Steve Brown ran away with the circus at the age of three, and earned his keep playing the celeste and the glockenspiel. He ran away from the circus at the age of twenty three and settled in Oakland, CA. After so many years playing small, delicate instruments for clowns and aerialistes, he decided to switch to the upright bass, which can also serve as a sea anchor in a squall if needed.

Sarah Gronquist started singing in her mother’s Methodist church choir in rural Western New York State.  The household piano was always well-supplied with sheet music and player piano rolls, and the family’s Edison cylinder phonograph fascinated her from an early age.  After moving to the Bay Area in 1989 to become a beatnik, she found a rich musical community with the Oakland Jazz Choir, the piano bar regulars at the Alley, and a tight group of Bay Area Real Book living room jam pals. The keyboard skills she honed on Barry Manilow tunes as a young girl transferred fairly painlessly to newer interests like musette and hot jazz accordion. 

Claudia Morgan was raised by fairies in the forests of Lennox, Massachusetts. Without any properly sized instruments at her disposal, she soon became adept at playing music on whatever came to hand. It is a little known fact that Claudia is a virtuoso tin can player, and can improvise over ‘Die Fledermaus’ on any assorted array of glass bottles, given a few moments to prepare.

Sean Kelly’s family made sure he went to school every day, but he found it more profitable to spend his time in pool halls learning to make trick shots for paper. A clever lad, he soon began hanging around the musicians, and could play ‘Mustang Sally’ in any key on the banjo by the time he completed high school. These skills have come in handy when the Au Contraires go on tour and unexpectedly need more funding.