Info: Jonathan Pearthree

Subject: Jonathan Pearthree
From: frogprince
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 09:46 PM

Here goes the long-shot question of the year:
About 1972, this guy performed at a little coffeehouse in Chicago.(The Broken Wall). He appeared under the name Jonathan Pearthree. I was told he was a well known figure on at least the local folk scene, who wouldn't appear under his real name because we couldn't pay scale;
I never got around to asking the staff member who booked him who he really was. Is there any soul left alive who might actually have a clue?

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 02:19 PM

I'll betcha Art Thieme might know.

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 15 - 09:39 AM

There was a Jonathan Pearthree who played and was active for several years in the mid-1960's in the Baltimore, MD folk scene. I used to work at the Crack of Dawn Coffee House and he was one of our regular performers. Try contacting the Baltimore Folk Music society. Someone there might know something. Also, Bob Cadwalader, who owned the coffee house at the time was still in the Maryland area. A professional pilot, I last heard of him managing a small airport in, I think, Howard County, MD.

Hope this helps. Seems like we are talking about the same person.

Vic Morawski

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 15 - 10:30 PM

Jonathan moved to Los Angeles around 1985 or so... we have lost touch with him since then. Stuart and Carolyn Gordon may know more about his current ventures, they also live in Los Angels area.

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: Megan L
Date: 08 Nov 15 - 02:16 AM

thanks guest will point frogprince towards this thread again

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: frogprince
Date: 12 Nov 15 - 12:17 AM

I'm tryin' to believe that someone still came across this: ) Thanks, Vic, Guest, and Megan. It all comes out rather odd. As I mentioned, I was told the gent was performing under an assumed name. But I took it that he was a known reputable performer who would not have been apt to snitch someone's real name. I'm remembering a solidly built figure with a very full light or white mustache and a cowboy hat.

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Aug 16 - 05:54 PM

Jonathan grew up in a section of Baltimore called Bolton Hill, as did I, in the early to mid sixties. In the summer of1965 I started to teach myself guitar. Jonathan kindly took me under his wing and showed me things he knew, which helped me immeasurably in my early foray. He was a colorful figure on the local folk scene for awhile.

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 16 - 05:02 PM

I dated him a few times in the mid 60's, fresh outta high school and also working at the Crack of Dawn (and the several incarnations that preceded it in that basement). Sam Bass & I worked the kitchen on weekend nights and I waitressed at times. Yes, stocky build, solid looking, blond. He had a beautiful inlay on his guitar - a pear tree with three pears. Cowboy boots seem right.

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST,Michael Roper
Date: 25 Apr 18 - 11:09 AM

I worked with him in the 1980's at Rose Records. We wrote music for Chicago theater productions then. Went west to work on some film projects and is listed in the IMDB.

Subject: RE: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST,Jean Hess Keller
Date: 26 Jul 18 - 11:08 PM

A very talented and charismatic person. We knew him and his family in Baltimore in the 1950's and 60's. He is the brother of actress Pippa Pearthree. When I attended Maryland Institute in 1964 he was playing guitar downtown and I recall his byline at the time was something like "Old Magic Fingers is Back!" Surely he is still performing.

Subject: RE: Info: Jonathan Pearthree
From: GUEST,Gail Forsberg
Date: 16 Jun 24 - 10:09 AM

I was the administrator of the Old Town School of Folk Music then at
909 West Armitage Ave in Chicago. Jonathan was one of the musicians who hung out at the Old Town School of Folk Music and worked at the music store next to the Old Town School, The Old Town Folklore Center, then run by Emmy Revesz.
Jonathan and dated for a while during the time when Stuart Gordon's wonderful series of 'space' plays at the ??? Theater. Later we got into some bad dope. Afterward we found out a tainted load came into Chicago a few days prior. It was fairly scary.
Jonathan was a delightful guy, kind and funny and a good guitar player. To this moment, I never suspected that his beautiful name was not legit, only that it was one of the loveliest names I had ever known! Ahhh...romance!!!
Alas, I have no clue about his future beyond that time, although I THINK I would like to know the story ?? Best to all.

Subject: RE: Info: Jonathan Pearthree
From: cnd
Date: 16 Jun 24 - 04:08 PM

As the GUEST of 06 April 2015 and 14 August 2016, as well as Jean Hess Keller, recall, some quick searching on newspapers.com finds several hits in the Baltimore area, first at Gwynns Falls Junior High (in 1962). He remained in the area playing with St. Paul's episcopal church until at least 1968, however, there is a missing spot in the news record from 1969-1970 (inclusive) where he drops out of the public record. In 1971, he began working as a musician and composer for The Organic Theater Company, out of Chicago.

The first evidence of his involvement with the group was with Stuart Gordon's adaptation of Candide; a light-hearted, 'collegiate-humor' version that was widely panned for its protracted nature and light but unremarkable wit, but did have its proponents. The introductory scene apparently featured a troupe in clown's costume taking the stage and an audience-participation bit where balloons were released into the theater. Reviewer William Glover said the show was "performed to improbable music by Jonathan Pearthree" -- whatever that means.

After another 2 year hiatus, he reappears in public under another Stuart Gordon-led reinterpretation of a classic, Huck Finn. This one was released in 2 parts, once again by the Organic Theater Company, debuted in late 1975. This production was apparently markedly true-to-form (as opposed to the usual sanitization of the play), and for the work Pearthree created a "vivid" and "especially good" soundtrack. It re-ran as a single 3-hour setting a decade later, in 1985.

Pearthree was later called "the company's favorite composer" in a 1978 review of Night Feast, a reimagined telling of the Beowulf story. That set's score was said to be "marvelously eerie." However, his work a year later with the group's adaptation of "The Little Sister" was panned as "disastrously obtrusive."

By 1983, he was working at a Chicago record store (Rose Records, on S. Wabash Ave), where he was recalled as a particularly knowledgeable and dutiful clerk. However, he drops off the map in 1985.

As best as I can find, his full name is Jonathan Giles Pearthree. Born February 1948 to Walter and Verna Harvey Pearthree. As far as I've found, he is not presently deceased.