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“It’s the Music, It’s the Memory”
It’s KALEIDOSCOPE:
The Musicians of Door County
by Norbert Blei
Peninsula Pulse, Summer 2005
“It’s the music, it’s the memory Marked in time in the mind”
Another good sleepless night, thank god. Wide awake. Too much to read, listen to, think about, make notes in the comfort and confines of the house-of-many clocks, all ticking the wrong hour. Time and peace enough to head out in the dark to the coop, humming a Julian Hagen song, “Ain’t it funny how things change…” turn on the music, begin tapping the keys, stringing words and phrases with only the bright light of the computer screen to keep everything in perspective.
Four in the morning, reads the clock on my desk (ten minutes fast). Close enough. My ears tuning-in to the haunting sounds on this new, ‘home-grown’ Door County CD, “Kaleidoscope,” …mulling over some of the many good lines on this disc that light up the dark, that stay with me--like the lines from the song, “Thought Passing Through”, (It’s the music ,it’s the memory) sung by Mark Raddatz, lyrics by Mark and Pete Thelen--co-producer, with Hans Christian, of this gem of a CD. The best gathering of Door County musicians since John Nelson put together, produced THE DOOR COUNTY SAMPLER, circa 1994 and long overdue.
‘Kaleidoscopic’” indeed: “Constantly changing patterns.” One way of looking at it when it comes to experiencing the shifting patterns, the variety of musical talent to be found on our fair peninsula at this point in time: Summer/fall, 2005. Who we are now, and what do we have to say about it all in music and song?
The ‘local’ music, for sure, has always been here. Going back to church music, to the old timers in the county, men and women who made their own music, some their own instruments—like the late, great Fredie Kodanko and his homemade ‘Polkacello,’--his one-man concerts at the bar of the A.C.Tap. Locals who sang danced in their kitchens on Saturday night, like my old neighbor/friend, the late Charley Root. Gust Klenke, too, legendary garage-man, beekeeper, rural Zen-master of Ellison Bay (whom local poet Ralph Murre contends spoke owl). Gust, who was known to have played a hot fiddle in his time—which he suddenly, inexplicably stopped playing one day, and sadly hung fiddle and bow above his cash register in the old garage to gather dust, the smell of gas, oil and grease after being accused of encouraging immoral behavior. Making the Baptists dance.
Yes, the music has always been here but always in a state of flux, often hard to find deep in the Door woodwork. Musicians come and go. Yet it’s my contention that in the past few years, the grass roots (the rock-bottom Door-County earth?) folk music scene--encompassing pure folk, rhythm & blues, folk-rock, country/western, you-name-it--is one of the strongest, but least recognized/appreciated, strains of what passes for Door County Culture. We owe our musicians more. They deserve better. “Kaleidoscope” testifies to the strength of the singers, songwriters, and musicians among us to be honored and celebrated.
Let me name the names on this first Pete Thelen and Hans Christian production: the late Fred Alley, Chris Alley, Jeanne Kuhns, Kim Waters, Hans Christian, Mark Raddatz, Jay Whitney, Lucy Hagen, Don Thompson, Pete Thelen, and Julian Hagen.
Back-up musicians of enormous talent include: Pat Judy, Paul Sowinski, Mike King, James Kaplan, Alice Peacock, Chris Irwin, Dan Hansen, Jody Wuollett, Rich Higdon, to name but a few.
Lucky, too, musicians and listeners, for the genius of Door County soundman/musician, Hans Christian (of Allemande Music and state-of-the-arts sound studio in Sister Bay), his stunning artistry, ear for sound, grasp of ‘the bigger picture’ so evident throughout this disk, as time and again Hans works his magic of mixing and matching, enters a song himself so unobtrusively, so ‘kaleidoscopically’ with his exquisite playing of those old-worldly, profound instruments: cello, nyckelharpa, upright bass, harmonium, and the modern keyboard. He closes this CD by the way, instrumentally, brings it full circle to his partner, Kim Water’s opening Irish air, melding in a sense her lilting voice with a masterful rendition of a classic melody, “The Water Is Wide”, his sonorous string work vibrating one’s very bones, bringing us all home to Door, where the water indeed is wide.
Listening to all this—the beautiful, angel-voice of Kim Waters on the opening cut, as she gives sound and meaning, veritable Celtic divinations, to one of Pete Thelen's best songs, “The Dress”. Listening to Pete’s lyrics, that old, old story, cross-cultural, of a wedding dress made “with needle and thread, buttons and bows”…Kim’s voice capturing the poignancy of the moment, and then that haunting refrain: “It starts all over again/It start’s all over again…” you realize from this very first cut on the album that Time is the theme of much of the music on this album. Those passages of time we all must navigate. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons; love found and love lost; and that old dark shadow of death, hovering around us on the sunniest of days.
Which makes the wonderful, sadly missed, and surprising voice of Fred Alley all the more poignant, coming out of nowhere, filling the air on the very next cut following Kim, as Fred sings (alas, ever so briefly) one of his beautiful and little known songs, “I know Where I’m Going.” For those who knew him and loved him, just hearing his voice again brings a lump to the throat. It’s like he never left. Fred’s in the room again. Right here among us. That big, boyish smile. That generous heart. That music-making soul that filled the county with such amazing grace.
All this talk of shadow and loss in song is caught, shaped, expressed once again on this recording by Jay Whitney, our incomparable Door County blues-guitar man (the only white guy on the peninsula with a voice as rich as a south-side Chicago black bluesman in a Saturday night bar). You just gotta hear Jay sing and play the song he wrote over the death of his mom: “How can I say goodbye/When there’s still so much left to do”
Which sets me thinking again about all the music I’ve been fortunate enough to hear in Door through the years, especially the past ten. “It’s the music, it’s the memory” ---for sure . And, yeah, “Marked in time… in the mind”…
Trying to get this all down, one more and one last time (my swan song with this publication), all that needs to be said about this CD, the Door County musicians who have been too invisible in the county’s cultural landscape, far too long. A first attempt of mine goes back a few years ago, in a newspaper profile on Mark Raddatz: Singin’ Solo” which eventually became a chapter in WINTER BOOK, published in 2002--my first serious take on the Door music scene. This now my second, and probably last, as I try to remember it all, all the musicians, all the big and little concerts from bars, barns, and coffeehouses to auditoriums …waiting for the darkness to lift, the sun to come pouring through the east window of the coop…marked in time in the mind…
Through the years, music in Door County has always meant the Peninsula Music Festival held every August at the Door Community Auditorium in Fish Creek. The 53rd season this year. A Door County tradition. Maestro Victor Yampolsky, the music director and conductor. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and the boys at play on the peninsula, alive in the hands, hearts, minds of some of the country’s finest musicians. Not exactly the Santa Fe Opera or Tanglewood—but ours. Located right here between the waters of Lake Michigan and Green Bay, where we want to be. People travel considerable distance every year to hear this historic fest.
Still others return anxiously every summer to attend Door County’s summer music school and concerts at Birch Creek (Music Performance Center) in Egg Harbor. The year 2005 is their 30th anniversary. From June through mid-August every summer, music in the concert barn: symphony, percussion and steel band, jazz and big bands.
There’s the Midsummer’s Music Festival, too: featuring chamber music, piano, winds, and strings, concerts held in a variety of settings throughout the peninsula.
And there’s church concerts and park concerts…concerts a-plenty featuring all this good and usually ‘heady’ stuff, and we all (locals and tourists alike) pretty much know where and when to go find it. But do you catch my drift?
What coffeehouse can you catch Lucy Hagen playing, and when? What backroom bar might be filled with the explosive sounds of Jay Whitney and Big Mouth? Or is he off-the-peninsula again this week, trying to make a buck in Green Bay? Milwaukee? Chicago? Detroit? What’s the name of that bakery where Jeanne Kuhns plays sometimes? And doesn’t she appear somewhere in Algoma too? What restaurant (outdoors) might feature our populist/proletariat ‘singer/poet, love and protest songwriter, Mark Raddatz? D’Amico’s? The Viking? (If it doesn’t rain). And possibly, if you’re lucky, you can catch Julian (Hagan) on the Island sometime--or some summer Sunday night at Dave Ellmann’s barn (“FISHSTOCK”) in Fish Creek. (But if you’re a tourist who never leaves the main highway: Where the hell is Maple Grove & Hwy F?) Word has it Pete’s at the Pen Pub with his friend Mike King and the whole Blues Today Chicago bunch. WHAT??? WHO??? WHERE??? What language are you talking, man? By the way, anybody seen Chris Alley lately? Or where one might go to hear that mystery musician/songwriter play?
As my friend, artist Emmett Johns likes to repeat whenever he’s involved in deep, animated discussions: “Do you hear what I’m saying?” (pause) “Do you hear what I’m saying?” (pause). “Do your hear…”
This is about the “other music” on the peninsula. Those “other musicians”. The populist subculture, if you will. Those in the Door County grain you (tourists especially) don’t always hear much about but sense are part of the cultural scene as well, if only one could find them in the woodwork.
Working class folks, some of whom probably could never afford a ticket to the Peninsula Music Festival, even if they were dying to hear a symphony by Sibelius or a concert featuring the pianist Lilya Ziberstein.
There’s just no fixed location to hear any of these folks, which is a big part of their exposure problem. No organization to support them or market the higher profile they need to publicize their presence on the peninsula. There’s almost nowhere the summer tourists can go and expect to hear the ‘local talent’ on a regular basis.
And it’s a damn shame that, except for our sorely missed Terry Meyer, whoever inhabits the managerial-musical-chair at the Door County Community Auditorium never seems to have interest, desire, or room on the schedule to feature a summer concert evening of our local musicians. It would be a great showcase for them. Good for the community. And a memorable experience for the summer visitors. That ought to be a given. One night. July or August, every summer! A chance for the outsiders to know our home-grown musicians who have no community auditorium, no Birch Creek Center, no nothing but themselves, their music, their ability to entertain and sing the human condition.
The musicians, the county, the summer visitors deserve an annual, legitimate Folk Music Fest, here in the land where Fests (instant tradition) are created overnight to fill the tourists curiosity and the local coffers. (The Outhouse Fest?)
Everything’s on the fly, on the run with ‘our musician folks.’ There’s no one, no single entity to coordinate all they need coordinated to present themselves. Perhaps a plus factor to some extent, but not when you might need to stay centered awhile to reach more of the summer people who just might be looking for all that you have to offer. Yes, it’s an on-the-road existence, an amorphous bunch of talent, given the very nature of their music. Here, there, and everywhere. The very lifestyle, however, from which their music informs us. I’m reminded of the question:” What do you call a musician without a girlfriend?” Answer: “ Homeless.”
There’s a little of that to their condition too—which, indeed, is a large part of musical oversoul. We’re talking ‘the people’ here. The ones without cocktail party benefits to keep them afloat, without deep-pocket, corporate summer visitors and residents.. (In fact, “our folks” are more likely to be the musicians freely called upon to DO benefits for one cause or another. Which they readily do) Real people, singing and playing real music, most of whom live and work here throughout the year. Yet somewhat “homeless” in a musical sense. And when I say ‘work here” I don’t mean ‘just’ play music.
Singer songwriter, musician, Julian Hagen runs a gravel pit on Washington Island, does some business of taking down old log houses in one part of the county, and re-assembling them for city folks/buyers (who have taste for the real) in another, may even do a little real estate at times, and as I recall from a story he regaled me with one night at the A.C., has been known to run Christmas trees from the Island to peddle down in Chicago around that time of year. In other words, he’s a traditional Door County Professional Worker.. Jay Whitney paints houses. Mark Raddatz is in the kitchen of D’Amico’s in Sister Bay (where some nights he gets a chance to sing on the porch). Both Jeanne Kuhns and Lucy Hagen are nurses; Don Thompson bakes and runs the Door County Bakery. Pete Thelen is all music, So too, Hans Christian and Kim Waters. And Chris Alley is out there somewhere, if you can find him, just hanging on. It’s not an easy life. No guarantees. But that’s a large part of what they bring to the music, which makes it so real.
Mark Raddatz will tell you: “It would be nice to just do what you do, to be able to make a living at it. But it’s kind of tough. Winter has always been tough on me. There’s not much going on here musically…”
I remember a guy trying to help a female folk singer who occasionally drifts through Door in summer asking me at the counter of Al’s one morning, if I could help this down-and-out musician ladyfriend of his find work locally, make some money singing her songs. I told him to check with Julian on the Island. And you’ve got to love Hagen’s reply: “Tell her to get a job like the rest of us.”
Aside from a few restaurant, bars, coffeehouses, occasional summer/fall park concerts, weddings, cocktail parties, the seasonal Fireside concerts at the Door Community Auditorium, and a bookstore that once featured local musicians, the most consistent venue for our musicians through the years has been Dave Ellmann’s barn (“Fish Stock” aka “Camp David”) in Fish Creek. Cheers for Dave --who gets more ‘disturbing the peace’ sort of flak than the recognition and appreciation he deserves. We owe him our gratitude and more for keeping this small community of music and musicians alive in Door on summer Sunday nights. Thanks too to some of the business folks in the county for giving this music some exposure. To TAP (Third Avenue Playhouse) for its support—especially in the leaner, off-season. And kudos, to WDOR, the whole crew there, for giving time and air-time/exposure to more and more of the local talent. (Even Eddie Allen seems to have been ‘born again’ to the local music scene.)
The night sky outside my window begins to lighten. The music of “Kaleidoscope” keeps playing and shifting through my consciousness. That’s Jeanne Kuhns singing now. One of THE best voices on the peninsula. Her highly praised, most recent CD, LOST MOTH FOUND continues to gather force (and sales) through out and beyond the county. (Including Wisconsin Public Radio, Judy Rose’s “Simply Folk” show, Sunday evenings, from 5 to 8) Jeanne’s heart-felt and haunting song about a local woman artist, grown old, “Isabel,” has found a perfect home on this disc too. Isabel Beaudoin, 83, suffering from Parkinson’s, now a resident of Scandia Village in Sister Bay, continues to paint. Her who life has been captured and celebrated in Jeanne’s song.
Yes, it’s all about time, time, time passing
“I’M GONE”…sings Lucy Hagen (in alto cantor…no relation to Julian, the Island Hagens), sadly but oh so sweetly her own beautiful song…”What went wrong/I tried to love you for so long/Tried to keep my lovin’ strong/But I can’t stay here very long/I can’t stay here so I’m gone” . This is only one of the surprising songs on this disc, chock full of surprises. The voice, the lyrics, the music—all coming together in a way that will stay with you, get stuck in your head, become part of you for a long time. The word is ‘unforgettable’.
And just when your done with the sadness of love gone, gone wrong, Don Thompson comes in out of nowhere to pick up your spirits with a fast picking song to set both mind and body jumping: “DON’T STOP PICKIN” Don sings, picking his own song, accompanied by the incredible pickin’ of Chris Irwin, a legendary picker in his own right who usually passes through Door come summer/fall and contributes considerably to the local subculture. This is quite an irresistible song by Thompson--former Paris street singer, Door County stained glass artist, and now baked good man.
The most unusual, and unexpected piece on this CD is the song “Footsteps” written and performed by Blues Today man, Pete Thelen of Baileys Harbor, the executive producer of Kaleidoscope. I don’t know how the hell to categorize this song, it’s so unique. “Footsteps,” indeed, that come walking right into your head in a mantra-like, love-lost manner you can’t shake…footsteps creating a rhythm, compelling…hypnotic. There’s an existential bluesy layer to the music, suffused with a surrealistic flavor (refrain) that keeps catching you by surprise: “The clown was there/but you weren’t”. Add to all this Pete’s ‘writerly’ sound and sense of the Beats, and he puts you into some kind of American/European dimension of “red-eye flights home”, “coffee in the quarter/seafood in the bay”.. a disembodied, lonesome and musical moan, bordering on a howl: “I went to Paris/London and Madrid/Retraced our footsteps/Stood where we did/And the clown was there/But you weren’t.” Completely captivating.
Sun’s up. Time I end this. Try to bring it all back home, since my contention and image of “home grown” is both a theme of this piece and a large part of this recording.
If Fred Alley was anything, he was Door County—even though he was born elsewhere. And the American Folklore Theatre at Peninsula Sate Park is mostly all about Fred: his music, his voice, his vision., his personality. His legacy to us all. He’s put name and place on the map. And that’s where you can still find him, celebrate his extraordinary talent in one production after another.
You can also find him/his voice and song haunting this recording, as I have already mentioned: “”I Know Where I’m Going”, the second cut. A beautiful song.
But that’s not the end of it.
But Fred also comes back on the very next cut with a song (indeed, the ‘sleeper’ on this CD) called “Nightingale”, lyrics and arrangement by him, but sung by his brother, the illusive Chris Alley, with the back-drop electric/eclectic voice of Alice Peacock filling the air around him as only she can with a jazz-colored sound that scales the operatic, This has to be one of the most beautiful songs Fred ever wrote. When I was co-editor and literary editor of “THE DOOR VOICE” some years back when THE VOICE was a voice, not an echo, Fred used to send me his poems, almost all if which I published. He was one fine poet. But his song lyrics—they were something else. Coming from an entirely different dimension: Poetry +. All of this is evident in his song, “Nightingale”, in itself, worth the price of this extraordinary CD of Door County music and voices.
The words alone--“A frightened nightingale stands/At the door of the Dream Café/The microphone waits/A lover she hates/Being honest to/It will address every note/that comes from her throat/What’s a poor bird to do…”-- are evidence of ‘serious poet at work.’ About to turn you around, inside out, dazzle you with image and line, story and song.
I am not familiar with Fred singing “Nightingale”, but to hear brother, Chris, make the song his own, which he certainly does, is more than perfect for me. There’s a ‘gravitas” ( ‘serious’ plus ‘gravel-y’?) to Chris’ voice that is reminiscent of Tom Waits in his more melodic strains, absent the humor. Add to that Chris’ sensibility and resonance to all the nuances of his brother’s lyrics, (plus the backup strains of Alice Peacock’s nightingale voice) and what you have here is one, truly, memorable performance, which for whatever reasons, brings to mind (for me) Michael (Peter) Smith’s song, “The Dutchman” and all the full-blown genius of Leonard Cohen.
Back to the beginning, back to the Door County home territory of home grown music, there’s not a singer/songwriter. musician on this disc with deeper roots in the rocky Door County earth than Julian Hagen (a Washington Island boy with a whole family history of the Hagen family of singers. Julian’s singing sister, Leila, has been known to remark that if a Hagen baby is born who can’t sing, they throw it out! If you’ve never heard Julian and the whole family perform on the home turf, you’ve never heard the true voices of Door County. (The Trapp Family Singers of Austria have nothing on the Islander Hagen’s!)
Julian wraps it all up with the next to last cut on this album, a song of his called “How Things Change.” (Perfect, ain’t it? Given the overall theme of “Kaleidoscope” and this piece of local folk/song/history I’m trying to write on this bright, new sunny morning in Door, where I missed another whole night’s sleep--but it was all worth it, considering the music and company I’ve been keeping.)
To hear a Hagen family concert on the Island or mainland is to witness how tight a family can be knit together in music (father, son, sister, cousins), and just how much love comes alive, on stage, between Father (Jack, age 84 ) and son, Julian. There’s the good-natured banter…and then there’s the music. Some incredible voices. And, if you’re really lucky, there’s old Jack throwing in a little yodeling to spice up the performance a bit more.
“How Things Change” sings Julian, looking back… “I remember when I was younger/Back in school/Never did I believe/I’d be in love with you/I could find no conversation/You saw me as a boy/Filled with fascination/But hey/Ain’t it funny how things change/My father’s broad shoulders/always seemed so strong/Carried the weight of the world/As he carried me along/Now he asks since I’m a man/What do you think/And will you lend a hand/So hey/Ain’t it funny how things change…”
So it all comes down to this in the end (as I suggested in the beginning, but now confirm): the music, the memory…the county, the musicians, the people, father and son, Julian and Jack. One local musician, Julian Hagen, from a family of Island folks who keep the music going. Julian mulling over the loss of time, finding the music, the words to sing his own close-to-the heart, close-to-the-bone song and take on things. To honor the past, father, friends, the whole human condition of time getting away from us all, as only Julian can make it into music. As authentic a Door County voice this place can celebrate and preserve.
And it’s all here caught and kept in shifting patters on “Kaleidoscope.”
AUTHOR’S NOTES/LAST MINUTE MUSINGS::
--KALEIDOSCOPE is available in close to twenty-five locations throughout the county. Among them: the Pioneer Store and Gills Rock Pottery (Ellison Bay); Passtimes Books and Al Johnson’s (Sister Bay); the Door County Bakery; Main Street Market and The Bridge (Egg Harbor) Nelson’s Hardware Store, The Edge (Fish Creek), The Dancing Bear (Sturgeon Bay). On the Island—ask Julian.
--Among a number of Door County musicians absent from this CD (for whatever reasons—hopefully there will be a Vol. II, III….), I sure miss the voice and blues harmonica of John Redmann.
--I wish the Door County Chamber of Commerce would do a better job in supporting that ‘other’ culture base in the county, including our lesser known local musicians on this CD. (Put it on the website.)
--It’s not too early (or never the wrong time for gift shopping, especially in Door Country where “Gifts R Us”) to highly recommend KALEIDOSCOPE as the perfect Birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Gift-Gift, etc. not to mention a gift of introduction to the county for newcomers and new residents—along with a few books by known and unknown Door County writers.
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