My Dad’s Truck Special Holiday Performance, Saturday

DANBURY — Roots Music Coffeehouse will present local performers My Dad’s Truck in a special Christmas sing-along show on Saturday, December 8, at the Common Ground Annex dance studio, located in the former CityCenter Dance Factory space at 345 Main Street.

Doors will open at 7:30 pm, with an open mic at 8 and the featured act at 9. Suggested donation is $10 online at RootsMusicCoffeeHouse.com or $12 at the door. Reservations can also be made by calling 203-417-9607

Band members Bill Wisnowski, Susan Lang and Leif Smith, who regularly play their own special brand of free-range acoustic music (“ranging from porch playing to classical performances”), will perform a special Christmas sing-along show with special guest Bonnie Wisnowski, Bill’s daughter.

Bonnie has sung with her dad since they played summer concerts in Worcester, Mass., when she was 7. When she moved to Danbury to live with him and attend high school here the late 1980s, they were the lead singers in an alternative band, Walking the Dragon. Since that time, Bill has sponsored a yearly Children of Christmas show in which Bonnie always participates.

My Dad’s Truck draws its musical selections from the best songs of the last 600 years, and perform them with a vigorous and contemporary edge. The band was founded during a production of the musical review Woody Guthrie’s American Song in 1997. They recently re-visited that show as the show band in the Sherman Players’ 2004 production.

The founding principle of My Dad’s Truck was to keep alive the American song — music that survives on the strength of the words and ideas within the song. Through this approach to music they have found themselves addressing swing, jazz standards, and traditional American music, as well as Celtic, European, and Latin pieces, and the best of the new acoustic and folk rock genres.

My Dad’s Truck performs these songs with rich harmonies, diverse instrumentation, and an improvisational spirit. All members play multiple instruments, which include percussion from around the world, bluegrass instruments, assorted reeds and horns, ukulele, accordion, guitarron (a fretless Mexican bass) and, of course, guitar.