Post Fundraiser Thoughts

Another CKUA Fall Fundraiser is in the books and once again the family that is CKUA took care of business and donated over half a million dollars to Canada’s oldest public broadcaster.

Photo by Tracy Kolenchuk
 
Personally, I had a blast on my scheduled shifts.
 
Go figure, after all this time Baba and I had never worked together during a fundraiser and to sit across from the man who spins magic on Mid-Morning Mojo was a highlight for me. Animated, excited, passionate and respectfully opinionated, Baba, with considerable help from his listeners, served up a percolating two hours of music on Friday morning October 21. Really, I blinked and it was suddenly time to vacate main control, but along the way I wished I had brought along a Salvation Army tambourine to help add even more fuel to the fundraising fire.

Baba (photo by Tracy Kolenchuk)
 
Dead Ends and Detours! What can I say, other than thanks to all of you who make those phones ring off the hook during the two Dead Ends fundraising hours on back-to-back Saturday mornings.
 
As for working with Allison Brock on Dead Ends, well it’s always time to get out the ballast and hold everything down, including our host of Wide Cut Country, who single-handedly leads the charge in whipping up everyone on both sides of the studio microphones. Believe me, coffee is nothing more than an afterthought when you are in the company of Ms. Brock on a Saturday morning during the fund drive.

Allison Brock (photo by Tracy Kolenchuk)
 
Not only is the financial support awe-inspiring, the musical suggestions that accompany your donations consistently hone in on the finest studio and live offerings from Hot Tuna, Widespread Panic, the New Riders, Mickey Hart, Bob Dylan, Little Feat, String Cheese Incident and of course, Garcia, Weir and the good old Grateful Dead.
 
Thanks to you, it doesn’t take a lot to string together a couple of interesting Dead Ends and Detours programs following the fundraiser.
 
Hanging out with both Bob Chelmick and Kevin Wilson on the Monday night shift was a strong reminder that the CKUA programming schedule offers a beautiful shift in its sonic sweep that starts with Mark Antonelli and continues on through midnight, Monday thru Thursdays, with The Road Home and nightcap.
 
The programming that Bob and Kevin serve up is wonderfully dense while offering slices of sounds that are decidedly different than those offered during our daytime shifts. At the same time the two present the content of their respective programs with a warm, inviting, laid-back delivery that envelopes the listener as the day comes to a close.
 
And so it went as I had the pleasure of hanging out with friends, colleagues, volunteers, and you during Fall Fundraiser 2011, and I still managed to watch a few innings of playoff baseball along the way.
 
Thanks again from all of us here at CKUA for your support.

Mickey Hart

Back to those of you who are in the Dead Ends camp - I’d like to point you to the Smithsonian website that is promoting a 25-disc box-set compiled by Grateful Dead percussionist and tunesmith Mickey Hart.
 
To quote the Smithsonian press release on The Mickey Hart Collection, this magnificent “collection preserves and furthers the Grateful Dead percussionist’s endeavor to cross borders and expand musical horizons. The albums draw from "The World," a series Hart curated that incorporated his solo projects, other artists’ productions, and re-releases of out-of-print titles. Six of the twenty-five albums form the "Endangered Music Project," a collaboration between Mickey Hart and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, which presents recordings from musical traditions at risk.”
 
If you direct yourself to the Folkways website, you can download a free ten-song sampler from this box-set for a limited time. You can’t beat that deal.
 
While you are investigating the Hart compiled box-set you can also access a Smithsonian promo video titled “Take a Behind the Scenes Tour of Smithsonian Folkways With Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead” from YouTube that is well worth viewing. You can also access another YouTube video with Hart and Carlos Santana, and for 11 minutes the two passionately talk of the profound impact Babatunde Olatunji had on music of all forms while segments of Olatunji performances are spliced into the interview session.

If that is not enough of a hit on what is going on in the world of Mickey Hart for you Dead Heads, an enlightening article has just been posted on Deadnet that finds Blair Jackson interviewing Hart. Much of the conversation is wrapped around Hart’s long time passion for field recording and his work as a song catcher. He also gets us up to date on his new band that has been in the studio recording tunes for an album that has an anticipated street date of early 2012.

By the way Mickey Hart is touring up the West Coast in late November and early December and Hart’s eight-piece band plays the Tractor Tavern in Seattle on Thursday December 1.


One last bite for this week and it is one that is a reminder, at least to me, that this country - for all its flaws - maintains a status that is envied by so many.
 
So, it’s hats off and thumbs up to Paul Rodgers who became a Canadian citizen on October 21.
 
Paul Rodgers

Rodgers, the onetime lead singer of Free and Bad Company has been residing in Canada for a number of years and he decided the time was right to take out citizenship.
 
In a press released issued by his management office SKH Music, Rodgers offered the following thoughts.
 
“It may not be my native land but Canada is surely now my home.  While I'll always be an Englishman, Canada has given me so much for which I am grateful.  My wife, your former Miss Canada Cynthia Kereluk, a new and extended family and the chance to be truly free in a country that with its quiet strength combines the best of so many worlds.
I'm proud to be a Canuck.
Thank you, Merci.”
 
One would expect to see Rodgers, who calls the lower mainland home, singing a national anthem or two at a B.C. Lions or Vancouver Canucks game in the near future.