Spencer Lewis and The Thrufters ­ Description and Bio
Instrumental folk grooves from Vermont’s nationally known recording artist

Known for 'never doing a song the same way once', Spencer Lewis and The Thrufters have established their own unique sound by redefining the music from Lewis' popular 14 CD catalog of music in styles ranging from full tilt old-time fiddling, instrumental folk grooves with passionate threads of improvisation, and simple, uplifting songs. Their own CD Song of Stone is slated for a May 1, 2003 release and captures their energy live in the studio with 6 new songs and the re-inventions of two earlier Lewis compositions.Lewis' own brand of cross-flat-picking has remnants of an old ­ time sound while remaining distinctly contemporary. Influenced by the Carter Family’s "church-lick", Mississippi John Hurt's fluid finger picking and Jack Elliott's interpretive feel, he creates a kind of back porch instrumental music that seems to draw from a place deep within with melodies and emotions that wrap around the soul like a blanket. As a singer-songwriter he offers ballads with subtle, unpretentious statements about rural life, the road, and personnel change, all with his own brand of reverence for the human spirit. He often ends many of his shows with Guthrie's "This Land" or Dylan's "I Shall Be Released."

His most recent CD Open Road includes his song Seeds of Positivity, an anthem of optimistic vision that has been enthusiastically performed by grade school students in residencies and concerts. Lewis also offers music from In My Arms, an interpretive journey of children’s music that is both rollicking, gentle, and pure fun. The Thrufters feature Montpelier’s Dan Haley, whose mandolin riffs offer an endless supply of texture and rhythm along with his imaginative and sometimes driving acoustic guitar work.This versatility allows Lewis to soar on the fiddle or violin and yield the gems that reside in his prolific instrumental catalog. Scott Paulson plays electric and acoustic bass and generates his own path in the mix with melody, counterpoint, and harmony lines. He is soulful, powerfully direct, and never shy about crashing and burning when the moment arises. Scott also runs the Vermont Independent School of Musical Arts in Sharon Vermont where he teaches band instruments and steel-drums. Spencer sings in a relaxed tenor with Dan handling most of the harmonies and Scott adding his chorus to a handful of others.

The Thrufters travel on a journey of folk improvisation as they go down many roads from slow rolling soulful contemporary folk to the old-time sounds mirroring Guthrie and the Carter Family and finally to Spencer’s homemade fiddle tunes written with southern and Celtic influences.

Lewis’ ’91 release The New Generation of Old Vermonter’s won him a Fellowship Finalist award from the Vermont Council on the Arts while recently his CD A Sense of Place was mentioned in the best-selling novel The Smoke Jumper written by Nicholas Evan’s, author of The Horse Whisperer.