Claudia Schmidt

Claudia Schmidt’s first clearly remembered performance was her rendition of the song “Tammy” at a multi-family bonfire. She was 4. Then it was any choir that would have her, church, community school. Singing was a given. She never minded soloing! Given her first guitar at 16, she learned a few chords from her big brother and was off writing songs and accompanying herself. Self taught. Her teachers were everyone and everything. She had a brief taste of coffeehouse performing before running away with a theater group after high school, spending the next year touring nationwide and learning acting and stagecraft skills. She left the group because she missed the music and came back to the coffeehouse stages of Detroit with a new understanding of the magic of live performance. College came and went, but the music stayed and carried her to Chicago, where she entered a thriving folk music scene supporting singer/songwriters with nightly club engagements. 

After her first audition in 1974, she was in the middle of it. Radio outlets like Studs Terkel and the Midnight Special took notice and gave her opportunities to appear often on live radio. As she built her audience and began to go out on the road, Flying Fish Records invited her to record with them, beginning in 1979. Over the course of 8 years, she recorded 5 albums. By that time, she was touring internationally for good parts of the year. She then joined Red House Records, a new venture out of St. Paul, MN, becoming the second artist (and the first woman) to record for that label. The Twin Cities were like a second home, as she performed there regularly, including frequent visits on an up and coming radio show called A Prairie Home Companion. A Garrison Keillor quote is still frequently used to introduce her; “When Claudia Schmidt sings a song, it stays sung.”

Over these years she added the Appalachian mountain dulcimer to her 12 string guitar, and also introduced a very unique instrument called the Deluxe Pianolin, invented in Michigan earlier in the 20th century. Simultaneously bowed and strummed, it possessed an ethereal quality which she used to great advantage in her composing and performing. Although she retired it from the road, it can be heard on earlier recordings and videos.

Throughout the 1990s she scaled back travel and moved to Beaver Island, a remote spot in the middle of northern Lake Michigan to pursue a dream of being an Innkeeper. She, her parents and former husband Bill Palladino, completely restored a historic log farmhouse which became the Bluebird BnB. They operated for 5 years during which they also bought a restaurant, which became a venue for touring musicians and introduced the first wine list on the Island! During this time, she was also developing her jazz chops, first with a pianist from Traverse City named David Chown, as well as Jeff Haas, then with a combo called the Jump Boys, and also recording and touring a bit with the New Reformation Jazz Band, all out of western Michigan. Since moving out East she has worked with pianist Miro Sprague and Jazz guitarist Jane Miller.

Theater also presented itself to her intermittently. In the 80s, while she was living in Milwaukee, she wrote the music and acted in a musical called Bag Lady Tendencies, presented by Friends Mime Theater. In the early 90s, she was asked to write the score for (and participate in) a Goodman Theater adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan. She wrote all new music to the existing Brecht lyrics, winning a Jefferson Award for Best Score that season in Chicago. More recently, she wrote several songs for a musical about Amelia Earhart which never saw completion due to the playwright’s untimely death.

Leaving Beaver Island in 2001, she began to rebuild her touring schedule. The Twin Cities called her back after a few years as a more central place from which to tour and record. During her Traverse City time, she recorded 5 CDs under her own label, encompassing jazz, spoken word, and her original compositions. Back in the Twin Cities, she reunited with Red House for a couple more CDs, then headed to northeast Connecticut to record with her long time singing partner Sally Rogers, their first project in 22 years. They recorded at the fateful Signature Sounds Recording Studio in Pomfret Ct, where she met owner/engineer Mark Thayer and, in some senses, never left. They have since married and collaborated on 7 more recordings.

She has also collaborated with many other artists, adding harmonies and accompaniment to recordings by Sally Rogers, Jeff Haas, Steve Tibbetts, Bob Gibson, Bryan Bowers, Madcat and Kane, Mustard’s Retreat, Bill Harley, Larry Long, and John Gorka. Not to mention the vast and stellar lineup of musicians who have joined her on her projects over the years! Her songs have been covered by Erica Levine, Laurie Lewis, Rani Arbo, and Jefferson Starship (really!)

Claudia has always been passionate about live performing, the ephemeral nature of it, the improvisational opportunities, and the sheer joy of “sharing air” with a particular gathering, never the same, always exciting. She thinks of the stage as her natural habitat. The audience becomes a dear friend delving into story and song. One audience member recalled a ‘’completely magical experience, being outside of space and time as we know it.” One reviewer described “Schmidt’s muse, which flies her in a multitude of directions, yet never takes her too far from the ground.” A presenter called her “a much-needed voice in our world — a powerful wordsmith/ singer/ songwriter who entertains from the bottom of her soul.”

For over 50 years Claudia has committed herself to growing and exploring all the elements of this life she has chosen. She continues composing songs and poetry, sings all the time to keep her 4 octave voice in shape, and discovers new delights on her 12 string guitar and mountain dulcimer. She is at the peak of her skills and loving what she does more than ever. Every concert is a new adventure and experience, both for her and her audiences.