Lou and Peter Berryman at Library Coffeehouse

Friday, October 21, 2016

Lou and Peter Berryman at Library Coffeehouse

Lou and Peter Berryman at Library Coffeehouse November 3

Lou and Peter Berryman return to the Library Coffeehouse for another astonishingly witty and musical evening on Thursday, November 3, at 7:00 pm. Their whimsical and quirky performances of oddly profound songs leave audiences with cheeks aching from smiling. The popularity of Lou and Peter Berryman — whose friendship survived a brief marriage in the seventies — is a testament to their intelligent and wickedly funny material, rich with wordplay and images. They specialize in humorous songs such as “Why Am I Painting the Living Room,” “The Speculator,” “The Dupsha Dove,” “Acme Forgetting Service,” “Dem Deer,” and “Does Your Dog Agonize?” Admission to the Coffeehouse is only $10.

“We are songwriters in the folk/cabaret tradition, you might say, and have been at it full time since the late 70s. It has been quite a ride so far,” say Lou and Peter. “We haven’t won a Grammy or been on the Tonight Show, but we’ve had a song on a Grammy-winning album, and have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion a number of times. Our songs haven’t been noticed by Willie Nelson or Madonna, but they have been recorded by Michael Cooney, Peggy Seeger, Noel Paul Stookey, Claudia Schmidt and Sally Rogers, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, Faith Petric, Peter Bellamy, Bryan Bowers, and many more wonderful folkies. And we sheepishly mention that recently we have had an entire tribute album of our songs recorded by the great Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen.”

Lou and Peter met in art class at Appleton (Wisconsin) Senior High. By the time they were seniors, they had formed a quartet called the Town Council, which played a few non paying gigs for fun. Peter started writing songs back then. Lou got her hands on the Carl Sandburg Songbag. Peter listened to Jimmy Driftwood, Bob Gibson, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, and comedy music from Stan Freberg, Alan Sherman, and the like.

“The rest of our story is of a sort of low altitude trajectory through the folk music world of festivals, long drives, delayed flights, weird and wonderful gigs, more and more recordings, songbooks,” they continued. “There have been crazy developments in technology, taking us through LPs to mp3s, from hand waxers and press-type posters to Photoshop and laser printers. The songwriting has proceeded all the while, with Lou taking over the melody-writing duties in the early 1980s, and never looking back. We have been on A Prairie Home Companion again, and have played regularly for decades at such dream venues as the Ark in Ann Arbor, the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, the 8th Step in Albany, Passim in Cambridge MA. Though we’re never out for more than a week, we have toured from Victoria BC to Sangerville, ME; from Los Angeles CA to Mountain View, Arkansas. We have played festivals from San Diego CA to Canso Nova Scotia. We’ve been all over the place.”

Frequent comparisons to Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Swann, and Gilbert and Sullivan notwithstanding, these two performers are originals, blending Midwestern culture with intelligent observation in an eccentric and funny performance. This duo is not to be missed.

Scott Alarik, The Boston Globe:

Wisconsin songwriters Lou and Peter Berryman do to Midwestern sensibilities what Christine Lavin does to stressful New York, and what Tom Lehrer so long ago did to the intellectual pomposities of Cambridge: hoist the norms of everyday culture hilariously on their own petards. Their satires are at once bitingly funny and endearing, wildly absurdist and vividly human. They have the rare ability to make us simultaneously laugh at and care about the people they lampoon.

Victoria Times Columnist:

Quirky, wry, ironic humor. Peter’s highly literate lyrics and skewed perspective are unique. When enhanced by Lou’s soundscapes, the duo makes magic. By the time the Berrymans encored with their wistful, fumbling love song “We Strolled On the Beach” I was in love too. I’m a fan of this clever duo now.