Hear country singer Marcia Kester at Marysville’s Red Curtain
Published 1:30 am Friday, February 17, 2017
MARYSVILLE — “Help Marcia Kester Quit Her Day Job.”
That’s the name of Kester’s one-woman concert at 8 tonight in an intimate setting at the Red Curtain Arts Center in Marysville.
It’s also her real-life, longtime goal, though managing to actually get there might be a year or two off.
Kester, 54, has been after this life dream since her high school days in Mount Vernon when her parents gave her a guitar and amplifier set.
She got sidetracked a few times with life, but Kester now is a well-known country performer in Snohomish and Skagit counties and she’s on her way.
Jill Quanstrom of Stanwood knows Kester from the singer’s performances at area farmers markets, especially Mount Vernon’s where Quanstrom once worked.
“Marcia is so amazing,” Quanstrom said. “She’s on everyone’s performance lists and she’s the go-to person for people who need music. Everybody is always happy when Marcia is singing.”
Kester likes to tell this story: David Gates — of the band Bread — and his wife heard Kester sing one summer in Anacortes. Mrs. Gates asked her husband out loud if Kester was “as good as I think she is” and his answer was “yes.”
The Red Curtain’s Beckye Randall calls Kester “incredibly talented.”
Kester, humble and sincere, loves her fans.
You’ll find them on Thursday nights at the Buzz Inn in Lake Stevens and at many other live music venues around the county, at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe and in various elder-care facilities, including Josephine Sunset in Stanwood.
Kester works three days a week as a bookkeeper. The rest of the week is focused on her music. Now is the time to make her passion a fulltime thing, she said.
“I’ve never felt in a hurry, but I am a little bit behind the game,” she said. “I realize that if I don’t put in the effort now, I’ll have fewer opportunities later. Will people still let me sing Patsy Cline when I’m 80? I at least have to try.”
When Kester was in high school, her music was rock ‘n’ roll. She loved her brother’s band, and he was a role model.
She studied hard and enjoyed performing with her guitar. But after high school she got married, moved to California, had two children and put her music aside.
“I played my guitar only as an emotional outlet,” Kester said. “But the dream was still there.”
After her divorce, Kester moved home and struggled as a single parent. She lost a job, her car, her home. She dealt with drug addiction and temporarily lost custody of her kids.
Kester’s daughter told her DARE officer at school that her mom was using. The Mount Vernon police officer was Mick McClaughry (who returned home earlier this week after two months at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle recovering from a gunshot wound to the head).
McClaughry confronted Kester.
“He saved my life,” she said. “I had to change, and I finally got it. Mick is very special to me.”
Kester got involved with the Displaced Homemakers Program at Skagit Valley College to help plot her future. She went back to school and started playing music again, first at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, then at the Stanwood-Camano Art By the Bay Festival and later at the Hometown Hootenanny, which used to be staged at the Historic Everett Theatre.
“I had been looking for my family to give me permission to move forward, and what I needed was to give myself that permission,” she said. “That’s the story behind my song, ‘Whose Life is it Anyhow?’”
By this time, Kester was finding out that she enjoyed the classics of country music that her mother had loved: Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline.
She even put together a Patsy Cline tribute.
“I’m not an impersonator, I never wanted to do that,” Kester said. “But Patsy’s music calls to me. Singing ‘Crazy’ doesn’t prompt my tears anymore, but I still feel the emotion. I’m blessed to have her recordings and the stories of how she overcame her own struggles.”
Some of the women Kester listens to and whose music she likes to cover include Joan Jett, Stevie Nicks, Shania Twain, Trisha Yearwood, Tanya Tucker, Melissa Etheridge, Wynonna Judd, Tracy Chapman, Pink, Alanis Morrisette, Fergie, Adele, Sia and the Lumineers.
The concert tonight will feature songs that span decades and genres, and a dance area will accommodate those “who want to boogie and aren’t afraid to show it,” Kester said.
“It will be the music that shows off my voice, songs people will sing along to and a few little surprises.”
If you go
Marcia Kester is in concert 8 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Red Curtain Arts Center, 9315 State Ave., Suite J (around back in the Goodwill shopping center) in Marysville. Tickets are $10 at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2767125 or call Red Curtain at 360-322-7402. Kester will sell her CDs at the show. Find more information and listen to Kester at www.marciakester.com.
