American Elm Performs “Resounder”: A Live Song Cycle with very special guest Still Rivers

AMERICAN ELM

American Elm is the nome de guerre of Chris Bousquet, a singer-songwriter from Connecticut.

Chris has performed with a number of other renowned artists including, Roger McGuinn, Mercury Rev, Howe Gelb, Miracle Legion, Asleep at the Wheel, Rhett Miller, Mark Mulcahy, The Turtles, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, and Susan Cowsill.

Since 2008, American Elm has released several E.P.s and albums: “Ulmus Americana” (2008), “alonesomenoise” (2014), “Into the Light Within” (2015), “The Ivory Sessions” (2018), and “Morning Song” (2021), as well as two singles, “Empty Island Houses” (2014) and “A Long Road to be Free” (2018).

2018 marked the public debut of "The Year of the Horse: A Folk-Rock Song Cycle" written by Bousquet and performed by some of the region’s most talented and beloved musicians. The performance took place at New Haven’s famed Café Nine and was later released as a live concert film.

In 2021, the American Elm song, “A Long Road to Be Free” was included in the Essential Western New England Songbook, an 150 song anthology of many of the best songs ever written and recorded by artists who have lived in Western New England and whose careers have a significant connection to the area. The songbook includes many recognizable names including, Taj Mahal, Gene Pitney, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Dar Williams, and the Pixies.

The American Elm song “Gloria” is featured in, and serves as the theme song for the CPTV/PBS documentary “Oyster Heaven,” and the feature film “The Oystering Life.”

In 2020, as American Drone, Chris released a six track EP of songs recorded entirely on stick dulcimer.

Along with Eric M. Lichter, Chris is one half of the band Electric Elm. They have released two singles in 2024, “Sandra Ann” and “Let Us Begin!”

STILL RIVERS

“Still Rivers makes music that sounds and feels like a warm and loving home. A family band in the tradition of the Cowsills or Carpenters, with 21st century sensibilities" says WPLR’s Frank Critelli, and he’s right. There’s an evident rapport, an empathic bond, shared by Mike and Chandra Rivers that maybe only happens when two people share in the wholeness of everyday life - think of Buddy and Julie Miller, the Innocence Mission, or even more stylistic appropriate, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. You can’t fake it.

Their new record “Our Little Life” honors and confronts the matters of daily life - profound loss, hope, joy, triumph, community, familial and romantic love; the deeply personal and the wholly universal..These songs are beautiful melodic and surprisingly profound, packing an emotional punch that will at times remind the listener of Crosby, Still & Nash, Everything But the Girl, or John Prine, but are unmistakably Still Rivers.

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