music
Voice of a Generation
Motherlode celebrates 25 years of harmony
by Patricia L. MacAodha
| he hall was brimming with anticipation
for International Women’s Day. A new
hand, Motherlode, was making itself
known in the Northwest. Its members
were writing and performing the kind of
music that spoke to a new generation—not just an
age-related generation, but a world of women for
whom liberation meant being whole and true to
themselves, women who meant to find out who
they were, women who weren’t interested in fitting
into anyone’s image of what a woman should be.
Motherlode sang about the sense that equality
was possible, that overcoming racism was possible,
that women could have new and powerful voices in
a world with incredible beauty. Women came
home from the concerts happier, energized—
convinced that the world was changing, that
homophobia would soon be a thing of the past.
Motherlode sang with a sense of hopefulness, of
hanging on and believing. They sang through teen
agers growing up, relationships breaking up,
beloved parents and friends dying, the world going
through war and other disasters.
Their voices never weakened, and their love
of music has remained as fresh, sweet and strong
as it was in the beginning. Not only are they good
musicians, not only do they really have fun
singing together, their enthusiasm remains a key
to creating and maintaining community.
How did Motherlode start.7 Two women from
Oregon, Kathleen Fallon and Nan Collie, met two
women from Washington, Marie Eaton and Janet
Peterson, at the 1980 Puget Sound Guitar
Workshop, a music camp they still return to each
summer.
“We have a lot of our encounters at camps,”
says Fallon. She and Collie met at a women’s music
camp organized by Kate Sullivan and Lynhea
Brooks.
Eaton and Peterson had been singing casually
together, while Collie and Fallon had performed
with Ginger Williams as the trio Bittersweet.
The connection between the four, Collie
remembers, was instantaneous. Peterson calls if
“harmony from the first note.” The four sang
together at every opportunity for the remainder of
the gathering. Eaton and Peterson performed the
song “Motherlode,” which became the group’s
name.
Their first gig together was at Portland Saturday
Market. “We played 10 hours on the streets,”
Peterson says. Later, counting coins, they discov
ered they’d earned $100. There was no thought of
going back. Not that wealth ever became part of
their experience, nor was it their goal/The impor
From left, Marie Eaton, Janet Peterson, Kathleen Fallon and Nan Collie in the early 1980s.
tant thing has always been the music.
“Music is home,”
says Collie. “Women’s
home is really important to me. 1 don’t
need the adulation of thousands of
music was exploding,
and so was folk music.”
people. 1 need that spot where that
Opportunities were
creative space can be nurtured.”
The members of Motherlode
everywhere. An espe
continue to draw women to music
cially supportive venue
camp, to write songs about life and to
was the East Avenue
bring their own sense of pathos, joy
Tavern on lower East
and humor to performances that, while
Burnside Street, which
fewer, continue to call them together
Collie remembers as “a
as band and family. Music, they all
welcome, warm place.”
When they were asked
believe, is to be shared.
“They say that songs have a life of
to open for renowned
From left. Nan Collie, Janet Peterson, Kathleen Fallon and Marie Eaton at the annual
their own,” Fallon says, “and that’s real
folk musician Ronni
Northwest Women's Music Celebration.
ly true, because once you write it and
Gilbert, they were nerv-
put it out there, it doesn’t belong to you anymore.”
woven into busy lives. Collie recently retired from
ous about performing at the Northwest Service
a 31-year teaching career. Peterson works part time
Next month Motherlode will again step up to
Center—a gigantic stage compared to the East
the microphones to celebrate the unbelievable:
for the City of Bellingham Library, co-coordinates
Ave. All have fond memories of Gilbert and see
the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and has been
With no changes in personnel, the women have
her as an example to emulate.
an American Sign Language interpreter. Fallon
been together 25 years as a band. They will per
In 1983, Peterson “started the Northwest
form numbers well known to their audience, as
teaches English as a second language and is depart
Women’s Music Celebration based on the Puget
well as new material, because their songs come
Sound Guitar Workshop model for the purpose of ment head at a Portland-area community college.
from life’s progressions, rhe living environment
Children are threaded through their lives, too.
bringing all women together to share music and
Peterson, Eaton and Fallon are parents, but all four
and the hopes of a generation that won’t give up
learn in an inclusive atmosphere.” She wanted
on
freedom. ©
consider the children to “belong” to everyone in
music to be a shared thing and saw too much
the band. Eaton’s daughter, Malaika, recently gave
emphasis on the performers.
M otherlode presents an ASL-interpreted concert
birth to a daughter, so, Collie quips, “I guess that
“1 felt that we, as women, were missing the
7 p.m. April 8 at First Unitarian Church,
makes us Grandmalodes.”
things that had brought us together in the past,
1011 S.W. 12 th Ave. Hang out afterward for cake
Motherlode performs about a half-dozen times
things such as quilting bees and harvest time,”
and conversation! Tickets are $20 at the door or $17
a year—“We all wish we were playing more than
Peterson says. “I felt there was a strong movement
we are,” Collie says—but it’s not for the recogni in advance from Annie Bloom’s Books, It's My
afoot to glorify only those who ‘made it on stage.’
Pleasure or Broun Paper Tickets.
tion, nor for fame.
1 knew that we, as women, had a lot to offer each
“Watching stardom from the outside,” says
other and the world with our songs and singing and
P atricia L. M ac A odha is a Portland free-lance
Eaton, “it seemed like the cost people paid was
music.”
writer. E-mail her at patmac3l@juno.com.
bigger than 1 wanted to pay, because family and
Performing has always been a joy, but it is