Special Guest of Honor: Hopeful Romantics (Mary Ellen Wessels & Ed Stauff)

(aus New Hampshire, USA)

Introducing Mary Ellen to a new group of people outside of the USA is always somewhat of a challenge. Most of what people really know her for is as a backup vocalist for many, many filk projects. She has one solo album, 'Current Obsessions'; and has appeared in backing vocals for Kathy Mar ("Plus Ca Change", "Plus C'est La Meme Chose", "Bamboo Wind", and "Made By Magic"), Steve Macdonald ("Songspinner", and "Journey's Done"), Judith Hayman ("Sea of Stars"), and was the lead singer of The Black Book Band ("First Contact").

Her voice is liquid gold, flexible, and can evoke tears and laughter equally easily. Her musical influences are wide and deep; but she lives within the folk style.

She is a Pegasus winner, and a member of the Filk Hall of Fame.

She entered the filk community in the early 80's, and was part of the semi-commune that created filk recording at Off Centaur Publications. She moved from her native Michigan to California to sleep on couches, produce background harmonies on some of the earliest tapes, helping creating song books, and generally being girl friday and doing whatever needed doing. (Because of this, the actual list of recordings she is on is much, much longer than the one given in the first paragraph of this bio. She's lost track of all the tapes she has participated in).

After Off Centaur ended, she returned to Michigan and helped organize filk tracks at conventions, published convention songbooks, and helped pioneer filk insta-bands. She has served as a board member of Interfilk, and helped create the concept of 'Filk Auction Wenching', which has significantly raised the entertainment value in filk auctions.

After a few years of this, she met Ed Stauff at a convention on the East Coast of the US - and soon moved to New England to start her dream - a family of her very own.

Her abilities, her love for music, and especially her conviction that music belongs to everyone make her a person you really want to spend time with.
I know I'll be looking forward to her visit.

by Steve Macdonald

Homepage: Hopeful Romantics