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The Hard Tackers Shanty Team

Members

JOHN LOCKE
John’s interest in History, Geography and the Social History of Britain inevitably led him to a study of traditional folk music and storytelling. He found that the folk arts became a central thread that pulled all of these subjects together. John became interested in folk arts in the early 70s. He became a regular visitor to Folk Clubs in the area that he lived in north Worcestershire England. Starting to play guitar within a few months of discovering the folk scene he went on to perform at open stages and various folk clubs, festivals and other venues. He has run Folk Music Clubs in Worcestershire, Devonshire and Carmarthenshire. He has also been known to get a tune out of a penny whistle, English concertina and a banjo.

In 2001 John moved to the USA . He has an electrical engineering background and has worked in training for many years. He is a Professional Speaker and Trainer who involves storytelling in his presentations.

John runs an Open Stage every Thursday evening in Ashville Ohio . www.OpenStage.Wetpaint.com .

He also produces a folk arts blog www.FolkieHaven.blogspot.com where he keeps people informed of what is going on in the Folk Arts World. He is past President of the Columbus Folk Music Society A member of the Story Tellers Of Central Ohio
He also has a book of short stories called, "British Twist."

John S

John Schomburg

John Schomburg hails originally from Southern Ohio down on the beautiful Ohio River. He began singing and playing folk music shortly after his birth. His boyhood fascination with steamboats led to his present fascination with sailboats, which get better mileage. He is presently the skipper of Sea Monkey. John was a founding member of the Pit Bull String Band in the 1990’s and when he is not shantying with the Hardtackers performs along with his wife Janet in the old time string band The Wild Hares. He plays fiddle, banjo, and guitar.

Andy

Andy Beyer

Andy Beyer started playing uke at three, piano at five, and violin at eight.
By 12, he had figured out how to play the guitar, and saved his paperboy money to purchase a new Sears Silvertone electric guitar. While the manager at a coffeehouse, he met Hank Arbaugh, and fell in love with the mountain dulcimer. He has been building, playing and teaching dulcimer for about forty years.
As an educator, Andy has a BS in Elementary Education
and an Instructional Design degree in Secondary Education from YSU.
He has two years Master's work in Instructional Design from OSU.
He is a founding member of the Columbus Folk Music Society.
He is currently on the staff at the Central Ohio Folk Festival &
The Southeast Ohio Dulcimer Festival.
He was on staff at The CAP program, OSU, for 16 years.
He is currently on staff at The Lifelong Learning & Leisure Program,
where he has been for fourteen years.
Besides the dulcimer, Andy plays and teaches guitar, mandolin, and banjo privately.

Chris Bolles

Chris Bolles grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, hobnobbing with boaters and lake sailors during the summer months. He learned to play the guitar in college, a habit he has been unable to break to this day. He's a research scientist turned teacher; his students would be confirmed in their judgement of his sanity if they knew he was singing sea songs in public. He is occasional first mate, crew, and bilge swabby aboard the good ship Sea Monkey.

Fred Bailey
Fred grew up on a dirt farm in Northwestern Oklahoma -- almost the Panhandle, but not quite. That's the Dust Bowl end of the Cherokee Strip. Since then he’s touched on many foreign lands and more coffeehouses and towns than can be counted. Now he seems to have settled down in Columbus, Ohio.

Fred is a writer of finely crafted novels which he sets to melody and sings to the accompaniment of his 1948 Martin D28L. He is a voyager of the clouds, an aviator by nature. He knows the original words to every sea shanty ever sung, the G, the R and the Unrated versions. To his maritime colleagues he is known as “The Prairie Schooner”.
When not singing shanties with the Hard Tackers, Fred fronts the more refined folk group At Wit’s End.

Brian Smidito

Brian grew up in the YMCAs of the Twin Cities, paddling on the whitewater rivers of Wisconsin and the lakes of the Boundary Waters and the Quetico. In those worlds, sailing was occasionally possible with two canoe paddles, a poncho, and a good tailwind.
Most of his early years were spent in the world of classical music, where he played trombone and bass trombone in band and orchestra (including a three-week tour in Romania) until leaving college.

At that point he discovered folk music coffeehouses, and his life has never been the same. He now loves a wide range of musical styles and forms, from Gabrieli and Bach to Gordon Bok, Gram Parsons, Count Basie, Doyle Lawson and the Double Decker String Band.

He is also an avid game-player and science-fiction reader, and makes his living as a database developer and Macintosh consultant for business.

Rennie

RENNIE BEETHAM

Rennie has always been an adventurer. His love of travel and the sea, probably started with the reading of books by Jack London and Herman Melville. In the army, Rennie was stationed near Istanbul, Turkey. More recently, his travels have taken him to England, Scotland, Ireland (where he and his wife make their winter home), Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. “I’ve always like to sing,” Rennie admits, “and have been in several rock-n-roll bands over the years.” The music that Rennie plays on guitar is eclectic. Rennie gravitates toward older stock, usually songs and tunes of the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. Upon joining The Hardtackers, Rennie said, “I am not a man of the sea.” “I went whale watching twice and suffered from mal-de-mer both times. Luckily, singing songs about the sea does not make me ill.”

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