About John Sprung
August 10th, 2008
John has been singing and enjoying folk songs for as long as he can remember (which is longer than he cares to remember). The child of camp-director parents, his earliest memories included the songs of Woody Guthrie and Josh White.
On August 5, 2008, John’s new CD, “Side Effects,” (c)2008, was released on Fraternity Records. Full details on this album of newly composed and recorded songs appear elsewhere on this site. Copies of this CD, are available through John’s on-line distributor, CD Baby at http://cdbaby.com/sprungjohn2 as well as John’s earlier CD, “Remember Me and Other Songs, (c) 2004, at www.cdbaby.com/sprungjohn. Samples of “Side Effects” will soon be available on both this website and on CD baby. (Make sure to check for discounts when purchasing more than one copy of either CD.)
His songs have been played on many folk-oriented stations across the country. One of his newer songs, “The Glory of Their Times,” was introduced by veteran folk-singer and host, Oscar Brand, on WNYC’s “Folksong Festival.” John was fortunate to introduce his earlier CD on Ron Olesko’s show “Traditions,” on WFDU.FM, in 2005, and has been invited to premiere “Side Effects,” on “Traditions,” as well. Please watch this website for time and date.
As for how all this began, after an unsuccessful attempt to learn the guitar at age seven, John contented himself with the ukelele until finally picking up the guitar the summer after high school. After a stint as a member of a high school “doo-wop” group, John and two college fraternity bothers at Alfred University (Bob Levine and Mike Weiner), formed a trio soon to be known up and down the fabled southern tier of western New York as the “Five minus Two.” (”Get it?”)
Playing at local hotels, radio shows and campus functions, and for such diverse audiences as the Hornell Rotarians and the Wellesville Junior Nurses Association, the group hit its performing zenith at New York’s “Bitter End” shortly after graduation. Early the next year, the trio opened for the Brandywine Singers at a concert held at their alma mater. Later that year, they recorded two songs for Roulette Records, one of which was a civil rights song called “He Was My Brother,” composed by the then unknown Paul Simon. John swears it was released, and has posted a reward for anyone owning a copy. After the group broke up for such disparate and mundane reasons as (1) one member’s having to repeat Experimental Psychology in order to graduate, (2) another entering Law School, and (3) in John’s case, an inability to avoid the draft. John (an abject failure at college R.O.T.C.) was somehow commissioned an officer in the United States Air Force. Throughout his years in the service during the Vietnam-era (in which he inflicted casualties on neither side), John continued to hone his folk-singing skills. Both as a single and in a series of long forgotten trios, he played numerous night clubs and folk venues along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, including “Trader John’s,” “The Gulf Winds,” “The Edgewater,” and (now it can be told) “The Jefferson Davis Junior College for Women.” During this period, John was proudest of a children’s concert he did for rural Mississippi’s Head Start Program, which was itself in its infancy.
Since that time, John has played a goodly number of public gigs and private parties in and around the New York area, including “Y’s,” and many performances at children’s schools . He has shared the stage with, among others, Happy Traum, Lynn Lavner, the New London Trio*, and the Flagstaff Singers. He has played at Brooklyn College, Western Connecticut Teachers College, the summer Borough Hall Concerts, Cousin Abe’s, BMW’s, the Eastland Folk Festival, a reunion night at the old Loews Kings, the Montauk Club, Vox Pop, and (all too many) street fairs. He has twice appeared at the Hurdy-Gurdy Folk Music Society’s “Zeke’s Place.”
(*Speaking of “The New London Trio,” trio member Fred Pape (see photo gallery) recently contacted John after viewing this website. They have exchanged music, photos, and family updates. Fred is alive and well, and living in Alaska with his lovely wife in a log cabin he is proud to have built.)
John’s 1998 concert recording “John Sprung…Still Live at Zeke’s Place” was released in 2000 on Folklaw Records © 2000 and—according to ASCAP—recently went “tin.”
In 2002, John first appeared as Ron Olesko’s guest on the radio show “Traditions,” on WFDU-FM. As mentioned above, he had a return visit with Ron on the occasion of the release of “Remember Me and Other Songs,” in May, 2005. Over the years, John been fortunate to have had his songs played on many commercial as well as affiliate stations of National Public Radio across the country. John is a lawyer in his “day job,” but tries not to let it interfere with his folk-singing. He picks and sings in what he describes as “a variety of styles and abilities.”
His repertoire consists of a combination of traditional and composed folk, and folk-oriented songs, both funny and sad; As a performer, John strives to combine music from the great folk song-bag, with songs of his own composition. All in all, John is an untraditional traditional folksinger. John is particularly interested in tying songs to the periods in which they were written, believing that folk songs provide an excellent barometer of the times they reflect. His goal is to help keep folk music alive, something he hopes “Remember Me and Other Songs” and “Side Effects” will, in their own small way, contribute to.
