Who Is Don White?

"...there is an honesty and self-deprecating wit in his material that is an immediate tonic."

- The Boston Herald

If you laugh and cry within the same ten minutes, you either need a vacation or you are sitting in the audience at a Don White show. This working class family man from Lynn, Massachusetts has emerged as the thoughtful songwriter of the decade whose relevance to our lives is evidenced by the powerful reaction he evokes at every concert. Radio audiences, too, are not safe from the Don White experience. Valerie Adams of WNCS Radio, Vermont said, "I've never seen anything like it. Every time I play I Know What Love Is the phones light up like a Christmas tree. Stereo Review Magazine called it "...A candidate for song of the year."

In 1974 Don started hitch-hiking around America. "I went to Alaska and New Foundland. That first trip I was gone eleven months and I only spent $1,100," he says gleefully. His wife--then girlfriend--Theresa joined him on the road. They backpacked around the country for three years with a guitar and their dog--a female whose first 'heat' inspired the breathtakingly funny The Shameful Ballad of Lijah The Orchard Queen--finding occasional work as itenerant farm hands and laborers. "Th freedom was addictive," he says.

Since settling down in Lynn, Don has worked on a craft of songwriting and performing. He learned his art in the trenches: often doing nine shows a week at Catch A Rising Star over two and a half years. Studying the masters who passed though that fabled club, he developed his own infectious brand of humor and pathos that rivets the crowd wherever he plays.

Don conducts a performance skills workshop at Club Passim, Cambridge's legendary folk club, where he passes along his experience to aspiring performers. Guest instructors are veteran comics, performance poets, actors, and folksingers. "I see little difference between the skills of various performance artists", says Don, "I most admire someone like Utah Phillips who weaves a seamless stream of song, story-telling, poetry, and comedy."

Don White illuminates the human experience though his writing and performing. His motivation for doing so is eloquently expressed in the spoken word piece he performs after singing Heartbeat of Heaven. Whether he is singing, speaking, or setting up the sneakiest punch line of the night, Don has the hearts of his audience. They know they have his.

Find more about Don's Performance Skills Teaching - the theory and practice of connecting with your audience at the SoloPerformer.Com Website.

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