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Maryellen Healy.................. Vincent Cerniglia | |
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Maryellen Healy was born in Astoria to an organized, methodical working mom and a soon-to-be blacklisted union organizer. By high school in Levittown in the late sixties Healy was putting on hootenannies, leading songs and rabble-rousing her way to becoming class president. Vincent Cerniglia was born in Brooklyn. He became a boy scout, a bike enthusiast, a basketball player and a techie. He was immersed in music the whole time. He played in all night jam sessions through his teenage years. Singer, guitarist, environmentalist, educator and organizer, Healy sings and works for causes in which she believes. She galvanized the completion of the cement-hulled sloop Sojourner Truth, a sloop Clearwater offshoot built partly by volunteers and donations. Just slightly smaller in scale than its parent, Sojourner often sailed alongside emphasizing the larger sloop's role as a flagship of the environmental movement worldwide. Healy conceived and convened Turtle Island Sloop Club an on-line communication among activists within the Clearwater community. Past President of the Ferry Sloops Board of Directors, Healy went on to sail as second mate aboard sloop Clearwater; she later served as captain of the ferry sloop Woody Guthrie. Whatever boat she's sailing on, she serves as a resource for history, tradition, and environmental education. She's taught on land for Clearwater, Inc., the Goddard Riverside Community Center and the Ethical Culture School Fieldston Outdoors camp. There's always music in her classroom. Trained in anthropology with a master's degree in education, Healy has been in the field teaching since 1974. She provides home-based special instruction to at-risk infants and toddlers and their parents. Still advocating! A political activist in his youth Cerniglia joined Clearwater through the Woody Guthrie sailing program. Designer, artisan of many trades, illustrator, photographer, songwriter, guitarist and computer geek he finds blues to be a centering force in his life. After the breakup of his last band Cerniglia pursued a careet in anthropology. The responsibilities of family life led him to a position in public service. He has a cd "Doodyhead #1". #2 came out as "Voodoo Blues" by Mel and Vinnie. Healy's song, "The Sailor's Husband's Lament" appears on the Hudson River Sloop Singer's Broad Old River, a benefit album for sloop Clearwater, and is heard on WAMC-FM public radio's "Hudson River Sampler," hosted by Wanda Fisher. Healy's live performances include both Oneonta College and Fair Harbor coffeehouses, Riverrun Bookstore's Monday Night Circle, Greystone Bakery Café, WBAI-FM radio and Pumpkin Sail/Sale concerts at The Eighth Step in Albany. Cerniglia's first live solo was at The Crypt in Brockport, In the 70s he played in two bands, Uncle Tenuse and The Ugly Dirt Band. They collaborate in a diverse array of projects from family life to fundraising. As Mel and Vinnie, they have appeared countless times at Clearwater's Great Hudson River Revival; Pumpkin Sail venues up and down the river, Ferry Sloops fundraisers and sloop club festivals in NY and NJ. They provide a Circle of Song on the Beacon shore for the annual Newburgh to Beacon Swim Across the River to benefit River Pool at Beacon. They took 2 trips to the Gulf coast post Katrina to bring instruments and entertain. After twenty years it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. This page is frozen in time as of July 7,2009. Mel's blog-Turtle Island Tales will be the place to link to our projects. Vinnie is on Facebook. |
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