Buttonwood to Host Montana's Ellen Bukstel and Eric Kuhn

Ellen Bukstel challenges her listeners to laugh, dig deep and embrace the wild emotional roller coaster we call life with every daring turn of phrase... a rare, bold, real deal maverick... a multi-faceted break the mold original that lays her emotions bare, puts her passions on the line and, without fear, makes the world perk up and pay attention. Drawing from a rich lifetime of personal experiences, she brings hope, laughter, tears, biting wit and inspiration to everything she records and performs.  
http://www.ellenbukstel.com/ 

Eric Kuhn has been on the Middletown music scene since the early 1980s. His most recent release is called Eden@ the Coffeehouse, recorded right here in Middletown at Coffeehouse Studios and engineered by Mike Arafeh. Kuhn writes funny political commentary and often thinks in anagrams. He is an old friend of the Buttonwood.

Show is at Friday, 8 pm, $12 in advance, $15 at the door (cash and check only at door)

Reservations are recommended. Online at www.buttonwood.org

 

A veteran to the stage since childhood and with more than 40 songwriting awards and acknowledgements to her credit, Ellen Bukstel Challenges her listeners to laugh, dig deep and embrace the wild emotional roller coaster we call life with every daring turn of phrase… a rare, bold, real deal maverick…a multi-faceted break the mold original that lays her emotions bare, puts her passions on the line and, without fear, makes the world perk up and pay attention.Drawing from a rich lifetime of personal experiences, she brings hope, laughter, tears, biting wit and inspiration to everything she records and performs.

A consummate artist whose community activism and musical vibe harkens back to the 60s–even as she addresses the world, often in provocative terms, very much in present tense inspiring and exciting fans with her straight talking, heart on her sleeve, from her soul to yours lyrics. Those who have heard her music—including the full sweep of the 15 tracks on her independent debut album Daddy’s Little Girl—quickly agree with pop superstar Michael Bolton, who calls Ellen “an amazing artist and spirit.” But they seriously have no idea whether to laugh or cry. The good news is, they can do both, drying their tears the minute she angles for their funny bone.

Frequently hilarious, she writes about everything from menopause and voting in South Florida, then tugs the heartstrings on poignant pieces about love and loss that try to find meaning in the world. On songs like “Wooden Box” and “Grow Up And Change The World,” she comes to terms as best she can with the tragedy that inspired her to begin her songwriting journey: losing her beloved husband Doug Segal, a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion and died in 1988 at age 36. For Bukstel, music has been a way of expressing her strong opinions—and while some reduce her listeners to tears, others come out hysterically funny.

This type of happy-sad, life embracing, fear-overcoming emotional schizophrenia truly captures the spirit of modern independent music making—whatever the artist feels in that moment, she shares…and whatever else Ellen is, she’s not shy about it.
It’s also won her a bucketful of high profile songwriting competitions over the years. Thirteen out of the fifteen songs on her Solo CD Daddy’s Little Girl have either won or have been awarded top honors in various prestigious songwriting competitions and some have been acknowledged multiple times.



She was the International Winner in the 2010 New Zealand “Peace Song” Competition, a finalist in the 2009 John Lennon Songwriting Competition, placed second in the 2009 Susequehanna Music & Arts Festival competition and won “Best Political Song of the Year” at the 2008 Hollywood Music Awards.