Steve Suffet
Old Fashioned American Folksinger
Musical Biography 

Born Stephen Lawrence Suffet in 1947, Steve Suffet is best described as an old fashioned folksinger. His repertoire is a mixture of railroad songs, trucker songs, coal miner songs, cowboy songs, union songs, old time ballads, blues, ragtime, Gospel, bluegrass, topical-political songs, and whatever else tickles his fancy. He takes songs from whatever sources he wishes and then he sings them his own way, maybe rewriting the lyrics on the spot, flatting a 7th, or changing a major key to a mountain modal.

Steve also writes his own songs, sometimes set to the tunes of traditional folk songs, but more often set to an original tune written in traditional style. Some of Steve's songs have appeared in The Folk Process section of Sing Out! magazine over the years. Others can be found in The Digital Tradition on-line folk song database, as well as in the archives of the Centre for Political Song at Glasgow Caledonian University.

In the 1960s, Steve appeared at several of the legendary Broadside hoots in New York City and was a guest on Izzy Young's radio program on WBAI-FM. Back then, Steve also performed at the various pass-the-basket houses in Greenwich Village, and on warm Sunday afternoons he could be found partaking in the music making around the fountain in Washington Square Park. Steve then left the organized folk scene for nearly 30 years, playing instead at political rallies and demonstrations, campgrounds, schools, day care centers, weddings, parks, pubs, and pick-up jam sessions.

Steve returned to the organized folk scene when invited to appear at a Sis Cunningham Tribute Concert in New York City in 1997. Since then he has played gigs all around the New York City metro area, including the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, South Street Seaport, Sun Music Company, the Community Church of New York, CB's 313 Gallery, the Baggot Inn, the Bowery Poetry Club, the Yippie Museum, the Vox Pop Coffee House, Gizzi's Coffee House, El Puente, Congregation Kehillat Tikvah, and the Peoples' Voice Cafe. In addition, Steve has been featured on the Songs of Freedom and the Horses Sing None of It cable television programs, has appeared in the Songs of the Spirit performance at the Clearwater Hudson River Festival, has performed at the New England Folk Festival and at the NOMAD Folk Festival, has appeared as one of Pete Seeger's accompanists on several occasions, and has led or co-led workshops for the People's Music Network, the New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club, the Philadelphia Folk Song Society, and the Folklore Society of Greater Washington. He has also appeared at the Jacob's Ladder Folk Festival in Israel in May 2007.

In 2003, Steve became part of a newly formed folk group, MacDougal Street Rent Party, although he also continued to perform individually. The group dissolved in 2008, after the death of its musical director, Eric Levine. Even before Eric's demise, Steve and fellow MacDougal Street Rent Party member Anne Price often performed together without the rest of the band. In October 2008, a few months after the band's last performance, Steve and Anne went on a a mini-tour of the United Kingdom. Today they remain part-time musical partners, often appearing together but also still appearing on their own. In May 2010, they went on their second mini-tour of the UK and plan to return again in May 2012.

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