2022 Night Stage Performers
The WITA committee has put together a very special lineup for the 2022 WITA stages featuring an ALL-REUNION bill, sure to spark some WITA nostalgia for all!
Friday, November 11, 7:30pm
Half Looking
Saturday, November 12, 6:30pm
Nervous but Excited
Half Looking – Friday night
Available at Goldenrod.com
Well, my my my hells bells Mable! We are “Nervous But Excited!” This is really going to be quite the happening. Ok. So it may have taken 20 years, the stars aligned and we finally got there. So what’s been happening. Life has taken us all on the journey we have all followed with our hearts. After our last album release in 2002 of “The Warmth In Here” all of us have been up to something. While some of us continued performing and touring, others have been managing wildfires, corrupting teenage minds, and helping heal through medicine.
Hez Naylor singer, songwriter, and healer moved to Arizona. Her journey resulted in a PHDc’s etc. Now she is a nurse practitioner of amazing skill and love in Phoenix, AZ while raising her adorable daughter Charlotte with her wife and pups. Still playing music, hiking the Grand Canyon, and loving life.
Meanwhile, Lisa Corbett has participated in competing and eventually guest judging several seasons of Portland Idol. Currently, she is busy corrupting young minds and molding them into shape shifters of the next generation of hope. Teaching history, economics, and finance. All the while still performing, sitting in dunk tanks for good causes, hiking, swimming and hanging tough with her partner Michael and their fur babies dog-pony Walter and Buttons her cute cat.
Holly Miller has been rocking it ever since she met Hez and Lisa at the ol’ Bagel Fragel in East Lansing, MI. Several years and 3 albums later she found herself following her “Smokey Bear” dreams. Working for the U.S. Forest service as a wildland firefighter. She still plays guitar along the way in various projects. Although, she says she has never connected with other musicians like she did with Half Looking. Now she is a fire dispatcher living in lower northern Michigan with her long term partner Michelle, black cat Benjamin, gardening, fishing, gathering various things from the woods and enjoying their 40acres of land.
Tammy (blue) Cook Has officially entered her 5th decade of performing in her solo project “Little Things” or various groups such as “Tad and the Fat Cats” or “The Murray Stewart-Jones Experience” and who knows what else she manages to get herself involved with. She fondly recalls many good memories of touring with Half Looking. Such as, getting lost in the Badlands, camping next to Devils tower (not so legally), shopping at the irresistible Wall Drug tourist trap, snatching corn bits off of the world renowned Corn Palace, and playing shows at the Small Planet or Stilletos with its fancy cat walk. When she’s not playing music, she loves hanging with Cheryl (her partner of 37 years), dog Mattie and their wild and beautiful grand niece, Luna.
Last and certainly not least. The Murr. Murray Stewart-Jones is still “Keeping the beat” in her own way of course. Over the years has continued her musical journey in many ways. Eventually, she earned her degree in construction management from LCC and MSU. While some of you may remember her best as the drummer and backing vocalist for Half Looking. She can often be found performing regularly as a singer-songwriter, bass player, and percussionist in all forms or teaching music at her privately owned music studio “Jonesbeat Music.” Collectively she has appeared on over 20 albums recording with various midwest artists and continued performing live since 1986. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, she hangs her hat in the bustling metropolis of Marietta, Ohio with her fancy fiancé “Awesome (Andi) Roberts”, their 2 cats and two dogs. All of them willing to get in a cuddle puddle at a moments notice. She plays regularly with her Americana band “BackPorchAlibi” and “The Murray Stewart-Jones Experience” project. She recently released her first solo debut EP “Keep It Simple” available at Goldenrod Music. She of course plans to keep the ball rolling. Stay tuned. More to come.
Well, that’s the gist folks. We’ve all missed each other and kept in touch over the years. All watching each other grow into whatever our hearts desired. Now we find ourselves with the amazing excuse to get together and make music once again with the old gang. Can’t wait to feel all the feels with these ladies once again! Can’t y’all just feel something already on the Tip of your tongues, or Deliciously Humming or even the Warmth in Here as we all brave the next season?
Nervous but Excited – Saturday night
Co-produced with the Ten Pound Fiddle
Since their “hiatus” in 2012, Kate Peterson and Sarah Cleaver of Nervous but Excited have spent the years over 700 miles apart, singing the melody lines in their own ways, just awaiting the right time to bring the harmonies back. They played some of their first shows together at the East Lansing Women in the Arts Festival almost 20 years ago, and have spent many special evenings at the Ten Pound Fiddle in between. The stars have aligned for Kate and Sarah (and special guests?) to reunite for an evening in the birthplace of Nervous But Excited!
Before you even ask, yes of course there will be nerves and there will be excitement! These two straight-from-the-heart songwriters on stage together is an experience no one can predict–even them. A few things are certain – there will be vulnerability; there will be silliness. There will be moments that honor gratitude and grief. There will be open hearts, awkwardness, and most definitely, there will be laughter. And singalongs, always singalongs! Whatever the feeling, it will be palpable.
Pleasantly Aggressive Folk Duo Nervous but Excited is two songwriters, two singers, three guitars, a banjo, a mandolin, a ukulele, dead-on harmony, some vaguely choreographed dancing, and an impressive amount of laughter. Their original repertoire ranges in topic from smart, introspective narratives to the tactfully political… interspersed with songs of love and loss that will undoubtedly tug on your heartstrings. Their harmonies have been described as the kind that build so smoothly until suddenly they start to shake your insides.
“Ahhhh… organic and rich like good soil … makes me want to listen and hear it grow.
The songs are honest and dimensional. it’s music to my ears.” – Amy Ray, The Indigo Girls
“…blending progressive politics, sharp wit, and deep introspection with nuanced harmonies…” – Curve magazine
From 2004-2012, Nervous but Excited played over 600 shows in the US and Canada (plus one jaunt over to Spain) in support of 7 releases (3 studio, 1 live and 3 EPs). Throughout the years, Kate and Sarah collaborated with many Michigan musicians, performing live as a 7-piece band at the peak. Mainstay band members included dear friend and manager Susie Giang (bass, banjo) and multi-instrumentalist Murray Stewart-Jones (drums). Other live and studio collaborators included Theo Katzman (Vulfpeck), Allison Russell (Po’ Girl, Birds of Chicago), Joshua Davis (Steppin’ in it, The Voice), Chris Bathgate, Girlyman, Frontier Ruckus, Hana Malhas, Katie Sawicki (The Cabin Project), Lyndell Montgomery, among others.
Their song “Said and Done” was chosen to be part of the award-winning movie Annabelle & Bear and with the help of NBE’s strong and loyal fan community (nearly 25,000 Facebook fans), Kate and Sarah won a competition to film a cameo and sing live in the movie.
Kate and Sarah played many established rooms and festivals across the country and with artists such as Ani Difranco, Iron and Wine, Ben Gibbard, Joshua Davis, Andrea Gibson, Utah Phillips, Catie Curtis, Lucy Kaplansky, Melissa Ferrick, Cheryl Wheeler, Ferron, Toshi Reagon, Girlyman and Chris Pureka.