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About Us
Gary Wright & Leah Weiss perform as a duo and in various acoustic and electric bands. Their musical palette is wide and rich. Seasoned and versatile performers, they appeal to a broad range of audiences, playing in venues ranging from small listening rooms and house concerts to festival stages and barn dances.
With five recordings and countless festivals and concerts between them, Gary and Leah began songwriting and performing together in 2001. Their first CD together, Down This Road, was released in November 2003. Who knows, maybe another recording is in the works . . .
Gary grew up playing electric guitar in rock and country bands and started delving into traditional music—including old-time fiddle music and West African guitar styles—in the early 1980s. For nearly ten years, Gary was a member of The Hix, a band that the Philadelphia Music Press described as "sound[ing] like Doc Boggs meets David Byrne on the way to Lou Reed's House." He performed as lead guitarist with Lejeune Jones Band and Jennie Stearns Band and toured with James Leva and Memory Theatre.
Leah has a rhythmic fiddle style that is rooted in old-time Appalachian music. For nearly 15 years, in addition to playing for square- and contra-dances, she performed with The Poodles, a Boston-based band whose second recording, Unleashed, won an honorable mention in the "best string" category at the 1994 NAIRD Indie awards. For two years, she performed with The Hix. Leah's first musical passion was for Balkan and Eastern European traditional styles, and for several years she performed traditional Hungarian tanchaz music on three-stringed kontra-viola with The Pulis and with violinist Beth Bahia Cohen.
They perform regularly at 49 West Coffeehouse in their hometown of Annapolis, Maryland, and created the monthly "American Roots Night" series there. For over a decade, they cohosted and played for the Galesville Community Square Dance.
Collaborations
Ahren Buchheister (dobro, pedal steel, mandolin)
Tom Fridrich (percussion)
Jimmy Jacobs (piano)
Maya Lerman (vocals, guitar)
Tommy Malone (vocals, guitar)
Tom Mitchell (guitar, vocals)
Jeff Muller (bass)
Cory Seznec (guitar, vocals)
Skribe (vocals, guitar, canjo)
Caleb Stine (vocals, guitar)
Select Past Performances
Festivals
Blue Heron Festival (Jamestown, NY)
Cajun and Bluegrass Festival (Escoheag, RI)
City Stages (Birmingham, AL)
First Night (Boston, Worcester, and Northampton, MA, Annapolis, MD)
G! Festival (Faroe Islands)
Grassroots Fingerlakes Festival (Trumansburg, NY)
Hiawatha Festival (Marquette, MI)
Lake Eden Arts Festival (Asheville, NC)
Strawberry Music Festival (Yosemite, CA)
Tønder Folk Festival (Tønder, Denmark)
Wheatland Festival (Remus, MI)
Clubs and Concert Series
49 West Coffeehouse (Annapolis, MD)
333 Coffeehouse (Annapolis, MD)
Club Passim (Cambridge, MA)
Gravity Lounge (Charlottesville, VA)
Iota Club (Arlington, VA)
Iron Horse (Northampton, MA)
Joe Squared (Baltimore MD)
Johnny D's (Somerville, MA)
The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage (Washington, DC)
The Patterson (Baltimore, MD)
The Prism Coffeehouse (Charlottesville, VA)
Rams Head On Stage and Tavern (Annapolis, MD)
The Stoltz Listening Room (Easton, MD)
The Tin Angel (Philadelphia, PA)