Woodyfest 2018: And Then There Were Two

Oklahoma Feel Good Music

Despite Despite [Sidenote: Welcome to part twenty-seven of The Bureau’s cov­er­age of the 2018 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, fea­tur­ing Tulsa band And Then There Were Two.] the band name, And Then There Were Two does not com­prise two mem­bers. The band num­bers three: singer Amy Carlin Lee, singer and gui­tarist Austin K. Haworth, and per­cus­sion­ist Chad Varnell. On occa­sion the band expands by a mem­ber or two, but these three are the band’s founders and nucleus.

Their press kit describes their sound as har­mony based and lyri­cally dri­ven music that is famil­iar [and] dance­able and empha­sizes catchy sto­ry­telling. They call it Oklahoma Feel Good Music. [Sidenote: And Then There Were Two Press Kit, retrieved from https://www.andthenthereweretwomusic.com/​ 13 January 2019.]

And Then There Were Two formed after Lee and Haworth were intro­duced by a mutual friend; Haworth’s long-time friend Varnell soon joined them. [Sidenote: Ibid.]

Lee’s mother was a singer and her father also loved and instilled a love of music in her. She joined her church choir at age five and per­formed her first solo at age seven. She grad­u­ated from col­lege with a musi­cal the­atre degree. [Sidenote: And Then There Were Two web­site About page, retrieved from https://www.okla­homafeelgood­mu­sic.com/​about/​ 13 January 2019. The web­site has since gone offline.]

Haworth’s father handed him his 1975 Alvarez Hummingbird gui­tar when he was four­teen. In the ensu­ing years, he formed numer­ous orig­i­nal bands, hosted open mics, and wrote prodi­giously. [Sidenote: Ibid.]

Like Lee, Varnell’s mother was musi­cal (she was an accom­plished pianist). And like Lee, he took up music in the church — he began drum­ming for wor­ship ser­vice as a third grader. [Sidenote: Ibid.]

Lee, Haworth, and Varnell were accom­pa­nied dur­ing their Woodyfest show­case by Nellie Clay’s bassist, Luke Mullinex.

Gallery