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,
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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.
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