This blog has been conspicuously dormant for a while. I wasn't kidding when I called it "potentially ill-fated." Last time I posted anything was last summer. A lot has happened since then in my musical life. And I'd like to tell you about it. If you're interested, that is. If not, why are you reading this?
Still here? Okay then. Let's start at a church fundraiser in 1989. Here's a grainy still from a video shot at that event.
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| Chord City, circa 1989 |
There is a little boy in the lower left-hand corner. His head is circled for your convenience. He is watching his father (center, face obscured by microphone) play guitar, along with his uncle (drums) and their long-time friends. Members of this group have played together for years, long before this little boy was born. This is the first time he's seen them play together publicly. He'd been to a practice or two, but this is the real deal. There is his dad, up on stage, playing and singing. The boy is fascinated, excited, proud.
With this cliché setup, you have undoubtedly guessed that the boy is me. The band has gone under different names with different players, but this time they've settled on "Chord City."* This concert was certainly formative for me. I have memories of running around excitedly to the music, chatting up the sound tech, and even sneaking on stage at intermission to pluck a bass string. I thought it was an electric guitar, but when the string resonated with a "thud," I bolted immediately.
As a young adult, I managed to get a hold of the group's 1970s live recordings, when their main lineup still included Michael Joncas (before he was Fr. Michael Joncas of Catholic music fame). I still listen to them. The group played a variety of folk-rock covers and Joncas' originals, welcoming a variety of guest musicians and attracting a respectable following around the campuses of St. Thomas and St. Catherine Universities. They played the famed O'Shaughnessy Auditorium at least once. Well, famed if you lived in the Twin Cities in the 1970s. Gordon Lightfoot played there many a time in his heyday, as did a number of other singer-songwriters.
Now let's move forward to the summer of 2019. In the previous year or so, the core group of my dad (John Finnegan, guitar & vocals), Mike Deeney (uncle, drums, vocals), Dan Westmoreland (guitar, vocals), and Jim Hugo (bass, vocals) had reassembled for periodic informal jam sessions in Mike's basement. My dad invited me to join. I had a wonderful time playing with them, thrilled to join these musicians who had awed me in my childhood. I have always loved playing with my dad, so to join him
and his old band mates was an incredible honor. By summer 2019, these gatherings had tapered off. Meanwhile, the news was getting worse, especially the Trump Administration's cruel and xenophobic policies toward immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border (for more on those issues,
see my other blog). I felt like I needed to do something more than making modest individual donations.
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| Chord City & Friends fundraiser, Stacked Deck Brewery, Dec. 21, 2019 |
A fundraiser was in order. By themselves, my and my wife Mel's donations are drops in the bucket. Get enough drops, though, and you have a full bucket. So I pitched the idea of a fundraiser concert to the Chord City core group, to which they responded with great enthusiasm. We would play a show and raise money for
The Advocates for Human Rights' Refugee & Immigrant Program. Not only would I be joining the group, but also my wife Mel (vocals), Dan's daughter Jen Bouchard (vocals), and Dan's friend, Maureen "Mo" Mara (flute, vocals). Another friend of the group, Jay, joined us on mandolin for the Steve Goodman classic, "City of New Orleans." It became a wonderful cross-generational family-and-friends affair.
And so Chord City's return to the stage after 30 years was a resounding success. We had around 80 (if not more) of our invited guests show up and raised $3,700 altogether. There was a fantastic energy in the room, a lot of joy and nostalgia, as well as a common belief in our good cause. For me, it was childhood dream come true to be able to play publicly music I love next to my dad (& company). Having Mel join us was a real treat as well (she has such a lovely voice - ours is a musical household). That night, after the show, I went home and poured out my gratitude all over Facebook:
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| Me and dad, Chord City fundraiser, Dec. 21, 2019 |
"There's a whole lot of post-event emotional processing happening right now
It was a very special thing to play side-by-side with my dad - he has
been and still is my hero in so many ways. I think the biggest single
feeling is gratitude: gratitude to everyone who showed up; gratitude to
everyone who couldn't make it but still donated; gratitude to my dad, my
uncle Mike, Dan, Jim, my wife Melissa, Jen, Mo, and Jay for the privilege and honor of playing with them; gratitude to my mom Jan
and family friend Uncle Gordy for taking care of the food; gratitude to
the family and friends who volunteered at the donation table (Diane, Mary, Amanda, Liz, my brother Joe and his girlfriend Tiffany); gratitude to Sarah
for taking the time to come and speak about The Advocates; gratitude to
Stacked Deck Brewery in Saint Paul for being such gracious hosts, etc....And that 'etc.' contains a
lot."
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| Chord City & Friends at J. Carver Distiller, Jan. 31, 2020 |
This fundraiser might have been a one-off, but Mo, who is part owner of the
J. Carver Distillery, invited us out to play at her "house," so to speak, which we did on January 31, 2020.
To the fundraiser lineup, we added Angie Hugo (vocals), one of Jim's daughters, and John Gorski, an old friend of the group's from their high school days.
Once again, we played very well, generating the same energy and enthusiasm of that first show. My dad coined the tagline "generations making music," which captures the essence of it in a simple and beautiful way.
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| My love and me, J. Carver Distillery, Jan. 31, 2020 |
Epilogue: I'm delighted to say that Chord City & Friends is on deck for
Empty Bowls Hopkins, another fundraiser, on March 7, 2020.
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*pun based on a comment by Dan's daughter, Jen, on the number of cords involved in the band's practices.
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