A great time was had by all on this year’s series of radio shows. Join recording engineer and audio producer, Nate Butler, announcer and assistant director, Derek Jensen, and radio-hour host, George Schricker for a tour through the year in song. The show kicks off with the song, “Keep on Movin,” featuring the New York City Blues Band, Mulebone, featuring John Ragusa on silver flute and Hugh Pool on the cigar box guitar and mouth harp.
“When you’re down by the old crossroads,
Don’t stare too long--‘cuz shadows grow.
But you better have heart, your chances dead,
Don’t let it out, to play with your head . . .
Keep on Movin’!”
Fiddler/step-dancer, April Verch & songwriter banjoist/guitar player, Joe Newberry kick off the next song – an original by April and John Wiseberger, entitled, “Will You Wait for Me.” It’s a song written about the hard lives of the loggers of the Ottawa Valley (April’s birthplace), who had to leave their families and go away to the logging camps in the Winter.
“I am going cross the valley, darling, will you wait for me?
Through the long and lonely Winter, ‘til my face once more you’ll see.
Will you keep the ring I gave you? And tell no one that you are free?
When the flowers of Spring are blooming, then it’s married we will be.”
The next song is an acoustic piece by Pierre BenSusan, a world-renowned French-Algerian guitarist. The inventive piece drifts and floats in the air and sometimes explodes in a single harmonic as it journeys from rhythmic crescendo and returns to a lilting melodic playfulness. As a compliment to Pierre’s piece, Rupert Wates, finishes the first set with his remarkable song, The Sea. In the same DADGAD tuning, Rupert Sings: “Can you tell me where my true love lies? What’s that to me? Did you hear her sing as she passed by? Follow the river to the sea.”
Songwriter-singer, Patti Shaffner, begins the second set with a sultry rendition of the Irving Berlin classic, “Blue Skies.” Merriman’s Playhouse Players are accompanying Patti, featuring Stephan Hess on Piano, Maximillian Willfinger, on trumpet, Todd Neuenschwander, on Tenor Sax, Mary Merriman on Upright Bass, and Stephen Merriman on Drums. The song was performed during the Wild Rose Moon Radio Show’s first off-campus performance, recorded live at Merriman’s Playhouse in the Commerce Center in downtown South Bend.
South Bend poet, Pam Blair follows with her piece entitled, “Life in Its Complexity.” Inspired by the tragic death of Actor/Comedian Robin Williams, the piece grapples with his death and extrapolates to existential questions:
“Lord knows why suicide resides in those who make people laugh for a living.
While depression inside creates – a lynching . . .
At the end of the day, the sun will reach its hand out to the moon,
oceans waves will dance to an orchestra’s tune,
seashells will come ashore as the sandman prepares to confess his love once more
until she stays – in life’s complexity.”
As part of our Earth Day radio show, Jim Yocom, Wild Rose Moon’s Video Producer, delivers his beautiful song,” The Earth Hug Boogie,” singing:
“Take off your shoes and walk around,
Find some grass and feel the ground.
Walk in the sand, and wiggle your toes,
Give thanks to the earth, for the ground below. . .
If you understand what life is worth, you’ll show your love to Mother Earth.”
Besides Jim, you’ll hear a whole chorus of Wild Rose Moon singers, Michele Schricker’s piano, and Nathan Waddill’s fine bass, Jim’s own fine harmonica during one of the breaks, and a whole chorus of friends.
Following Jim’s ballad is Sue Fink’s wonderful, Earth Sings to Venus. The song was one of the highlights of our “SongSisters” Radio Hour, featuring Sue, Patti Shaffner, and Amy Dixon-Kolar—heard singing harmony here.
“Venus my friend, you’re such a slow spinner,
almost one of my years and you’re just starting dinner.
Venus, we share the same size and same mass,
but we’re different as sisters could be.”
“Yes, me with my moon while you have none,
Your eternal retrograde come undone,
I just want to connect with something or someone,
Talk to me, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me.”
In the next section of the show, Maine native, Caroline Cotter brings her evocative voice to the song, “The Year of the Wrecking Ball,” the title track of one of her latest albums. Indicative of Caroline’s subject matter, she searches here through life’s losses and embraces the change.
“Walls papered with blues and greens fade to yellowish grey
Some things will never leave, and others never could stay.
Inside the bedroom, I hear her still on the phone
33 years of pleading God, please, don't leave me alone.
She sings Hallelujah,
Sings to the holes in the walls,
Sing for the light through the broken windows,
And the year of the wrecking ball”
Joe Newberry and April Verch are up next with a beautiful song co-written with the prolific and profound songwriter, Sy Kahn (“Aragon Mill”). Joe delivers the story of writing the song right up to the title, “I’m Going Home.”
“I wandered home, away from friends, and everything I knew.
I left my home, I left my kin, sadder yet, I left you.
I’m going home, going home, I have been away too long,
Going home, I’m going home, did you miss me while I was gone?”
Next up, Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour’s music producer, John Bahler, serves up one of his fine songs, “These Roads.” As per usual, John’s beautiful voice soars as he sings,
“When I’m broken down and blind,
I’ll see country lanes that wind,
Good love, good grief, goodbye.
We are not forever young,
And as the river changes,
You can’t take two trips on the same road and never meet a stranger.”
The best of 2023 finishes out with the New England based band, “Kalos,” featuring, Eric McDonald on guitar and main vocals, Jeremiah McClane on accordion, and Johanna Hyde on violin. Here they deliver a traditional closing number—a song they like to sing – to remember their loved ones when they go out on tour, entitled, “Fare thee Well My Own True Love.”
“Oh, come ye back, my own true love
And stay a while with me.
If I had a friend, upon this earth
You've been a friend to me.”