Renaissance Folk

Caryl Weiss plays 38 instruments and performs bluegrass to ballads spanning five centuries.

By: Jillian Kalonick
   A major in the Civil Air Patrol, a student of homeopathic medicine, a member of British Actors’ Equity, an expert on sea shanties — Caryl Weiss’ résumé is not the average folksinger’s.
   Her list of experiences and accomplishments is about as varied as her repertoire, which includes more than 500 years of music, from traditional ballads and bluegrass to drinking songs and ’60s folk tunes. It’s not uncommon for her to be on the ocean, since she lives on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and is often performing sea shanties on the 74-foot schooner Woodwind. But calling her early one evening finds Ms. Weiss almost in the air, in a plane ready for take-off as part of her Civil Air Patrol duties, flying in the air search and rescue squadron.
   "When I got back home after (folk) festival season, there wasn’t much to do," says Ms. Weiss, explaining how she got involved in flying. She won a contest that earned her a free flying lesson when she was 15, and it was an experience that stuck with her. A Philadelphia native, Ms. Weiss will return to the area for a performance at Mom & Pop’s Coffeehouse in Levittown, Pa., Nov. 10.
   Ms. Weiss traces her folk career back to 1963, when her sister returned from summer camp and taught her a few chords on the guitar. By age 15 she had her first professional performance, and by 19 she won a songwriting contest sponsored by RCA records and was elected to the board of directors of the Philadelphia Folksong Society (which runs the Philadelphia Folk Festival). She’s played at least 38 instruments, by her count, including guitar, banjo, dulcimer, autoharp, oboe, bagpipes, piano and concertina — "I can’t stop," she says.
   At Mom & Pop’s Ms. Weiss will play a sampling of her repertoire, perhaps selections from the eight albums recorded under her own label, Twinstar Records, or some of the American and British sea shanties she sings in programs around the country. She learned her first sea shanty when she was in fifth grade, and now regularly performs them on Woodwind (which made an appearance as Christopher Walken’s private yacht in the movie Wedding Crashers). She wrote Woodwind’s theme song for the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, and also is writing a song for the Annapolis 300, a celebration of the three centuries since the city’s charter.
   On an album that’s in the works, Ms. Weiss hopes to present traditional tunes with a modern take. "They’ll have more of a contemporary beat to them, with some done to completely different arrangements," she says. "I do a pretty, accompanied version of ‘Shenandoah’ that I play on the banjo.
   "The purists are going to say ‘Ew,’ but one thing I like doing is taking songs from the traditional genre to a wider audience," she says. She often softens up her selection of sea shanties, since the work songs "can sound harsh to people who’ve never heard them before," she says.
   Ms. Weiss, who grew up in the West Park section of Philadelphia and studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University and communications at Temple University, moved to Austin in 1990, where she won the Austin Songwriters Competition and was named best folk act in the 1995-96 Austin Music Awards. She was commissioned an admiral in the Texas Navy by Gov. Ann Richards, and in addition to the Civil Air Patrol, she also serves in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.
   While in Texas, she and her fellow folkies would often call the state’s film commission to see if they had any openings for extras — it was a quick way to earn cash. Ms. Weiss can be seen in Miss Congeniality and Where the Heart Is, in which she drives her own vintage MG. She’s also appeared in Walker, Texas Ranger. In the early ’80s she performed on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion, an honor but a nerve-wracking experience.
   "It was the scariest moment of my life," says Ms. Weiss. "Six million people are listening to you, live, and there are people on the show who you’ve respected for years flubbing notes, so nervous that the hem of their jeans is shaking. A friend said ‘You’ve never sounded so scared’ — it was because I’ve never been so scared. But I haven’t had a touch of stage fright since then."
Caryl Weiss will perform at Mom & Pop’s Coffeehouse, United Christian Church,
8525 New Falls Road, Levittown, Pa., Nov. 10, 8 p.m. Suggested donation $10, $6
seniors/church members/children. For information, call (215) 547-1124. On the
Web: www.momandpops.org.
Caryl Weiss on the Web: www.carylpweiss.com