The Barefoot Truth: Students Raise Over $1,500 for Arts Council

Here's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the Barefoot Truth: two students raised over $1,500 for the Greater Hartford Arts Council with their silent auction/concert held at the Loft at on Friday evening.

Seniors Gabby D’Aleo and Kate Mooney (fresh off her GMHS field hockey team’s ) hosted “Keeping the Arts Alive,” a benefit consisting of a silent auction, featuring pieces donated from local artists and high school students, and a concert by Barefoot Truth, a popular band described as a “roots-rock-funky-folk machine” out of Mystic. All of the proceeds from the silent auction's winning bids and the concert's ticket sales were donated.

The event, which was organized for D’Aleo’s and Mooney’s senior project class at the high school, was near and dear to both girls’ hearts, as D’Aleo is a burgeoning artist, and Mooney loves music.

“It’s pretty cool because I want to go to school for art and it’s important to me to give money to [the Greater Hartford Arts Council] to keep art in school,” D’Aleo said. “It’s actually turned out better than I thought it was going to. I went around and asked for pieces, but I didn’t think I would get as many pieces as we did.”

Mooney said that the trepidation surrounding the event wasn’t just focused on the silent auction.

“Initially, the concert tickets didn’t sell that well at the beginning,” Mooney said. “There was only a few sold about a week ago and then all of a sudden, people started buying and [the event] will probably be sold out.”

Indeed, over 100 people turned out to see Barefoot Truth, which, according to its press kit, has had over 7 million spins on the music website Pandora, earning it the distinction of being “The biggest band you’ve never heard of.”

“We love playing places that are different than the standard clubs, and this is beautiful,” Barefoot Truth guitarist Jay Driscoll said.

Driscoll said that people can see the natural progression and evolution of the band, founded by Driscoll and lead singer Will Evans in 2004, by listening to its four full albums.

Originally an acoustic duo in “Changes of the Weather,” Barefoot Truth has now grown to five members, including Driscoll, Evans, John Waynelovich on piano, Andy Wrba on upright bass, and Garrett Duffy on harmonica.

“Throughout the next several albums we’ve now become this five-man group with influences from all kinds of music: jazz, folk, hip hop and reggae,” Driscoll said. “It’s been exciting seeing what the band has created and how the sound has developed.”

Needless to say, it was quite a coup for the girls to secure Barefoot Truth as the featured band.

“We had some fans that were interested in having us come and promote their fundraiser,” Driscoll said. “We’re excited that they wanted us to be a part of this. It’s really cool when people own a place like this and are open to doing cool events.”

The cool event isn’t necessarily over. Anyone still interested in donating to the Greater Hartford Arts Council vis a vis the girls’ senior project can do so by contacting Jennifer Mooney at jsmooney@cox.net.