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Senior News November, 2003 Vol. 24. No. 11
Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.
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Humboldt Senior Resource Center Back issues Table of Contents
Plus in this issue catch more news, opinions, features, book reviews, and event calendars.
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Love that
music, gotta play The Jefferson State Boondock Band evolved from desperation and a need to play music. I was used to playing with a group in a jam setting when I moved to Crescent City from Springfield, Ohio in 2000. The next year Carl Rovainen retired from the St. Louis area to the Brookings/Harbor area across the border in Oregon. Carl also was used to playing with a group in a jam. We both loved the area but were becoming desperate for some "good ole mountain music pickin'." Carl and I met one Saturday at the Southern Oregon Accordion Club meeting and started a musical friendship that we both had been seeking. We began a weekly jam session in Crescent City as a result of that meeting. That jam session/song circle is still meeting every Sunday evening. One session Carl asked if anyone wanted to help him play some music at an event in Harbor. A group went up and did some picking and grinning and were well received. Several people asked if we had any CDs. We didn't have any CDs nor a name except "a bunch of folks from the Sunday night jam session." We brainstormed for several weeks and finally my wife Carol came up with Jefferson State Boondock Band. It fit nicely, especially since one of the regular places they played was in front of the BookDock in Harbor. The instrumentation of the band varies, depending on who is in town or not doing something else. Usually there is a banjo (Carl) and an autoharp (me), sometimes a fiddle, usually a mandolin, several guitars, sometimes a dobro, a harmonica, a washtub bass (a metal washtub turned upside down with a string and a broomstick coming out of the center), and various shakers, spoons, tambourines and rhythm instruments. We play some gospel, some old time, some folk and a couple of songs that can only be called "other." They might play "Boil the Cabbage Down, Boys" followed by "Danny Boy" followed by "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." The credo of the band is "We do what we do, and WE always have fun-and hope you do too!" The group is made up mostly of senior citizens but has no age limits. We have played at the Harbor Clam Chowder cookoff, the Harbor Chili cookoff and the Crescent City Habitat for Humanity Annual Dinner and Auction. We've played short sets at both the Del Norte and Curry county fairs, some special music programs in schools and the United Methodist Church in Crescent City (where the Sunday night jam sessions are held). We've also played the Crescent City Farmers' Market and the Friday evening lectures during the summer at the BookDock in Harbor (under the name of BookDock band). George Layton lives and picks in Crescent City. His e-mail is ke6tkn@juno.com. Editor's note: This is the Sunday night singing that so pleases our October writer Jan DeGrandchamp who wrote about healing through singing. |
Senior News