As a teenager in the late 1960s, David Budin performed in rock bands and as an acoustic solo artist, opening shows for such artists as Linda Ronstadt (with the Stone Poneys) and Tim Buckley at Cleveland folk venues, including the legendary La Cave. He moved to New York City in early 1968, and played in a New Jersey-based group called The Gift, which was one of the bands whose members eventually evolved into Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
While in The Gift, David got to jam onstage with Jimi Hendrix and many others. In 1969, David left the group to sign with Sire Records as a recording artist, songwriter, arranger and record producer, producing albums by artists including blues legend Otis Spann. David also worked as a comedian and a comedy writer in New York.
David returned to Ohio and played in several rock and folk groups, under the name Baxter Shadowfield, and continued to produce records, write songs, arrange music, perform and write comedy, and produce concerts. He began to concentrate on music journalism in the early 1980s, and eventually became the editor of Northern Ohio Live and then Cleveland Magazine. He is now a free-lance journalist and author, focusing on pop culture and especially pop music, writing for regional and national publications.
David returned to music, part-time, in 1998. A few years ago, he wrote an orchestral arrangement for Graham Nash’s “Teach Your Children,” which Nash performed with a 90-member orchestra. In 2007, he co-produced his brother Noah’s second CD, Metaphor. In October 2008, he and his brother Noah and former Long Road member Kevin Richards performed with Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary) in a concert in Cleveland.
Charlie Lewis and Celia Hollander Lewis
Celia, a native of Shaker Heights who now lives in Athens, Ohio, has performed as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist all over the country for the past 30 years. Charlie, a native of Kentucky who lives in Athens with Celia, has been performing as an actor and musician in Ohio and the surrounding region for the past four decades.
In the mid-1970s, Charlie and Celia met as members of a joint project of the School of Theater and the Ohio Valley Summer Theater known as the "Appalachian Green Parks Project." This group performed traditional Appalachian folk songs and dialogue based on the culture and history of the region in Ohio State Parks. There was a documentary movie made on the group, and an album was released for public sale. Music was recorded for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for a public service film titled Sweet Ohio and the group made an appearance on ABC Television’s Make A Wish.
Charlie continued to play in folk and bluegrass groups and Charlie and Celia have been performing as the duo Charlie and Celia off and on for about 20 years, appearing frequently in southeast Ohio. They performed in 2007 in a series of concerts with a reunion of the Appalachian Green Parks Project, co-sponsored by Ohio Valley Summer Theatre and Ohio University, with help from the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Both Charlie and Celia have been presenters/ instructors at the Southeast Ohio Dulcimer Festival that takes place in Stewart, Ohio. Celia is also a practicing Board Certified Music Therapist. Together they have recorded and released two CDs: Snapshot and The Happiest of Holidays.
Robert Sandham
Bob began playing guitar in the early ‘60s, when his mother brought home a used instrument and connected him with a neighbor, Cleveland folk music legend Dick Wedler, for some instruction. Wedler supplied him with records by Bob Gibson, Tom Paxton and Phil Ochs, and Bob was immediately hooked on folk music. Over the years he has played acoustic, electric, and pedal steel guitars in rock, country, blues, and pop settings, as well as continuing in the folk vein.
In the 1970s, Bob played with legendary Ohio singer-songwriters Alex Bevan, John Bassette and Pat Daily, and others in the region, and spent much time recording and performing in concerts, clubs and coffee houses and on radio and TV. In 2006, he joined Bevan and bassist Paul Hamman in a reunion concert at the Kent Stage, celebrating the 30th anniversary of Bevan's Springboard album.
Bob serves as the pastor of the Little Church in the Vale in Gates Mills.
Raymond DeForest
Ray DeForest is a legend in the Cleveland-area music scene. An acclaimed expert on the electric bass, washtub bass, upright bass as well as bass vocals, Ray started playing bass in 1968. He has studied the instrument at Cuyahoga Community College, and privately with Cleveland Orchestra principal bassist Harry Barnoff.
He has performed with such notable area groups as the Mr. Stress Blues Band, ACO, Aces and Eights, Princess Ladia and the Natural Facts, and with national acts, including jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, the Odean Pope Sax Choir and early rock pioneer Johnny Johnson, Chuck Berry’s pianist.
Ray is the epitome of the working musician and can be found playing somewhere nearly every night and most afternoons. When he's not playing, he's teaching at the Fairmount School of Music.