Saturday, March 7, 2026 at noon on 88.1 WVPE
"When I perform, I want it to come from somewhere authentic . . . I want it to be representative of something in our communal experience as human beings. . . I want it to be a true part of what it means to be a Midwesterner and a Chicagoan."
Mark begins the radio show telling a beautiful story about the legendary Frank Hamilton, who helped start the Old Town School of Folk Music. In the story, Frank stands at the doorway to the classroom, learning about each student who enters his class, after which Dvorak concludes: "I just learned everything I needed to know about teaching — take time to get to know your students, take the time to care about them."
Mark follows the story with his fine song, "Time Ain't Got Nothin' On Me." It unfolds like an old friend, sauntering out of his old Martin like a conversation he's having with himself — his words playing against a deceptively simple musical backdrop like an old story rising from his bones, the weight of the text funneled through the road, and the thousands of songs sung there, like his lovely and melancholy piece, "Time Ain't Got Nothin' On Me."
Sometimes I get lonesome for you,
And the blues they won't let me be,
I strain in the darkness to see,
Time ain't got nothin' on me.
Most of the time,
I'm so worried and sad,
The rest of the days ain't so bad,
And when I push through all this debris,
Time ain't got nothin' on me.
After the song, Mark recounts the story of his mother and father falling in love in Cicero, Illinois, and growing up in a small house with four brothers, then segues into his powerful song concerning Latino immigrants, "Promise of the Promised Land."
Who crossed the wide Atlantic,
To find America's shore,
Who huddles tonight down by the bridge,
So hungry, and homeless, and poor,
My brother, who like the lamb,
Is going to open the golden door?
Open the golden door.
After the break, John Bahler and the Moon Rockers (Nathan Waddill on bass) lay down an old spiritual, "Every Time I Feel the Spirit." The two-instrument arrangement allows the band to live up to its name, as the guitar breaks and the bass bubbles up a heavy swing, as John sings: "Now I have sorrow, and I have woe, and I have heartache here below; but while God leads me, I'll never fear, because I know he is near."
The "Shoot the Moon" game show follows with Indiana University Professor Gus Weltzek and Bremen, Indiana reader and antiquer, Ann Scott. The contestants pit themselves against esoteric and wacky questions concerning the biography of Mark Dvorak, involving subjects such as Big Bill Broonzy, Al Capone, Musser Xylophones, Cell Block Tango, Marvelous Musser, and the Weavers.
In the final section of the show, Mark continues with stories about how art brings people together.
"Singing and dancing are the two basic forms of human expression. I watched this kid fishin' out of the Fox River, and he throws the line in, and he's tuggin' it — that's a dance. When you write, your hand is dancing, connected to something inside. It's all part of the creative process. I don't think it's an endangered species, by no means, but yet we have to look harder and longer for it."
Mark's tender classic about starting over, "We Become," follows:
We Become the Things We Love — we become.
We believe in the things we feel — a broken heart, a will to heal.
Love is all there ever is, so let it out and let it in,
In choosing to begin again, we become.
After the song, Mark discusses Fred Holstein, going to the club he owned with his two brothers, and listening to him perform. "It was like going to a master class on working in front of an audience." Discussion also follows about Tom Dundee, Art Thieme, John Hartford, and riverboat songs. And then, interestingly, Mark transitions to this idea: "When I get in over my head, I always start asking myself, how does this stuff work, and it's always around people — like senior citizen homes, or right in the world, in our social context."
There's nothing like singing with an old friend,
A song we've known since way back when,
The good times and the hard times,
My old friend,
We've come too far to ever turn back again.
And here's to you and me and what might have been,
Here's to folks like us, old friends,
Old friends are the best friends.
A wonderful friend to the spirit of human fellowship through music, Mark continues as a long-time friend of Wild Rose Moon.