20 Years of Song of the Lakes: The Boat still Floats for Baladeers of the Great Lakes

Jan. 1, 2003

Five years is a long time in the life of a band. Ten years is a near-miracle. But Song of the Lakes? The Benzie-based folk phenomenon enters its 20th year of celebrating the Great Lakes and the northcountry lifestyle this year, with upcoming projects ranging from campground gigs to a possible third trip to Europe.
Group members Michael Sullivan (guitar), Lisa Johansson (flute), Ingemar Johansson (guitar/Swedish nickleharp), and Rick Jones (percussion), will celebrate the dawn of their 20th year together in a Jan. 18 concert at Central Michigan University, which will be broadcast on CMU public radio‘s “Our Front Porch“ series.
“To me, this is like our local version of the Grand Ole Opry,“ says Jones, noting that the show has featured internationally-renowned folk artists, such as the Tannahill Weavers and Solstice.
Sullivan says the band plans to debut new material at the show and capture it live with CMU‘s superior recording facilities. The band also plans to issue their fifth album this coming year, building atop their success in selling some 20,000 independently-produced albums over the past two decades -- most from the bandstand at SOL concerts.

KEY TO SUCCESS
Song of the Lakes took flight in 1983, performing at the opening of the Northwest Michigan Maritime Museum in Frankfort. Early on, the band performed songs celebrating the “sweetwater sea“ of the Great Lakes, including chanties and ballads of long ago. Through the years, they‘ve sought a greater depth and variety to their music, which has evolved to a genre they call “Great Lakes world music,“ along with Celtic, Scandinavian and acoustic rock songs.
“We‘ve found that our music really resonates with people of all ages,“ says Ingemar Johansson. Bandmates note that many of their younger fans literally grew up with the band, seeing them for the first time as babies at some long-gone family festival. Last summer, they encountered a young goth couple in the U.P., tricked out in the black makeup and paraphenalia of doom, who waxed nostalgic over seeing SOL as kids at a festival in Wyandotte.
Did they ever think they‘d last this long?
“No way,“ says Lisa Johansson, to which Sullivan quips, “I figured it would be like 17 years.“
Jones says a key to the band‘s endurance was an element of foresight which many musicians seem to lack: “One reason we all lasted is we all bought land,“ he says. “We‘re not like most musicians -- a bunch of gypsies -- we bought homes in Benzie County.“
That sense of security and proximity enabled the band to keep refining their act with the essentials of home & hearth nailed down.

MUSICAL DIRECTIONS
Jones notes that another key to the band‘s longevity has been its ability to grow musically through 80 concerts per year, while remaining true to its acoustic tradition.
“We‘re not a one-note band; we‘re not just one color,“ he says. “We go from Celtic to humorous songs to a cappella. If you‘re not into jig and reels, just hang out for awhile and the band will change. We‘re continuously dabbling with different styles.“
The most recent evidence of that dabbling is Sullivan‘s interest in Latin sounds. During their second appearance at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the band was exposed to a great deal of Brazilian-inspired music. The result is their own transcendent blend of “Benzilian“ music. “It‘s Latin music with a bit of Benzie in it,“ Sullivan says.
Ingemar Johansson brings a Scandinavian dimension to the band, most recently with the introduction of the Swedish nickleharp, an exotic instrument which combines the qualities of a hammered dulcimer and a harp with a mandolin. Then too, SOL has a tradition of sea chanties, a cappella and Irish tunes that are longstanding crowdpleasers. Lisa is bending notes in new directions with her new alto flute, while Jones‘s use of such ancient percussion instruments as a log drum and rattling antlers keeps audiences agog.

THE NEW STUFF
The band has also been working in a modern vein in recent years, with examples including the hard-driving emo song, “Man in the Mirror,“ which Jones liken‘s to an abstract painting in terms of how different listeners interpret it. “Old Testament Sky“ is another song where the band stretches its muscles beyond the folk idiom.
For their upcoming album, SOL may be bringing in some local artists with different backgrounds to celebrate their 20 years together. Interlochen cellist Crispin Campbell is one such artist who has joined the band in concert and on recordings on a number of occasions.
“The new album will be a celebration of the four of us changing individually, but coming together musically,“ says Lisa. She notes that the CD will offer reflections on their evolution as a band, but will also offer some surprises, such as a rendition of the 15th century ballad of “Matty Groves“ which was covered by Fairport Convention in the late ‘60s. Sullivan adds that the album will feature some material in the “Poleska tradition over jazz chords,“ a sound we can‘t begin to guess at.

BLUE HIGHWAYS
Then there‘s their upcoming tour. Over the past couple of years, SOL has been sponsored by the Michigan Heritage Council to appear on a Culture Tour of campgrounds, state parks and historical parks each summer.
Typically, the band takes their kayaks on tour to check out local rivers.
“We‘ve been all over Michigan, playing music and making sidetrips down rivers and meeting all kinds of characters,“ Jones says.
“I think the beauty of what we‘re doing is that we‘ve probably reached every nook and cranny in the state,“ says Lisa. “We‘ve been down Michigan‘s blue highways, and everyone seems to want to hear a band that talks about the best things of our state.“
In fact, the band is thinking of calling this summer‘s outing the “Blue Highway Tour“ in an homage to author William Least Heat Moon‘s exhortation to travel the back roads for the best in America.
Not all of their kayaking outings are a success. Once, Ingemar notes, the band decided to paddle the Pigeon River prior to a concert at a campground in Harrisville, not knowing that the river was full of logjams. Hours later, they emerged from the woods, “walking the river more than paddling,“ a half-hour late for their show. “We missed our first gig in 19 years, but we made up for it the next day,“ Sullivan says.

MOVING ON
Through the years, Song of the Lakes has broadened its range to include the entire Great Lakes area, from Erie, Pennsylvania to Ladysmith, Wisconsin. They‘ve also played some magnificent settings, such as the opera houses of Calumet, Ironwood and Nagaunee in the Upper Peninsula. Then too, there‘s their Montreaux Jazz Fest connection, at which they serve as cultural ambassadors, serving up an exotic rustica of Great Lakes sounds to culturally-deprived Europeans. It‘s a connection that raises the tantalizing notion of touring places such as Sweden, which has a huge folk scene.
Clearly, Song of the Lakes has options as it enters its 20th year. And the one question we forget to ask is what will the band be doing 20 years from now?
Stick around and find out.