More Songs & Stories From Home

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 where we were looking back from where we came or from a viewpoint where a bigger world spread out before us. Mount Rainier to the South. Mount Baker to the North. The City of Seattle in between. It is something to be sharing the story of all that happened in 1968 all these years later. To do it as The Brothers Four prepare to go sing in Thailand 55 years after I went for the first time with the group to sing in Japan.Quite a view from here.  Here's a link to the Blogpost Part of a Bigger StoryHere's a link to the Song with Story, Try to Remember

By the end of the Summer of 1968 my dreams of becoming a doctor had been replaced by thoughts of pursuing a music career or continuing to do social work in New York City.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 that I before the year was out I would be dropping out of college to become a member of The Brothers Four. (I entered UW as a member of Class of 1969. I would return years later and get my degree as a member of the Class of 2019. On my YouTube channel you can watch the Graduation Ceremony I created. This Podcast ends at the Homecoming Concert in 1968 with me standing next to Simon and Garfunkel's manager, Mort Lewis. He was also the manager for The Brothers Four. Little did I know that a few month later I would in his office with the two of us laughing about how we first "met." Here's a link to the Blogpost Faith, Hope, Love and FamilyHere is a link to the latest Song with Story, a Brothers Four recording from 1969 of "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream."

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 national audience. For the first time in my life I could begin to imagine music as a possible career path. Doing social work on the Lower East Side in New York gave me access to a world that I could only imagine. At the same time the country was barreling toward a future untested, uncertain, unknown. It appears today we are living with the backlash of all the changes that were being birthed in the heat of that tumultuous summer. For me the heat meant warmth and possibility.  Here is a link to the latest Blog Post.Here's a link to the latest Song with Story. This one is mostly Story. 

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 College Show. On one hand doing work that felt like it made a difference, on the other singing with my friends on national television. Two experiences that were opening doors to worlds I had never imagined. Worlds that did not collide but combined for the first time in those few days in the Summer of 1968. Here's a link to a Blog Post of a performance that introduced Karen Carpenter to the world. My friends and I are the four guys in the back in sport jackets and ties.Here's a link to the Song with Story, "Abraham, Martin, and John" recorded by The Brothers Four in January of 1969. Click below and you can take that recording home with you... 

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 imagined. Early in my time in New York I asked a new roommate and friend if he had any advice on what I could or should do. His advice was timeless and profound. "The most important thing you can do is BE yourself."The truth of that idea was quickly tested when I was asked to provide music for a gathering of inner-city kids on a little island off Bermuda. The kids were African, Puerto Rican, and Chinese Americans. They were not familiar with the music I sang. Yet after a week we all seemed to realize that we were part of something we all needed. To feel we were part of something bigger than ourselves and all in this together.   Here's a link to the Blog Post Being Ourselves Here's a link to the Song with Story When Johnny Comes Marchin' Home 

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 unimaginable. By the end of the summer of 1968 the world I could imagine and lived had grown exponentially. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy made the unimaginable all too real for our country. The year ended with three astronauts circling the moon and shared with the world the "first earth rise." Imagination that Einstein saw as encircling the world would never be the same.Here's a link to Blog Post The Dreamers and Their DreamsHere's a link to the Song with Story, 1968

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 of the Phi Gamma Delta next to the campus of the University of Washington. More than a year since we went back to record again, this time with our families there to sing along. The music, the memories, the moments from those two separate gatherings 55 years apart combine to create a memory of a lifetime.

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 back even more meaningful.Also, here's a link to the Blogpost of John Buller singing Desperado with Lindsey and friends.And a link to the Song with Story that shares two renditions of The Song We Sing Together sung nearly 40 years apart. Below is a downloadable link to McCoy and me singing The Song We Sing Together in concert in 1984.

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 tell John how much he has meant to me for all of these years. It was good to share the letter and the song with him and Laurie at our home and then to add some of the special songs that were sung the day we went back to the Big Room.Here's a link to the Blog that talks more about the song I wrote for John. And here a link to a Song with Story video of the family having fun with a Neil Diamond song the day we went back to the Big Room.

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 Washington campus. In December of 2022 we came back to the Big Room, this time with family there to witness and be part of it. The memories that it awakened and the stories we told of the old days were fun. The best part was how good it felt to still be singing. To have the bond between us strong and current. Here's a link to a Blogpost that compares how we sounded in 1967 and then again in 2022. If you'd like you can download the earlier audio recording of "Would You Like to Know a Secret?" and take it "home" with you.Also here's a link to the most recent Song with a Story video. One of my favorite songs we sang in college was "Can't Help Falling in Love." It was just as good or even better all these years later. 

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 back and did it again. This time our families were also a part of it. It mattered that we were singing in the place The Brothers Four started singing together. That McCoy and I would become part of that group and travel the world together. What mattered more was remembering how much fun we had singing back then and how much fun it was to sing together again in that place where it all began.Here's a link to the accompany blog post in which I share more about Morning Ryde and listen to some then-and-now recordings.

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 parents' lives 25 years after my dad died and 100 years after my mom was born. It was circumstance that brought me back to the same theater in Spokane where I sang for the last time with my dad in the audience. Each of those experiences reminded me of how special it is to put amazing new memories on top of precious old ones. 

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 the two of got ready to return to our "normal" lives.It was an important and satisfying couple of days. Read the companion blog post (with downloadable song!) for this episode.

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 thinking of their spirits united now. They were each strong individuals in their own right who truly did become something more together. She and he and them. It was important to honor them for who they were together as well as who they were as individuals.Read the companion blog post (with downloadable song!) for this episode. 

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 the 29th celebrated who and what they had become. Part of a Bigger Story, Part of a Timeless Song. Various places along the Spokane River, including the falls, offered perfect spots to make such a transition. Here is a link to the Blogpost sharing the song Part of the River. 

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 the cycles and seasons of life. Those gardens offered a transition from who had they had been in life to who they became or were becoming on the other side of this life. Here is a link to an accompanying Blog Post. 

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 revelation freed me to shine a light into dark corners and to find words for what had long been surrounded by silence. After spending years finding words and shining light I can say that while we may be a sick as our secrets we may also become as healthy as our stories.Here is a link to the accompanying Blogpost that talks about finding a way of Letting in the Light into our darkest corners.

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 stood on the corner where it used to be before singing and talking about it at a picnic table. The church was locked so we did our thing in the parking lot.  Still it was significant to stand again at those places and to celebrate and remember my parents’ lives while recalling many memories created there. Here's a link to the accompanying Blog Post. 

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 worshipped and raised their family. We then visited various gardens and celebrated their continued connection to each other as well as to our lives. We moved on to the river where we began to connect their lives to a greater scheme of life. After visiting the gravesite where they are together forever we returned to the river, at that moment representing a river of love, a river of life.At each of our stops we sang and spoke and placed roses or rose petals. At the end of the second day there was a sense it was time to go home. Somehow preparing to and then honoring their lives they had somehow became Guardians and Guides...Part of a Bigger Story, Part of a Timeless Song.This series of Podcasts is an attempt to capture those days and their transformation in songs and stories. Here is a link to the Blog Post talking more about Part of a Bigger Story, Part of a Timeless Song

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 introducing them that day. In many ways our lives are mosaics or tapestries of experiences, of our memories of them, of who we shared them with, and how we see them now. The connections we have with one another may be found in the stories we share and the songs we sing together. For me no better example than our time in the auditorium and in the gathering afterwards.On my website, markpearsonmusic.com, you can find an accompanying blogpost talking about the song, Class of 65.The album, Class of 65, is available for streaming.You can also watch the complete CLASS OF 65 concert on my YouTube Channel.  

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 except the words I would use are Faith, Hope, Love, and Family. Then I sang a song with that as the title. Then I began to tell stories and give meaning to each of those words. I talked about how I grew up going to church and Sunday school and Young Life camps before having everything I believed being thrown into doubt in my early 20's. And though faith returned in a different form I could say once again that "faith is strong, hope is high, joy abounds, and love abides."The came a very special moment in the concert. I welcomed the three other people I had first sung with onto the stage where we first sang together some sixty years earlier. We sang a Tom Paxton song, "Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound." It was something very special to sing one more time in that place with those very special people.As I talked about "girls' and "love" I explained that until I was in my 30's that the only serious relationships I had were with women in our high school and as it says in the chorus, "On the road to finding out could not see then what I see now. All I needed to be found back in my hometown."Finally when I talked about "football" and "family" I explained how I'd gone back to the field where we played and remembered those now long ago days. And how were were a band of brothers. Running out on the field as kids. A band of brothers. Come together become this: A Band of Brothers.  On my website, markpearsonmusic.com, you can find an accompanying blogpost, The Castaways, diving deeper into a song about being back on the stage of the high school auditorium singing once more with the three classmates I sang with 60 years earlier.In that Blogpost you can also listen to a studio recording of the song "Faith, Hope, Love, Family."The album, Class of 65, is available for streaming.You can also see the complete CLASS OF 65 concert on my YouTube Channel

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 lost touch with her. Eventually I realized that I both needed and wanted to apologize to her, but I didn't know how to get hold of her. Then unexpectedly she sent me a Facebook friend request. The song tells the story about how, following up on that request, it's never wrong and never too late to "practice offering and receiving grace."One of our classmates, Bill Morlin, was a well respected investigative journalist. As I explained in the song I wrote for him, "He went places Dr. Jeckyll hides to show us where the truth lies." As I was writing songs for the Class of 65 I read an article about one of our classmates, Mike Forster. The article talked about how after the death of his wife he had begun talking beautiful photos of old buildings and cars around Spokane. What I realized is he was inspiring us all to see "this old world in a brand new light looking through a camera with an artist's eye."The next song, "My Witness," was dedicated to Gail Bronson Harsh. She had taken the loss of her daughter and made the world a better, safer place for all of us. What the songs says is "we all need a witness to the stories of our lives and I wanted to tell you I am grateful you are mine." She had been a witness to her daughter's life. We were witnesses to her life. Important stuff. Finally I pick up a banjo that was more than a hundred years old. It was the first banjo I ever owned. I explained how I'd given it to a friend of mine years ago and my wife had bought it back fifty years later and given it to me for my birthday. I didn't understand at first why I had trouble putting the banjo down. Then I realized that when I played it all these years later I felt my old fingers were now intertwined with the fingers I first played it with as a young boy. Such thinking gave new meaning to the song "Will The Circle Be Unbroken."  On my website, markpearsonmusic.com, you can find an accompanying blogpost talking about a song from the Podcast. This time the song is: "Offering and Receiving Grace."The album, Class of 65, is available for streaming.You can also see the complete CLASS OF 65 concert on my YouTube Channel. 

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 letters home to his wife. After the war the letters were locked away in a trunk in the attic of their home. After their parents died Clarice and her siblings rediscovered the letters. The letters inspired Clarice to write a book, "Letters from Dachau." The letters were donated to the Holocaust Museum. Our fathers were friends. They both brought home unspeakable trauma from their experiences during wartime. I was inspired by how skillfully and thoughtfully Clarice found hope in healing in the darkest of places."Breathing in the World" was written for Bill Yake. He was an amazing poet who helps us see and appreciate the beauty and wonder of the natural world. I appreciate how his words let us breathe in that world in different ways. How his words about that world take my breath way. How the natural world offers us breathing space, a place to truly exhale. Bill wasn't able to be at the reunion. I sang his song to him over the phone. Sadly and unexpectedly he died a few weeks later. His voice was silenced but his words contain to resonate.While many of the songs were written leading up to the reunion, "The Magic Carpet" was written years ago for my friend, Dan Eaton. Dan and I started making music together in 8th grade and continued through high school. It was a time of discovering so many things for the first time. A lot of the things we discovered had to do with cars and the freedom that came with them. In 1983 I wrote a song for him that compared a car to a magic carpet. The song's remained a staple for some 40 years. It was fun to sing it to him at the reunion and also to realize that these days he's driving a Tesla.Dan and I started out playing four string banjos together. After singing "The Magic Carpet" I invited him to join me onstage where we picked up the banjos one more time. It was hard to believe as we were strumming away that it had been more than sixty years since we had first played together. On my website, markpearsonmusic.com, you can find an accompanying blogpost talking about a song from the Podcast. This time the song is "Trunk Up in the Attic."The album, Class of 65, is available for streaming.You can also see the complete CLASS OF 65 concert on my YouTube Channel. 

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 auditorium where 60 years earlier he performed for the first time. Six decades later a musical reunion filled with songs and stories for and about his classmates, celebrating where it began and the roads traveled from there to now.In this Episode three of the songs are written for and sung to classmates who were in the auditorium that day. There is the song for Sandy who years earlier was given only a few months to live. Still around. Still vital. A song for Carol who immortalized her love for our classmate, Ron, in her book of poems, "Catapult." Then a song for Kathy and Ken who not only walked the Camino de Santiago multiple times but put their story into a book, "Every Step Together." On my website, markpearsonmusic.com, you can find an accompanying blogpost talking about a song from the Podcast. This time a song sung before singing songs written for classmates. "As Healthy as Our Stories" talks about how though we may think of ourselves as being as sick as our secrets we can be and often are "as healthy as the stories the ones we tell ourselves, healthy as the stories we tell everybody else." The album, Class of 65, is available for streaming.You can also see the complete CLASS OF 65 concert on my YouTube Channel.

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 auditorium where 60 years earlier he performed for the first time. Six decades later a musical reunion filled with songs and stories for and about his classmates, celebrating where it began and the roads traveled from there to now.In this Episode the songs talk about returning to significant places with important people, adding new memories to unforgettable old ones.On my website, markpearsonmusic.com, you can find an accompanying blogpost talking about a song from the Podcast. This time it's "Heartwood." When he sees life "going out in circles like the growth rings on a tree," his classmates are in the center of that circle, part of the heartwood.The album, Class of 65, is available for streaming.You can also see the complete CLASS OF 65 concert on my YouTube Channel.