WotW CD We’re Still Here Brings Peace to Neighborhood

On Oct 31, 2010, our friend Dena Fisher wrote from Belize: So I live in a fine although poor neighborhood and my only "issue" is the very loud Latin, rap and I-know-not-what music that is played very loudly by my neighbors. My immediate neighbors are a Nicaraguan refugee family--lovely but the speakers are in the back yard along with the dog and the chickens (so I always get up at 5am anyway--no big deal about the creatures). However, finally I decided the music (was) just too loud. (My husband-ed.) John gave me speakers that I plugged into my laptop (you may guess where this is going). I put on the (Walkabout Clearwater Chorus) We Have A Song album and I really had to turn up the volume to hear it. Suddenly I noticed that it was too loud and the reason was that my neighbors had turned off their music and were standing on the road--listening. Mostly it was the youth, including the drummers who live a few houses down the road. They stayed out there, never coming near my house, while they listened to Work o' the Weavers. And then I gather we all went to sleep peacefully. At least that's what I did. So thank you Walkabout for giving me peace and Work o' the Weavers for We're Still Here (even the peace songs seemed to be a big hit). I'll hope this works regularly!!!! --Dena Fisher Peace Corps Belize, Central America, 2010-2012 Business Development/Organizational Management

27 January 2010

We’ve just returned from our annual southerly tour, with concerts in Savannah GA, Boynton Beach FL, the South Florida Folk RoundUp in Davie, Atlanta, Columbia SC, Morehead City NC, Fredericksburg VA and Little Washington VA. In several venues we set attendance records and without exception we were rewarded with standing O’s and encores everywhere we played. Very gratifying indeed!

“A delightful concert. I know that everyone in the audience enjoyed themselves just as much as I did. The standing ovation and enthusiasm said it all.” –Wendy Weinberg, The Theatre at Washington VA

As we exceeded attendance expectations in Savannah, Hank and Jane Weisman agreed to contribute $100 from the unexpected profits to the Red Cross for Haitian relief efforts.

Half the venues had the requisite PowerPoint equipment to enable us to include our new visual component comprised of archival photos, posters and such. Halfway through the tour fortune smiled and gave us an off day in which we could catch our breath and visit Mark’s mom and dad on the South Carolina coast. Ah, serendipity!

We’re already projecting our return to Florida in February of 2011. Stay tuned.

29 November 2009

2009 has provided both opportunities and challenges. When, at the top of the year, we were challenged with serious health issues, the group was faced with having to fulfill several of its obligations with a sandwich or two short of a picnic. Nonetheless, with creativity and help from friends, we managed to keep the show on the road. I confess to having been overly optimistic about time required to recover fully from the treatment (radiation/chemo) for my base-of-the-tongue carcinoma diagnosed in January and completed in mid-April. The all-out assault of 70,000 rads (I don’t really understand what that means, either) daily for 2 months took its toll on vocal facility, but I’m happy to report that slowly (glacially) but surely, function continues to improve. Somehow, we made our way through our first West Coast tour in June, with memorable performances at the Kate Wolf Memorial Festival in Laytonville CA, full house of singalong longtime Weavers fans at the Ojai Center for the Arts in Ojai CA, and crowning the trip at the new Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. A guest appearance by young actor/singer Rob Tepper as Woody Guthrie highlighted the performance.

Looking ahead to 2010, we’re developing an idea that has waited patiently in the wings since we first formed in 2003: a visual component consisting of archival photos, posters, etc. projected on a screen behind us. It’ll take the program a step or two closer to the theatrical presentation we’ve envisioned since the beginning. Stay tuned.

–James