DON WHITE HAS HEART. That’s the first thing you notice. He speaks to his audience; he knows about their lives. On exhaustion: “Exhaustion and I have a longstanding and deeply intimate knowledge of one another. He knows how to slip into my life and make me miserable and I know that he enjoys doing it. Over the past thirteen years I have carved out a small career as a singer-songwriter while simultaneously maintaining a marriage, raising two children and holding one, and sometimes two, day jobs. The currency with which I have paid for this music career is sleep. Exhaustion is the constant companion of all of us who choose to trade in this particular currency.”
Since settling down in Lynn in the 70s, Don has worked on the craft of songwriting and performing. He learned his art in the trenches: often doing nine shows a week at Catch A Rising Star over two and a half years. Studying the masters who passed though that fabled club, he developed his own infectious brand of humor and pathos that rivets the crowd wherever he plays.
Two decades on, Don conducts a performance skills workshop at Club Passim, Cambridge’s legendary folk club. “I see little difference between the skills of various performance artists,” he says. “I most admire someone like Utah Phillips who weaves a seamless stream of song, story-telling, poetry, and comedy.” Whether he is singing, speaking, or setting up the sneakiest punchline of the night, Don has the hearts of his audience. So all you Don White fans, please spread the news that Don is appearing at one of the sweetest venues in the world!
$12
No artist on the coffeehouse circuit today is better than Don White at combining the heartfelt aesthetics of the singer-songwriter with side-splitting laughs. Scott Alarik
. . .there is an honesty and self-deprecating wit in his material that is an immediate tonic. Boston Herald
