About Us
Listen to Cielle On Solid Ground once, and you'll find yourself listening again and then again, the music settling into you.
Catherine Layton (CL)
Cielle (Catherine Layton) has been a part of the Ithaca music scene since her arrival in 1991. Playing guitar and writing from the age of 14, she began her lifelong path of creating real-life inspired songs. Her voice, performance, and highly original songs range from raucous blues to tender ballads, covering a range of topics including all aspects of relationships, joy, pain, war and peace, and speaking truth to power.
Her engaging rapport with the audience has garnered her a dedicated following in the Fingerlakes region. She makes solo appearances and she has her own backup band On Solid Ground.
Over the course of her varied musical career, she has performed all over the northeastern United States.
Joseph Rayle
Originally from North Carolina, Joseph played everything from Old Time to Americanna to full on Rock. In North Carolina, he played with Peace of Mind, 100th Monkey, the Porch Climbers, Laura Sylvestri, and the Debbie Elam band. Now in central New York, Joseph has been bringing his bass lines to bands such as Urban Horse Thieves, The Purple Valley, Answer The Muse, Autumn Sun, and Cielle on Solid Ground.
Joseph has a number of writing and recording credits to his name. For fun he rebuilds electric guitars and basses in addition to recording and producing in his home studio.
Curtis Kretz
Curtis began playing drums way back in the second grade. After completing a college career at Cornell University, Curtis returned to playing drums in the Ithaca, NY area for such artists/bands El Caminos, The Purple Valley, Answer The Muse, Urban Horse Thieves, The Blue & The Grey, Teachers Lounge, Regina O'Brien, and Mortal Combine.
Curtis has also played drums/percussion for other regional acts such as Loretta Hagen, Eric Bazilian, Marc Berger, and Jana Losey. When he is not providing the pulse for Cielle on Solid Ground you can also find him keeping the beat for local acts Autumn Sun and Scratched Vinyl. He plays Taye drums, Zildjian cymbals, and Meinl percussion.
Joe Smellow
Joe has been improvising music for over four decades - always picking up new instruments and sounds along the way. He is a multi-instrumentalist - from harmonicas to flutes to didgeridoo, guitar, piano, and the list goes on….
One song may find him playing an African thumb piano called an Mbira ( Kalimba), the next a Peruvian Pan pipe or Native American flute and the next a small wind blown finger piano called a Melodica. One never knows what will be drawn out from the magic tool kit of instruments he brings to each gig.
Johnny Driscoll
Johnny is from a long line of Ithacans and practices architecture out of a little office on the Commons. He has played guitar from an early age and is in several local bands. He brings a variety of styles and approaches in his playing reflecting a range of influences from blues and folk to early rock and roll and through the 70s and 80s power trio and jam band experiments to electronic music and contemporary jazz. His favorite thing to do though is to coax people out of their seats and rawk the house!