Paul & Win Grace
Ellie & Leela Grace

Dear Friends,

Paul and I have decided to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary with a trip to Colorado -- one of our favorite places in the world to be. While we're there, we plan to play some music since that is one of the joys that we share. No one is more surprised than we are to find that we've been married 25 years, and that Leela and Ellie are grown and (almost) gone. It's exciting to watch them hit the road! We are delighted that they don't have to start at the bottom the way we did (playing for tips at the Ninth Street Deli...).

Leela will be in central Missouri (except when touring and performing with Ellie) until late September. She is renting a room in a Victorian house near downtown Columbia, and enjoying the interesting, artsy, thriving downtown scene. After September...who knows? Beginning August 15th, Ellie will be renting a small house which is also near downtown. She plans, in addition to performing with Leela, to start a school of music and percussive dance.

Quite a few times in the last several months, Paul and I have enjoyed giving the gift of our music at special occasions for family and friends. Not least among these was my Dad's 80th birthday where we played Willy Welch's song "Playing Right Field," in honor of the position that my Dad plays in his softball league. We also honored him with Bill Staines' song "Old Jack" to acknowledge the great love of nature that my Dad has passed on to me through his years of farming.

The best of the summer to all of you as Paul and I head out for Fair St. Louis where we'll be doing our special program of songs spotlighting the National Parks -- "Booth Shot Lincoln" for Ford's Theatre; "Talking Waters" for the Ozark National Scenic Riverways; and "The Preacher and the Bear" for Sleeping Bear Dunes!

Peace, Win

Letter from April, 2001

Dear Friends,

Here's the latest scoop on what the amazing rhythm Graces (Sorry, couldn't resist!) are up to these days. Paul and I SO enjoyed our time in Mountain View, AR at the Ozark Folk Festival playing endless fiddle tunes hour after hour after hour. Such joy! Such fun! Such friends! I dragged my keyboard up the hill and played piano with the "Porch Hoppers" for the first time. Oh boy! I have come to highly appreciate these folks (Bob and Pat Momich, Bob and Melissa Atchison, Dave Smith, the whole Dallas Pig Ankle gang and many more) and other musical friends such as Cathy Barton and Dave Para for their sheer appreciation of and joy in music. There are no "trips" that get in the way here. We just play music! As a matter of fact, when we talked about jamming with a certain famous person from another area of the country where old time music and its instrumentation is very narrowly defined, and I expressed my fear that the accordion would not be tolerated, our Porch Hopper friends said, "Well, we won't play with him if he doesn't like the accordion!"

I have resigned from my job as Festival Coordinator/Artistic Director of First Night Columbia to pursue music full time. I thought I could do it all.... However, First Night became increasingly more successful, with the number of volunteers, number of venues, number of performers increasing! I was so pleased to see this happening, but at the same time, our music career as a duo seemed to be taking off as well. I finally decided that it would be best for all concerned to concentrate on one or the other, and so I am back to my first love, music. I also began to feel that I was holding Paul back in his pursuit of music as well, since one of the great things that we are privileged to share is our common love for music. So look out world, we're back!

Leela SO enjoyed her residency as a representative of the "traditional folk" genre with the Westchester, NY philharmonic. If you can imagine it, she played the banjo and sang "Sundown" with an entire orchestra backing her up!! She also really loved working in the schools. Her east coast experience has been quite something -- for one thing, she magically ended up with a ticket to opening night of a Broadway musical and then was invited to the party at Planet Hollywood afterwards. This is something for the kid from southern Boone County! She has enjoyed spending time with and playing with great friends in the east, Sally Rogers & Howie Bursen, Lui Collins, Molly Johnson, Pat Humphries, and Ann Percival. She wishes that she could squish the country so that it wasn't quite so far from there to Missouri!

Ellie is graduating summa cum laude from Columbia College with a B.A. in Individual Studies, concentration in Music on May 13th. We plan a big celebration for her, and Paul and I are learning two songs to sing for her. Ellie is singing Ann Reed's beautiful song, "Every Long Journey" for the traditional Ivy Chain graduation ceremony at Columbia College. She has truly enjoyed her time in college. In addition to music courses, she's taken numerous courses in Environmental Studies, Dance (at Stephens College) and Ceramics. She also started the Wellness Floor and an environmental club at the college, and has worked as an Academic Programmer and Community Consultant with the residential life staff. Her plan at this point is to get a house in Columbia where she will teach music and percussive dance in between gigs that she has booked with Leela. Paul and I are simply busting our buttons.

Peace, Win

January 29th, 2001 letter:

Dear Friends,

FINALLY!! Our new album is out! This one has been a long time coming and we can't wait for you to hear it. Click here to order it now! We're pretty excited about it -- there are 17 songs, primarily focused on our duet sound, both instrumentally and vocally. I play 3 different autoharps, lots of accordion, and piano on one old time dance tune. Paul plays fiddle, mandolin, guitar and harmonica. We manage to showcase just about every different sound or style that we play -- I guess you'd say the theme is, "Every song is different..." We had stellar help (Of course!!) from our daughters Leela (banjo, harmonies) and Ellie (mandolin, harmonies), Cathy Barton and Dave Para (harmonies) and from my brother David Horner on drums (to go along with my fake bagpipe on the Corries' song The Roses of Prince Charlie). The title of the album, Love's Lasting Light, comes from a line in Bill Staines' awesome song, Child Of Mine. We have included songs that range from the contemporary sound of Steve Gillette's romantic Ways of the World to the wild old time string band sound of Shady Grove, with stops in between including such old favorites as Wait for the Wagon and Patsy Montana's yodeling hit I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart. We have paired Robin and Linda Williams' song High Atmosphere with longtime Carter Family favorite Wildwood Flower. Continuing in our ongoing poultry theme (Yes, friends! We now know enough poultry songs to make an entire album of poultry music!) we have included The Chicken Song, a.k.a I Ain't Gonna Take It Sittin' Down. We finish the album with our daughter Ellie's sweet goodbye song, Farewell My Friends, complete with anthemic chorus.

We're also happy to report that Cathy Barton and Dave Para's album, Livin' On The River is now out. All four Graces helped out with this marvelous album of river songs -- and we had a great time doing it, too!

Paul and I are celebrating our 25th year of marriage this year. But for now, just wanted to get the word out that the new album is OUT!! Thanks to all for your support and encouragement through this arduous process!

Peace, Win