BATH, ME: Cheryl Wheeler will perform at The Chocolate Church Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday,
June 4, 2005.  "Rare artist...strong poetry, complex melodies, clever wit."   - SingOut!   It has always seemed as if there were two Cheryl Wheelers, and fans of the New England songwriter relish watching the two tussle for control of the mike.  There is poet-Cheryl, writer of some of the prettiest, most alluring and intelligent ballads on the modern folk scene.  And there is her evil twin, comic-Cheryl, a militant trend defier and savagely funny social critic.  By creating a delightful contrast between the poet and the comic, Wheeler has made Sylvia Hotel her most comfortable and, well, Cheryl-est album to date.

Poet-Cheryl writes achingly honest songs of love and loss, contrasting the prosaic landscapes of her native small-town America with the hopelessly rootless life of the traveling performer in ways that touch common chords with any who feel the tug between our busy, noisome times and the timeless longing for simplicity and silence.  Her deceptively plain-spun songs have been hits for such mainstream stars as Suzy Boguss (“Aces”) and Dan Seals
(“Addicted”) and have been recorded by everyone from Bette Midler to Maura O’Connell.   Comic-Cheryl comes on like Groucho-in-a-housecoat; a fiercely everyday woman with a barbed-wire tongue, shredding the mores of our gossipy, greedy, trend-obsessed culture, always aiming enough darts at herself to never seem sanctimonious.

Wheeler was born in the small town of Timonium, Maryland, so the wistful rural vistas she glimpses so poignantly through her fleeting windshields really do represent the deep pull of place she feels in her wandering life.  No modern songwriter comes to mind, who can write as convincingly about the sheer, simple-hearted joy of a nice day; whether it is a warm spring one spent driving down southern back roads, or a chill, gray on spent thinking
properly dark thoughts at a bayside hotel.  Where others seek the startling image, the Big Event, Cheryl wraps her songs around the familiar image, the shared event.

When it is comic-Cheryl’s turn here, the poet simply turns the mike over, and allows her to be displayed in her native habitat, the stage.  Two cuts, recorded live at the Seaport Museum Theater in Philadelphia, reveal Wheeler at her comic best’ lampooning modern culture, teasing herself and her audience, even playing a delicious practical joke on them at the conclusion of her smartly goofy ode to the humble “Potato”.

As the two forces smooth their conflict, take their separate turns and meld into the same artistic vision, Wheeler emerges as a gifted and openhearted songwriter approaching the sure summit of her craft.  Cheryl’s abiding faith in her audience’s ability to find their own life reflected in the sweet spaces of her songs reveals an artist comfortably wearing the austere genius that defines folk music’s best traditions.   More confidently and beautifully than ever before, she proves that the poet and the comic are one and the same. 

Tickets for Cheryl Wheeler are $16 for members of the arts center, $20 in advance, $22 at the door and can be purchased with Visa or MasterCard by calling The Chocolate Church Arts Center at (207) 442-8455.  For more information about The Chocolate Church Arts Center's upcoming events, visit the website, www.chocolatechurcharts.org.   To volunteer at the arts center please call (207) 442-8455.

The Chocolate Church Arts Center is a year-round arts center whose mission is to bring the arts to mid-coast Maine and preserve the historic Chocolate Church.