The Northwest Files

An Insufficiency of Music

Today is the day this year’s edition of the Sisters Folk Festival, which usually plays on 11 stages all around the tiny town of Sisters, was to have opened. And what a lineup of talent for those stages, from large to small, there was.

But then came Covid. In response, the folks at SFF drastically downsized the event to just one stage.

And now comes the wind, which is blowing heavy smoke from the fires in western Oregon over here to us, on the east side of the Cascades. The smoke is so heavy that it is dangerous to be outside for anything. So even the downsized version of the SFF was canceled.

Then there’s the Americana Song Academy, an intense, three-day immersion into music that would have taken place this past week. It’s thrilling, intense, and incredibly useful to musicians. Canceled. (This image shows participants in the 2019 edition of the Americana Song Academy. I'm in the middle of the back row.)

But that’s not all.

Many of my pals know that I derive huge joy and satisfaction from singing with the Central Oregon Mastersingers. This season, again because of Covid, and because choral singing requires huge expenditures of breath, we are on hiatus.

Normally we probably would have sung our fall concert and be deep in preparations for our Christmas concert. But not this year. The risk of Covid infection is just too great.

With the coming of fall and, I hope, a bit of rain, the fires and smoke probably will mitigate. But I do not think that Covid will mitigate anytime soon.

I’ll be very happy when this all ends and we can begin trying to figure out what the New Normal looks like.

I just hope that it includes enjoying and/or performing live music.

-JFT

We Shall Overcome!

“We Shall Overcome!” It’s such an iconic tune. I first heard it on the recording of Pete Seeger’s historic concert on June 8, 1963 concert at Carnage Hall. It’s long, but trust me, it’s worth hearing ­– not least because of Pete’s commentary at the beginning of the recording, but also because of the way he helps the audience along with the lyrics. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsg7z8BYTWo

Good stuff, no?

These days, however, there’s something that really troubles me about this tune. As you hear, Pete sings, “We shall overcome some day.”

We’ve been looking forward for “some day” for 60 years. That day still has not come.

I think that these lyrics probably reflect the gentle patience of Dr. King and the others who marched with him and supported him. That’s wonderful.

But when we will be done with waiting for “some day”? Have we not been paying attention to the passage of time? Have we been lazy, complacent, uncaring, during these past 60 years? I think we have. Meanwhile, people still suffer. How and why have we allowed that to happen?

My patience with this is exhausted. I support the Black Lives Matter marchers. And the next time that this song comes around, I’m going to sing, “We shall overcome today.” It’s time to get this done. Time for all of us.

It’s up to us all to make equality happen. We cannot, we must not, put it off any longer.

-JFT

The Weight of History

My family has been here in the U.S. for a long time. I represent the ninth generation of my mother’s family to live in America. We’ve mostly been a hard-scrabble lot, working people. My ancestors served in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

That first family member arrived at Port Tobacco, Maryland, on Jan. 12, 1665, from England, as an indentured servant, not much better than a slave. Eventually, he worked off his indenture, married, had children. That’s a major family root for the U.S. Dunningtons.

The members that comprised our branch of the family mostly stuck around Charles County, Maryland. They appear to have been farmers, kept busy growing tobacco. One of them rented a field from George Washington. That Dunnington, William, owed old George back rent. Letters between the two of them, saved in the Library of Congress, attest to this arrears.

My ancestors fought in wars. And, shamefully, they owned a few slaves. Not many, I don’t think, and not for long. It appears that they were mostly too poor for such things. Still, it’s an ugly stain on the family name.

Now I’m the last limb of my mother’s branch of the family tree. I feel the weight of guilt about family slave ownership and about family members fighting for the Confederates during the Civil War.

There is nothing I can do about those things. Nothing, except remain determined to act to help ensure that everyone is treated equally; to insist that Black Lives Matter, to fight against the grossly unequal distribution of wealth we see today, to fight for better education for all communities, to fight for the right of everyone to vote.

It’s not much, really. But it’s what I can do. What I have to do.

-JFT