Steve & Leslie

Steve was born and raised in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. 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 was born in Orange, 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 placed seventh in her school in a songwriting competition for the official school song. She was eight. Peaking too early, she hasn't written another song since.

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 through the mail, until it closed eleven years later. 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 formed in 2004, 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. In performances, the band sometimes also featured the extraordinarily talented Seth Connelly, who produced the band’s CD Strangers in Meshech. Drawing on folk, bluegrass, and gospel roots, Green Pastures offered songs from the Christian tradition but without a sectarian bias. They sang songs that emphasize 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.