Bios

Leslie Latour

Leslie Carol Latour is a singer/songwriter and artist. She grew up in a family of musicians and artists in Bronxville, NY and Hamden, Conn. Raised on the music of Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Pete Seeger, she is equally at home with traditional folk music and rock 'n roll.

“When we were very little, it was all folk music—Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger. Actually, Pete Seeger was my invisible friend—along with six or seven other invisible friends that I used to hold the door open for. They’d come to sing to me. It was funny, because I could really see them. I could imagine that Pete was singing all these songs as I was falling asleep—and all the invisible people singing and playing instruments and stuff like that. I guess the older I get, the more aware I am of how much a part of my life that music was. That was a gift.”

Leslie has been a member of the traditional folk group Generations and the pop/rock band Hudson Street, and her song ‘Making Paper From The Wood’ is a gift to the paper mill workers of Maine. Her new album, That's Life, co-released with her husband Larry, contains songs of faith, loves lost, mill workers, pink flamingoes, and friends like we. She has helped to found the Union Street Brick Church open mike coffeehouse and the Brick Church food cupboard and volunteers for the American Red Cross.  With Larry she also helps to run the Orono Dadgad open mike coffeehouse. She lives in Bangor, Maine with Larry, five cats in the yard, and three dogs in the house.  As Graham Nash sings, “A very, very, very, fine (albeit a little crowded) house.”

Larry Latour

Larry Latour has been bringing his own personal brand of contemporary folk/rock/pop music to folk sings and coffeehouses in the Mid-Maine area since moving to Maine in 1985. He writes songs in the traditional '60's spirit, singing about love, friendship, politics, struggle, and a few cats thrown in for good measure. His first album, Little by Little, is a collection of twelve of his original works, and is a window into his early musical soul.

Larry grew up in New York City during the ‘60’s and ’70’s. Musicians such as Carol King, Gordon Lightfoot, and James Taylor strongly influenced his music, and he spent many hours in college playing their songs. But it was a trip aboard the schooner Harvey Gamage in 1982 that was the greatest influence on his musical life.

"A young Maine schooner captain by the name of Will Gates taught me a wonderful collection of old and new folk songs, introducing me to the music of Maine and the sea, and showing me the way to the true meaning of music. For the first time I wrapped myself around the lyrics of songs, finding a much deeper meaning in the music I'd already been playing."

Little by little Larry and his music evolved together, and it was the Mid-Maine coffeehouse scene in the '90's that encouraged him to begin writing and performing his own music. Larry began working on and refining his songs and performances at a number of wonderfully supportive venues - the Rushin' Turtle coffeehouse in Skowhegan, the Easy Street Café in Pittsfield, the Frozen coffeehouse in Detroit, and the DADGAD coffeehouse in Orono. His album Little by Little contains songs introduced at those coffeehouses, and expounds on the beauty of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the strange sensation of eating alone in a Restaurant, culture clash, and the inadequacies of married life.

Larry has been a member of the traditional folk group Generations and the pop/rock band Hudson Street, and has recorded a CD of folk hits, Generations: Live at the Loft. His new album, co-released with his wife Leslie Carol Latour, That's Life, includes songs about love, little things, airports, pink flamingoes, schooners, unhappy baseball players, and songwriters that suck.

Larry has a PhD in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology, is a faculty member in the University of Maine Department of Computing and Information Science in Orono, Maine. and is chair of the New Media Department.  He lives in nearby Bangor, Maine with his wife Leslie and their five cats and three dogs. Needless to say, things are a little tight.