Janet McKetchnie came of age in Boston. Her earliest musical influences were the vaudeville and showtunes from her tap dancing classes and her mother’s old 78’s. When a fellow 5th-grader brought some Beatles albums to school, her world was forever changed! Soon after that she got her first guitar and started rushing home from school to watch Laura Weber’s Folk Guitar lessons on public television. At age 12 she gave up dancing for private guitar lessons and started playing everything she could get her hands on, from folk to pop to rock. Janet played in a folk group in high school, but for the most part remained a closet player over the years until she discovered SAMW (Summer Acoustic Music Week) in 2003. After that she began to play regularly with friends and to frequent open mics and song circles, and soon began writing songs and looking for opportunities to perform. Janet has hosted the open mic at the North Street Coffeehouse in Medfield for the last six years. 
Michael Kaufman grew up in Newton, MA, listening to
classical music on his parents’ stereo, and trying to learn some of it on piano and clarinet. In his early teenage
years, he brought a guitar to summer camp, and as he learned to play was
quickly drawn into the songs of the then emerging folk movement. By high school, his musical interests had expanded to rock and folk-rock,
entranced by what he was hearing on FM radio. At college in Missouri, Michael was lucky to be able to attend live
performances by James Taylor, Carole King, Doc Watson, Poco, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan,
and the Band, firming up his musical direction.
Since then, his guitar has always been resident in the corner of his living room, but only in the last dozen years did his music “take off,” when
he started playing out with others. Jamming in a weekly “basement band” led to his first summer
at SAMW. In addition to his 6-and 12-string guitars, Michael also plays mandolin and blues harmonica.
Michael and Janet met at WUMB's Summer Acoustic Music Week (SAMW) in 2008. They started playing together the following year, began co-writing songs, and discovered that their individual strengths complement each other well. In 2010, they joined together as a duo they named Finally Friday, and now perform at restaurants, open mics, farmers’ markets, and outdoor festivals.
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