Potential New Boyfriend brings fresh versions of mid-1900s Western swing and country classics to the Twin Cities. PNB features Jaclyn Mack on lead vocals, backed up by fiddle, electric guitar, lap steel, and bass to create the unique sound of great Western swing and country bands from the 1930s to 1970s. Our grandparents grew up with these songs, but all ages will sing and dance along -- it's music that is intergenerational and irresistible. We are:
Nick Martin
Fiddle and band leader
Nick grew up playing classical violin and orchestral music, and majored in Music at Yale University. His first experience with traditional music was in Ireland, where he spent time before and during college. Nick is a lover of many fiddle styles -- bluegrass, Celtic, Western swing, jazz, and more -- and has studied with fiddle greats like Byron Berline, Michael Doucet, Zach Brock, Christian Howes, Matt Combs, Alex Hargreaves, and Katie McNally. Nick started Potential New Boyfriend to share with the Twin Cities his love of classic country and Western swing music, and has been delighted to find bandmates who are just as devoted.
Jaclyn Mack
Vocals
Jaclyn's love of music began earlier than her memory can recall. Growing up in a tight-knit group of sisters, Jaclyn's mother always had her children singing. Countless hours of singalong to Disney, country, oldies, Broadway, children's folk music, Irish tenors, opera… This life-long enthusiasm for incorporating music into everyday life is what naturally led to her choice of a career in musical theatre.
Today Jaclyn performs many musical genres -- Broadway, jazz, the Great American Songbook, American folk, Irish folk, golden country, classic rock, 50's and 60's pop/rock and roll, gospel, R&B/soul, and light opera. She trains vocally with MacPhail Center for Music, where she has garnered two vocal scholarships, and was selected as the sole vocalist for the 2022 MacPhail Concerto and Aria Concert live broadcast. Jaclyn has had the privilege of portraying Patsy Cline (a particular favorite of her beloved grandma Verna) numerous times on stage, in both theatre and reviews.
Patsy and many other country legends – Crystal Gayle, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Juice Newton, Conway Twitty, Hank Williams, Roy Rogers, Johnny Cash, the Carter Family and more – were commonplace names in Jaclyn's life growing up. She could not be more ecstatic to be performing the music of these legends with Potential New Boyfriend.
Matt Lange
Lap steel, banjo
Matt Lange started playing guitar at age 12, and a severe case of musical ADD has led him to continue adding instruments to his repertoire over the years, including mandolin, banjo and Irish bouzouki. With Potential New Boyfriend, Matt plays non-pedal steel guitar of the style popular in the 1940's and 50's, when Hawaian music and Western Swing were all the rage. He may occasionally strum a banjo if the mood strikes.
Tim Weaver
Electric guitar
Tim has played guitar since he was 12. In the last ten years or so he has gotten into playing country music, focusing in particular on rhythm guitar and even trying lap steel from time to time. In Potential New Boyfriend, Tim enjoys playing both kinds of music: from western swing to the country sounds of Nashville.
John Bergquist
Bass
John is a lifelong musician. He studied piano beginning at age seven, played trumpet in high school, college and U.S. Army & Minnesota National Guard bands, sang in church and high school and college choirs, and dabbled with guitar ever since the “folk craze” of the ’60s. He earned his degree in Music Theory from the University of Minnesota. He is self-taught on bass, aided by many fine instructional books and videos over the years. He first picked up the bass guitar upon buying a third-hand Hofner “Beatle bass” for $35 from a fellow Army bandsman in the ’70s. He now specializes in playing his U‑Bass™ short-scale semi-acoustic bass with several jamming and casual performing groups in the Twin Cities area that focus on bluegrass and related music. John is an anomaly: a traditionalist musician who plays a non-traditional instrument – although in a traditional style. He has been an avid collector of recorded music across many genres for decades (45s, LPs, cassettes, CDs, and mp3s as technology has evolved) and owns a personal music library of about two thousand albums.