Banjo

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by Richard Skelly Like a journeyman carpenter who has built hundreds of homes, folksinger Rik Palieri has carefully honed his craft and his presentation by performing thousands of shows. Back in 1985, Palieri made playing in 1,000 schools around the U.S. his goal. He accomplished that goal three-and-a-half years later. Since then, he's performed at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the Vancouver Folk Festival in Canada, Boston's Bread and Roses Festival and many other large music gatherings around the U.S. and Europe. These days, Palieri — who was born and raised in East Brunswick, but moved to Vermont in 1980 — puts on a well-paced show that engages his audiences and displays his talents on a wide variety of instruments, including six and 12-string guitars, banjo, Polish bagpipes, mouth bow, trumpeta and a variety of Native-American flutes. Palieri is one of several regionally famous, national touring acts headlining this year's New Jersey Folk Festival. Other performers include the Lumzy Sisters, Tony Trischka, Jim Albertson and the Kvellers. "They have me doing a lot of different things this year at the folk festival, and I'm happy about that," Palieri says from his Vermont home. Fans and friends can access Palieri's wanderings by looking at www.banjo.net, his website. After a recent tour of Germany, Palieri and his wife Marianna were able to track e-mails from Germany. They saved the addresses for a future tour. "Marianna really is the person who pushes me in new directions all the time, if it weren't for her, I think I'd still be in the dark ages," Palieri said, laughing. Having a computer and Internet access, he argues, is like opening a Pandora's box. "I answer so much e-mail that I find myself looking forward to being on the road where I'm not near a computer," he says, adding, "the kind of touring I do now, I'm just away for a month at a time. I've really become the old Johnny Appleseed traveler guy who collects stories and brings a little bit of entertainment into people's lives. You realize, when you've been performing as long as I have, no matter where you are, whoever you're meeting, you're always on stage." Nonetheless, as a traveling folksinger, Palieri looks forward to "that little bit of light you bring into people's lives." Palieri recently self-published a road diary of sorts, "The Road is My Mistress, Tales of a Roustabout Songster," and went on a short book tour last fall. "The whole singer-songwriter scene that's happening now is these people are like fire flies in the night, doing house concerts and getting music to the people," he says. Sometimes, they aren't doing it in a big way, but nonetheless, they're making an impact, "and maybe, because you're performing in such an intimate setting, it has more of an impact," he argues. Palieri grew up in East Brunswick, in a working class section of the township that borders on Spotswood and dates back to the 1940s. He graduated East Brunswick High School in 1973. "I grew up listening to AM music, with [DJ's] Cousin Brucie and Barry Harrison and in love with the Beatles," he explains, "and I didn't really understand my purpose in life until I was 15 and began playing banjo.

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