Music has been as much a part of my life as has writing. It has flowed in and out of my life, starting at eight when I played the cello (seriously!), then viola, then violin. At nine I started taking organ lessons from Mrs. Johnson, the organist at our church, Emanuel Lutheran. Somewhere around 13, I think, I did some back-up work for her, playing Bach fugues as prologues on Sunday mornings, and then jumping in for the liturgy, hymns and my favorite, the Postlude.
I remember practicing one Saturday alone in the sanctuary, opening up my John Lennon organ book (there really was such a thing) and cranking that old beast up as far as she would go. I was playing Eleanor Rigby at mega-volume (and yes, it sounds as foreboding as you imagine it sounding on a pipe organ) and when I was finished I heard claps echo in the sudden silence. This scared the bee-jesus out of me. But it wasn’t Jesus, it was only the pastor, H.O. Lindeblad. He came on over to tell me he’d never heard the music sound quite like that in the sanctuary, but that it was, I think he said, “neat.” That was in the ’70s, so…
High school was all about theatre, especially musicals where I sang and danced my way as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes my senior year, and piano. I’d made a deal with my mom that if I studied organ for two years, she’d let me take piano. Her view was that organ was much more practical, as no matter what happened to me in life, I could always find a job playing organ at a church, like my sister Dee Ann. But let me tell you, practicing organ on Friday nights when all my friends were at the football games was not neat. I had a few good years at that, where I did pretty good in Guild recitals, made Level III or something like that…
I also sang in the choir, and loved singing harmony as a second alto. So much so that years later when a friend in Canada that I was backing up in her band Jo’s Diner, called me out to sing my own damn songs, in addition to harmony on hers. That led to a solo EP called Fragile Heart, more songwriting, a solo CD called Life Sentences, (remember CDs??). Then a duo, Paschall & Dahl, that did house concerts, gigs and nursing homes–even started a dinner-cruise concert series on a paddlewheel for which we won a provincial Tourism Award (!) Then came along Jump Me Martha, a swing band that consumed my life for a decade in Saskatchewan. We recorded a CD, Go Fat Daddy, 12 original songs in the style of the Big Band Era. One of my favorite parts of this was amazing artwork that my daughter Lucy did for it. Still looks good. She’s a talent, that one.
JMM did hundreds of gigs, festivals, corporate parties, you name it. We had so much fun. Until we didn’t. Anyhoo, the memories of festivals, recording, rehearsing in the living room with some of the coolest musicians: I’ll never forget those times, and all that I learned about music and life from those guys.
Two songs were featured in a Lifetime Channel TV movie in 2006 called Intimate Stranger, which started streaming in 2016 on Amazon Prime Video.
Some were used in live theatre productions, too. I’d love to see more of those tunes used in other media someday.
If you’re interested in hearing any of it…you can click below and have at it.