In 2007 I turn sixty. It is a milestone. Instead of adding up the years, I start counting them down. It is time to take stock of what matters and decide what I want to do with my remaining time on earth. Our family is changing and growing. I’m a grandmother several times over. Ben and JoAnna divorced and Ben is married to the actor Laura Dern and has two more children, Ellery and Jaya. Joel marries a French woman named Marielle and publishes a book of poetry, Restless Spirit: Eyes of a Child, and a groundbreaking, bestselling children’s book called All the Way to the Ocean about protecting the health of the world’s oceans. Peter and Lea are living in Goleta while she attends graduate school at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Peter is teaching art and sculpture classes for Cal State Channel Islands and casting bronze.
As my birthday approaches I know I have to make a plan. If I don’t make a plan, plans will be made for me by my flourishing, loving, and well-meaning family. So I book two days in a room with a balcony overlooking the ocean at the Fess Parker hotel in Santa Barbara, just for me. Everyone feels sad for me, being alone on my birthday, but they shouldn’t. I’m happy. I sleep soundly and late, and order room service breakfasts of scrambled eggs, toast, fruit, yogurt, and large pots of coffee. I sit on the balcony gazing out to sea, basking in Santa Barbara’s unique light and salt air, wondering what I want. Am I missing something crucial? Is there something more I’m meant to do?
The Pacific is a different sea than the one I gazed at as a child, but it has the same powerful and peaceful impact on me, and in that meditative state, it comes to me. I want to preserve the stories of the Folk Music Center. I have always been a scribbler of notes, songs, memories, short stories, and bits of conversations that catch my ear. But now, I decide, I’ll buy a video camera and record other people’s memories of the music store. I’ll be the link between the older generation of folk musicians and music lovers and the kids and grandkids. If I don’t make a record of the memories and stories, they will die with me.
I come home refreshed and raring to go. I know I have already missed collecting so many important stories from people who had passed on, and in the coming days and weeks I contact everyone I can think of from the early days of the music store. I film Clabe Hangan, Keith and Rusty McNeil, Mike Seeger, Chris Darrow, and Mike McClellan. I film dozens of interviews, recording the memories of the events and characters that populated the early Southern California folk revival. For good measure I have each person play and sing a song. I gather a historic collection representing a movement that I like to think changed the world.
A year and a half after my sixtieth birthday the Folk Music Center celebrates its fiftieth anniversary at the store. The staff protests that the space isn’t big enough, but I’m not concerned. Somehow the Folk Music Center will manage to accommodate whoever shows up. It always does.
People come from far and wide. Some have made complex plans to attend; others happen upon the event at the last moment. A photographic history lines the countertops and there is a table laden with food against the guitar wall. There is no program or agenda beyond celebration. A house band forms organically. Ben thanks everybody for coming. I invite everyone to share their thoughts, stories, and songs. Miraculously, no one rambles or hogs the mic. Messages congratulating us on fifty years arrive from all over the country. Huell Howser had filmed an entire episode on the Folk Music Center that aired on his popular public television show, California’s Gold—with an audience of a million viewers a week—and many who had seen it find their way to the anniversary party.
Ross Altman, Angela Lloyd, John York (formerly of the Byrds), and Ruthie Buell, some of my mother’s dearest pals and fellow musicians, are here. The internationally known singer and songwriter Jackson Browne sings Warren Zevon’s “Carmelita” and expresses his gratitude for the Folk Music Center, adding his wish that it continue to thrive. Tom Freund and I join Ben and Jackson on Ben’s song “Spanish Red Wine,” and we wrap up with “Goodnight, Irene.” Then we thank everyone, cut the cake, and toast fifty years of promoting, supporting, and providing live music made by and for the people.
My parents’ children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are here. The music store crew, musicians, friends, family, community, supporters, and strangers—everyone comes and pays tribute to a venerated institution.
After the guests depart, the family and crew and our closest friends talk and reminisce. I listen as guest after guest expresses their love for the place. I am thrilled, and exhausted. After we clean up, I feel just like the tired kid who had been sent home to drink orange juice following the grand opening of the Folk Music Center fifty years before.
In 2009 Ben is invited to perform at Pete Seeger’s ninetieth birthday party and concert at Madison Square Garden. It seems extraordinary but also fitting that my son is invited to play at a tribute to this giant of American music whom I first knew as a family friend. Pete had helped my mother from time to time with her guitar and banjo classes back in Boston, and sat in our kitchen discussing banjo bridges and the blacklist with my father. He came to Claremont to visit my family and the Folk Music Center. Dot and Pete’s wife, Toshi, exchanged Christmas cards for years.
Ben invites my sister Sue and me to accompany him in New York on his song “Gather Round the Stone.” Sue plays guitar and I play banjo. Ben is tickled to be able to provide a full circle moment for us as a tribute to Dot and her mentor, Pete.
Our car drops us at the entrance to the stadium, where an assistant is waiting to escort us around Penn Station to an unprepossessing side door and through to the backstage labyrinth of Madison Square Garden’s hallways, locker rooms, dressing rooms, production offices, greenrooms, cafeteria, and lounges. We are ushered to the Knicks greenroom—a comfortable lounge with a giant in-house flat screen showing the preparations being made on stage. Lo and behold, there on screen is Ben’s guitar tech Dave, who has voluntarily jumped in to help with the cumbersome sound check. It feels like every folk singer on earth is here. I catch up with old friends—Joel Rafael, Tom Morello, Taj Mahal—and meet new ones—Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, and Bruce Cockburn. Pete, Toshi, and their family members are across the hallway in rooms of their own, and the women performers are further down the curved hallway in their assigned area.
Ben, Sue, and I cut out of the fray to briefly rehearse the song in a quiet corner of an empty physical therapy room. A large framed poster catches my eye: no betting. no tipping. no fixing. I have no experience with professional sports and it occurs to me that incentives for unethical behavior can be hard to resist. But isn’t this just the professional sports version of selling out? Selling out cuts across all forms of entertainment, whether it be athletes, musicians, writers, actors, journalists, photographers, or newscasters. We are all just small cogs in the corporate money machines. Posting signs instructing us to be ethical can’t hurt.
Danny Clinch gets a great photo of me coming off stage holding my mother’s banjo and shaking hands with Pete, who is just heading to the stage with his banjo. The photo hangs in a place of honor in the Folk Music Center. Pete goes out on stage and sings “Amazing Grace,” which sounds all the more amazing in his aging voice, rich with the ardor and wisdom acquired over his lifetime. Ben and I are watching on the greenroom TV screen and look at each other wide-eyed as Pete adds another verse and chorus, and then another verse and chorus, and another and yet another. Where did he get the stamina to share so much of his hard-earned grace? When Pete returns from the stage, after singing what seemed like a hundred verses and choruses of “Amazing Grace,” Toshi, Pete’s wife of sixty-six years, comes out of their dressing room and gently but firmly reminds him not to overdo it.
With the completion of dozens of Folk Music Center history interviews, I begin another project. I gather up all the notebooks, envelopes, napkins, and scraps of paper on which I have written songs and parts of songs over the years. I polish the lyrics and arrange the music. Then I invite several musician friends to a local recording studio, and over the course of two years—between the Folk Music Center, producing the Claremont Folk Festival, the ever-growing family, and teaching ukulele—I record my songs.
It feels terrific to be in the studio. Recording a song is like painting a picture with layers of sound, highlights, and coloration, a delicate balance of what I want to hear while giving each musician freedom to do what he or she does best.
But before I have the chance to mix and master the recordings and turn them into an album, I’m sidetracked by other adventures. My songs will have to wait.
Ben stumped for Barack Obama before the 2008 election and has been invited to the White House as a guest of the president several times. In 2013, he is invited to be one of the performers at the Memphis Soul show in the East Room of the White House, which is broadcast on PBS. Ben shares this remarkable experience with me, inviting me to be his guest. I would have to get a preliminary security clearance, and I wonder how far back they check. The blacklist left a permanent scar.
I pass the test, and the invitation reads, “The President and Mrs. Obama request the pleasure of your company at a performance and reception to be held at the White House on Tuesday, April 9, 2013, at six-thirty o’clock.” It specifies cocktail attire.
“I’ll have to go shopping,” I tell Ben.
I arrive at the W hotel in Washington, DC. I’m scheduled to meet Ben and his friend Jac that evening. I discover I’m in the land of crab cakes. My favorite! I have crab cakes for lunch and crab cakes for dinner.
A visit to the White House involves a security gauntlet unlike anything I have ever experienced. In addition to the prescreening, the town car that brings us to the White House has to be inspected by dogs and a magnetometer at the gate. I look up and see sharpshooters on the roof. Once we are inside we walk through a metal detector, and then finally into the White House to connect with our guide. Blues musician Charlie Musselwhite, who traveled with us, has his harmonica case scrutinized. Our guide says there have been more death threats made against President Obama than all previous presidents combined.
The performers and their guests are ushered from one room to another for interviews, filming, and refreshments. Ultimately we land in a large room where we wait to meet the president and Mrs. Obama.
While we wait, Charlie Musselwhite and his wife, Henri—who looks striking in a layered outfit she designed herself—tell me their story. Charlie was in the throes of alcoholism and circling the drain when he met her.
“Stop drinking or you’ll never see me again,” Henri told him. Charlie stopped drinking, reclaimed his career, married Henri, and hasn’t had a drop to drink since.
The singer and civil rights activist Mavis Staples admires my dress and says she would like to borrow it when she comes to California on tour. Cyndi Lauper is a delight to see but keeps to herself and warms up with vocal exercises sung through a straw. I chat with a tall, pleasant young man Ben tells me later is Justin Timberlake. A member of the Alabama Shakes arrives wearing cargo shorts and flip-flops and is sent away to get properly dressed. Hey, this is the White House. Everyone is dressed to the nines.
Before we step through the doorway to meet the Obamas, a page hands us name cards and holds out a tray for our purses, phones, and any other objects we still have on us. Finally, Ben and I are ushered into the room. The Obamas are standing side by side. Michelle, in a sleeveless dress and kitten heels, stands nearly as tall as her husband. Another page takes our cards to the president and first lady. President Obama brushes the cards away.
“I know Ben,” he says, giving Ben a hug. Ben turns to me.
“This is my mom.”
I reach forward to shake the president’s hand, but he says, “Moms get a hug.” I get a hug and a bonus light brush of an air kiss on the cheek.
“Look at this, Michelle!” he says. “How does a big old guy like Ben have such a tiny mom?”
The first lady gives me a knowing look, rolls her eyes in the direction of her husband, and shakes her head ever so slightly. She hugs me and kisses me on the cheek. The official photo is taken, and soon we are on the other side, reunited with our belongings. Ben leaves to warm up for his performance.
Henri saves me a seat in the front row—a proud mother and a proud wife, side by side. It is an unforgettable night. The performers are marvelous, and the honor is beyond comprehension, but there is also an element of sweet revenge. Never in a million years would I have pictured myself in a private event at the White House at the behest of the president of the United States. Sitting there soaking it all in, I smile and think, Suck on that, Joe McCarthy!
A brief champagne reception follows the show. Our guide gives us our official boxes of White House M&Ms, and I’m handed a rose from the Rose Garden. It is a huge relief to step into the warm muggy night after hours of shivering in my St. John Knits in the subzero chill of the White House.
The day after the event Ben, Jac, and I stroll from the National Mall to the shoreline of East Potomac Park. It is an unseasonably warm spring and the cherry trees are blooming early. In the heat of the afternoon the sunlight seems pink, feels pink, and smells pink. It has taken sixty years, but the daughter and granddaughter of communists has been invited to the White House—the People’s House—because her son was raised to appreciate all kinds of folk music. Times have changed.
The Folk Music Center Museum continues to produce great festivals—always dedicated to the memory of Dorothy Chase—with an eclectic collection of musicians. We have Henry Rollins, formerly of Black Flag, doing spoken word; David Lindley; Dave Alvin of the Blasters; David Grisman Bluegrass Experience; Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals; Taj Mahal, Jackson Browne, Yuval Ron, John McEuen, Susie Glaze, and many more. The Chase-Harper clan is growing rapidly. By 2013 there are four more grandchildren, Peter’s two boys, Saul and Zev, and Joel’s two boys, Enzo and Mathéo. They all live in Claremont, and I get to watch another generation growing up in the midst of all the instruments, lessons, classes, workshops, musicians, and artists. I put the boys to work as soon as they are able, sorting parts and accessories, dusting, pricing, stocking shelves, and their favorite, talking to the public.
My life is busy and full.
Then, in the summer of 2013, I get a call from Ben. “Mom, we’ve got ten days to record an album. Pick your best songs. I’ll see you at the Machine Shop tomorrow at noon.”
The next day I walk into the Machine Shop, Ben’s studio in Santa Monica, to the strains of Ben playing a beautiful melody on the piano. It is “Born to Love You,” a song he has just written. I sit beside him on the piano bench and find a harmony. Once again I’m struck by how well we communicate in the language of song. We go into the vocal booth together and roll. One day down, one song recorded.
The second day in the studio we are recording one of my songs, “Farmer’s Daughter,” a political song that starts, “My daddy is a farmer, that makes me the farmer’s daughter,” and follows the demise of the family farm from the ruthless tactics of the mega-agribusiness Monsanto to the ruthless tactics of the banking industry. I play banjo in a G modal, or sawmill, tuning that I learned from Clarence Ashley at Idyllwild. Jimmy Paxson, drummer and percussionist nonpareil, adds a beat that breathes new life into the song. I go into the vocal booth with the banjo and record a scratch track—that is, a rough version of the vocals intended only to help the other instruments, such as the bass, percussion, and guitar, lay down their tracks. The plan is that I will rerecord the banjo and lead vocal after that, which is how it is usually done. But in this case Ben, the engineer Ethan Allen, and the band members—guitarist Jason Mozersky, upright bassist Jesse Ingalls, and Jimmy—all agree that we should keep the scratch version because it has the right emotional feel.
On day three we work on Ben’s song “Heavyhearted World,” a raw song that addresses addiction and mental illness. I’m in the booth recording my harmony vocal and get stuck on one line. I’m frustrated with myself and Ben is frustrated with me for being frustrated with myself. The pressure builds and the session begins to spiral down. He walks out of the studio, but Ethan and I continue to work on the song. When Ben returns the harmony is complete. I have changed it a little but it works, and best of all, Ben likes it.
I realize that being the producer of an album with his mother as co-artist has to be difficult. At one point we sit down and talk it through. I assure him that he is the producer and his choices will prevail. Even if I think one of my verses has Shakespearean brilliance, if he thinks otherwise, his decision will stand. We are both relieved.
When I arrive on day four, Ethan and the band are there but Ben hasn’t arrived. I suggest we start working on “City of Dreams,” my tribute to an earlier Southern California of citrus groves, sage, and chaparral.
Ben walks in and says, “Nice fingerpicking. Who is that?”
“It’s me!” I chirp. Another song is done by the end of the day.
Ben and Jason record all the album’s instrumental solos. I’m usually done recording my parts by the time these tracks are being laid down, which allows me to sit back, listen, and enjoy all the great playing. There are a lot of good takes. I’m glad I’m not in charge of choosing.
Ethan mixes the album—that is, blends the individual tracks of each song to create a version of the song that is the best it could be. This is as much of an art as songwriting, playing, or singing. He shares all his work with us and sometimes we aren’t satisfied until the eighth, ninth, or tenth mix. I’m never worried. Between Ethan’s superb ear for timing, pitch, and levels and Ben’s producer’s ear for artistic precision and emotional feel, the best is brought out in each song.
After that the album has to be mastered. Mastering is the process of transferring the final mix to its ultimate location, which is the source from which all copies will be produced. Mastering is just as important as mixing. Ben chooses Lurssen Mastering in Hollywood, which is a big deal. Gavin Lurssen is a much sought-after engineer. He mastered the soundtrack of the Coen brothers’ movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? We sit at his side in the perfection of the mastering lab listening to his superb work. We listen to it in the lobby. We listen to it in our cars. We listen until ultimately the sound, spacing, and levels are perfect. I know this because the album sounds like it was always meant to sound.
The first track on Ben and Ellen Harper: Childhood Home is “A House Is a Home,” by Ben. This song becomes the name of the documentary Danny Clinch makes about the creation of our album. About half of the documentary is filmed at my house, and the other half is filmed at my other home, the Folk Music Center. Once the video is complete, the art for the front and back covers of the album is selected, the photos and lyrics for the liner notes are settled on, and the tech copy—which is all the text that says who did what where—is written out, it is time to introduce Childhood Home to the world.
The album’s drop date is Mother’s Day, 2014. We head to New York to record several songs for SiriusXM Satellite Radio, play Rockwood Music Hall, and do an interview with Rolling Stone. We interview with NPR’s Scott Simon and do a Mother’s Day special for CBS. Then we fly to England for more interviews and play the BBC’s Woman’s Hour and Breakfast. After that I continue on with Ben’s solo tour of Europe to help promote the album.
We discover that our mother-and-son interaction is suffused with meaning for our varied audiences—more than we could have imagined. After the shows, countless people share their personal stories of filial or parental love and loss. It is all so tender, loving, and wistful that at times it’s almost more than I can bear. I listen and offer whatever advice, hope, or comfort I can. If sharing music with my son gives people solace or brings them closer to peace, it is a gift beyond our expectations.
Of course, not everyone adores us. One man, part of a European production team, looks at me just as I prepare to go on stage.
“A mother performing on stage! My mother cooks a big dinner for me every Sunday afternoon.”
I want to say, “Screw you and your mother.” Instead I reply, “She cooks, I sing.”
We do many interviews for radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines. Sometimes I wonder how some of these people got their job as interviewers, but most are fine. Some questions are completely unexpected, like when Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes asks if we can handle some tough political questions. Ben responds by bringing up gun control.
In a completely unanticipated twist, Hayes says, “Ben, I don’t understand why you would do an album with your mother. I mean, with your mother?”
Ben starts to answer, but Chris interrupts him. “I can barely be in the same room with my mother. How could you, with a career like yours, do an album with your mother?”
“Chris,” I say, “it sounds like you’re having some issues with your mother. Would you like to talk about it?”
Instead of replying to me, he turns to the camera. “We’ll be right back with Ben and Ellen Harper talking about their new album, Childhood Home,” and cuts to a commercial break.
Throughout the experience of the Childhood Home tour I’m asked one question again and again. “What is it like doing an album with your son?”
To me, and I believe to Ben, making music supersedes the personal past, present, and future. Ben works hard on every project and so do I. We both expect professionalism and commitment from ourselves and anyone we work with—including each other. At the same time, there is no denying the magic that occurs when Ben and I sing together, whether it’s at the Santa Barbara Bowl or on tour with Childhood Home. Who can explain magic?
I resort to saying, “If your mother is still alive, do a project with her. It doesn’t matter what. Write a story, sing a song, journal, scrapbook, learn calligraphy, paint a painting, join a class—but do it now. I wish I had done an album with my mother. I waited too long.” No matter how many times I say this, I always feels a twinge of pain and a pang of guilt for what never is to be.
With the Childhood Home album cycle over and thoughts of the lost opportunity to record with my mother on my mind, I resolve never to let another regret pass me by—or at least to try. I return to the studio to work on the songs I recorded after the Folk Music Center’s fiftieth anniversary. I contact Ethan Allen, and we collaborate on producing an album of my songs, Light Has a Life of Its Own, mastered by Gavin Lurssen. The songs on my album tell stories; for example, “The Busker” looks at playing for money on the street as a job, not as begging. The song “Dragon’s Chain” is written after the disaster in Fukushima Daiichi. It’s a posthumous correspondence between Albert Einstein and Marie Curie in which Marie shares feelings of remorse for inadvertently unleashing the dragon’s chain reaction that led to a nuclear meltdown. It sounds bleak but feels like a love song. “Hearts on the Line” is about interracial marriage.
Sometimes I think about my songs as “folk music grows up.” I’ve left behind sentimentality. I don’t have illusions about love. Singing probably isn’t going to change the world and we might not overcome. But I figure if you’ve got something to say, say it well in five verses and a chorus and someone out there will listen.
Some things can’t be said in five verses and a chorus, so I also write stories. I feel a responsibility to preserve the past so my grandchildren, and their children, will always know where they came from. Out of my old notes and scribbles emerge family stories, entwined with the stories of complicit singers, songwriters, sinners, and saints. When I share these stories with friends and family, I’m tickled by the reactions. Everyone demands more. “Send more stories.”
I’m happy to oblige. At the core of it all is the Folk Music Center, now a historic site. Not the official kind—the real kind. It’s both a destination and a legend. Multiple generations have made pilgrimages to the Folk Music Center to connect with the music and spirit of the place. You don’t have to be a Chase or a Harper for the Folk Music Center to feel like coming home. Our extended community has always loved the store for supporting the live, organic music of the people, and for making a home and performance space for musicians of all stripes and from all places.
We hear from people all over the country who are carrying on the traditions of Dorothy and Charles and Bess and Pete. They are teaching and playing and singing the folk songs that keep alive the voices of people past and present. When people come together to sing, be it in a band, church, temple, picket line, protest march, ukulele club, or living room—wherever voices are raised together in song—that is a folk music revival.
You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate and carry on this tradition. Musicians can’t keep music alive for a second without music lovers. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
A lesson I learned from my father the septuagenarian rings true to my septuagenarian ears. Being part of a friendship laced with poetry, songs, art, nature, and compassion is being part of the ultimate friendship—peace on earth.
I am the tongue
of my own bell
ringing out
the constant call
of dignity
for all