Coco and Lafe Bio

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Coco Kallis and Lafe (rhymes with “waif”, short for “Lafayette”) Dutton write and perform acoustic bluesy story and character songs. Friends for more than three decades, they debuted as a duo at a "First Night" celebration on the New Year's eve of 2007. They released their first CD that following spring, and when Lafe’s youngest son graduated from high school in June of 2007, they sent him off on Jet Blue to his next adventure. Three days later Coco and Lafe ran away from home.

They enlisted the aid of friend and mentor Jeri Goldstein of Performing Biz (www.performingbiz.com), a woman Lafe had worked with for many years in the Music Industry, who told them to “Go where the people are until the people will come to you.” So they played on and under the streets of Boston and Cambridge. When winter hit they packed up their manager (Lilla the Beagle) and a large cappuccino maker (one of Lafe’s many vices) and scouted the southern climes of the United States, playing on streets from New Orleans to San Diego.

They settled in the Ocean Beach community of San Diego and started playing farmers’ markets. People bought CDs and asked them to play private parties. They called farmers’ markets along the route back to Boston for summer gigs. Their retirement into music became a new business: play farmers’ markets nationally and invite the people who bought CDs to host house concerts for their friends. In two short years they released three CDs and worked themselves into three to five farmers markets and house concerts per week, playing 3 to 5 hours every day. They performed more hours in a year than full time touring Major Label acts perform in two years. They got good at keeping a guitar in tune. They wrote songs on the steering wheel, in national parks, in Motel 6’s.
	"Cafe Loco", released in January 2009, was heard on 172 radio stations including Rich Warren's syndicated show, "The Midnight Special". It was chosen as "Best New Music of 2009" by WPRB's John Weingart. It made the list of "Most Played Songs and CDs of 2009 on the Folk Music Radio Airplay Chart ( Based on 166046 airplays from 195 different DJs.)
Matt Morlock heard “Café Loco” and gave them their first big break playing in front of 400 people for a live broadcast of The Blue Plate Special on WDVX in Knoxville, Tennessee. Coco and Lafe aren't strangers to the music scene. They’ve both won songwriting awards. Coco has been on Conan O'Brien twice as a backup singer for the talented and wonderful Rebecca Pidgeon, who also recorded one of Coco’s songs. Coco hit both Billboard and the Country charts with a bullet for her award-winning composition "New England Song". She was in the original, Boston cast of "Hair". Lafe worked for record companies for many years, starting with the small, independent Vermont-based Alcazar Records and a decade with Warner Brothers Records, traveling internationally as a sales manager. He took his guitar everywhere, writing songs on the road. He released a studio album of 14 original songs in 2005 (including the Vermont "Folk Song of the Year" (Prayin' for Rain) produced by the Grammy nominated Mark Greenberg of Upstreet Productions (Doc Watson, Dave Van Ronk).

Coco and Lafe state their mission simply: to find 5,000 people who like their music and will sign up to purchase one CD and attend one live show every year. No hooks, no twists, no hype. Just two graying, back porch musicians and a beagle. They aren’t on their way to anywhere. Except to the next farmers’ market or house concert, where they hope to hear your voice in the audience. Sign up on the believers list here: www.cocolafe.com.