Winter Concerts

White Gull Inn folk concerts feature contemporary and traditional folk artists from all over the country, who perform in an intimate and acoustic setting in the White Gull dining room. The concerts are held approximately once a month in winter, usually on Wednesday nights. Each 8 PM concert is preceded by an optional 6 PM dinner, featuring a special selection by the chef, which varies each month.

Special Consensus
Wednesday, December 6, 2023, 8 PM
SECOND DATE ADDED: Thursday, December 7, 2023, 8 PM
Tickets: $35

The Special Consensus bluegrass band is a Door County favorite, having performed twice at the Door Community Auditorium, numerous times in the Fish Creek concert in the park series, and at many sold out performances in the White Gull Inn’s winter concert series.  Recording and touring continuously throughout North America and the world for the last four decades, the band is led by Greg Cahill, banjo player and recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) and inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America Hall of Greats.  It also features Dan Eubanks, bass and vocals, Greg Blake, guitar and vocals, and Michael Prewitt. mandolin and vocals.

Special Consensus has received six awards from the IBMA and two Grammy nominations (for albums Scratch Gravel Road in 2012 and Rivers and Roads in 2018).  

Great Blue North,  the 21st Special C recording, is a tip of the hat to the band’s Canadian friends and fans.  All songs included on the recording were written by Canadian writers and numerous Canadian musician friends of the band made guest appearances. The Gordon Lightfoot song “Alberta Bound” won the IBMA award for the 2023 Collaborative Recording of the Year. Greg Blake also won the 2023 IBMA award for male vocalist of the year.

Optional pre-concert fixed price dinner served at 6 PM:  Santa Fe Stew, cornbread, spinach and pear salad with a citrus vinaigrette, brown butter pumpkin cake for dessert.

The Western Flyers
Wednesday, February 7, 2024, 8 PM
Tickets: $35

Powerhouse country & Western swing band The Western Flyers serve up an irresistibly hot, unmistakably Texas-style sound popularized by Bob Wills in the 1940s with an electrifying energy all their own. Featuring a fresh, all-star lineup led by guitar slinger Joey McKenzie on archtop guitar & vocal, fiddle champion Ridge Roberts on fiddle & vocal, upright bassist Matthew Mefford, the award-winning Flyers are guaranteed to have even the shyest of wallflowers tappin' their toes or swinging on the dance floor. The Western Flyers consist of:

Joey McKenzie (guitar and vocals) a musician of remarkable versatility. Besides being recognized as one of the finest rhythm guitarists of our time, Joey is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, band arranger, singer and producer.  Winner of over 100 fiddle contests and awards on other stringed instruments, Joey is a three-time World Champion Fiddler, World Series of Fiddling Champion and five-time Texas State Guitar Champion. He has performed in 45 U.S. states as well as Canada, Europe, Russia and South America, including at The Grand Ole Opry, The Kennedy Center, NYC's Lincoln Center, Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion" and RFD TV's "The Marty Stuart Show".  In addition, Joey has shared the stage with musical greats Merle Haggard, Ricky Skaggs, Ray Price, Asleep at the Wheel, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, Connie Smith, and even a ukulele-slinging billionaire by the name of Warren Buffett!

Ridge Roberts (fiddle and vocals) H Ridge Roberts is an 18 year old musician from Granbury, Texas. He first picked up the fiddle at the age of 7 and entered and won his first fiddle contest at the age of 10. This led him to working with Joey McKenzie, first as fiddle teacher and now bandmate. Since then, he has gone on to compete in and win many more contests, with several notable championship titles - Grand Masters Champion, National Champion, Texas State Champion and the 2018 World Champion Fiddler.  He spent his early years researching fiddle players and fiddle tunes, concentrating on the old-time Texas style fiddlers and when he wasn't playing the fiddle, he was thinking about the fiddle, listening to fiddle music, researching fiddle history, playing rhythm guitar for fiddle tunes, looking for fiddles and sometimes just looking at his fiddle.

Matthew Mefford (upright bass). Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Matthew grew up on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, first picking up the electric bass during his late teens to play music more akin to Nirvana than the Texas Playboys. All that changed when he discovered the upright bass and Western swing. The Marshall Ford Swing Band was born out of this lucky alignment of stars and soon Matthew found himself part of the fabric of the diverse Austin music scene, as well as founding member of the virtuosic power quartet Milk Drive. In 2018, Matthew found a musical home with Texas' award winning trio, The Western Flyers.

Optional pre-concert fixed price dinner served at 6 PM:  Shepherd’s Pie, wedge salad topped with buttermilk blue cheese dressing, French Silk Pie for dessert.

Newberry & Verch
Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 8 PM
Tickets: $35

Growing up, Joe Newberry and April Verch absorbed traditions of home and hearth – in his Missouri Ozarks and her Ottawa Valley of Canada. Although they are on the road much of the year, the two musicians are fond of saying that they are rarely homesick, because their music means they always have a bit of home with them wherever they go.

   Joe Newberry comes from a family of singers and dancers. He took up the guitar and banjo as a boy and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. April Verch grew up listening to her dad’s country band play for dances in the Ottawa Valley. She started step dancing at age three and fiddling at age six.  In a Newberry & Verch show, delighted audiences see first-hand the roots of their music, their love of performing, and their strong musical connection. Original songs join timeless classics. Stories warm the heart, and give audiences a chance to understand where the music comes from. Lively fiddle and banjo numbers combine with traditional dance steps to illustrate happy times when people made their own fun.

  Known around the world for his clawhammer banjo playing, Newberry is also a powerful guitarist, singer and songwriter. The Gibson Brothers’ version of his song “Singing As We Rise,” featuring guest vocalist Ricky Skaggs, won the 2012 IBMA “Gospel Recorded Performance” Award. With Eric Gibson, he shared the 2013 IBMA “Song of the Year” Award for “They Called It Music.” A longtime guest on A Prairie Home Companion, he was a featured singer on the Transatlantic Sessions 2016 tour of the U.K., and at the Transatlantic Session’s debut at Merlefest in 2017.

   Before launching her professional career, Verch was the first woman to win both the Canadian Grand Masters and Canadian Open Fiddling Championships. In 2000, she formed “The April Verch Band,” and together they have toured the world, performing in 18 different countries. She has released 14 solo recordings to date, receiving JUNO, Canadian Folk Music and Independent Music nominations and awards for several of those releases.

   Ever since Newberry & Verch met and discovered a musical spark that few can match, they have toured across North America, Europe, and the U.K., including Nova Scotia’s signature festival Celtic Colours International Festival, the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in New York state, and Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Scotland.  Their CD, “Going Home,” was released to wide acclaim in 2018.  In 2021 they released “On This Christmas Day,” an album to accompany their annual Holiday Cheer Tours.

Optional pre-concert fixed price dinner served at 6 PM: Menu TBD

Cheryl Wheeler & Kenny White
Wednesday, April 10, 2024, 8 PM
Tickets: $35

Usually more than one Cheryl Wheeler appears at her concerts, according to writer Scott Alarik.  “It has always seemed as if there were two Cheryl Wheelers, with fans of the New England songwriter relishing watching the two tussle for control of the mic. 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. The result is a delightful contrast between poet and comic.

‘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, she touches the 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 Bogguss (Aces) and Dan Seals (Addicted), and have been recorded by everyone from Bette Midler, Maura O’Connell, Peter Paul and Mary, Juice Newton, and Garth Brooks. 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, Wheeler always aims enough darts at herself to never seem sanctimonious.

Kenny White comes to the world of the touring singer-songwriter following a long and successful musical journey. An accomplished pianist, who also performs on guitar, Kenny has now become more known for his clever lyrics. Long List of Priors, his aptly named current album, is the latest collection of original songs: snapshots of the human condition. Kenny recently completed an 18-month tour performing his original songs while traveling as the opener for Stephen Stills & Judy Collins, and has toured for many years with Cheryl Wheeler. Kenny White began his career in the 1970s, touring exclusively as the keyboard player for Jonathan Edwards and later with Livingston Taylor, on Linda Ronstadt’s legendary, “Living in the USA” tour. He became a fixture in the NYC studio scene throughout the 1980s and 1990s, producing and arranging hundreds of commercials for TV and radio, beginning with “The Unsinkable Taste of Cheerios,” nearly seven years of Chevrolet’s “Heartbeat of America” campaign, countless ads for Coca Cola and many others.  White’s music has been discovered in the UK and Europe, where he tours annually in the Spring. He was awarded the International Songwriting Award at the Premio Ciampi music festival in Livomo, Italy. And though he has all but given up his days as a sideman, in 2014, he accepted an offer by none other than Tom Jones to play in his ‘soul quartet’ for a sold-out, three-week US tour.

Optional pre-concert fixed price dinner served at 6 PM:  Ragu alla Bolognese, focacia, mixed greens withbutternut squash, pumpkin seed, and black pepper Bellavitano cheese, tiramisu for dessert.

Joshua Davis
Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 8 PM
Tickets: $30

The White Gull Inn is delighted to welcome back Joshua Davis.  A prolific songwriter, Joshua Davis was already a heavily touring/recording artist both as a single and with his previous band Steppin’ In It, (featured in the White Gull concert series in 2007 and 2010) when he got a call from NBC’s “The Voice” in 2008.  Unfamiliar with the show, he initially rejected the inquiry but the producers were persistent.  After being convinced by his wife and allowed to skip the auditions, Davis signed up for an incredible six months in the national TV spotlight.   A Top 3 finalist that season, Davis went on to sing high profile duets with Sheryl Crow and Adam Levine, and became the first artist to sing an original on the show.

Davis has shared the stage with a “Who’s Who” of American folk music icons such as Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Greg Brown and Abigail Washburn.  His most recent full length album The Way Back Home mixes his rough-n-tumble grit with an undeniable Midwesterner’s charm for a soaring vocal performance backed by his deft acoustic guitar.   

Joshua Davis continues his work bringing Michigan musicians to Michigan students (K-12) with his nonprofit On Stage 4 Kids. He appears with Earthwork Music showcases, a collective promoting original music in the state of Michigan and beyond. Davis also gave a TEDx talk following the release of A Miracle Of Birds, focusing on his experience as a Jewish-American in the Palestinian West Bank.

Optional pre-concert fixed price dinner served at 6 PM:  Coq au Vin served over mashed Yukon golds, spring greens, asparagus and fresh herb salad, rhubarb torte for dessert.

The White Gull Concert Series Turns 40

In 1983, on a cold November evening, a small group of Door County visitors and residents gathered at a local inn, enjoying the first of what has become a popular tradition: monthly winter folk concerts. During this time, more than 175 talented folk singers and songwriters from all over the country have performed at the White Gull Inn.

The concerts were conceived by the Innkeeper Andy Coulson, a banjo player himself and lover of traditional and contemporary folk music. Coulson was frustrated by the lack of live entertainment during the long quiet Door County winters. The first concerts were loosely based on the "house concert" concept, in which traveling folk musicians, often on tight budgets and in need of work, are invited into the homes of fans along the route of their travels. The fans provide the musician with food and lodging in return for a concert to a small group of friends, often right in their living rooms. A collection at the door goes to the artist to help defray expenses.

The house concert circuit has provided work and travel expenses for generations of singers and brought folk music to many rural areas that are too small to otherwise provide such entertainment. "I wasn't sure who would come to a concert on a weekday in winter in Fish Creek," Coulson recalls thinking in the beginning. "But we had plenty of room and board , and figured that we had nothing to lose. At the very least, we'd have some quality folk music in Fish Creek."

In the beginning, it was not easy finding artists willing to come so far for such a small turnout. However, as word got around, more and more musicians decided that a "working holiday" in the quiet beauty of the Door Peninsula was worth the trek to the north country. The series has gradually been able to attract in more and more well known performers, such as Anne Hills, Chris Smither, Tom Paxton and Cheryl Wheeler, many of whom normally play in much larger halls.

The pre-concert dinners, now almost as popular as the concerts, were added in recent years at the request of local residents. White Gull chefs responded by offering an optional fixed price dinner, served at 6 pm for each concert.

Concert tickets can be purchased at the door, although most concerts are sold out, so advance ticket purchase and reservations for the pre-concert dinners are recommended. You may purchase tickets at the White Gull front desk, or you can do it by phone, using a credit card.

Folk Musicians Previously Featured at the White Gull
Date: 1983-2020

Musicians who have appeared in the White Gull folk concert series in the 35 seasons since its inception in 1983: Tom Paxton, Cheryl Wheeler, John McCuen, Bob Gibson, John McCutcheon, Chris Smither, Michael Smith, Bill Miller, Fred Alley, Vance Gilbert, Neal & Leandra, Lou and Peter Berryman, Michael Johnson, Garnet Rogers, Pat Donohue, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, Joel Mabus, David Mallett, Suzzy and Maggie Roche, Cindy Mangsen and Steve Gillette, Bill Staines, Buddy Mondlock, Bryan Bowers, Peter Keane, Mark Dvorak, Anne Hills, Willy Porter, Michael Miles, Bob Bovee and Gail Heil, Jim Hurst and Missy Raines, Dave Moore, Cathie Ryan, Small Potatoes, Matt Watroba, Peter Mayer, Kenny White, Natalia Zukerman, Eric Lewis, Tommy Burroughs, Andy Ratliff, Hans Christian, David Roth, Brooks Williams, Steppin In It with Rachel Davis, James Keelaghan, Chuck Pyle, L. J. Booth, Johnsmith, Dan Sebranek, Clay Riness, Tom Pease, Louise Taylor, Christopher Shaw and Bridget Ball, Mark Dvorak, Priscilla Herdman, Claudia Schmidt, Moe Dixon, Susan Smentek, Heartwood, Cosy Sheridan, Becky Schlegel, Don Stiernberg, Victoria Vox, Wil Maring and Robert Bowlin, Michael Johnathon, May Erlewine and Seth Bernard, Peter Mulvey, Jonathan Byrd, Jerry Rau, The Special Consensus, Phil Passen and Highland Road, Antje Duvekot, the Waymores, the Honey Dewdrops, David Wilcox, The Steel Wheels, Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys, Paul Cebar, Dayna Kurtz, Kelly Joe Phelps, Count This Penny, Carolyn Martin, the Stray Birds, Molly O'Brien and Rich Moore, Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, Rita Hosking, Red Molly, Jake Armerding, Tim Grimm, Mipso, 10 String Symphony, Robbie Fulks, The String Ties, Molly Tuttle Band, Scott Cook, Ruth Moody Band, Robinson & Rohe, Harmonious Wail, Claire Lynch Band, Freddy & Francine, Susan Gibson, Mile Twelve, Joshua Davis, and April Verch Band.

The concerts are held approximately once a month, November through April, beginning at 8 pm, after an optional dinner served at 6 pm.