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Q: You do not appear to be girls.
A: That's not a question.
(But we'll tell you the story anyway)
In early 2004, Tom was acting in a play. One day
backstage
the girls in the show were discussing feminine things.
They didn't pay
Tom no nevermind. He was just one of the girls. Meanwhile, Tom
and his brother Al wanted to put together a band for St. Patrick's Day
2004. So they did. But they needed more than a banjo. They contacted Tripp. Trish, one of
the girls in Tom's play, was Tripp's fiancee (now wife). Tripp was one
of the girls too. A week before St. Patrick's Day, Sean, who was in a play that Tom was assistant directing, asked to join the band. Are you
following? Being that Sean was the youngest sibling of several sisters,
and given the above-documented "invisibility in the presence of girls"
of the other band members, One of the Girls was born just before St.
Patrick's Day 2004. Then Mike got married and moved back to Vermont, but not before he helped us record and mix our second album, Blueirishfolkgrass (2010). Tripp then left for California to pursue a PhD in being a Reverend Holy Pants. Jacques then joined us on the mandolin and fiddle. Some time later, Dan joined us on keyboard after recording our first album. (Are you following all this? There will be a quiz later.) Sometimes, on a foggy March night in Chicago, you can still see all seven of One of the Girls singing Irish tunes at your local watering hole. It's downright spooky. |
Biographies
lead vocals Tom
grew up listening to his mother's old Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem
records. From the musically talented German-American clan of
Schorsch, Tom is somehow more than half Irish. Trained as an actor on
the stages of Chicago and at the British American Drama Academy at
Oxford University, Tom has sung to himself, to musical theatre
audiences, and in von Trapp--I mean Schorsch--family gatherings.
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guitar, vocals Sean Michael Francis carries
the patronym of his fathers before him; the O’Sullivans were a proud
and distal mob, carousing the so’westerly shoals of the Emerald Isle.
‘Til fortune came, and they paid their dues on the ships to America,
seeking newer and loftier horizons. Their long legacy, frought with
toil and strife, has culminated to this moment: the sole bearer of the
Sullivan/Riley patronym (the youngest of four, and the only boy), an
actor and stagehand, playing guitar and singing in a 21st century folk band.
God bless America. Sean has appeared on NBC's Chicago Fire and A&E's The Beast, has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for his stage acting, and played the role of Johnny Cash in the musical sensation Million Dollar Quartet. |
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Al Schorsch
A founding member of One of the Girls, Al returned to the band in 2011 with his amazing claw-hammer banjo skills. banjo He currently plays solo under the name Al Scorch. Here's what soapboxchicago.com has to say about Al: Al Scorch has got some firebreathing fingers, and he's not afraid to use them. There is something captivating, earnest and honest about the way he shreds his banjo, eyes squeezed tight, drenched in sweat, hollerin' with smoke rising from his banjo's backside. He plays every show like it is his last, and that fierce energy creates an undeniable spirit that his audience can feel as well as hear. |
Roger
Sherman
bass, vocals Fed up with
political corruption and expensive auto registration, Roger moved from
Vermont to Chicago several years ago. He found himself under a powerful Voodoo
spell, most likely woven by some mandolin playing baptist minister with
a beard, glasses, and a wife named Trish. Now, against his will,
he responds to the phrase "Hey, you're one of the girls, aren't you?"
As a bass player, Roger has shared the stage with the likes of Dave Brubeck, Victor Wooten, The Chicago Bluegrass Band, The Hen House Prowlers, The Sons Of Susan, and the Night Watchmen of the Lake View Lounge fame.
Always up for another set, another tune, or another Guinness, Roger is a fundamental part of the arrangement process in One Of The Girls. On top of being a musician, he also considers himself a writer and lover of plants. His head spins around 360 degrees when he plays and he speaks in an evil tounge not spoken on this earth for thousands of years. Muhahaha!
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Photo © Lost in Concert Jacques René
fiddle, mandolin, vocals We don't know where Jacques came from. He wandered into an OotG practice one stormy night, carrying a blackened fiddle and an ancient lute, and he's been with us ever since. Some say he and his sister learned to play fiddle and mandolin after being kidnapped from home by a band of boxcar-riding carnies. Some say the only reason he can play at all is because he stole Jimmy Page's pick while the guitar god was rock-napping. Some say he was a Marine and travelled the world, while some say he has played the Grand Ol' Opry on moonshine. Some say he's French. Some say he's Chinese. Some say his nail clippings are considered currency in the mountains of Cambodia. Some say that Tolkien had never even written a word about "Tom Bombadil" before meeting Jacques. No one really knows....at one point, fact became rumor, rumor became tall tale, tall tale became legend, and legend became myth. Whoever he is and wherever he came from, one thing is for sure -- he's one of the girls. |
Dan Sherer
keyboard Dan is happy to play with One of the Girls. He first worked with us as a sound engineer on our first album, A Streetcorner Summer. Now he plays keyboard for One of the Girls and Saved by the Belvedere. He has a lovely wife and son.
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Tripp Hudgins
Tripp has sung professionally with His Majesty's Clerks, Chicago Choral Artists, The Schola Cantorum of St Peter as well as other Chicago area churches. He appears on more than a dozen professional recordings. He plays mandolin (and the related Celtic bouzouki and tenor banjo) and guitar. His vocal experience covers a wide swath from the Gregorian to jazz, classical, the Irish and back again. Tripp
is married to Trish (a bay area actor) and is an American Baptist pastor. He is a happy man. He currently serves as the associate pastor of First Baptist Church Palo Alto. He likes to perform impromptu baptisms on unsuspecting
pedestrians.mandolin, vocals (West Coast) (Oh, and he has a blog. Check it out.)
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Michael Scott Duplessis
Mike
was born on
the top of a hill on the shore of Lake Champlain. Soon
thereafter, he moved to the top of a hill nestled in a
valley of the Green Mountains. As a teenager, he began
reading "Sassy," "YM" and "Seventeen" to learn more about
the secrets of the fair sex, but instead just became one of
the girls, years before he officially became one of One of the
Girls. At age fourteen, one of Mike's father's high school
friends told Mike that the way to get girls was not to be one
of the girls, but was by being a musician. Inspired by this
middle-aged janitor/rock drummer, Mike picked up the guitar
and began to rock. After being paid for a gig five years ago
not with money, but instead with an accordion, he decided that
the accordion player would replace the lead guitarist as the
new millenium's rock and roll sex symbol. Since the midwest
is America's accordion heartland, Mike moved to Chicago,
joined OOTG, and lived happily ever after. accordion (East Coast) Mike has played at many Chicago venues including The House of Blues, Martyr's, Kinetic Playground and The Hideout. In former bands he has shared the stage with acts such as Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Crash Test Dummies, Dale Watson, Mike Gordon and many others. Michael is a multi-instrumentalist who has played guitar, bass, piano and accordion in various styles from Americana to hardcore to ska. |
All photos* on this page by 
*Except photos of Al, Dan, and Jacques, which were taken by someone else.
Photo of Jacques by Brendan Shanley ( @lostinprint )