Steve Suffet
Old Fashioned American Folksinger

My Mom showed me a few chords on the ukulele, but I really never got into it. However, when I was in high school I spent $17 and bought a Harmony Stella guitar. For another $2 I bought a copy of Jerry Silverman's Beginning the Folk Guitar, and from then on I was completely hooked. I started hanging out around the fountain in New York City's Washington Square Park on warm Sunday afternoons, and I tried to absorb everything I heard, including blues, bluegrass, ragtime, ballads, cowboy songs, hobo songs, union songs, topical-political songs, whatever. I took old Folkways records out of the library and then started buying my own. In a year or two I got my courage up to start performing at open stage nights -- hootenannies they were called then -- at various clubs and coffee house. My God, was I awful! But I certainly learned a lot, and I even met some fellow musicians whom I still know today.

Now the stuff I do I call folk music, but if you would rather call it roots music, or traditional music, or old time music, or even hillbilly music, that's OK with me. Essentially what I do is take any song I like, from whatever source, and sing it in a manner that suits me. Sometimes I change the tune a little bit, and sometimes I change the words. More and more I find that I'm making up my own songs. In fact, the well respected songwriter Jay Mankita once said, "Steve Suffet is one of the great songwriters of the decade." I certainly am not about to argue with Jay's assessment, but I'm still reluctant to think of myself as a songwriter. Old fashioned folksinger suits me just fine!

Digital album: In addition to my CDs, I put together an album called Old Fashioned Folksinger which is available only as a digital download from CD Baby. It's a compilation of my favorite previously released tracks, and you get 20 songs for a mere $9.99. At that price, how can you go wrong? Click here for details. Individual tracks are available from CD Baby, Napster, or iTunes for just 99¢ each.