COYLE — Wolff Bowden and Amanda Birdsall met one night at a party in Florida, following a Buddhist ritual.
Around a backyard fire pit, a group of friends wrote, on slips of paper, wishes to burn. The idea was that they would go up in smoke, be lifted into the wind — and turn real.
After Bowden burned his wish, Birdsall arrived an hour later.
A songwriter like him, she was the muse he had been waiting for. And Birdsall, seeing a kindred spirit, recognized her own desire for a creative life.
So goes the story told by the duo, now known as the Winterlings, to play a 7:30 p.m. show at the Laurel B. Johnson Community Center this Saturday.
It’s another in the Concerts in the Woods series, so admission is by donation and all ages are welcome.
Not long after they found each other, Birdsall and Bowden sold their cars on eBay, bought a banged-up van and drove to Oregon where they knew not a soul.
They rented a small apartment next to a large forest and wrote the songs for their first album, titled “On the Night You Were Born.” This record, released under the name of The Orphan Trains, supported a second trip to Oregon where Birdsall and Bowden wrote their next album, “The Animal Groom,” and became the Winterlings.
Since those Oregon days, they have moved to Port Angeles, lived there a while and then gone on to Seattle, where they sometimes play with a full band.
But Saturday night at the Laurel B. Johnson Community Center, it will be just the two Winterlings and their guitar, banjo, violin, foot percussion, harmonica and ukulele.
“I’m delighted to host them,” said presenter Norm Johnson, “as that sound of multiple instruments and two fine voices in harmony are exactly what I like best.”
Johnson, who created Coyle’s concert series, also makes a point of serving his audience coffee and cookies at intermission.
For directions to the community center at 923 Hazel Point Road, contact him at 360-765-3449 or johnson5485@msn.com. Information also awaits at www.CoyleConcerts.com.
To find out more about the Winterlings — and their future gigs including Port Angeles’ Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts from May 22-25 — visit www.Winterlings.com and www.JFFA.org.