Since their marriage in April of 1989, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen have been traveling, performing and recording together. Their first album, "Live In Concert", recorded at The Ark in Ann Arbor, is available from their own company, Compass Rose Music, and was on many "10 Best" lists when it was released in 1991. A second duet album called "The Light of the Day" was named Top Folk Album of 1996 by Rich Warren (WFMT, Chicago) and Matt Watroba (WDET, Detroit). The couple's newest album, released in February of 2001, is called "A Sense of Place" (Redwing 5409), and is a portrait of New England in songs and tunes. Steve's latest collaboration is a quartet album with Cindy, Anne Hills, and Michael Smith, entitled "Fourtold" (Appleseed Records, 2003). The album is a collection of story-songs, new and old, sung in full four-part harmony, and has become a favorite of folk-radio programmers.

Steve Gillette is best known as a songwriter, with songs recorded by artists from Ian & Sylvia to Garth Brooks, from Jiminy Cricket to John Denver. His song Darcy Farrow alone has been recorded by more than one hundred artists since 1966, most recently by Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Nanci Griffith. Quite literally, he wrote the book on songwriting: Songwriting and the Creative Process (Sing Out Press) is a standard text in songwriting classes across the country. Steve sings in a rich baritone and is a virtuoso on guitar, using a unique fingerpicking style with a flat-pick and two fingers. His most recent solo recording is Texas and Tennessee (Redwing Music), named one of the Top Ten Folk Albums of 1998 by Tower Records' Pulse Magazine.

In addition to performing in 31 countries, Steve has performed on over 100 college campuses and has taught numerous workshops and seminars on songwriting, guitar theory, and record production. Steve's film credits include writing and singing the main title theme for M.G.M.'s The Outfit, Walt Disney's The Pond, The Grass Is Greener, Summer Run, and Door To Door. Steve has also written songs for the Walt Disney characters Jiminy Cricket, Dumbo, Rainbow Brite, and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Cindy Mangsen is also a songwriter, but her focus has been on songkeeping. Cindy is a master interpreter of traditional ballads, rich in myth and legend. She plays guitar, concertina, and banjo, and is renowned for her compelling voice, described by one critic as a voice that can warm a New England winter. Mangsen also performs and records with Anne Hills and Priscilla Herdman. Never Grow Old and Never Grow Up, duet albums by Mangsen and Hills, were two of the most significant traditional folk recordings of the ‘90s. Cindy's most recent solo album, Songs of Experience (Redwing Music), won the Editor's Choice award for Traditional Folk Music from Crossroads Magazine. Cindy began performing professionally in 1976 and can be heard singing harmony on many albums, including several of Tom Paxton's recordings.

Visit them at: http://www.compassrosemusic.com/