Gig Stories: Fan Connections at F.A.N. Benefit in Ballard

Musicians say,  "There are great gigs and then there are great stories."

And then there are some gigs which are full of great stories!

This benefit concert for Faith Action Network (FAN) in Seattle, hosted by Ballard First Lutheran Church in July was a great gig that was full of stories.

A benefit for F.A.N. with amazing "fan" stories, that is:

1)  I had finished the first set and was standing in the reception hall where the goodies and cold drinks were being served when a woman walks up to me and says,

"You haven't seen me in 37 years.  My name is Cheryl Cooper-Kohring, and I used to be a member of your church in Pemberville, Ohio, and was a good friend of your mother's."

Me:  "Wow!" (in amazing recognition!) "We sang a duet together on Christmas Eve one year."

She:  "Wow! I can't believe you remember that!"....

And the stories and conversations continued as we unraveled the tales of where both of us have been in the intervening years,  after the loss of her first husband to an accident, she found the new life and love which produced her now-grown children in Seattle, where she has lived more than 30 years.

She continued:  "When I saw the flyer publicizing the concert, and read your name, I said to myself, 'That has to be the same guy' and so I "googled' you and sure enough, you are!  So I just had to come tonight.

I just live around the corner and I often go into Dusty Strings and think that I need to play a dulcimer.

2)  A second woman, visiting Seattle from Argentina, transfixed by the mountain sound, wanted to know how she could get a mountain dulcimer and learn to play it in her home country when she returns.  (I remember that longing well!)

3)  A third woman said that she is a member of the church that my good friend Jeff Lilley pastors in Honolulu.  (I had begun the concert, as I often to, with the song and story "a ship may be safe" which Jeff and I finished writing after our maiden voyage on his handmade sailing boat on Thanksgiving Eve in Kansas several years ago.)  She lives part time in Honolulu and part-time in Seattle.

4)  A fourth woman brought me greetings from a fellow song-writing retreat participant from the Grünewald Guild.  It turns out that she is the one who encouraged her friend, Diane from Kent, Washington to attend that retreat.  My daughter, employed by the host congregation in Seattle, is the one who invited me to attend that gathering!  This particular longitude and latitude brought people from opposite areas together in a third location to begin a friendship!

Prime the Pump at Grunewald Guild

The Centrum

COMING UP:  Sept 8-11, 2016  Space is limited, sign up early!

 

After experiencing the marvelous songwriting retreat at the Guild this spring,
I am honored to be leading this Musicianship & Creativity retreat (with the exciting cooperation of visual artist, Sarah Jane) at the Grünewald Guild in Leavenworth, Washington next month and would love to have you join us!

There is limited space available (only 12-count'em, twelve),
AND, if you sign up by August 15th, you get a discount! (Is that cool or what?)

What is this about?

Often we have scouted the terrain and have the well dug and the pump installed but nothing is being brought up to the surface.

Or, we can recall the excitement of the gusher days when all the cool, refreshing underground well-water came pouring forth freely, but these days the pump cranks and cranks and nothing is coming.

And we can feel fear and the encroaching doubts of our clinical interior critics pointing out our failures and nagging us with reasons why we do not deserve to be creating at all.

Or we are just anxious to find our audience, the thirsty seekers of what flows from our fountains.

Sometimes we need to focus our attention on Priming the Pump which in this retreat we will do by exploring some different, hands-on art forms to uncover the fruits of this cross-pollination for our own musicianship.

Start your Fall Season off by Priming your Pump in this focused, intentional setting!

I'd love to be able to share this experience with you in this marvelous setting.

Here are some of my photos from the gathering in March & April.  

I can't wait to see the late summer/beginning of Autumn in the Cascades, 

and I'd love to celebrate it with you!

While she plays my soul is filled

Labyrinth

The fallen stump sprouts new growth...

Perfect outdoor office!

S.E.A. on tour in Kentucky

Captain's Cabin

 The Captain's Cabin, Louisville, Kentucky, was the site of an S.E.A. rendezvous as our trio sped from opposite directions to meet up here for the beginning of our gigs in Kentucky this past June.

Steve had begun his tour in Wisconsin, Ohio and was finishing the West Virginia leg, while Erin Mae and Amber were kicking off their summer driving from their homes in Kansas.

S(teve).  E(rin). A(mber).

This carefully and beautifully restored historic location was also a reunion for us since we had played a fortuitous midweek show on the back porch here after the hosts came to one of Steve's local house concerts and offered the location the following week!

With more time to publicize and invite guests (and with a potluck of homemade pulled pork and ice cream!) the audience was full to the gills with people and the excitement of this community gathering bubbled over to the accompaniment of our old-time tunes and songs.

After a blissful night's rest in the air conditioned comfort of the cabin next door (there are 2-TWO- of them!), we had a delectable morning breakfast on the front porch with our hosts.

Then it was time to pack one car to drive to Bardstown to stash our gear so that we could drive back to Louisville, take instruments, product and band members to LaGrange to the Majestic Tea House for an afternoon of music in that tasty atmosphere.   (Thanks to Hallie Boyer for helping us set this up!)

(The traintracks down the middle of the street reminded Steve of Fort Collins!)

Then, we packed up again (Erin Mae seems quite flexible!) to move to Bardstown once again for the full week of teaching and music mayhem at Kentucky Music Week.

There, in addition to teaching our classes, we gave a DulcimerCrossing Concert Window Show on our open night and we performed together for the Instructor's Concert on Thursday night

Our Hosts at Majestic Tea!

(Thanks to Stephen Siefert for the performance photo below)

And we did have time to squeeze in an additional rehearsal 

while driving to the evening concert location:

When the lost money finds you!

Thanks to the patient and diligent persistence of the royalty-paying people at Upper Room Publishing House in Nashville, Tennessee, I was reunited with payment for the licensing of some of my songs in their publications.

When we moved from Colorado to California in 2014, there are payments like these, which were paper-based and which come only once a year.

Not everyone gets the notices about new addresses, and some are easy to overlook or forget.

Therefore, I'm so grateful for the honest accounting of this religious publishing house that kept my licensed music royalties together and traced the path until they found me via a letter and email that reached me while I was on tour in the middle part of the USA.

When I returned home, several years of small royalties had pooled like a reservoir until they could be released to me.....

And several years of small royalties can add up to a larger check!

(And my sincere gratitude goes to all the careful and helpful people who kept faithful stewardship of these funds!  As the book says,  "Well-done, good and faithful servants!")