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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 2019)
8A | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2019 | SIUSLAW NEWS RADIO from page 7A “We’ll play a wide variety of music on Charlie’s Place, but the one thing it has in common is that it swings. It may swing very slowly, like ‘Little Darlin’,’ which is probably the slowest jazz piece ever written,” Walker said. “Or it may be high speed like Stan Kenton Brass is loud. Volume wise, it’s loud! But it served the same person as Frank Sinatra at 3 in the morning.” While getting booked on KXCR was easy, actually doing the show was difficult for Walk- er at first. “I was scared to death,” he said. “When I was younger, be- cause of the anxiety, I couldn’t be in this room with the door closed.” He had tried his hand at pub- lic performing before with the local theater group Last Resort Players, but it didn’t go very well. He suffered from stage fright and realized that if he wanted to get his voice heard, it had to be without showing his face. “I found a home in radio. I was more interested in the sub- ject than how I was doing it. Once you get past how you’re doing, and you start talking to somebody out there in the audi- Chris Kokesh and LJ Booth brought “a nice, mellow way to start the evening with a nod to the traditional folk sound,” Mlinek said. The headliner was John McEuen and The String Wiz- ards. While McEuen, found- ing member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, has played at the Winter Music Festival before, his appearance as part of the Will the Circle Be Unbro- ken Tour brought something unique to 2019. “He’s quite the entertain- er and has a real professional band,” Mlinek said. “To do a sell-out show like they did was very heartening.” Music continued with the Sunday Gospel Gathering. “We’re very thankful to Lau- ra Merz and Marty Adams to put together the Community Gospel Choir and the Rolling River Quartet,” Mlinek said. These local performers lift- ed voices in traditional harmo- nies, priming the audience for the award-winning University of Oregon Gospel Choir, led by Andiel Brown. “If you didn’t hear Andiel Brown, you certainly missed what we call the ‘rafter-rais- ing’ conclusion to the show — when the volume went up and the energy just rose,” said Mlinek. “It brought the whole festival to a great conclusion.” Music didn’t end each day at the doors of the FEC, either. Three acoustic music jams gave performers the chance to interact with the local com- munity and make impromptu sounds together. “Acoustic instrument mu- sicians just love jamming to- gether,” Mlinek said. “I’m a longtime jammer, having at- tended hundreds in my life- time as a guitar player and bluegrass singer. I did get down to ICM and it was quite the party going on. ... People were singing and whooping it up.” Pearson said that some per- formers went to every aspect of the Winter Music Festival. “When people are really into performing, they just kind of give everything up and just go for it. … They’ll do any kind of work they can do to make it happen,” she said. She added that many per- formers’ enthusiasm extended beyond their own sets to pro- moting the other groups and attending the jams. “That is so neat to see, sort of like that old fashioned ‘let’s throw this barn together’ and let’s help out,” she said. “It’s that kind of spirit that’s really wonderful to see. It’s not that rare in Florence, but it is kind of rare in our world.” Other people who helped ence, the whole world changes. Once I’m into my Charlie char- acter, I’m as relaxed as I’m going to get.” Walker isn’t sure about what streaming will mean for his show and KXCR. “I don’t know that much about it, when you come right down to it,” he admitted. “Streaming will do well for the shows that are streaming. But the competition when everybody is streaming? It was kind of like the idea in my earlier life when life will be good when everybody gets a Cadillac. But then comes the Lamborgh- ini.” Walker does hope that now KXCR is streaming, his DJ son in Tennessee will be able to listen to his show. “I’d be delighted if I could be heard by my son,” he said. “If we go to streaming, he could tune in. I don’t have any way to listen to him, he doesn’t stream.” However, his son’s show, “RW’s Country Kaleidoscope” does play on KXCR. Walker’s son sends him the episodes on a thumb drive to be loaded up on the local servers. When asked if he listens to his sons show, Walker laughed. “Well, Monday night at my house is Antiques Roadshow,” he said. Truth is, Walker doesn’t have “a little bit of country” in him. “I told him once, ‘You know I hate country western music.’ He said, ‘Well yeah, but I’m your son.’ I said, ‘Well that’s another reason.’” Walker laughed at the anec- dote, saying that they actual- ly get along very well and he’s proud of his son. “He tells me he’s glad I’m fol- lowing in my sons’ footsteps, professionally,” Walker said. “Thanks a lot.” But even with the benefits of streaming, Walker’s heart is still analog in a digital world. “My experience with the digi- tal world is that, if you don’t have the human touch, you’re going to lose. We have already lost the intimacy and importance of hu- man contact in so many areas. It shows in how our civilization is coursing. We’ve become largely uncaring. The country is out of style for me. I don’t recognize it. It’s not the one I was raised in, and it’s not the one that I went into the army to serve,” he said. To get back to a caring nation, we need to communicate, share our ideas respectfully and listen to each other’s views. That’s the power of radio, and FM knows no barriers. One doesn’t need a cell phone or an internet con- nection. It is freedom spreading throughout the skies. “Freedom is a tangible item,” Walker said. “Every bit that is lost along the way for the sake of convenience, or secondary issues, is dangerous. FM is the voice of freedom.” For more info, visit kxcr.net. THANK YOU FOR DONATING: Florence Elks • Three Rivers Casino Resort Oregon Pacifi c Bank Peace Health Medical Group V.F.W • TR Hunter Real Estate • Maire Testa Spruce Point Assisted Living & Memory Care Community 375 9th St. | Florence, OR 97439 | 541-997-6611 spruce-point.com $ Da ys $ 0 O 0 FF 2 REGULAR ! D! When April 4th, 2019 through April 7th, 2019 Questions Kim Pruitt or Janet Engel Phone: 541-997-6111 Email: Kim.Pruitt@avalonseniorliving.com 14” Large Pepperoni Pizza for Only o Be part of something special in the Florence community. An account has been setup at Banner Bank account “Wall that heals,” for money donations. Please contact Kim or Janet for additional details. We hope to see you there! ed out surveys to festival at- tendees. While some of those are still being tallied, Pearson said, “So far the comments are really positive: ‘great pacing,’ ‘loved the art fair,’ ‘loved the food.’ There are always glitch- es, but sometimes we experi- ence a weekend like this and say, ‘Wow, this is why we do this. To make people happy and bring them joy.’” Mlinek agreed. “As festival organizers, we’re all on cloud nine post-festival,” he said. “We hope that our concert-goers are too. We’re very pleased with the local au- dience coming out to support our lineup. I also talked to a lot of people who came from considerable distances.” This included people from northern Washington State, Ashland, Bend, Portland and more. “They came down because of our stellar lineup and be- cause the other things that were going on. I’m sure the good weather helped as well. We’re very pleased with the turnout,” he said. CU L A R W A T C E EE P S KE R SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND, 2019 PE and SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3RD, 2019 Tw We still need VOLUNTEERS • FOOD • MONEY DONATIONS the Winter Music Festival “raise the barn” were the event sponsors and the many behind-the-scenes people. Pearson described the active group of volunteers from the Friends of the FEC, the events center and the community as “self-propelled” when it came to making sure that everything got done — often before she or other organizers saw a need. “They were running from one end of the FEC to the oth- er doing everything,” she said. This year, the music festival committee made sure that the volunteers felt appreciated by providing meals to everyone who put in at least four hours of work. “They are doing jobs silently in the dark,” Pearson said. “We were all out there working and then we could come togeth- er with a meal. It felt like an old-fashioned family reunion. There was a lot of laughter and stories and remembering Leah Goodwin and people who are gone.” Volunteers in the lobby sold event merchandise and hand- N The Wall That Heals exhibit features a three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. and mobile Education Center that gives visitors a better understanding of the legacy of The Wall and educates about the impact of the Vietnam War. Here’s hat we need help with now to prepare for The Wall That Heals: PHOTOS BY MARK BRENNAN/SIUSLAW NEWS The FRAA Winter Arts Festival featured local artists and vendors. PRICE Any Pizza, Any Size Valid for one month. Not Valid with any other off er. Valid at participating locations only. $ 5 00 7KDW·V5LJKWµ/DUJH3HSSHURQL Pizza for Only $5 Bucks!! Li mi t! Katie Jane Lubiens returned to play the Kids Concerts like she has in the past, bringing her bandmate Adam Easley. They encouraged the kids to “tap tap tap their feet” like fiddle players do while they played a French-Canadian tune. “In the very first song, one little girl yelled, ‘It’s awesome!’ It was a shout of joy,” Pearson said. “You can’t make a kid say that. It was spontaneous.” Lubiens and Easley also brought an “instrument pet- ting zoo” from Kennedy Vio- lins in Vancouver, Wash., for the students to interact with real instruments. “Kids could get their hands on the instruments and get to play,” Pearson said. “There were signs by all the instru- ments saying, ‘please touch.’” On Friday, Lubiens and Ea- sley played during the lunch period for Siuslaw Elementa- ry, again bringing their instru- ments. Lubiens’ high-energy fid- dling was a great start to the festival weekend, which fea- tured themed shows each day along with familiar and new performers. Bluegrass Friday Night brought out North Country and Chris Jones & The Night Drivers. Friends of the FEC Presi- dent Kirk Mlinek said, “Blue- grass fans come to something like this expecting crisp har- monies and great instrumen- tals delivered in a traditional style, and that’s what they got on Friday night. It was really heartening to see that there are bluegrass fans and that kind of traditional music fan sitting out there. We’re clearly filling that niche for the Ore- gon coast.” Saturday morning opened with the FRAA Winter Arts Festival. “It was very successful,” Pearson said. “Claudia Brown and FRAA did a great job of organizing that and making it attractive and welcoming.” According to Mlinek, the arts festival brought “a good vibe and good energy” to the FEC. Curated artists showed tex- tile arts, art craft boxes, bead- work and more. This included elementary poets and weavers, who gave demos from their booth throughout the day. In addition, Pavilion Cater- ing provided food and bever- ages throughout the weekend. The other food vendor was Eatwell Organic Noodle, a new food truck for the Flor- ence area, which was kept busy as people tried its ra- men bowls. According to its Facebook page, the food truck plans to open more officially in February. Leading the Saturday Amer- icana concerts were Lubiens and Easley, followed by True North, Eli West and Cabin Fe- ver NW. “On Saturday, we always give a nod to fan favorites and we like to bring back some fa- miliar faces,” Mlinek said. More familiar faces round- ed out Saturday as the eve- ning headliners took the show. SU FESTIVAL from page 1A o N On ! n ly!! o No Coup 00 9 LARGE Chicken Bacon Artichoke Delite Creamy garlic sauce, grilled chicken, marinated artichoke hearts, crispy bacon, spinach and parmesan cheese Family Size $2 More Valid for one month. Not Valid with any other off er. Valid at participating locations only. $ 00 $ 11 LARGE All Meat 100% real cheese, Topped with Salami, real Canadian Bacon, Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, and Beef 00 13 LARGE Murphy’s Combo Salami, Pepperoni, Sausage, Mushrooms, Olives and Minced Onions Family Size $2 More Family Size $2 More Valid for one month. Not Valid with any other off er. Valid at participating locations only. Valid for one month. Not Valid with any other off er. Valid at participating locations only.
