Upper Lake >> As their name suggests, InVoice is all about the vocals. The folk group considers tight harmonies their standout feature and while they enjoy the acoustic sounds of their multiple instruments, nothing can compare to a soothing vocal run.
The band members are Bill Bordisso, Doug Harris, Libbie Larson and Keith Larson. They’ll be performing at the Tallman Hotel Saturday night for the first show of the hotel’s 10th annual music series, Concerts with Conversation.
The quartet has been playing together as InVoice for three and a half years, but Bordisso, Harris and Libbie Larson have known each other much longer. They met in 1986 after Bordisso took over his wife’s position as a kindergarten teacher with Konocti Unified School District. Libbie Larson’s daughter happened to be in the class, and Larson would come in once a week to sing with the kids. She and Bordisso got together and gave singing a try. It went so well that she connected him with Harris and the trio sang together for a number of years.
“Our three voices really blend well and they always did,” explained Bordisso, “more than any two people I’d ever sung with. For me, it was like harmony heaven.”
Libbie Larson’s husband, Keith Larson, eventually joined up with them, and thus began InVoice. Keith Larson is the only member of the group who doesn’t sing, but he does play a mean bass line.
They all come from music heavy backgrounds. Growing up in San Francisco, Bordisso began his musical pursuits with the accordion before joining a band in high school and picking up the banjo. For years he flitted from one group to another, scoring gigs with big names like County Joe McDonald and Maria Muldaur, while also attending school at San Francisco State University.
For Bordisso, it’s always been about vocals, long before InVoice began. Before moving to Lake County, his final venture in the city was with an accapella group, proof of his long-standing love for harmonies.
“Libbie [Larson], she started music when she was a foot long,” Bordisso said. She sang in a choir during elementary school and studied the flute from 7th to 12th grade. Then she attended Santa Rosa Junior College, where she started taking voice lessons and snagged a role in the Sound of Music. Her lessons lasted for eight years. When she moved to Lake County in the mid-’70s, she continued to sing with church groups.
Libbie Larson’s high school sweetheart, Keith Larson, comes from a musical family which includes well-known Nashville dobro player, Rob Ikes. Bordisso explained that Ikes is one of the two best dobro players in the world.
With musically trained parents, Harris grew up singing in his Methodist Church choir. Folk soon followed. According to Bordisso, an apt description of Harris’s voice is “the sweetness of James Taylor but the raw folkness of Pete Seeger.”
As children of the 1950s and ‘60s, folk music saturated the musicians’ youth. The songs of Peter, Paul and Mary, the Kingston Trio and Bob Dylan dominated the radio and the charts at the time. Though Bordisso, Harris and the Larsons each have their own musical influences — Bordisso likes rock and roll and jazz, Libbie Larson likes show tunes and big band music — folk is the uniting genre of InVoice.
“I really latched on to the folk era,” Bordisso said. “That was the first real passion for music.”
InVoice performs strictly cover songs, but with so many different influences, they don’t always play original folk tunes. If the group wants to tackle a rock song or a blues number, they’ll take it down a notch and tweak it until it fits their vibe. One band member takes the lead and everyone else sings around them. Even during rehearsals, they’re always playing with a PA system so they can hear their voices over the instruments.
They perform a wide range of folk music, from James Taylor to Cat Stevens, Kate Wolf and Crosby, Stills and Nash. The group also throws in the occasional contemporary tune. One of their favorites is the Dixie Chicks’, “The Long Way Around.”
Like their musical influences, their instruments are numerous. Bordisso plays the accordion, five string banjo, tenor saxophone, dobro and some percussion. Harris pulls out the guitar and harmonica. Libbie Larson occasionally adds percussion to her singing while Keith Larson plays the bass guitar.
“Our singing is what really makes us, but it’s fun to work with the instrumentation, too,” Bordisso said.
Bordisso has a vast range of deep interests, including but most definitely not limited to, architecture, wildlife and paleontology (he has in his possession a saber tooth tiger skull), but they all pale in comparison to what he does with InVoice. “Music, I don’t know what to say about music,” Bordisso said. “Music, to me, is the biggest passion, and it’s the easiest thing to be passionate about.”
Though InVoice hasn’t taken part in the Concerts with Conversation series before, they’re thrilled for the chance to play the intimate venue. “I really appreciate Bernie. He’s done so much for the county it’s ridiculous and he’s really big on having local people play music,” Bordisso said. “He provides a quality place to play for everyone.”
Bordisso encouraged the community to come out to InVoice’s performance, especially those interested in tight harmonies and folk songs spanning the ‘60s and ‘70s, plus a few contemporary tunes. They perform at the Meeting House next to the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are $25 plus tax and can be purchased by calling the hotel at 275-2244 ext. 0.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
