Musician and storyteller Dave Martin explores the Midwest's culture and storied history while performing traditional and original songs.
Musician and storyteller Dave Martin takes us on a good-natured romp through the Midwest exploring the culture and storied history of the region and performing both traditional and original songs while infusing quixotic anecdotes about his family’s place in America’s heartland. Beginning at seed-time on the Fertile Crescent, (where history began, after all) with the cleverly written A History of the World in Six Glasses, a song that conveys important historical developments through a unique frame, (namely the advent of six particular beverages) Martin sets up the humorous and historical basis for his show. From that launch point he takes us on a clockwise trip around the Great Lakes via a travelogue that details endearingly peculiar facts; listeners will get a lesson in agricultural industrialization and a tender ode to his grandfather, an Iowa farmer. We hear tales of true crime and focus our imaginations so that we can conceive of ourselves as 21st century pioneers. Martin’s writing sensibility is driven by both his background in journalism and his profession as a high school history teacher.
