{November 30, 2014} Craig Ventresco
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The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Information is very pleased to announce an evening of American popular music, including rags, marches, waltzes, and blues, from the 1890s through the 1920s, performed on guitar and other instruments by Craig Ventresco.
Craig Ventresco plays a repertoire of songs from the brief but fecund era of acoustically recorded music. Like Fred Van Eps -- the gifted banjoist who recorded hundreds of cylinders and 78 rpm records between 1897 and 1927 -- who mastered his instrument by listening to earlier recordings, Mr. Ventresco has developed a repertoire of songs learned by listening to wax cylinders and shellac records of the acoustic era. For over twenty years, San Franciscans have heard Craig Ventresco’s evocative guitar playing on street corners and in cafes. He has performed and recorded with Bo Grumpus and Janet Klein, and is well known for his extensive contributions to the soundtrack to the documentary CRUMB. Mr. Ventresco plays guitar, banjo, ukelele, and mandolin, often with the accompaniment of singer Meredith Axelrod.