Rick Spencer and Dawn Indermuehle
Biography & Photos:
Rick Spencer and Dawn Indermuehle develop and present a series of theme-based music and history programs. They present songs that give cultural insight into interesting times, places and events in American history. Rick and Dawn carefully craft their vocals and accompaniment to sound as true to a song’s era or style as possible. Their vast repertoire includes music from the Colonial era to the present day.
Rick and Dawn use these songs to illustrate the evolution of our nation’s culture and history in an informative and entertaining way.
Rick’s resume includes having worked for 20 years as a staff musician, researcher and program developer at Mystic Seaport Museum. During that time he toured widely in America and Europe as a member of the sea chantey quartet “Forebitter.” Rick worked at two historic house museums in eastern Connecticut. He was site administrator of the Hempsted Houses in New London, as well as curator and director of the Dr. Ashbel Woodward Museum in Franklin. He served on the board of directors of the New London County Historical Society.
Dawn is responsible for researching and developing program material and creating period-appropriate vocal accompaniment on a wide range of historical songs from throughout American History. In addition to her duet work with Rick, she also performed as a member of the ensembles LongSplice and Locomotive Shipwreck. She has worked as business manager for several performing artists. Dawn has been a proud host Mom of international high school students since 2015.
The Jovial Crew
Based in Essex, Connecticut, USA, The Jovial Crew presents historical, traditional, and contemporary songs “in the tradition.” Their repertoire includes sea chanteys and other maritime music, songs from the British Isles and Australia, historic songs of a younger America, drinking songs, ballads, love songs and timeless songs of adventure, love, and life on the water. They are best known for their rousing performances every Monday night at the famous Griswold Inn.
The Jovial Crew was assembled by Cliff Haslam in the mid-1980s to augment the solo performances he had been doing at the Griswold Inn since 1972. Over the years a number of musicians have joined Cliff to add more instrumentation and voices to the mix. In 1986 the ensemble began using the name The Jovial Crew, taken from the chorus of a English drinking song Cliff sings regularly.
In addition to Cliff the current lineup includes Joseph Morneault, Rick Spencer and Michael Hotkowski. They are occasionally joined by Cliff’s long-time music partner Paul Elliott and/or by singer/percussionist Brian Schiller.
Visit The Jovial Crew website here.
Clockwise from top left: The Jovial Crew, in the Griswold Inn’s “Bridge Room,” on stage at the CT Sea Music Festival, the Griswold Inn’s famous Tap Room,
