Q&A with Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer

No performers have delighted a wider range of visitors to the Folk Festival than have Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer. These multi-instrumentalist, two-time Grammy® award winners have performed on several TPFF stages for both adults and kids, and they’ve even marched with Festival committee members in Takoma Park’s July 4th parade.  This year, they will close out the Grove Stage with a performance that begins at 5 p.m.

Question: You perform at many festivals around the country. What makes the Takoma Park Folk Festival special?

Answer: It’s always fun to perform at home!

Question: Both of you have become closely identified with the ukulele in the last few years. Will we be hearing a lot of uke from you at the festival this year?

Answer: Both of us are uke-a-holics. We’ll be playing several pieces from our “Rockin’ the Uke” CD, and we plan to close our set with an all-audience UKE JAM with a song or two that will post on our band Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cathy-Fink-and-Marcy-Marxer/25405755690.

Question: What else might we expect to hear/see? Anything related to our theme of the Woody Guthrie centennial?

Answer: We are part of the Woody Guthrie songs workshop/concert with Joe Uehlein. We’ve got some unique versions of a few of Woody’s songs.

Question: Can you talk about how you blend a social message with songs that often sound light-hearted?

Answer: We really like the approach that Tom Paxton has taken with his “short shelf life” songs — topical songs that make fun of a very pertinent current topic, usually short and very funny. Our latest along those lines is called, “My Huge Mistake,” which resulted from an email gone wrong. It’s a true story for anyone who has ever hit “SEND” when they shouldn’t have, or for anyone who has received the email that the other person should not have sent!!!!! We play it with uke and cello banjo, and it’s a reggae song.

Question: Where can people find out more about you?

Band Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cathy-Fink-and-Marcy-Marxer/25405755690
Email list: http://www.cathymarcysongshop.com/component/content/article/35/90.html
Twitter: @cathyandmarcy
Twitter: @singtoyourbaby