Boy, were we in for a surprise! This was my favorite perfor-mance of the season! We were also surprised to find that David Holt had won a Grammy award for the presentation we were now seeing. He is returning to the Children's Theatre this season!

David is a champion storyteller and the young audience was quite captivated by his antics. He did all kinds of things that involved audience participation. When the noise level rose as if the crowd was getting out of control, David would address this. He gave the children some high level activity that they could use to help burn that energy. They seemed rather appreciative to be understood.

David is a one man traveling show. He plays ten acoustic instruments and he plays most of them during his show. Being a true storyteller, he gives you little vignettes about the history of the instrument he is introducing. Then he also gives the Appalachian folk history of the instrument. The audience gets an entertaining history lesson!

David is from Texas but his family moved to Pacific Palisades, California when he was in high school. His father was an inventor and he also liked to make things and see if they worked. He had a friend in California whose father was working on an invention he called a "computer." They had no idea what that was.

One hugely funny story David tells is about a giant kite he and his friend built to sail off the cliffs in Pacific Palisades. The story has a hilarious ending that I won't spoil for you in case he tells it in this performance.

"I grew up in a family of informal story-tellers," David says, "and there was plenty to tell about our wild and wooly Texas forefathers. Storytelling was just a natural part of family life for me. I never thought about telling stories in public until I began to collect mountain music and came across interesting and unusual anecdotes from mountain folks. I began to use these stories in concerts and realized the power storytelling holds."

"The only homemade music in our house was played by my father on bones and spoons that had been passed down in our family for five generations." If you think bones and spoons sounds dull, you have never seen a master of folk instruments play them like David does. He tells the kids to go home and try, but warns them to ask mom before taking her spoons. His instructional video, Folk Rhythms, is one that you can watch again and again until you get the technique right.

David takes to song--tapping out a rhythm in his tap shoes on a board, wearing a harmonica holder around his neck and guitar strapped over his shoulder. He may push the guitar around to the back and clap or "hambone" a rhythm to his harmonica tune. Have you ever seen or heard anyone play a paper bag?? The Boston Globe reported, "He performs up a storm."

You will hear ballads, folk tales, and names of great folk musicians, like Chet Atkins, that you will recognize from your childhood. He learned to play a washboard from a woman who was over 100 years old and of course, he will tell you the story.

In 1975, Holt founded and directed the Appalachian Music Program at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. It is the only program of its kind in which students study, collect and learn traditional music and dance.

Since 1981, Holt has pursued a full-time career in entertainment. He and his wife live in the mountains of western North Carolina and he plays several times a year around the south.

The only thing that I warn about, is that David does have a recording called Mostly Ghostly Stories. He did not tell any before, but that does remain a possibility. From what I gather, these are not horror stories but folklore gathered from North Carolina and the Appalachian region.

David may bring some of his recordings to sell. He has released numerous recordings of traditional mountain music and southern folk tales. His most recent music recording, I Got A Bullfrog: Folksongs For The Fun Of It, features great American folk songs David has collected over the last twenty years. There's also Grandfather's Greatest Hits and Why The Dog Chases The Cat: Great Animal Stories. He has written several books including The Storytellers' Guide. He has several videos which our favorite is Folk Rhythms.

He hosts a radio show on NPR called Riverwalk. For 1997-1998 Holt is also hosting a new series of North Carolina Public Television's Folkways.

This humorous presentation would fit in nicely into a North Carolina or folk music unit study. See page 11 of the September Issue for the complete listing of Children's Theatre performances.