Folk Orgy Features Bossert And Local Singers, Musicians

A "live folk orgy" featuring local folk musicians and William H. Bossert '59, master of Lowell House, was held yesterday at Lowell House.

Bossert, who used to play Cambridge coffeehouses as an undergraduate, performed some blues songs for the packed junior common room crowd.

The "folk orgy" sponsored by WHRB has been held semi-annually, fall and spring, for the last 15 years. "It's an eight-hour, non-stop, live performance in front of an audience simultaneously broadcasted over the air," Julianne Chatelain '79, publicity coordinator for the orgy, said.

Stewart Shofner '79, producer and host of the orgy, described the approximately 20 singers and musicians as "Boston's best homegrown."

The first six hours of the orgy featured local folk, country, "blue grass," and "traditional fiddle music" while the remaining two hours were "free pickin" to anyone who felt like entertaining the crowd.

Although the spring orgy has been held in Sever Quad, Shofner said he has requested Widener Library as the site of this year's show. However, Shofner quoted a university administrator as saying it would ruin the "decorum" of the Yard.

Joanne Cipolla, a Chicago-based guitarist who specializes in "original folk rock tunes," said she thought the orgy was helping folk music to grow at Harvard because it introduces people to it informally.

"It's like a big needle on a thread just pulling people together," she said.

Shofner, who hosts a show on WHRB called "Homecookin'" featuring the same type of folk musicians, said "Universities should get ready for this type of music."