Over the course of three decades, Maura and Pete Kennedy have traversed the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK as a songwriting duo and as longtime members of the late Nanci Griffith’s Blue Moon Orchestra. They’ve released two dozen CDs, produced Ms. Griffith’s CD Intersections, hosted a radio show on Sirius/XM, and most recently have presented a weekly live streaming concert on YouTube featuring a different program every episode, building a repertoire that numbers into the hundreds of songs. They’ve also led workshops at SAMW throughout the past two decades, and they always look forward to coming “home” to Geneva Point.

Pete Kennedy has, in a half-century of traveling with his guitar, backed everyone from Leonard Bernstein and Stevie Wonder to Doctor John and Taj Mahal. His main focus has always been on working with singer-songwriters, and he credits Kate Wolf, Mary-Chapin Carpenter and especially longtime friend Nanci Griffith with “teaching him how to back a singer”, as he learned on stages night after night how to help a singer find their creative comfort zone. For the past three decades he’s been half of The Kennedys duo, in partnership with his wife, the angelic-voiced Maura Kennedy, who also happens to be one of the best rhythm guitarists in the business. Pete’s memoir, Tone, Twang and Taste chronicles his peripatetic guitar-playing life, and he loves passing on his knowledge and experience at SAMW.