Thirty plus years may not seem like such a long time in the life of a human being, a tree, or a folk song.  But in the fickle world of modern music, where pop stars shy of their 21st birthdays often see their careers dumped into oldies bins, thirty years is a very long time.

So as David Tamulevich and Michael Hough celebrate their 35th Anniversary as Mustard's Retreat, the same question seemed to burn among aspiring young performers and road-weary old folkies - why you guys? In searching for the answer, one word comes up again and again, the simple word "audience."

Everything Mustard's Retreat does on a stage is aimed at pleasing, moving and engaging their audience. Whether singing their own gentle love songs and vivid ballads, telling tall tales or offering treasures from America's vast traditional song bag, a Mustard's Retreat show always feels like it's designed for the people who have come to see them that day, in that coffeehouse, school, concert hall or festival. Audiences sense this from the moment David and Michael hit the stage, are drawn to it like hungry kids to Sunday supper and reward it the best way they know how. They come to see Mustard's Retreat again and again. And again.

Spike Barkin, who produces the prestigious Roots of American music Festival at New York City's Lincoln Center, wrote to thank them for their "folk from the heart," going on to say it seemed like David and Michael "take your living room on the road with you and invite people in as friends." David Siglin, of Ann Arbor's legendary Ark Coffeehouse, where Mustard's Retreat played their first songs together, said, "In order to last there has to be more than just talent - you have to enjoy playing, enjoy audiences and enjoy being in front of them. Audiences go to your shows because they know they will be entertained." Margie Rosenkranz, manager of the stalwart Eighth Step Coffeehouse in Albany, NY, said a Mustard's Retreat show "reminds us why we're doing this, pulls people together," adding that the duo transcends the vagaries of passing trends because they remain so "in tune with the audience."

"As much as we aim to entertain, we also look to educate," David Tamulevich said of the way Mustard's Retreat approaches audiences, "and hopefully enlighten and open some doors they maybe hadn't seen before. And ideally, to create a moment of community where everybody is sharing the same experience, the same idea, the same song. I mean, that's the only reason for me to be up there: we really want that connection to people."

In a folk world so peopled by somber, confessional songwriters, Mustard's Retreat are wonderfully unafraid to get silly with their audience, spinning out smartly goofy parodies, too-tall tales of wily rabbits and stupid frogs, hard-traveling cadavers and marauding techno-nerds. Whether performing for large festivals, tiny coffeehouses, at special shows for children or families, it clearly pleases them to please their audiences.

In their serious songwriting, that desire to connect with listeners is as evident as it is in their robust sing-along and witty ditties. The moments upon which they hang their songs are moments all of us have felt: hands held in the kitchen during a quiet moment of rekindled love, the careless remark that reveals too much about a relationship withering from inattention, the hectic symphony of a busy city street, the timeless pleasure of gathering in shared song. And leave it to these guys to pen a glowing ode to the coffeehouse volunteers whose enthusiasm keeps the folk embers glowing. "I work with them several times a year and always wish it was more." Said Canadian songwriter Garnet Rogers, among the most popular performers on the folk circuit. "The thing that always impresses me is the incredible openness they have with the audience. They stand up there and just radiate friendliness; the audience is included in the whole process, encouraged to sing along and talk back. I've learned a lot from them in that sense."

"They are so warm and friendly and giving on stage, completely in touch with the audience," said Tom Paxton, a folk music star for nearly 40 years. "There are no barriers at all, and you just love to watch that and be part of it. But the thing that strikes me about them from Jump Street - and that makes it all work so well - is that their time is so tight. Michael is such a wonderful, simple bass player; his time is just flawless. And that's why two guys can move you musically the way they do - they have a gorgeous sense of time and tempo, a real musicality to what they do. They're nice guys on stage and entertaining as hell, but there's also music in them."

When considering why Mustard's Retreat has survived so long, it cannot be overlooked that they have benefited from very good management. David is the Tamulevich of Drake &Associates/Tamulevich Artist Management, the most influential and respected folk music talent agency in the country. They represent many of the brightest stars in folk-dom, including John Gorka, Greg Brown, Richie Havens, Janis Ian, ;Leon Redbone, Elliis Paul & Vance Gilbert, among others.

Another reason for Mustard's Retreat's longevity is a weird, almost mystical way Michael and David seem to lead parallel lives; falling in love and marrying their wives around the same time, settling into careers outside the group around the same time (Hough is a gifted commercial photographer who runs a busy Ann Arbor studio with his wife.)

Michael and David met in 1974, in the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they had attended the University of Michigan. Both were a little reluctant to see the collegiate part of their lives end, both feeling some nagging notion it was time to grow up and settle down, both resisting these unpleasant thoughts by spending as many idle hours as possible plunking guitars and singing folk songs with their friends.
It is revealing that both were first drawn to folk by the social nature of the music; Michael through his family - both his father and older brother were folk fans- and David through a high school study-group trip to England. For the first time, he saw people passing guitars around, sharing songs, and was immediately drawn to the community that created.

They met in 1974, both working as cooks in the Brown Jug café. "David and I were a pretty good team in the kitchen, even before we had music in common," Michael Hough recalled.

"You see Michael's eyes and face when he sings," said David, "and you know he just loves to be on stage. He's like a big kid up there in a lot of ways, he really emanates that. And I tend to be a little more serious; there's a yin and yang, a flow to what we do together. He'll do sillier things, which usually gets me doing sillier thing, too. We're very different, but it's just obvious we really like singing together and bringing things out in each other. There's a chemistry that's worked from the first time we sang together."

That was at a 1974 open mike at the Ark coffeehouse in Ann Arbor. Once they discovered their shared love of folk music, they worked up three songs and took them to the club. They were immediately asked back for a showcase night, and within a couple of months were the "house band" at a local bookstore. Within a year, they were gigging full time at pubs, colleges, concerts and coffeehouses. The group's name does not come from a historical event or old fiddle tune, as is often believed, but from a musical chum named Nancy Mustard, who taught David a guitar slide, around which he wrote an instrumental called "Mustard's Retreat".

In 1980, they both settled into family lives and other careers, but audiences simply would not let Mustard's Retreat, er, retreat. They also began playing more children's and family shows. "When we do kids' shows," said David, "we never do stuff that plays down to their intellect. Our kids' shows really aren't that different from the adult shows. We don't assume we have to dumb it down for them, so the adults also seem to enjoy it. The kids see that we're not singing down to them, and I think they appreciate that.

Through the years, they have released six records, including an often hilarious live CD called "5 Miles or 50,000 Years," and a warmly reflective set of original songs called "Wind and the Crickets," which offers convincing proof of Tom Paxton's thesis that their stage antics work because they have the musical chops to go with them.

Roger, who produced "Wind and the Crickets", said, "Their music is community music. It comes from our common roots and traditions, pays tribute to those roots and expands on them. It is music that speaks to people's hearts and lives and binds them together as an audience. One watches couples react to the songs, the shared laugh. the sidelong glance and smile of recognition: "This song is about us! Nobody is just a spectator with Mustard's Retreat. Everybody is part of the show, and that is the exact definition of folk music for me, that inclusiveness, that notion that this music is for everybody."

Their newest release, " A Resolution of Something" ( 2003) is already garnering rave reviews, with people consistently calling it their finest collection of songs/recording to date.

And in the end, it is those audiences who hold the keys to Mustard's Retreat's long success, audiences who have made this group's music part of their everyday lives. As Spike Barkin said after seeing them at Lincoln Center, "At home with Mustard's Retreat is perhaps the best way to summarize the experience of seeing them live…go see them and make hundreds of new friends."