Kim Manning has been in Sturgeon Bay at the Holiday Music Motel & Studios for several days recording her second album, “Good People” and she needs a little local support! Kickstarter is a new way to fund creative projects, empowered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

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On the evening of Wednesday, December 21, Kim Manning will be performing a live studio concert at The Holiday Music Motel as the finale wrapping up a week of recording. But the real crescendo comes with funding and then releasing that recording.

“Most of the album was recorded at the Holiday Music Motel in Sturgeon Bay,” says Kim, “and features tons of my musical friends including Victor de Lorenzo (one of my hero’s from the Violent Femmes), Wally Ingram (Sheryl Crow), and P-Funk Allstars Jerome Rodgers, Mike (Kidd Funkadelic) Hampton, Danny Bedrosian, Michael Clip Payne, Tracey Lewis-Clinton, and Eric McFadden. It also features Groovesession, Lantz Lazwell (Wahnderlust) and many of my Steel Bridge Song Fest buddies.”

It’s a wonderful record that is sexy, witty, funky and whimsical and features Kim Manning hits,

• “Somewhere in a Tuppaware”,
• “Water Below”,
• “I am Good People”,
• and the P-Funk classic “Red Hot Momma”.

“We are mixing right now at Making Sausage Music, so all I need is the final remaining funds to finish the Artwork, Mastering, and Duplication,” she explains. “My goal of $4000 will do that.”

There are some great rewards for her Kickstarter supporters. Every level of contribution has a different level of reward and they are zany and fun! For $10 you will get a digital pre-release of “Good People.” You can take home a bit of TV history, from Kim’s Flavor of Love outfits to items she wore on the David Letterman Show. You can also get autographed goodies from her and her friends, including George Clinton. Or you can have something even more personal, like a Skype session with Kim. How about a Private Yoga Session or even a private concert!

“Any lil bit helps, together we can move mountains.” – Kim Manning

Betty Lewis

Birch Creek string instructor Betty Lewis is an active violinist and violist in the Chicago area, performing with groups ranging from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Broadway in Chicago’s orchestra for Beauty and the Beast. It is clear that Ms. Lewis has a passion not only for performing music in a professional environment, but also for teaching, as her violin and viola students at Birch Creek and the Francis Parker School in Chicago will attest.

Concertgoers may recognize Ms. Lewis from her many seasons with the Peninsula Music Festival orchestra as well.

EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks

EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks has a long history with Birch Creek, having first attended as a violin student in 1998 and 1999. After serving as a Teaching Assistant for six years, she is currently a Birch Creek Associate Faculty member. Her talent, abilities and work ethic have brought her success:  Ms. Holmes-Hicks has received her Doctor of Musical Arts in violin performance from SUNY Stony Brook and is on the faculty at the Music Academy of Long Island and the East End Arts Council, Long Island, N.Y.

Ms. Holmes-Hicks will be returning to Birch Creek again this summer, continually giving back to the summer music school from which she received inspiration as a student 13 years ago.

Birch Creek Music Performance Center, Door County’s unique concert venue, is located at 3821 Cty Hwy E, Egg Harbor. All concerts begin at 8 pm with pre-concert music beginning at 7:30 pm. The Pops concert on Saturday, July 2 has a special concert time of 6:30 pm. Tickets are $29 for adults, $10 for young adults age 12-20 and college students, and $6 for children 11 and under. For complete information or to reserve tickets, call 920.868.3763. Also check www.birchcreek.org for additional information.

Ricardo Castañeda and Erin Horan

Ricardo Castañeda stays sufficiently busy while on the Birch Creek campus. Not only is he the oboe instructor, he is also the Symphony Program Director, handling many administrative aspects of the session behind the scenes. This is Mr. Castañeda’s 14th year at Birch Creek and his 11th as Program Director.

As a young boy, Mr. Castañeda’s parents encouraged him to enroll in an after-school activity, and he chose music. When given the chance to select any instrument to study, he chose the oboe. He was age 7 at the time.

Recruited by Ray Still (oboist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many years) to study with him at Northwestern University, Castañeda came to the US and completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in oboe performance. He has remained in the Chicago area and is the principal oboist with the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Lake Forest Symphony, the Joffrey Ballet Orchestra, and is professor of oboe at Northern Illinois University.

Pictured with Castañeda is Erin Horan who serves as his assistant both in the oboe section and with administrative duties. Ms. Horan was a Birch Creek student in 1999 and returned the following year as Castañeda’s teaching assistant. She also completed an oboe performance degree under Castañeda at Northern Illinois University. In her 13th year at Birch Creek, she is now an Associate Faculty member.  During the other 50 weeks of the year, Ms. Horan is Education Director with the Mobile Symphony Orchestra, Mobile, Ala.

Birch Creek Music Performance Center, Door County’s unique concert venue, is located at 3821 Cty Hwy E, Egg Harbor. All concerts begin at 8 pm with pre-concert music beginning at 7:30 pm. The Pops concert on Saturday, July 2 has a special concert time of 6:30 pm. Tickets are $29 for adults, $10 for young adults age 12-20 and college students, and $6 for children 11 and under. For complete information or to reserve tickets, call 920.868.3763. Also check www.birchcreek.org for additional information.

Debra Hadraba

You may know her as the zany, pigtailed, blonde waitress with the wild knee socks at Julie’s Park Café in Fish Creek. For eight years Debra Hadraba has been making the annual trek from her home in St. Paul to Door County to manage and train staff while serving the needs of hungry visitors to this popular local restaurant at the entrance to Peninsula State Park. But, behind the apron and her attentive smile lurks a passionate and dedicated songwriter, singer, philosopher and a performing artist with more than 75 original comic videos on YouTube.

In 2007 she wrote an anthem called “Be Brave, Have Heart,” one among at least 50 songs she wrote that year. By 2008 Debra had a large enough collection of polished songs to invest a chunk of her hard-earned summer money in recording studio time. Working with a couple of talented young Minneapolis-based musician/recording engineers she laid down the tracks for approximately 20 songs. Over the winter and into spring 2009 they labored over the mixes and have now mastered 7 songs, ready to be released on a forthcoming enhanced EP/CD.

The intended path from waitress to rockstar has not been an easy one for Debra. She suffered with bouts of severe depression. Looking back at herself in 2005 she confesses, “I wasn’t able to create anything and I felt as if my spirit was dying. I had given up. I had resigned myself to ‘die with the music inside me’. In fact, my paints and brushes were all dried up, stacks of notebooks gone, and I didn’t even own a guitar anymore.”

That was the year she decided to attend a self-improvement conference in Dallas, perhaps inappropriately titled, “More Heart Than Talent.” There she was particularly impressed with the concepts delivered by a speaker named Ellie Drake. A few months later Debra travelled to Atlanta to attend “Momentum,” a focus-group that was working under the direct guidance of Ms. Drake. Afterward, Ellie asked Debra and a small number of other women from across the US to help her launch the Braveheart Women Global Community in 2006. In three years, that group has grown from less than a hundred original founding members to tens of thousands today, in an online community at www.BraveheartWomen.com.

Debra is dedicating her first recorded song to Braveheart Women everywhere on Earth, publishing it as a single on an enhanced CD, which includes photos, an e-book by Debra and a music video shot in Door County and produced by DesignWise Films.

She takes a break from Julie’s on October 1 – 5, flying to Los Angeles to officially release her song at “Rise!” - a sold out conference sponsored by Ellie Drake that features a collection of other Braveheart Core members including Dr. Maya Angelou and Mariel Hemingway.

Following Ellie’s example, Debra founded her own group within the Braveheart Community.

“I founded ‘Honor Your Truth’ to guide and encourage people to follow the voice in their heart, rather than the noise in their head,” says Debra. “It is our nature to help each other. We have divine goodness coursing through us. And, we are all meant to prosper by doing what we love.”

You can see her videos and order a copy of Debra’s”Be Brave, Have Heart” enhanced CD single for just the cost of shipping and handling at her Website: HonorYourTruth.com.

Chris Bishop and Emilie Rose Bishop

This week we talk with special guest Chris Bishop, and feature a recent track entitled “With Love” that he wrote and recorded with his band The Peacocks. The show aired live at 1 pm and is now available to listen to in streaming  format or as a downloadable podcast at the Door County Style Channel on Blog Talk Radio.

Each Thursday at 7 pm we usually broadcast live online, streaming from Fish Creek, Wisconsin – but sometimes we schedule around a guest’s availability. If you can’t make it live we always provide the latest archived shows for download or podcast listening anytime. On-air listener calls are taken during live broadcasts at 646.929.0910

Door County Style Magazine uses the BlogTalkRadio broadcasting platform. Here are a few tips to help you successfully manage the site:

You don’t need to register to listen to our shows, but registering gives you those social site perks such: as a profile with your own blog/website information, making Door County Style a “friend” (we like friends!), your own a unique user ID for the live chat sessions that accompany the shows, the ability to send messages to other registered users, rate shows etc. (Heck, you can even start your own radio show!)

Registered users also have the option to receive show reminders sent to them. To get show reminders, just go to the “Settings” page, then click “Notifications”.

Stephen Kastner, Door County BTR Host

Tune in to the Door County Style Channel on Blog Talk Radio to hear the latest on what’s upcoming in the arts, on stage, in live music from the club scene to classical, local festivals and special events, sports and the outdoors – a live, call-in, Door County fun roster. We feature special guest spots with the artists, musicians, actors and the organizers who make it all happen here in Northeast Wisconsin. Join in by calling 646.929.0910 during show time with your own special announcements to be sure we don’t miss anything going on in Northeast Wisconsin – always a hot spot in the arts and entertainment…

Door County Style Magazine cam crew was there to provide you with the following chance to experience a bit of what you missed or remember what you saw and heard if you were lucky enough to have been there. Willy is a master of the six and 9-string guitars and his songwriting skills are just as finely tuned. This lyrics of this Willy Porter song, “Paper Airplane.” touched my heart. Here’s an intro:

I wanna walk through all your open doorways.
I wanna drink down all your cheap wine.
I wanna answer the phone when your old man calls ya.
I wanna tell him that your doin alright.
I wanna erase all doubt.
I wanna stand naked before the sun.
I wanna lay down beside you when the working day is done.
Through your open window my paper airplane flies.
People say I lost my footing.
They should look into your eyes.

Here’s a link to hear the song that drew me to attend Willy’s recent Door County concert: “How To Rob A Bank” – another example of his Woody Guthrie-style, would-be bank robber’s directive:

You can’t walk in there brazen with an Uzi like Patty Hearst.
I’m gonna secure myself a seat on the board of directors first.
That’s how you rob a bank.

It’s also the title of his latest CD release, a rich blend of salt and sugar with tracks that move easily from rough-hewn electric edges into soulful irony with equal aplomb. Each song is a fresh cross-pollination of styles, genres and musical forms.

On How To Rob A Bank Porter fills out the production with a deep supporting cast of musicians he has known and toured with for years. The LA-based folk/rock quartet Raining Jane bring their vocal harmonies, cello, sitar and percussion to the disc in warm and subtle ways. LA über-session artist, Reggie Hamilton, lends his virtuosity on upright bass to the title track and Weasel Records label-mate Natalia Zukerman sews her lap-steel, dobro and vocal chops into several tunes. For the core heavy lifting on the album, Porter enlists his own seasoned backing band of Dave Adler (keys), Steve Kleiber (bass), and Dave Schoepke (drums and percussion).

“In his most recent offering on Weasel Records “Porter [is] at the top of his game, working off his creative debt to Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan,” (Dave Tianen – Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) while showing his listeners How To Rob A Bank.

The Peg Egan Performing Arts Center Sunset Concert Series of live music in Door Countyis presented free to the public and begin at 7 pm at the new open-air Egg Harbor Amphitheater on Church Street. Bring your lawn chairs and blankets! Meet and greet the artists after each show at the Door County Outpost Gallery & Cafe.

Sunday, July 26 • Patty Larkin
Patty is a rare combination of talents. Over her 10 CD history, she has honed a reputation as a “musician’s musician”, working with some of the brightest talents in American music. Long a favorite with critics, Patty is that unique level of artistic sophistication – one that her audiences have come to appreciate and her new fans will love.

Patty Larkin is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, recognized for her outstanding contributions to contemporary music, alongside synthesizer pioneer Dr. Robert Moog. Over the years, other recipients of this prestigious honor have been Duke Ellington, Sting, Natalie Cole, among others. Patty Larkin has won an unprecedented 11 Boston Music Awards and is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnae Award from Berklee College of Music and “Patty Larkin Appreciation Day”, a proclamation by Boston’s mayor Thomas Menino.

Sunday, August 2 • Steppin’ In It
This Lansing, Michigan quartet brilliantly updates a resurging American musical genre. These guys are real showmen of old-time country swing. Sponsored by: Edward & Terri Martin, H.J. Martin & Son, Inc. In memory of Patrick and Mary Ellen Martin.

Sunday, August 9 • Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble
The members of the Lawrence Jazz Trio improvise and interact upon an eclectic repertoire of jazz, classical, folk, and ethnic music. Each artist brings a broadly based conservatory education, an extensive jazz background, and unique world music experiences to this creative music collective.

Sunday, August 16 • Harmonious Wail
Smoldering vocals laced among the jazzy mandolin and guitar; an infectious blend of continental jazz, swing, gypsy music and melodic vocals. The band has toured throughout the United States and Europe over the past 17 years.

Sunday, August 23 • Karen Savoca & Pete Heitzman
Karen Savoca’s live performances are uplifting and hypnotic, and she and partner Pete Heitzman put some funk in the folk. At the Vancouver Folk Festival ‘99, as the Sunday sun was setting, for the first time in 22 years, 10 thousand people inexplicably removed their shoes and waved them over their heads.

Sunday, August 30 • Santa Cruz River Band
Arizona’s Santa Cruz River Band plays folk music in styles rooted in the Southwest and Mexico. Breathtaking stories and vocals!

In case of a rain out, events will be held indoors at The Orchards Golf Course, 8125 Heritage Lake Road in Egg Harbor… call 920-868-2483.

Delaney Davidson is joined here by Eric McFadden on guitar, Jeff Hammes on bass and Wally Ingram on drums.

“I am always amazed at where influence shows its head. Sometimes Dusty Springfield turns up and I never even listened to her, sometimes the Beach Boys, sometimes The Beatles, Hank Williams – its all the beautiful world of music,” says Delaney. “Tom Waits blew my teenage mind with his unabashed sentimentality, then later with his dark vision, and still later with his lifestyle. He seems to manage it well. But mostly the musicians I know personally have the biggest effect.”

Hear more of his music and keep track on the whereabouts of Delaney Davidson at www.myspace.com/delaneyfdavidson.