News & Articles

Kevin Kling, Claudia Schmidt, Ruth MacKenzie and Prudence Johnson are out in front of the musicians behind. Photo by Jill Fisher.

October’s haunted season has spawned various musical incarnations (not to mention giant plastic beings decorating front yards). The most obvious may be soundtracks to horror movies with their eerie and threatening scores. 

Murderous melodies (Boss Mama’s “Sister’s Revenge” comes to mind) often get dug up and sung this time of year such as Ross Thorn’s “Gravedigger’s Son.” 

All illustrate how the ghoulish can provide inspiration for songwriters. 

As Halloween morphs into Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) on November 1, one finds there is a swelling of culturally significant music. Here’s one I discovered online: Dance for the Ones We Love at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8aCPEsMuQE.

This macabre musical season is further exemplified by the countless performances of the late Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” 

The song is largely credited for bringing broader public attention to the tragedy. Hence, the 50th anniversary of that vessel’s sinking has been met with a slew of memorial events throughout the Great Lakes region, in addition to the annual lighting ceremony at Split Rock Lighthouse. Many of these have included musical expression.

I imagine John Agacki’s annual Sea Shanties performance at Wussow’s on Friday, Nov. 7 was slated for this season. It was his fifth annual concert, which unfortunately I didn’t get to. Another I missed was “When Storms Come Calling,” a musical dramatization of shipwrecks of the Great Lakes presented by Time Arc Theatre directed by Kathy Laakso with original music by Bruce Nelson. 

Fortunately, due to the last minute mention by a friend, I managed to see the “Gales of November,” a special concert event on Thursday, Nov. 6, at the Marshall Performing Arts Center on the UMD campus. 
And what a special concert it was! When I heard Claudia Schmidt was involved I wasn’t going to miss it; luckily a few tickets were still available even though they had gone on sale a couple months earlier. 

The auditorium was packed by the time the Curmudgeon and I arrived. No wonder — Kevin Kling, Prudence Johnson, Ruth MacKenzie were the other all-star performers. It was a stripped down version of the play Ten November by playwright Steven Dietz and composer-lyricist Eric Bain Peltoniemi. 

This pre-anniversary performance began with the soulful sounds of four accomplished musicians: Dan Chouinard (piano, accordion), the composer Peltoniemi (guitar), Gary Rue (electric bass) and Randy Sabien (mandolin, violin). They instantly put one in the mood for an emotional telling of the Fitzgerald’s story. 

Kling began his part with narration of some basic facts about the Fitzgerald’s last sailing — what time it left a Superior ore dock (2:15 pm on Nov. 9, 1975), its captain (Earnest M. McSorley) and its load of more than 52 million pounds of taconite. 

Following these introductory statements, the story was told in songs by the three female performers, interspersed with narration that provided additional background about the storm, the boat and the crew. 

A variety of characters, brought to life by Kling, were the messengers of this information. The song titles themselves suggest the story: “Heaven Before We Know,” “The Captain & the Cadet,” “Widows of the Water,” “White Caps in the Ditch” are some. 

Johnson, MacKenzie and Schmidt took turns with lead vocals on the disparate songs, with the other two providing harmonies — many of which mimicked the sounds of wind. My favorite among these was “The Lake’s Song” sung by Schmidt, with lyrics that conveyed the idea of a sentient body of water.

One of the more lighthearted moments in this otherwise emotionally-fraught production was the explanation of what happened to the Fitzgerald by Kling, portraying a man wearing a tin-foil hat who put forth the theory that the Fitz’s crew had been “taken” by aliens. He cited the repetition of the numbers “29-29-29” as evidence of a supernatural event. (I’m not sure where those numbers came from.)

A hard-hitting segment near the end of the show was the dark dramatization of the last actual communications between the Coast Guard and the captains of the Fitzgerald and the Arthur M. Anderson (the freighter that sailed back into the storm to look for survivors). MacKenzie, Johnson and Schmidt, backlit and in shadow, spoke the actual transmitted words. They included the last by Captain McSorley: “We’re holding our own.” 

One can judge how powerful a musical presentation like this is by the effect it has on its audience. 
At certain points during the production’s narration, the audience gasped in horrified unison. At another, it audibly chuckled at the idea of aliens abducting the crew. 

Evidently it infected me with the Fitz bug since I went out the next day to purchase the book, The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon. The C had earlier brought an Oct. 10 New York Times article about the story and book to my attention and claims it garnered more recognition of the Fitzgerald’s legendary demise than Lightfoot’s song, as well as increased awareness of the Great Lakes’ immensity and power.

When I saw that the Wisconsin Historical Society, partnering with UWS and the Douglas County Historical Society, was sponsoring a presentation by Ric Mixter, author of Tattletale Sounds: The Edmund Fitzgerald Investigations, that was to include music on Saturday, Nov. 8, I made sure to get across the bridge for that. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Shane Nelson, one of the best guitarists in the Twin Ports and a Superior resident, was providing the promised musical performance as part of this “History Makers Tour.”

Shane played instrumentals on acoustic guitar as opener for the multi-media talk by author Mixter then concluded the presentation with a cover of the Gordon Lightfoot song. As introduction to his cover of the “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” he told of the importance this song had for him and his extended family. 

Shane explained that his uncle, Bob Ashbaugh, had served as a cook on the Fitz. He remembers visiting Ashbaugh as a young child and having first heard the song at his uncle’s funeral. This made him realize how significant it was and compelled him to learn it. 

My further inquiries revealed that Ashbaugh had been urged by several fellow seaman to rejoin the crew of the fated freighter, but who, at age 64 was within a year of retiring, declined. (According to Ashbaugh’s daughter, he didn’t feel safe on the vessel.) 

The family reported that the disaster had a long-term emotional impact on him, with mental breakdowns for years around the anniversary of the sinking. Not surprisingly, Ashbaugh died days after an anniversary of the sinking, on November 12, 2001, at age 80. 

Shane’s interpretation of Lightfoot’s melodic and melancholy song on this evening effectively communicated the tragedy of the event.

John Harry

As our final participation in this past week’s Fitzgerald events, the C and I attended the show, “Remembering The Fitz” at Earth Rider’s Cedar Lounge on the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 9. John Harry was the solo performer, who appropriately began his set with “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. It was an energetic, rough, slashing rendition that conveyed the sound and feeling of steel ripping apart as it did on that fateful November day. Harry repeated the song a couple more times, interspersed with other Lightfoot songs and covers of other popular songs of the time. 

A crowded bar became more so as a busload of folks arrived, presumably there as part of a Fitgerald commemorative tour, attesting to the draw of this legendary historical event.

UPCOMING: For those who also may have been bitten by the Fitz bug, you may wish to take in the program “Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald” on offer at the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior from 6:30-7:30 pm on Thursday, Nov. 13. Or if you are ready for a break from this sad story, the Neil Diamond Tribute at the West Theatre that same evening might be a good choice.

Two other upcoming shows the following evening Friday, Nov. 14, may be of interest: Chastity Brown at Sacred Heart Music Center with opener by Water Cat and “Blue Valentine,” a Tom Waits tribute at Cedar Lounge. 

Hope to see you out there enjoying the Twin Ports music scene!