EVERETT – Outside it was raining, but the smile on Rudy Baehr’s face lit up the room like a beam of sunshine.
Onstage at the Bakerview Community Center in north Everett, the semiretired carpenter from Snohomish plinked on an acoustic guitar as he joined another Friday evening jam session with his friends from the Old Time &Country Music Association.
A crowd of about 50 people, some using wheelchairs and walkers, bobbed their heads in time with the beat. Many sang along as the amateur musicians onstage belted out country standards and folk songs.
The music wasn’t particularly flashy or, in some instances, all that polished, but it was honest and was played from the heart.
“It’s just what we are, everybody having a good time,” Baehr said later.
It’s also about helping others.
The twice-a-month performances at the public-housing high-rise in Snohomish County’s largest city are one way that members of the Everett-based music group give back to the people and place they call home, said Alice Striegel of Marysville, the association’s president.
For nearly 20 years, the group’s all-volunteer musicians have entertained at Snohomish County nursing homes, retirement centers and grange halls. Nobody is paid to play. Money raised through donations and fund-raisers is passed along to area food banks.
Helping out others is a great feeling, said Elliot Johnson of Snohomish.
“You should see them, they sometimes just break down and cry they are so happy when they see that check,” he said.
The Old Time &Country Music Association is dedicated to preserving and promoting what members consider America’s best music. For the group, that encompasses country classics such as Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and folk song standards including “You Are My Sunshine,” a tune that was penned in part by former Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis. A typical jam session features a bit of honky-tonk, bluegrass, church hymns and even polkas, Striegel said.
Some members are musicians, but others don’t sing or play. They just love being around music that once provided the soundtrack for life in rural America, whether you labored on a dairy farm near Clearview, or cut down fir trees near Darrington or piloted a fishing boat off Alaska.
Johnson is a World War II veteran whose embroidered bib overalls identify him as “Grandpa Elliot.” He was born in 1925, and over the years has amassed a library of tape-recorded oldtime and country songs now totaling more than 23,000 entries. He developed his musical taste working on his family’s dairy farms in Snohomish and King counties.
“My dad always had a radio in the barn, and we listened mainly to country music,” he said.
Striegel, an administrative assistant at the University of Washington Medical Center, was born and raised in Oklahoma. She joined the association in 1989 after searching for a venue to hear the music of her youth.
While many association members are older or retired, the performance bug draws in younger people, too, including one musician who is 14 years old, Striegel said. The group’s bylaws say one of its purposes is to encourage beginning musicians. They welcome singers and players of acoustic instruments, everything from the stand-up bass, guitar and fiddle, to banjo, mandolin, Dobro, piano and accordion. One member even plays a clarinet.
Getting a chance to sing and play is what attracted Baehr to the group about five years ago. He received encouragement and appreciation from people more interested in his effort than musical execution.
Baehr said that involvement in the association has allowed him to use his love of music to connect with others. One of his favorite venues is a Snohomish nursing home where many of the residents are being treated for debilitating head injuries. The residents there always smile and sing along.
“It’s real. It’s the real thing,” Baehr said.
Reporter Scott North: 425-339-3431 or north@heraldnet.com.
Come sing along
The Old Time &Country Music Association hosts regular jam sessions every second and fourth Friday of the month at the Bakerview Community Center, 1401 Poplar St., Everett. Music is played 6:30-9:45 p.m.
Come sing along
The Old Time &Country Music Association hosts regular jam sessions every second and fourth Friday of the month at the Bakerview Community Center, 1401 Poplar St., Everett. Music is played 6:30-9:45 p.m.
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