Vance Gilbert’s BaD Dog Buffet. How is it possibly wry, aching, hysterical, stunningly sung, consummately played, evocative, provocative, and fun all at once? Because that’d be Vance Gilbert. Featuring help from an immensely varied list of guest performers including Celtic Music harpist and singer Aine Minogue, Bluegrass stars Darol Anger and Joe Walsh Jr., Jazz saxophonist Grace Kelly, Country Rocker Roy Sludge, and all around guitarist Kevin Barry, this talented man’s truth and talent is splayed out shamelessly over BaD Dog Buffet. BaD Dog Buffet is a fully fan funded release that has received raves based solely on the material folks knew would be on it! The wry, life-loving capitulation of GOD BLESS EVERYONE, the seething but rocking NOTHING FROM YOU, the tongue-firmly-in-cheek-happy break-up musical number OUT THE WAY WE CAME IN - all consummate in their own way. FIRST RING, on banjo no less, is a love story rooted in folk whimsy, while KISS THE BAD BOYS rocks hard like Bootsy Collins and Bruce Springsteen shared the studio for the afternoon. FOR EVELYNE tells a too-busy photographer’s tale like the best of Richard Thompson’s work. HOLIDAY EMPLOYMENT, well, let’s just say it’s the holiday tune you’ve always wanted to hear, sung by a drunken reindeer, while the following GARDEN IN WINTER is a mesmerizing robbery gone wrong tone poem. DECEMBER 3RD is solo rock storytelling at it’s best. UNFAMILIAR MOON, Vance’s signature “hit” - the song that landed him in the second round of auditions of TV’s America’s Got Talent - is revisited on this release as a definitive pared down version with just Darol Anger on fiddle. SWEET POTATO DOVE is a jazz duo tour de force with Vance’s scatting and Grace Kelly’s sax possibly recalling a crazy fictional trio meeting of Kenny Burrell, Phil Woods, and Jon Hendricks. As for the live show, artists as varied as Arlo Guthrie, Anita Baker, and the late George Carlin have in recent years requested Vance to be added to their evenings. Vance Gilbert burst onto the singer/songwriter scene in the early 90's when the buzz spread through the folk clubs of the Northeast about an ex-multicultural arts teacher who was knocking them dead at open mics. Word got out about this Philadelphia-area born and raised performer, and Shawn Colvin invited Gilbert to be a special guest on her 1992 Fat City tour. Gilbert took audiences across North America by storm. "With the voice of an angel, the wit of a devil, and the guitar playing of a god, it was enough to earn him that rarity: an encore for an opener" wrote the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in its review of a show from that tour. Gilbert's following three albums for the Rounder/Philo label - Edgewise (1994), Fugitives (1995), and Shaking Off Gravity (1998) - all found significant niches on NAC (New Adult Contemporary) and Non-Commercial A3 radio. These discs were followed by the self-released Somerville Live (2000), lionized by the Boston Globe as the disc "young songwriters should study the way law students cram for bar exams," and One Thru Fourteen (2002), a stylistically varied offering that New York's Town and Village called "lively, eclectic, electrifying and transcending." Gilbert followed with Side Of The Road (2003), a duo album with Ellis Paul, lauded as "haunting, artful, and lovely" by Boston Magazine and nominated for a 2004 Boston Music Award. Then came Unfamiliar Moon (2005). "The songwriter's most compelling work; literate, heartfelt, rippling…emotionally resonant songs" raved the Boston Globe, placing the album in its Top 10 CDs of the year (#4). On Angels, Castles, Covers (2006), "Gilbert's choice of an album of covers seems both fitting and fearless. …he displays his vocal virtuosity with some unexpected choices from the late 20th century songbook. From the sounds of Motown, through the R&B of Al Green to classic Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin…He makes each and every tune sound fresh and new," writes Roberta Schwartz of FAME. Gilbert then launched into a year and a half as support for George Carlin, leading up to the creation and recording of Up On Rockfield (2008), a landmark album noted for being written in the styles of some of his favorite songwriters. Of this disk Vintage Guitar proclaimed that “His fervor for composing is as powerful as a Colorado thunderstorm...accomplishing the seemingly impossible...Rockfield should be on your must hear list.” Old White Men, his tenth release, is a brave outing,the Boston Event Guide calling it “Brilliant..poignant lyricism”, Minor 7th saying he’s in “Complete command, provocative...I'm compelled to listen to over and over..Gilbert, you sing like an angel..is there anything you don’t do well?” And now BaD Dog Buffet tops this growing, glowing, and varied catalogue of one of the cornerstone acoustic artists of,uh, his own mind. And some other’s.