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TESTIMONIALS

Tom Lehrer:

• Rhymes that rhyme! I love your material, and if I were still performing, I'd steal it!

Tom Paxton:

• When it comes to being funny, I think I've spent the first thirty years trying to be as funny as Tom Lehrer and the last part will be trying to be as funny as the Berrymans. They don't come any funnier than that.

Pete Seeger:

• Lou & Peter Berryman! Long may they wave! Their song "A Chat with your Mother" is one of the great American folksongs of the 20th century.

Christine Lavin:

• Lou & Peter Berryman are the funniest thing on four legs and brilliant songwriters.

Matt Watroba, Sing Out! Magazine:

• Every new recording is full of material that stretches and explodes with original ideas and fresh musical wordplay. It is that distinctive mosaic of melody and lyric that keeps their fans hanging on every line and sometimes every word.

Scott Alarik, The Boston Globe:

• Wisconsin songwriters Lou and Peter Berryman do to Midwestern sensibilities what Christine Lavin does to stressful New York, and what Tom Lehrer so long ago did to the intellectual pomposities of Cambridge: hoist the norms of everyday culture hilariously on their own petards. Their satires are at once bitingly funny and endearing, wildly absurdist and vividly human. They have the rare ability to make us simultaneously laugh at and care about the people they lampoon.

The San Francisco Bay Chronicle:

• Once in a while a song comes along that so successfully crystallizes familiar thoughts that you feel you could have written it yourself...Alot of people feel that way about [Lou & Peter's] "Why Am I Painting the Living Room"

Victoria Times Colonist:

• Quirky, wry, ironic humor. Peter's highly literate lyrics and skewed perspective are unique. When enhanced by Lou's soundscapes, the duo makes magic. By the time the Berrymans encored with their wistful, fumbling love song "We Strolled On the Beach" I was in love too. I'm a fan of this clever duo now.

Grassroots Concerts, Brainerd, MN:

• Peter and Lou Berryman just have to be the funnybones of the Midwest. Public radio listeners know that this Madison-based duo is pure entertainment. Their huge bag of comic music is filled with gems sung daily by dozens of well-known entertainers, but never done better than by themselves. CHRONIC LAUGHTER ALERT: persons with recent rib injuries should wear their braces or prepare to leave the show early.

10# Fiddle, Lansing, MI:

• Their songs and performances are unfailingly wacky, and just as dependably 100% right. No one writes songs like Peter and Lou, but everyone recognizes the truth and the clear vision behind them .

Folklore Society of Greater Washington:

• Folkdom's favorite funny folks...

The Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, CA:

• This once-married duo from the upper midwest is among the most entertaining acts we've ever had at the Freight. Their songs are crafted from often unpromising raw material (sports headlines, mother love, state pride) but invariably as the lyrics unroll the audience begins to roll on the floor...

Art Wojtowicz, musicHound Folk; The Essential Album Guide:

• The professional accomplishments of Lou and Peter Berryman are numerous, not the least of which is continuing to produce original, highly creative music following their divorce in 1974...the musical chemistry only gets better with time. The Berrymans offer refreshing observations on the human condition in a style blending folk music with musical comedy. And they manage to translate it all into hilarious songs that have become folk classics, including "Double Yodel," "A Chat with your Mother," "Your State's Name Here," and "Cow Imagination." The humor draws on Lou's gifts as a melody writer, accordion player, and vocal comedienne, as well as Peter's guitar and vocal skills and extraordinary lyric writing... Few can resist laughing out loud by the middle of the second song; this stuff grows on you... These two delightfully twisted imaginations continue in full bloom..."

Mike Agranoff, The Folk Project, Morristown, NJ:

• Peter & Lou Berryman, when first introduced to us through the singing of Michael Cooney, might have been considered a sort of clever novelty act. They wrote and sang their own songs, mostly humorous, Peter on 12 string guitar and Lou on accordion on a pogo stick. Now, however, looking at over a decade of producing more maturing, sophisticated and wickedly funny material, they have obviously achieved a classic level of comedic songwriting in the ranks of Tom Lehrer or Flanders & Swann. Responsible for such gems as "A Chat with your Mother" (the "F"-word song), "The Speculator", "Why Am I Painting the Living Room?" and dozens more, they have identified the exact point where the English language meets the funny bone, with a special flair for songs in which two voices singing entirely different things somehow manage to mesh into one cacophonic, yet clear, message.

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