the day.

He has played on stage with many of his music heroes: Tom Paxton, Doc Watson, Peggy Seeger, Jethro Burns, Sonny Terry, Odetta, Buffy Saint Marie and many more. He has worked alongside many of his friends & songwriter fellows: Greg Brown, John Gorka, Claudia Schmidt, Si Kahn, Christine Lavin, Sally Rogers, Jack Hardy, Susan Werner…and the list goes on.

Joel has 27 solo albums to his credit (some featuring songwriting, others focusing on traditional guitar or banjo, and some very eclectic), along with studio work as side musician. His latest album is Time & Truth in 2019.

Where is he from? Smalltown Illinois & Mississippi River: 105 miles southeast of Mark Twain, 190 miles northwest of Bill Monroe, 110 miles southwest of Burl Ives and just over the river and up the hill from Scott Joplin. That’s where Joel Mabus is from. He lives in Portage, Michigan now.

“The dean of singer-songwriters”
Rich Warren, host of Chicago’s
Midnight Special on WFMT-FM

“Joel Mabus is the Joe DiMaggio of the folk music world – a virtuoso who can make the toughest plays appear effortless.”
Ron Olesko of WFDU-FM
(Fordham University, New York)

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ADMISSION INFO

$19 with limited VIP seating options for an added fee. See : https://www.thecloverroomkalamazoo.com/tickets-and-events

It's Joel's birthday month and he wants to celebrate with you!

A second show Sunday matinee will be added if this show sells out! Keep an eye out for more details!

"Joel Mabus is one of contemporary folk music's most eclectic performers. A skilled guitar, fiddle, banjo, and mandolin player and melodic songwriter, Mabus has played everything from traditional folk tunes to bluegrass, blues, and original songs." Craig Harris at AllMusic.com Where is he from? He was born and raised in a working-class family in a modest Southern Illinois town, about 105 miles southeast of Mark Twain, 190 miles northwest of Bill Monroe, 110 miles southwest of Burl Ives and just over the river and up the hill from Scott Joplin. When Joel's parents came of age in the 1930's, they took their old-time farm-grown music on the road with other family members as "hillbilly" entertainers, barnstorming the Midwest in medicine shows, small-town radio programs as well as their long-standing job performing road shows for the WLS Barn Dance. This pedigree was not lost on Joel as a child in the 1960's. The family mandolin was his first calling, quickly adding banjo, guitar and fiddle. In the midst of Beatle-mania, Joel was drawn to the tunes of Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. Joel made his first record for a small Michigan label in 1977 with mandolin legend Frank Wakefield guesting. Three years later he signed with Flying Fish Records for a two-record deal. In 1986 he was one of the first indie folksingers to start his own label (Fossil Records), even before the advent of the home studio and compact disc, which makes the practice so common today. Mabus has toured widely and makes his living at music, though he is flying under the radar of American pop culture. Whether you label him folk, Americana , or a singer-songwriter, Mabus remains a one-off, walking that lonesome valley, making and marking his way as a working artist outside the confines of the usual music business

Phone: (269) 599-6359