Tunesmith Night

The Wallowa Valley Music Alliance is pleased to announce the 20th season of Tunesmith Night, a showcase of original music. The concert features three songwriters sharing their original work in a round-robin format, at the historic Enterprise Odd Fellows Hall. The unique listening space provides an up-close and intimate experience for both audience and performers.

The season opens Saturday, October 11th with Tom Drake, Jen Howard and Jeff Grammer. Doors open at 6:30pm with music starting at 7pm. Admission is $10 at the door. Beverage service available. 
 
Tom Drake is one more aging Gen X songwriter trying to reconcile his father’s deeply grooved Johnny Cash albums with his older brother’s bootleg Clash cassettes, while somehow trying to shoe-horn in the past 30 years of teaching Homer, Shakespeare and Don Quixote. His songs draw on the Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, John Steinbeck country of his childhood and the rural Idaho landscape he’s called home for the past 40 years, with occasional and often tragi-comic road trips to New York City and the other coastal cities likely to chew up and spit out the average small town wandering minstrel poet philosopher clown. When not bludgeoning students with The Great Books or Jean Paul Sartre, he fronts the Moscow folka-billy group Pietrain.

Jen Howard is an American singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, born in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. Although coming from a blue-collar and home schooled upbringing, Jen's music is a mix of Folk, Roots, Reggae and Pop. Her music's central themes include; human nature, love, courageous motivation and intentional compassion for ourselves and others. In 2019, Jen released the debut EP "Motion". Her follow-up album "Still" was released March, 2024. Jen Howard has performed in at least 40 of our 50 states, plus Europe. Learn more at http://www.jenhowardlive.com/

Jeff Grammer is a Singer/Songwriter currently living in Astoria Oregon. He plays heartfelt and haunting Folk music in his own voice, drawing from places of longing, dreams, past experience, and present emotional realms.