Steve Gretz & Leslie Lee

In 2007, Leslie and Steve moved to Rochester, New York from the Boston area where together they ran The Mozaic Room coffeehouse for eleven years. In 2003, they started recording and performing together as a duo. Their music combines their backgrounds in traditional, country and gospel music with their taste for contemporary singer/songwriters. Their performances feature simple but tasteful arrangements of timeless melodies. Steve's guitar is often supplemented by other traditional instruments, but the focus is always on thoughtful lyrics and beautiful harmonies.

When Steve and Leslie return to New England, they are often accompanied by their Very Fine Band, Hatrack Gallagher (harmonica), Peter Tillotson (upright bass), and multi-instrumentalist Seth Connelly, who also produced their three albums together.

In New York, they sometimes perform with guest musicians Perry Cleaveland (mandolin, fiddle), Joe Dady (guitar, fiddle, and whistle), or multi-instrumentalist Allen Hopkins.

Leslie and Steve have also sung harmony vocals onstage for Brooks Williams, Greg Greenway, and Joe Crookston, and added backing vocals to the song "A Friend Like You" on Joe Crookston's 2011 release "Darkling & the BlueBird Jubilee". They have opened shows for The Nashville Clippers, Michael Troy, Bill Staines, Danielle Miraglia, Brother Sun, and Kim and Reggie Harris.

When they are not in the spotlight themselves, Leslie and Steve host two music series: an informal sing-around called Old Time Music Night held on the first Sunday of each month at Greece Baptist Church, and Lake Effect Shows, a house concert series in their home featuring local and touring folk and acoustic musicians.

Steve

Steve was born and raised in the Finger Lakes region of New York. He moved to Germany with his parents as a teenager, then returned to the US to complete his schooling. He graduated from Stanford University in 1979 and Princeton Theological School in 1986, where he once accidentally shot Brooke Shields with a rubber band. An ordained minister in the American Baptist Churches USA (they are the Baptists who will still talk to you even if you disagree with them!), he currently serves as pastor of the Greece Baptist Church.

He has been involved with music most of his life from childhood lessons (piano and trombone), through years of singing with choral groups, to his midlife debut in folk music. In the mid-90s, Steve performed as one half of the acoustic folk duo Arnold+Gretz, producing four CDs. One of Steve's songs, My Dad Told Me, was selected as one of five finalists in the 2003 Boston Folk Festival's songwriting contest. Another song, Who Taught These Idiots to Drive? was featured on NPR's Car Talk radio show and also appeared on their compilation CD Car Tunes Volume 2: Born Not to Run.

Leslie

Leslie was born in southern California and grew up in the Kansas City, Missouri area. She earned a BFA in Commercial Art from the University of Central Missouri. Although relatively new to the world of folk music, Leslie has been surrounded by music since childhood. Her dad always kept a guitar around, and when he wasn't teaching her how to play a slide version of Mary Had a Little Lamb, he picked out tunes by Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, among others.

Leslie's introduction to folk music came when she created the artwork for Steve's first CD, Waiting for the Sun. (She also designed Steve and Leslie's CDs Recovered and Better Off Someday, and Green Pastures' Strangers in Meshech, as well as artwork for other musicians listed on the *design* page.) She was a volunteer at The Mozaic Room from its opening in 1996 when her first duty was to design and print out tickets for each show and send them to Steve via snail mail. In 2000, she started singing out loud in front of people as a member of the Avon Baptist Church choir. In 2003, she stood behind the microphone for the first time to record the vocal tracks for Recovered.

Green Pastures

Green Pastures was formed when Leslie and Steve got together with their friend Pete Schoonmaker to sing some gospel songs with an old-time flavor. Pete and Steve played a variety of stringed instruments to accompany the three part harmonies. Drawing on folk, bluegrass, and gospel roots, Green Pastures offered songs from the Christian tradition but without a sectarian bias. They sang songs that emphasized the common ground and hope that people of faith share as we struggle through the difficulties and troubles of daily life, hoping to “lift spirits and soothe souls” through their music. In 2004, the trio recorded Strangers in Meshech.