Name: Lucy Kaplansky with Doug Mishkin
Start: 2025-04-26T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 18388 Coastal Hwy, Suite 11, Lewes, DE 19958, United States

🎟 For Fans of Shawn Colvin, Nanci Griffith, Suzanne Vega, folk, americana, roots 🎵
Lucy Kaplansky started out singing in Chicago folk music clubs as a teenager. Then, barely out of high school, she took off for New York City. There she found a fertile community of songwriters and performers—Suzanne Vega, Steve Forbert, The Roches, and others. With a beautiful flair for harmony, Lucy was everyone’s favorite singing partner, but most often she found herself singing as a duo with Shawn Colvin. People envisioned big things for them; in fact, The New York Times said it was “easy to predict stardom for her.” But then Lucy dropped it all.
Convinced that her calling was in another direction, Lucy left the musical fast track to pursue a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Upon completing her degree, Dr. Kaplansky took a job at a New York hospital working with chronically mentally ill adults, and also started a private practice. Yet she continued to sing. Lucy was often pulled back into the studio by her friends, (who now had contracts with record labels) wanting her to sing on their albums. She harmonized on Colvin’s Grammy-winning "Steady On," and on Nanci Griffith’s "Lone Star State of Mind" and "Little Love Affairs." She also landed soundtrack credits, singing with Suzanne Vega on "Pretty in Pink" and with Griffith on "The Firm," and several commercial credits as well—including “The Heartbeat of America” for Chevrolet.
Then Shawn Colvin—who was itching to produce a record—hooked up with Lucy, her ex-singing partner. They went into the studio, and when Lucy’s solo tapes got into the hands of Bob Feldman, president of Red House Records, he was blown away. Suddenly, Lucy was back in the music business. She signed with Red House Records and started playing gigs. Red House released The Tide in 1994 to rave reviews, and within six months Lucy signed with a major booking agency—Fleming Artists—and began touring so much it required leaving her two psychologist positions behind.
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Doug Mishkin is a singer-songwriter best known for “Woody’s Children,” his song celebrating the legacy of Woody Guthrie. Doug says he was “born the night my mother took me to my first Pete Seeger concert” and then “came of age at the campfire where I first heard the songs of Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and the rest of that crew. Those songs spoke to me—and they still do.”
Doug’s music flows from that tradition--from his earliest songs about civil and human rights (“Make Those Waters Part” and “Anatoly”) to later songs celebrating freedom (“Prague Swing”) and decrying food insecurity (“Sing For Your Supper”), and finally to recent songs like “If They’d Been Black,” “Tip of the Spear,” “Reading Names (George Floyd)” and “Save Your Prayers.”
Doug’s musical interests range wide. He pleads guilty to being under the influence of the great lyricist Yip Harburg (“The Wizard of Oz,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Brother Can You Spare A Dime” and many others). You’ll hear that influence in songs like “Bumpers,” “Our Cardiac Condition,” and “Smitten.” Doug’s explanation? “I don’t hear the boundaries. A good song that tells a good story or makes a good point—call it folk music (I do), call it whatever you’d like.”
Doug’s songs are also personal—whether about love remembered (“Suite: Sweet Sycamore Street”), friends lost (“Pour Me Another Year”), the joy of grandparenthood discovered (“Who Knew” and “The Delicious Part”) or of being home at last (“Egremont”).
Doug has recorded two albums, “Woody’s Children” (1986) and “Climbing That Ladder” (2008). On the latter, Doug recorded Peter Yarrow’s “Sweet Survivor” accompanied by Peter, with whom Doug has performed. Yarrow wrote: “[T]his version of ‘Sweet Survivor’ …is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard. I’m most proud to have recorded it with him.”