About us
Mad Agnes is mad – but only in the most endearing way.
And if you ask them what they’re mad about…
Why, they’re mad about you.
Mad Agnes has won hearts on two continents with their signature intricate harmonies, compelling songwriting, and passionate delivery. The genre-bending trio—Margo Hennebach, Adrienne Jones and Mark Saunders—creates an exciting, inclusive performance, delivering new original songs, selections from their thirteen album catalog, story telling and impromptu vocal improv.
In their current iteration, Mad Agnes uses primarily one microphone around which they form and re-form, early-radio style. Their ease with one another on stage invites the audience into their world of human connection and spontaneous fun. Well-crafted instrumentation – using guitars, mandolin, ukulele, piano, melodica, an inventive keyboard and three-part harmonies as tight as jeans from the dryer – enthralls audiences again and again. Mad Agnes’ latest recording, Likely Story, was released on Feb. 1, 2024, and is being nationally promoted from Feb-April. It is available NOW BY CLICKING HERE.
In November, 2022, Mad Agnes was commissioned by the Frick Pittsburgh to write a song based on the exhibit, American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. To watch the music video, and hear how they wrote “Plum Tavern,” CLICK HERE.
Mad Agnes has performed internationally at listening rooms and festivals, including The Greenwich Village Folk Festival (on-line), The Kerrville Folk Festival (TX), Mountain Stage New Songs Festival (WV), The Birchmere (VA), The Frick Pittsburgh (PA), The Forksville Folk Festival, The Sellersville Theatre, Bethlehem Musikfest and Godfrey Daniels (PA), The Bitter End and the Towne Crier (NY), Old Settlers Inn (KS), WFMT’s Live Stage (IL), Cedarburg Cultural Center (WI), Sunrise Civic Center Theater (FL), University of Hartford and Cheney Hall (CT), The Ark (MI), and First nights Morristown (NJ), Northampton (MA), Worcester (MA), Cropredy Festival (England), Swanage Folk Festival (England) and Fylde Folk Festival (England), at private events and a gaggle of house concerts. Mad Agnes was also honored to be formal main stage artists at the SW-2007 and NE-2004 Regional Folk Alliance Conferences.
“If you’ve been struggling to find a link back to that addictive sound of progressive/alternative folk groups like Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention and Renaissance, listen up…Mad Agnes recreates with authenticity many of the musical qualities that adored us to those aforementioned groups. It’s definitely magic.” Robert Linquist, Singer Magazine
“Dazzling harmonies, superb arrangements, terrific instrumental virtuosity, brilliant original songs and fine treatments of other material… there really aren’t enough superlatives to describe one of the best evenings I’ve seen in the many years I have been involved in the Folk scene.” Folk on the Moor, Devon, UK
Margo Hennebach
Margo wrote songs in high school and at Oberlin Conservatory where she was a piano major. She went on to study Music Therapy at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where she fell in love with traditional and modern English and Irish music, especially Fairport Convention, Steeley Span, Maddy Prior and June Tabor.
Back in the US, she worked as a Music Therapist at in- and out-patient psychiatric facilities and finally at the pediatric oncology unit at Tomorrow’s Children’s Institute.
During this time, Margo, Adrienne and Paul formed Idle Rumours in response to an ad Adrienne placed in the Village Voice. Margo also became active in the Fast Folk scene in New York where she backed up artists such as Shawn Colvin, Rod MacDonald and Richard Shindell on piano, keyboards and vocals, and recorded original songs that are now part of the Smithsonian Folkways collection.
She went on to record three CDs on Prime CD and tour across the US before joining Adrienne and Diane Chodkowski in their trio, Madwoman in the Attic, and then Mad Agnes with Adrienne and Mark.
In the meantime, she became a Feldenkrais Practitioner in 2003, and in 2011, began a rigorous dive into vocal improvisation and Circle Singing with Bobby McFerrin and Rhiannon. She’s developed and led workshops and series—including Go Sing Yourself!—based on her love of singing that is free, easy and part of an everyday life.
Find Margo at www.margohennebach.com, teaching Feldenkrais, Voice, and singing the moment she first wakes up. Her SOLO CDs are available HERE.
PHOTO: Christopher T Saunders
Adrienne Jones
Actress, playwright, crafter, poet, Adrienne picked up the guitar in 1982 and never looked back. She combines self-taught fingerstyle artistry with a deep love of language to create songs both lyrical and edgy. She is the recipient of two MacDowell fellowships, and winner of several national songwriting competitions. Adrienne has an interesting relationship with sleep, and some of her songwriting process occurs during lucid dream states. She has three solo CDs of original material to her credit, and is busy dreaming up new contributions for the Mad Agnes CD currently in progress.
Adrienne, Margo, and Paul Kovit formed Idle Rumours, then went on to form Madwoman in the Attic with Diane and Margo, and finally Mad Agnes with Margo and Mark.
PHOTO: Christopher T Saunders
Mark Saunders
Mark graduated from the Hartford Conservatory, then spent many years playing in CT R&R bar bands…Clockwork from 1976-80, and the Motown band, The Riverside Drivers from 1981-85, to name two. You can find him on recordings from WWUH’s THE FOLK NEXT DOOR with Stephen Nystrup, Madwoman in the Attic, and Margo Hennebach. He played and recorded a number of years in the Stephen Nystrup Trio before touring with PrimeCD artist, Margo Hennebach. This led to them forming Mad Agnes with Adrienne.
His instruments include acoustic and electric & steel guitars, mandolin, and bass. He also has a home recording studio and is responsible for engineering the basic tracks for all the Mad Agnes audio & video productions, and he constructed this website.
Other interests include cooking, hiking, inventing and repurposing, The Work of Byron Katie, and serves on the Fair Rent Commission in his hometown.
PHOTO: Christopher T Saunders