THE SHORT STORY

For over four decades, Ellen Stapenhorst has been writing songs and entertaining audiences around the country and the world. Her rich and unpretentious voice (about which actor Tim Curry once exclaimed, "A DAMN fine set of pipes!") and her insightful, honest and well crafted songs come from and go right to the heart.  

From the LA coffee houses of the Sixties, to Colorado and the eclectic Aspen-based country-rock band Tanglefoot in the Seventies, to Northern California as a solo artist, to her current home in the quirky western Colorado town of Paonia, Ellen’s life and musical roads have taken her around the US and overseas.  She has shared the stage with or opened shows for many artists, including John Denver, Buffy Ste. Marie, John Stewart, Shawn Colvin, Kenny Rogers, Frankie Valle and Dr. Hook.  Besides her solo engagements, Ellen is currently playing with several bands, including Dykann, Paxton & Stapenhorst, a folk, roots and originals group based in the Aspen area; and with Joanna and Iain Hyde, a Celtic-swing-folk-fusion band based in Denver.  

Ellen has released four CDs of original music and her songs range from personal and spiritual to social conscience and satire.  “Grand Junction” was featured on NPR’s Car Talk, and “Traveler” was on LA Acoustic Radio’s most requested list for two years.  She has a lifelong commitment to finding common ground and protecting the natural world. Strong vocals, solid guitar playing and a good dose of humor are the hallmarks of her shows.   


THE REST OF THE STORY

GROWING UP in SoCal

Ellen's love of music is one of her earliest memories -- it's always been there for her. She grew up in a family of folk, classical and esoteric music buffs (with a little rock 'n roll around the edges) that continued to appreciate music even through the early stages of Ellen's playing violin and singing along with her brother Steve's clarinet improvisations. When Steve became a working folksinger, Ellen also picked up the guitar and formed a group with her junior high singing buddies. Soon she was performing solo and with different groups in the Southern California coffee houses of the late Sixties.

Early on she felt the power of music to move people, as the civil rights movement swept the country. She also found that songwriting was a way to bring focus and clarity to her own observations of the world, inner and outer, as well as a way to express her deeply felt values and passions. (And a darn good form of therapy.) From 1969-1972, Ellen ran a non-profit coffee house in Glendale, California, called The Whole, which provided a stage for many artists including Jackson Browne, Mary McCaslin, Steve Gillette, Glenn Frey and J.D.Souther. And she continued to perform with Elbo and Dave, a band she formed in high school with brothers Dave and Bo Hale.

ON TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS...there and back again...and again...

When The Whole closed, Ellen joined her brother Steve in Colorado, where they formed the eclectic, original, country-rock band Tanglefoot with several other Aspen musicians (songwriter J.D. Martin, Jim Yoder, Randy Noe, Pat Curto and Jeff Getz). Ellen sang and played fiddle, guitar and bass with the band as they toured the country for eight years and recorded an album with legendary producer Paul Rothchild (The Doors, Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt).

Tanglefoot finally succumbed to the effects of Disco (hard on live music) and different musical directions within the band and parted amiably (they still gather occasionally, usually around an "eating holiday" or a game of killer croquet). Ellen moved to Sonoma County, California in the early 1980s and played over the years with many fine northern California musicians, including Kevin Russell and Layne Bowen of Modern Hicks, Mark McLay of the Dustdevils and pianist Jim Aikin. After almost two decades of going back and forth between California and Colorado, she finally made the big move back to the mountains and her beloved Roaring Fork Valley in the summer of 2002.

In 1982, Ellen met and began studying with Tom Crum, an aikido teacher and innovative thinker who was applying the principles of the martial art to personal development and conflict resolution. Tom had co-founded the Windstar Foundation with John Denver, and was offering programs there exploring the relationship between aikido (whose stated goal is "to render an attack harmless without harming anyone, even the attacker") and sustainable living practices. This immediately felt like a fit to Ellen, a way to practice and embody non-violence. She eventually earned her black belt in the art. By the mid 1980s, Ellen was traveling with Tom as his assistant, and she continues to work with him in his programs as a facilitator, teacher and folk singer.

RECORDINGS

The Dance was Ellen's first solo album and was released in 1987 on her own label, KiNote Productions. It was recorded at Radio City Music Hall Studios, and Ellen was joined by a host of musicians from New York's thriving folk music community, including Shawn Colvin, Lucy Kaplansky and Rod MacDonald (as well as a few ghosts from the orchestral broadcasting days of Radio City). The Dance is being released in August 2003 as a CD for the first time.

Her second album, Invisible Threads, came out in the summer of 1994. This mainly acoustic collection was birthed in southern California in the midst of earthquakes, fires and floods. Still the threads remained strong, thanks in large part to enthusiastic assistance from, once again, brother Steve, and also J.D. Martin, James Lee Stanley, Jim Yoder and Severin Browne among many others. "Feels Like Home" (written for Steve and his wife Helen's wedding) has been performed and recorded by other artists and may yet become the wedding classic of the new millenium....YES!!!

In December 1998 Ellen released a CD single in response to the worldwide community of people who loved John Denver's music. All of My Skies, written by Steve Stapenhorst, is a musical tribute to and remembrance of John, a longtime friend. Ellen's song Night Sky, also on the CD, was inspired by the comet Hale-Bopp and is a reminder to her to be here now.

December 2004 saw the release of her third full-length CD, Come Back Home (the CD formerly know as Traveler...). Produced by Smokin' Joe Kelly (a great musician who traveled as Ike and Tina Turner's guitar player for many years) and Ellen, this recording went in new musical directions (surf-flamenco?) as well as the folkgrass core. Great Aspen area musicians including Bobby Mason, Randy Utterback, JD Martin, Jan Garrett, John Sommers, Bryan Savage, Sandy Munro, Steve Johnson and many others added their magic to the recording.

Shifting Sand is Ellen’s fourth full-length CD and it came out in the spring of 2010.  This is a mostly solo and live recording, done very simply at Starr’s Guitars Studios in Cedaredge, Colorado.  Ellen found it a different kind of challenge to “keep it simple”.  Eight new songs and three solo versions of old favorites make up this intimate, living-room-feel collection.  

Ellen is currently playing with several different groups, including the folk, roots and originals band Dykann, Paxton & Stapenhorst, and is forming a new band with her god-kids, Iain and Joanna Hyde.  They are remarkable musicians and singers, and the material ranges from Celtic fiddle tunes to Texas Swing to Sixties folk-rock to original folk and fusion.  They are also wonderful people, and together the three are having a ball creating their collective musical identity.

Ellen has performed around the US and internationally. Her performances, whether in a small club, a living room or a large concert hall, have a warm intimacy that is both touching and exciting. Her humor, stories and original songs, as well as her honest voice create a satisfying entertainment experience for audiences of all sorts. "I can think of few things that are more fulfilling to me than those moments when I get myself out of the way and the music comes through me and touches the people listening, and pretty soon we're connected in this loop that is heaven on earth for me. It's tangible love, what Buckminster Fuller called 'metaphysical gravity', binding us together, fully alive."

Throughout her life, Ellen has worked in various ways for peace, equal rights and a sustainable, quality future for the planet and its inhabitants. As a student of aikido ("the way of harmony") for many years, Ellen finds correlations between the arts -- music and aikido -- and uses them both in her work in personal awareness and conflict resolution training.

Her current interests include creative cooking and local food, writing, playing music with her god-kids and other fun folks, hanging out with her cat Hobo (the Purr Meister), and stopping global warming.

"I am a pilgrim and a traveler and I love the journey like I love my home...
...The journey is my home"
----from the song "Traveler"