Folk Musician Caryl P. Weiss to Perform at Texas Seaport Museum Sunday

Folk musician Caryl P. Weiss, who specializes in traditional American and British ballads, sea shanties and drinking songs, will perform at Texas Seaport Museum Sunday, December 13 at 2 p.m. Admission to the concert is free with purchase of a ticket to the museum ($8 for adults; $5 for children). The museum is located at Pier 22 in Galveston, at Harborside Drive and 22nd Street. For more information, call the museum at 409-763-1877. The restored historic ship Elissa, built in 1877, is the Texas Seaport Museum’s main attraction.

Weiss's repertoire includes 500 years of music from both sides of the Atlantic, including old-timey, country, and bluegrass music; folk songs of the '60's, contemporary songs, and her own compositions. She has played about 38 instruments, including the guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass, dulcimer, autoharp, oboe, bagpipes, tin whistle, piano, concertina, and bul-bul tarang.

Weiss's interest in the guitar and folk music began in 1963 (when her sister gave her a few guitar lessons). Originally from Philadelphia, she established herself as one of that city's most active musicians while still in her teens. She gave her first professional performance at the age of 15, began composing at 17, and won a songwriting contest sponsored by RCA Records when she was 19. That same year, she was elected to the board of directors of the Philadelphia Folksong Society (which runs the famed Philadelphia Folk Festival). Since then, she has performed both solo and in such diverse ensembles as the sea shanty groups Outward Bound and the Liverpool Judies, Folk Goddesses (with Mary Catherine Reynolds), the Juggernaut String Band, the Kerrville All-Stars, and the Buzzard Band (Waldemar's jazz band), and has backed up many other performers, including Bill Staines, Priscilla Herdman, Eugene O'Donnell, David Amram, Robert Earl Keen, Jr., Carolyn Hester...even Ken Kesey!

Besides performing in 24 U.S. states, she's played in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, England, Wales, Canada, and Mexico. She's been heard on numerous broadcasts on radio and TV, including "The Dr. Demento Show" and NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Car Talk". The Liverpool Judies sang with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music in that great city. $$$$ Weiss moved to the Texas Hill Country in 1984, working as administrative assistant of the Kerrville Music Festivals. She moved to Austin in 1990, promptly winning the prestigious Austin Songwriters Competition, was named "Best Folk Act" in the 1995/96 Austin Music Awards, and was biographed in Who's Who in Entertainment. Additionally, she has presented a sea shanty program under the auspices of the Texas Commission on the Arts, and was commissioned an Admiral in the Texas Navy by Governor Ann Richards!

She currently lives on the Chesapeake Bay with her cat, where she pursues her love of sailing, music, and photography. She sings regularly aboard the 74-foot schooner Woodwind, the boat used as Christopher Walken's private yacht in the movie "Wedding Crashers". You can hear the song that she wrote about Woodwind and the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, at www.schooner-woodwind.com. She presents her "Sea Shanties 101" program at maritime museums around the bay, and attends as many sea shanty sings as her schedule allows.