Bios

Leslie and Larry Latour

Leslie Carol Latour and Larry Latour are a performing singer/songwriter duo from Glenburn, Maine. They both grew up in and around New York City, Leslie in a family of musicians and artists in Bronxville, NY and Hamden, Conn, and Larry in the middle of Queens, New York (the suburbs of New York City). Raised on the music of Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Pete Seeger, Leslie is equally at home with traditional folk music and rock 'n roll. Larry learned his music in college in Manhatten, and didn't come to folk music until later when he first visited Maine and was taught some great old songs by a young schooner captain out of Rockland, Maine.

Leslie remembered “When we were very little, it was all folk music—Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger. Actually, Pete Seeger was my invisible friend—along with six or seven other invisible friends that I used to hold the door open for. They’d come to sing to me.” Larry remembered singing pop tunes of the '60's  around college campfires, and folk tunes on the Schooner Harvey Gamage.

Larry first put out an album of original tunes titled "Little By Little" in 2000, and together he and Leslie started singing ernestly as members of the traditional folk group Generations and the pop/rock band Hudson Street, and Leslie's song ‘Making Paper From The Wood’ is a gift to the paper mill workers of Maine. Starting in 2010 they had a regular Saturday night gig with Dave Meek and the "East Side River Band" at the BIG Easy lounge in the local Charles Inn, playing songs of the '60's and '70's to young people who said they learned these songs from their parents!  Their albums, That's Life (2005), Real Music (2016), Real Music Two (2019), and Real Music Three (2021), contain songs of faith, loves lost, mill workers, Pink Flamingoes, and Friends Like We.

Leslie helped to found the Union Street Brick Church open mike coffeehouse and the Brick Church food cupboard in 2000, and Larry started the Dadgad coffeehouse in 2001. Both he and Leslie ran the Orono Dadgad open mike coffeehouse together until they moved to Arizona. In their five years in the Verde Valley in Arizona they ran a musical venue at the Sedona Hub, featuring accomplished performers who preferred a listening room alternative to bars and restaurants.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Leslie, and Larry have co-hosted "Larry & Leslie at Pushaw," a weekly music and talk show featuring original and cover tunes as well as their various pets and updates on their lives.  People from all over the world tune in, and they keep a map of the world to document their audience!  They also were the subject of a planned documentary, which at the time of this writing is still floating around somewhere out there.

Leslie and Larry live on Pushaw Lake in Glenburn, Maine with their gaggle of cats and dogs.  As Graham Nash sings, “A very, very, very, fine (albeit a little crowded) house.”

Leslie Latour

Leslie Carol Latour is a singer/songwriter and artist. She grew up in a family of musicians and artists in Bronxville, NY and Hamden, Conn. Raised on the music of Joan Baez, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Pete Seeger, she is equally at home with traditional folk music and rock 'n roll.

“When we were very little, it was all folk music—Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger. Actually, Pete Seeger was my invisible friend—along with six or seven other invisible friends that I used to hold the door open for. They’d come to sing to me. It was funny, because I could really see them. I could imagine that Pete was singing all these songs as I was falling asleep—and all the invisible people singing and playing instruments and stuff like that. I guess the older I get, the more aware I am of how much a part of my life that music was. That was a gift.”

Leslie has been a member of the traditional folk group Generations and the pop/rock band Hudson Street, and her song ‘Making Paper From The Wood’ is a gift to the paper mill workers of Maine. Her albums, That's Life, Real Music, Real Music Two, and Real Music Three, co-released with her husband Larry, contains songs of faith, loves lost, mill workers, pink flamingoes, and friends like we. She has helped to found the Union Street Brick Church open mike coffeehouse and the Brick Church food cupboard and volunteers for the American Red Cross.  With Larry she also ran the Orono Dadgad open mike coffeehouse. In their five years in the Verde Valley in Arizona she and Larry also ran a musical venue at the Sedona Hub, featuring accomplished performers who prefer a listening room alternative to bars and restaurants.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Leslie, with husband Larry, is the co-host of "Larry & Leslie at Pushaw," a weekly music and talk show featuring original and cover tunes as well as their various pets and updates on their lives.  People from all over the world tune in, and they keep a map of the world to document their audience!

Leslie lives on Pushaw Lake in Glenburn, Maine with Larry and their gaggle of cats and dogs.  As Graham Nash sings, “A very, very, very, fine (albeit a little crowded) house.”

Larry Latour

Larry Latour has been bringing his own personal brand of contemporary folk/rock/pop music to folk sings and coffeehouses in the Mid-Maine area since moving to Maine in 1985. He writes songs in the traditional '60's spirit, singing about love, friendship, politics, struggle, and a few cats thrown in for good measure. His first album, Little by Little, is a collection of twelve of his original works, and is a window into his early musical soul.

Larry grew up in New York City during the ‘60’s and ’70’s. Musicians such as Carol King, Gordon Lightfoot, and James Taylor strongly influenced his music, and he spent many hours in college playing their songs. But it was a trip aboard the schooner Harvey Gamage in 1982 that was the greatest influence on his musical life.

"A young Maine schooner captain by the name of Will Gates taught me a wonderful collection of old and new folk songs, introducing me to the music of Maine and the sea, and showing me the way to the true meaning of music. For the first time I wrapped myself around the lyrics of songs, finding a much deeper meaning in the music I'd already been playing."

Little by little Larry and his music evolved together, and it was the Mid-Maine coffeehouse scene in the '90's that encouraged him to begin writing and performing his own music. Larry began working on and refining his songs and performances at a number of wonderfully supportive venues - the Rushin' Turtle coffeehouse in Skowhegan, the Easy Street Café in Pittsfield, the Frozen coffeehouse in Detroit, and the DADGAD coffeehouse in Orono. His album Little by Little contains songs introduced at those coffeehouses, and expounds on the beauty of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the strange sensation of eating alone in a Restaurant, culture clash, and the inadequacies of married life.

Larry has been a member of the traditional folk group Generations the pop/rock band Hudson Street, the pop/swing trio Eastside River Band, and the activist group Tri-Peace.  He has recorded a CD of folk hits, Generations: Live at the Loft. His four albums of original music, co-released with his wife Leslie Carol Latour, That's Life and Real Music, Real Music Two, and Real Music Three, include songs about love, little things, airports, pink flamingoes, schooners, unhappy baseball players, the middle of nowhere, and the winds of autumn. Check out youtube for samples of their music.

Larry has a PhD in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology and is a happily retired faculty member at the University of Maine Department of Computing and Information Science in Orono, Maine. He also recently completed a stint as chair of the New Media Department. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Larry, along with spouse Leslie, is the co-host of "Larry & Leslie at Pushaw," a weekly music and talk show featuring original and cover tunes as well as their various pets and updates on their lives.  People from all over the world tune in, and they keep a map of the world to document their audience!

Larry lives on Pushaw Lake in Glenburn, Maine with Leslie and their gaggle of cats and dogs.  As Graham Nash sings, “A very, very, very, fine (albeit a little crowded) house.”