Songs to Warm the Heart
and Feed the Soul

Great Blue

a/k/a Shirl Lawrence and Steve Kaplan

As Mel and Vinnie, they have appeared countless times at Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival; Pumpkin Sail venues up and down the river, Ferry Sloops fundraisers and sloop club festivals in NY and NJ. They provide a Circle of Song on the Beacon shore for the annual Newburgh to Beacon Swim Across the River to benefit River Pool at Beacon. After twenty years it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Shirl Lawrence and Steve Kaplan have been singing together for more than thirty years. In recent years, their beautifully crafted harmonies have been heard at coffeehouses in their native Hudson Valley. They have sung at Clearwater festivals as members of the Walkabout Chorus and the Sloopsingers and as a duo. Their eclectic musical sources include Kate Wolf’s haunting ballads and songs echoing Clearwater’s environmental message. One Woody Guthrie sailor who ought to know said Steve’s We’ll Make It to Coxsackie truly described how it felt to be sailing in a Hudson River storm. Listeners often comment about the beautiful sounds Shirl’s voice has graced them with. This duo is now called Great Blue after the observant heron they often find during their kayak trips.

Maryellen Healy was born in Astoria, NY to an organized, methodical working mom and a soon-to-be blacklisted union organizer. Healy sings and works for causes in which she believes. She galvanized the completion of the cement-hulled sloop Sojourner Truth, a sloop Clearwater offshoot built partly by volunteers and donations. Just slightly smaller in scale than its parent, Sojourner often sailed alongside emphasizing the larger sloop's role as a flagship of the environmental movement worldwide.

Vincent Cerniglia was born in Brooklyn, NY. He played in all night jam sessions through his teenage years.A political activist in his youth Cerniglia joined Clearwater through the Woody Guthrie sailing program. Designer, artisan of many trades, illustrator, photographer, songwriter, guitarist and computer geek he finds blues to be a centering force in his life. The responsibilities of family life led him to his current position in public service.