More Songs & Stories From Home
by Mark Pearson
As someone who has faith in the power of stories and songs – who believes in the might, magic, and mystery of loving and being loved – and who trusts that together songs sung, stories told, and love shared can lead us home – I’d like to welcome you to “More Songs and Stories from Home.”
Episodes
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1968 - Part 6
My wife and I moved out to the Olympic Peninsula in 2002. Not long after we arrived we met Flora May and Bob Bradley. That next summer Bob introduced me to the Olympic Mountains. We didn't talk a lot when we were walking, but grand conversations would often happen when we had reached a place…
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1968 - Part 5
By the end of the Summer of 1968 my dreams of becoming a doctor had been replaced by thoughts of pursuing a music career or continuing to do social work in New York City. After talking with my dad I decided to return to the University of Washington for my senior year. I had no idea at the time…
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1968 - Part 4
The Summer of 1968 opened up new worlds to me and for me. My three college friends and I represented the University of Washington in a national talent show. We got to the semi-finals where we competed against the Carpenters who were representing Long Beach State in their first exposure to a...
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1968 - Part 3
My two monumental experiences of the Summer of 1968 were connected by a flight from Hamilton, Bermuda where I had just spent a week singing for a group of kids from Manhattan's Lower East Side to Los Angeles where my college friends and I then competed in the semifinals of Your All-American…
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1968 - Part 2
In the Summer of 1968 I went back to New York City to do social work. On some level at 21 years old I wanted to do what I could to change the world. Though the world did not change much that summer my life was forever changed and before the year was out going in a direction I never could have...
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1968 - Part 1
Albert Einstein famously said that "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." 1968 was a year when the unimaginable came alive for our country and for me personally. For me, prior to 1968 a life different from one I had known was...
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Back to the Big Room - Part 5
For me there is something special about putting new memories on top of precious old ones. Something about music that can transport and transform us. As I write this it was more than 55 years since the four of us - John Buller, Mike Dwyer, Mike McCoy and I - made our one recording in the Big Room…
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Back to the Big Room - Part 4
It was something special to go back with three guys who became lifetime friends to where we met and sing again the songs we sang when we were just getting to know each other. To do it this time with family there as well, and to sing songs that have meant a lot through the years made the going…
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Back to the Big Room - Part 3
A lot of times it's hard for me to know how to tell someone how much I care for them. It's easier sometimes to sit down with a pen and paper and put those thoughts into a letter. Once I've done that then some part of that letter might inspire a song idea. That is what happened when I wanted to…
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Back to the Big Room - Part 2
As I get closer to the end of my career, I appreciate even more where and how it all began. In December of 1967 the three guys I sang with in college - Mike McCoy, John Buller, Mike Dwyer, and I made our one recording in the Big Room of the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity just off the University of...
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Back to the Big Room - Part 1
It is special to go back to places that hold precious memories. To return with the people who were there when those memories were made and make some more. In December of 1967 Mike Dwyer, John Buller, Mike McCoy and I recorded some songs at our college fraternity. Fifty-five years later we came…
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Returning to the Bing Crosby Theater
So much of life appears to come down to choice and chance and circumstance. It was a choice and chance that let me return to my high school and sing for my classmates 60 years after singing for them the first time. It was choice and chance that let Pat and me return to Spokane to honor my…
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 7
For our last stop we returned to the river. To a place our family visited regularly when we first moved to Spokane. There is a suspension bridge there that crosses the river. Pat and I stayed on one side. My parents' passage to the other side now complete. I shared a letter and a song with Pat as...
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 6
Pat and I left the river and went to the cemetery. It was beginning to rain. After bringing roses to my dad's grave with my mom for more than twenty years it is still a bit strange to see both of their names etched into the dark granite of their shared headstone. Still there is comfort in…
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 5
My dad died on May 28, 1997. My mother turned 75 the next day. For more than twenty years on the 28th we celebrated my dad's whole life and his dying day. The next day we would celebrate my mom's birth and life. With both of them gone in 2022 we celebrated both their lives on the 28th and then on...
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 4
There was a natural progression of places Pat and I visited as we honored my parents' lives. We started with places that represented the lives they had lived. The places they'd lived and worked and worshipped and raised their family. Then we visited gardens that they visited that also represent…
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 3
There is a saying out there that "we are as sick as our secrets." As someone who grew up in a family with a secret - in this case that my dad had been in a mental institution when I was born - I accept the truth of that idea. The family secret was unexpectedly revealed at my dad's memorial. That...
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 2
It was challenging yet important to visit places my folks lived and worked and worshipped and raised their family. The people who now live in the house I grew up in weren’t home. We gave the neighbor our information and explanation of what we were doing. My dad’s office had been torn down so we...
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One Love and Two Lives - Part 1
On May 28, 2022 it was 25 years since my dad died. The next day would have been my mother's 100th birthday. Two important days for Pat and me to be in Spokane to celebrate my parents' lives and the roles they continue to play. Pat and I began by visiting places they lived and worked and…
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Class of '65 Concert - Part 6
It was something special to return to my high school. To sing once more for my classmates, to do it in the auditorium where I first performed sixty years earlier; adding new memories to some very special old ones. Part of the joy came in writing special songs for specific individuals and...
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Class of '65 Concert - Part 5
After singing songs for my classmates I began to talk about my experiences in high school. I laughed as I told them that my high school experience might be summed up in four words. God, Music, Girls, and Football. Then I became a little more serious and explained that not that much had changed...
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Class of '65 Concert - Part 4
This Episode contains more songs for classmates. "Offering and Receiving Grace" was written for my classmate, Bev. When she was in high school she loved to run. It was the early 60's and the boys were intimated by her. Instead of fessing up to our insecurities we teased her. After high school I...
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Class of '65 Concert - Part 3
This Episode contains more songs written for individual classmates. "Trunk Up in the Attic" was written for my classmate Clarice Wilsey. Her physician father helped liberate the Dachau extermination camp at the end of World War Two. During those trying days at Dachau Dr. Wilsey wrote a number of...
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Class of '65 Concert - Part 2
In MORE SONGS AND STORIES FROM HOME Mark Pearson shares a belief that we are all in this together, more alike than different, capable of finding common ground in the stories we share and the songs we sing together. In this first series of Podcasts, CLASS OF 65, Pearson returns to the high school...
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Class of '65 Concert - Part 1
In MORE SONGS AND STORIES FROM HOME Mark Pearson shares a belief that we are all in this together, more alike than different, capable of finding common ground in the stories we share and the songs we sing together. In this first series of Podcasts, CLASS OF 65, Pearson returns to the high school...
About this show
As someone who has faith in the power of stories and songs – who believes in the might, magic, and mystery of loving and being loved – and who trusts that together songs sung, stories told, and love shared can lead us home – I’d like to welcome you to “More Songs and Stories from Home.”
Hosted by
Mark Pearson