This page last revised 8/19/08

Celebrating our 37th Year!

Golden Link offerings include concerts of folk performers, a monthly newsletter, a lending library of folk music recordings and books, a folk musician's reference service, folk music workshops, an annual weekend folk festival, free weekly Tuesday night sing-arounds, and much, much more.

One way of reaching Golden Link is through the Folk Fone: (585) 234-5044.

Another way of reaching Golden Link is to contact one of the officers listed at the bottom of this page.

OR, our snail mail address is:

Golden Link Folk Singing Society, Inc.
PO Box 92398
Rochester, N. Y. 14692

CHOOSE ANY LINK BELOW BY CLICKING ON IT

CONCERTS are listed below.

WHAT'S NEW? - As of August 19:

CONCERTS & EVENTS

Watch this space for information on upcoming concerts and events. For Festival information, go to the Festival Page.

Golden Link Presents

Lou and Peter Berryman

Saturday, September 20th, 7:30 pm

Rochester Christian Reformed Church, 2750 Atlantic Avenue, Penfield

$18 ($15 for Golden Link members; 12 years and under free)

Lou and Peter Berryman began their musical partnership in high school in Appleton, Wisconsin, way back in the sixties. By the eighties, they had established themselves as a prominent feature of the songwriting subculture of Wisconsin's capital, playing their original material every week for almost ten years in the run-down but trendy music room of Madison's Club de Wash. Gradually expanding their circuit, they began crisscrossing the continent and gaining national attention with appearances on such programs as Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion and NPR's Weekend Edition. Regular appearances at festivals and folk music clubs all across the country now serve as venues for the songs contained in their twelve recordings and three songbooks, which have been performed by everyone from Garrison Keillor to Peter, Paul and Mary. The popularity of Lou and Peter Berryman -- whose friendship survived a brief marriage in the seventies -- is a testiment to their intelligent and wickedly funny material which is never bawdy or risque but is rich with wordplay and witty images. This duo is not to be missed.

Golden Link Presents

Robin and Linda Williams

and Their Fine Group

Saturday, October 18th, 7:30 pm

Rochester Christian Reformed Church, 2750 Atlantic Avenue, Penfield

$25 ($20 for Golden Link members; 12 years and under free)

"Individually their voices can melt cheese,
and in duet they can do all-purpose welding."
__ Garrison Keillor, host of A Prairie Home Companion

Robin and Linda Williams are like your next-door neighbors - assuming your neighbors are the salt-of-the-earth and top-flight performers to boot. One minute you picture borrowing a cup of sugar from these two; the next, you're completely stunned by their jaw-dropping talent. Bottom line: You feel right at home at a Robin and Linda concert, and their music stays with you like an old friend.

Favorites of fans and promoters alike, they have crisscrossed the continent (and beyond) for more than three decades, performing the tunes they love & a hearty blend of bluegrass, folk, old-time and acoustic country. From The Grand Ole Opry to Austin City Limits, Music City Tonight to Mountain Stage, clubs, festivals and countless other venues, Robin and Linda never cease to wow audiences wherever they go.

Their chops don't stop at singing. They are first-class instrumentalists and superb songwriters, able to, as TheWashington Post put it, "sum up a life in a few details with moving completeness." It'swhy their compositions have been recorded by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tom T. Hall, Kathy Mattea, Tim and MollieO'Brien, George Hamilton IV and The Seldom Scene. Irish singer Mary Black included their haunting "Don't Let MeCome Home a Stranger" on her CD Full Tide.

"Among contemporary country performers,
Robin and Linda Williams shine like a diamond amid rhinestones.
Their sound is so sincere as to give the listener chills."
__ David W. Johnson, The Boston Globe

R&L (as their pals are apt to call them) are in constant demand, along with Their Fine Group, which formed after they teamed up with former Red Clay Rambler Jim Watson (bass, vocals and mandolin). The fourth chair of the Fine Group is a rotating chair filled by Jimmy Gaudreau (veteran of The Country Gentlemen, J. D. Crowe, The Tony Rice Unit, Chesapeake and Aldridge, and Bennett & Gaudreau) on mandolin and mandola, Tony Williamson (mandolin), Chris Brashear (fiddle), and Tom Corbett (mandolin). Whatever the configuration, the band keeps the joint jumpin'. Robin and Linda Williams: dynamic, hilarious and better than ever.

Golden Link Presents

Enoch Kent

Saturday, November 15th, 7:30 pm

Rochester Christian Reformed Church, 2750 Atlantic Avenue, Penfield

$18 ($15 for Golden Link members; 12 years and under free)

Enoch Kent has been an influential figure in traditional Scottish music for decades. His band The Reivers formed the foundation for the Scottish folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s. Enoch co-founded The Singers Club with internationally renowned folk singers Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger. He has written such gems as “The Farm Auction,” recorded by Garnet Rogers, Jean Redpath, and others. His music is treasured by traditional music enthusiasts with a passion for story-songs, love & betrayal ballads, and gritty politics. Enoch's natural storytelling style is complemented by a ferocious wit and kitchen-range warmth.

“Enoch Kent is a singer and a crafter of songs in the fine old mold of Ewan MacColl, and Kent's broad, smoky, powerful voice is every bit the equal of MacColl's.”-- Bruce Baker, Dirty Linen

Golden Link Presents

Bill Staines

Friday, December 5th, 7:30 pm

Rochester Christian Reformed Church, 2750 Atlantic Avenue, Penfield

$18 ($15 for Golden Link members; 12 years and under free)

For over thirty five years, Bill has traveled back and forth across North America, singing his songs and delighting audiences at festivals, folksong societies, colleges, concerts, clubs and coffeehouses. A New England native, Bill became involved with the Boston- Cambridge folk scene in the early 1960's and, for a time, emceed the Sunday hootenanny at the renowned Club 47 in Cambridge. Bill quickly became a popular performer in the Boston area. In 1971, after one of his performances, a reviewer for The Phoenix stated that Bill was "simply Boston's best performer." A decade later, both in 1980 and 1981, the annual Reader's Poll of The Boston Globe selected him as a favorite performer. In 1991, Bill entered his forth decade as a folk performer with an international reputation as an artist.

Singing mostly his own songs, he has become one of the most popular singers on the folk music circuit today and averages around 200 concert dates a year.

Bill weaves a magical blend of wit and gentle humor into his performances, and as one reviewer wrote, "he has a sense of timing to match the best stand-up comic." His music is a slice of Americana, reflecting with the same ease, his feelings about the prairie people of the Midwest or the adventurers of the Yukon.

Interspersed between original songs, Bill also includes songs ranging from traditional folk tunes to more contemporary country ballads and delights in having the audience participate in many of the numbers. He may even do a yodeling tune or two- having won the National Yodeling Championship in 1975 at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville Texas.

A number of Bill's songs have been recorded by other artists including, Peter, Paul, & Mary, Makem and Clancy, Nanci Griffith, Mason Williams, The Highwaymen, Glen Yarborough, Jerry Jeff Walker, Grandpa Jones, Priscilla Herdman and others. Bill has recorded twenty-two of his own albums, fifteen of which are still in print. Additionally, Bill's songs have been published in four songbooks, If I Were A Word, Then I'd Be A Song, River, Music To Me, The Songs of Bill Staines, and All God's Critters Got A Place In The Choir. Two of the books contain nearly one hundred of Bill's songs.

Radio and TV appearances have included A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, The Good Evening Show and a host of local programs on PBS and network TV. Bill continues to drive over 65,000 miles a year, doing what he loves, bringing music to people.

EMAIL (or PHONE, if no e-mail) any of our OFFICERS/ CHAIRPERSONS