By Kathy Sands-Boehmer

David Mallett

David Mallett

David Mallett is a treasured favorite singer-songwriter and has several decades worth of marvelous material to share with music fans of all ages. David recently completed work on a new song to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. Check it out on his MySpace page.

Congratulations on the anniversary of “The Garden Song.” It is quite an honor to have it called one of the “most famous folk songs of all time.” Did you have any idea when you wrote that song that it would become such an iconic song that would be sung all over the world?

I had no idea. . . . I thought it was a nice little singable tune kind of like “Moonshadow,” but it now spans generations.

What was it like to appear with the Prairie Home Companion crew in Maine?

Now and then it’s nice to rub elbows with the big time and experience a large event like this from the inside. It’s a lesson in efficiency and teamwork.

How did your CD, The Fable True, come about? Have you always had a love for the writing of Henry David Thoreau or did a Thoreau scholar match you up as a good musical interpreter of his words?

I did it as a tribute to the 150th anniversary year of his visits to Maine. I was not into writing words for a few years after 2003 and thought this would be a great spoken word project . . . which it was and the score was kind of garage band fun.

You described your music as a combination of European and New England maritime music.” Can you explain that a little bit for us?

I think it’s the lack of blue notes that makes it more northern. I’m always much more drawn easterly in a musical sense ……..also the harp is very woodscampish. I think I’m actually closer to the Irish than the cowboys.

Your meeting with Noel Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul & Mary) was a pivotal point in your musical career. Have you ever thought what your life would be like if you had never had the opportunity to meet him when he opened his recording studio in Maine in 1975?

I probably would have figured out another way to record. He was a real friend to me in those days, and he gave me confidence and objectivity. It remains one of the highlights of my life, those first records in Blue Hill.

Like many of us, Kathy Sands-Boehmer wears many hats. An editor by profession, she also operates Harbortown Music and books artists for the Me and Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, Massachusetts. In her spare time, Kathy can be found at local music haunts all over New England. This and many previous Q & A interviews with performing artists are archived at www.meandthee.org/blogtxp/. This one, several previous Q &As, and future ones also will be archived here on AcousticMusicScene.com.