About Our Guest Artists
All our Song Circle Guest Artists bring their expertise and love of community to inspire us to join together in singing. We explore multiple genres and styles, all grounded in creating an hour of fun in song.
Song Circle 2024-25
Oct 3 – Music of Carole King with Kathy Kennedy
Nov 14 – Theme TBD with Maurice Tani
Feb 6 – Theme TBD with Lynne Maes & Hank Maninger
Mar 6 – Theme TBD with Bonnie Hayes
Apr 3 – Beatles Night with David Gans
May 1 – To be announced!
Jun 5 – Spirituals with Candace Johnson
Meet The Artists
Kathy Kennedy has been singing professionally in the Bay Area for over 20 years with groups like The Charmers, the Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra, and later Big Bang Beat. She has performed at resorts all over the world in Hawaii, Europe, Istanbul and the Caribbean. Kathy has also performed as a back-up singer with many big names over the years. As part of an in-house band, she sang with Bonnie Raitt, Ronnie Spector (The Ronettes), Barbara Lewis, Eddie Money, Bill Spooner (The Tubes) and also with The Wrecking Crew, featuring Hal Blane and Al Jardine (The Beach Boys). She also toured with Mickey Thomas Starship, singing lead on Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit” and “Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now.” She currently sings Motown classics and buried song treasures with The Soul Delights, and is consistently in demand to perform at parties and events with a wide variety of Bay area bands.
Maurice Tani is a San Francisco born and based singer-songslinger, known for his wry/rye-to-romantic writing, agile guitar style and expressive singing. With his band, Maurice Tani & 77 El Deora has been the source of untold, but exquisite suffering on the west coast Americana scene for over twenty years. In the 80s and 90s, Maurice was the lead guitarist and a featured vocalist for Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra and Big Bang Bea. Fronting his own bands, Calamity & Main, 77 El Deora, he has produced a series of albums for himself and others. Tani now has ten albums to his credit. The latest is “All In!”, a broad-spectrum tincture folk, soul, Americana and gospel featuring a wide array of guests from the Little Village roster.
Hank Maninger and Lynne Maes started performing together almost accidentally – a happy accident, as it turns out, because it sparked a musical collaboration that has produced three albums and brought them to venues ranging from the iconic Ivy Room to San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. Together with their bandmates Tim Wagar and Leor Beary, their honkytonk band Nashville Honeymoon offer original tunes that build on country, rockabilly, and honkytonk traditions.
Folks from the Bay Area are likely to recognize Hank’s signature sound on guitar, bass, and vocals. He has been active on the roots music scene since the early 80’s, playing in bands such as Bonnie Hayes and the Wild Combo and internationally with the Hacienda Brothers. When he’s not busy with Nashville Honeymoon, Hank leads his own roots trio (Hank Maninger and the Jukebox Charlies), and plays bass with The Seducers.
Lynne played acoustic guitar as a teen, but it was always just for fun, and usually involved singalongs with her sisters. Hank would listen to her sing around the house and finally convinced her to sing with him in public. Lynne, in turn, convinced Hank to start working with her on their own original material, and they’ve been writing and performing together ever since.
Bonnie Hayes is a songwriter, recording artist, musician and record producer. She has released 5 records as an artist, including a stint at Chrysalis Columbia and the early Slash/Warner’s record Good Clean Fun. Her songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt (on her Grammy-winning records Nick of Time and Luck of the Draw), Robert Cray, Bette Midler, Booker T & the MG’s, Adam Ant, David Crosby, Huey Lewis & the News and many others. Hayes also toured as a keyboardist/vocalist with Billy Idol and Belinda Carlisle world tours and has shared the stage with Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bonnie Raitt, Tower of Power, Don Was and countless others.
Her most recent gig as chair of the songwriting department at the Berklee College of Music ended this year; she currently is building a youth songwriting program at the Blue Bear School in San Francisco, serving on several non-profit boards, and enjoying the California sunshine.
Known nationwide as a purveyor of literate, improvisational folk-rock with looping, singer/songwriter/producer/photographer/author David Gans has composed, performed, and written about music for the whole of his adult life. His eleventh full-length album, Drop the Bone, is his most ambitious and accomplished record yet.
Arriving in 1966 in time to catch the initial wave of psychedelia and the birth of the counterculture, the LA-born Gans settled as a teenager in the San Francisco Bay Area amidst the full flowering of a music scene burgeoning with bohemianism and creativity. While his primary source of gratification remains the composition and performance of original material, Gans’ career has also focused on providing interpretive context to the songs of myriad influences, primarily the enduring legacy of the Grateful Dead. Other inspirations include John Prine, Steve Goodman, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Little Feat, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Donna the Buffalo, and (of course) America’s own Nobel-winning literary lyricist, Bob Dylan. Gans is the author (or co-author) of five books and host of the nationally-syndicated radio programs The Grateful Dead Hour and Tales from the Golden Road.
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Praised by Opera Wire for her vocal clarity, dramatic presence, and expressive interpretation, soprano Candace Y. Johnson, has concertized widely, including guest appearances at Carnegie Hall and The Manhattan Center, and with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Johnson is a versatile artist, equally comfortable in opera, musical theater, and jazz. She has performed lead roles in Le Nozze di Figaro, The Medium, Suor Angelica, Fame, and she defined the genre-bending role of Jackie in the world premiere of Howard’s End, America with RealOpera, San Francisco (2019). Johnson is the creator and owner of FitnesSing!™, her vocal health program that combines vocal training with physical fitness and dance.
On the voice faculty at the University of California-Berkeley since 2009, Johnson teaches applied voice classes and a course on African-American composers.
Interested in past sessions? Check out past Song Circles on our archive page.
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