Stan Sullivan / Bruce Pratt / Jim Mercik

May 6, 2023 @ 8:00PM — 10:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada)

The Buttonwood Tree Performing Arts Center: 605 Main Street Middletown, CT 06457 Get Directions

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Connecticut native Stan Sullivan earned his BA in Modern Languages from CCSU in 1970. He is a self-described, "singer-songwriter guitar instrumentalist-composer and folk and blues performer." He modestly explains that although he wrote his first song at the age of 17, it was not until many years later that the quality of his songwriting and performing came together. And that it did!

Stan Sullivan has played solo in CT, NY, and MA at colleges, libraries, festivals, clubs, coffeehouses, special events and more. He has opened and done sets with over 100 internationally touring artists, including Muriel Anderson, Janis Ian, Dave Van Ronk, John Hartford, and Happy Traum. He has released two lyrical albums, titled, The Right Road, and Do You Like the Rain? featuring 24 original songs and instrumentals. He also has two compilations of recording appearances on Folk Next Door and Folk Next Door V-Cicada; both were recorded by Ed McKeon for WWUH 91.3 FM Radio.

Besides performing, Stan Sullivan has won numerous awards in songwriting and guitar contests that span various categories such as Love, Religion/Spirit, Instrumental, Humorous, Political, and Modern Ballad. Contests range from Arizona's Southwest Regional Fingerstyle, to New Hampshire's Folk Guitar & Fiddle, to the Walnut Valley Songwriting Showcase in Kansas, and more.

Links: Website | Facebook | Apple | Spotify

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Bruce Pratt’s poems are smart and accomplished. He keeps a close watch on the natural world, and an even closer one on human nature. Boreal is a collection which extends pleasure to insight on every page.

A memorable outpouring of passion and paradox, Pratt’s pitch-perfect poems entwine uncertainties into a retrospective which rather than striking back at experience, holds it gracefully, gratefully, close at hand. Again and again I’m drawn back into these poems of faith, deeply rooted in a man standing firm, chest-deep in the current of each passing, uncertain moment, any desire to be rescued not out of fear but because someone looked for you and not finding you where you should be / dove into the waves for love.

He is the winner of the 2007 Ellipsis Prize in poetry, a finalist for the Erskine J. Poetry award from Smartish Pace, and his poems have appeared in, Only Connect, an anthology from Cinnamon Press, (Wales) Smartish Pace, The 2007 Goose River Anthology, Revival (Ireland), Puckerbrush Review, The Poet’s Touchstone, Rock and Sling, Red Rock Review, Crosscut, Iguana Review, The Tipton Journal, The Unrorean, Heartland Review, and Wild Goose Poetry Review. His nonfiction has appeared in the Yale Anglers’ Journal, Vermont Literary Review, Hartford Courant, Bangor Daily News, Salty Dog, Bangor Metro, and Portland Magazine.

Links: Website | Apple | Spotify

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Jim Mercik is a Connecticut multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and arranger. He plays guitar, banjo, clarinet and also sings. He has appeared in concert with a multitude of artists including Eric Andersen, Eric Von Schmidt, bluesman Paul Geremia, and Grammy Award winners Bonnie Raitt and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot. He was a founding member of the popular Connecticut bands The Roadbirds and The Congo Square Ramblers, and he is currently performing as a member of The Smokin’ Mirrors Jazz Quartet.

Jim’s composition Is This Enough has been included in the Smithsonian’s Permanent Collection of Folk Music in Washington, DC. He is former guitar student of the legendary New York musician Dave Van Ronk, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street.” For many years Jim hosted the weekly radio program Blue Monday, a three hour program of American Blues, Jazz, and R&B music which continues to air on WWUH-FM.

A lifelong student and performer of American jazz and roots music, Jim continues to utilize performance, lessons, lecturing, and radio to spread the news of jazz and blues to everyone in the Northeast USA.

Links: Website | YouTube | Apple | Spotify

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