By Gretchen Millich, WKAR News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-987027.mp3
EAST LANSING, MI – Since the 1970's, the folk music scene has been alive and well in the Lansing area, and it continues to grow. There are lots of venues: radio stations that play folk music; places to buy instruments and learn to play them; jam sessions that are open to everyone; as well as concerts and festivals.
Under the big umbrella of folk music is another venue: community sings, where the guests are the performers. More and more people, who love to sing -- whether they can carry a tune or not -- gather on the first Monday of every month at the Unitarian Universalist Church in East Lansing.
A lot of the credit for organizing and promoting community sings goes to Sally Potter, who directs the monthly sings at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Potter loves to lead, but she says it's challenging.
"Because they get to pick the songs on Monday nights," she says. "And so you have to be ready for everything, and you've got to pick a key, and you're really on your toes. But everybody came to play. Nobody came to sit. Nobody came to watch, and within about four notes, we've got a strong song."
Terry Clarke and his wife Jane are first-timers. They both love to sing.
"I wondered what happened to all the old folk singers," says Terry Clarke. "They're here. It's great. It's like forty years later, they've all still come around again. They've still got songs in their heart. That's great stuff, you know."
"It's a common thread that runs between everybody," says Jane Clarke. "Most people recognize certain songs, and they all can sing them, regardless of whether they have a great voice or a so-so voice. Everybody can sing."
Ruelaine Stokes knows you don't have to be a good singer to enjoy these gatherings. She remembers years ago, when she joined the children's choir at her church.
"I was maybe about five or six, and I was really thrilled and very excited about it," says Stokes. "And then, a few weeks later, they said I had to go because I was getting all the other children off key. I was devastated. I was just really crushed and felt I should never sing after that."
At these monthly sings, Stokes has again captured that thrill of singing with a group.
"So to me, as a person who's always felt it would harm people if I sang in public, it's tremendous to come to events like this and to be able to sing and realize that it's really fun and I'm not hurting a soul," says Stokes.
The songs are mostly taken from the Rise Up Singing songbook, and there's always a band to help move the singing along.
Cindy Morgan plays the guitar and the concertina.
"Making music is fun," says Morgan. "I love doing music all by myself, but when you make music with a whole group of people, something magical happens. Folks that you don't know well in other ways and you don't have to, because on some level it's like you touch their soul for a little bit when you sing together."
What Sally Potter loves is to produce events like this. She launched the Mid-Winter Singing Festival nine years ago. That spawned others: a Holiday Sing, a Spring Sing, a sing at the Great Lakes Folk Festival and another at the Wheatland Music Festival and these monthly sings.
"This is my community," says Potter. "A wonderful place with lovely people who like to play and like to sing, and when the time came and I got a couple ideas, the community was ready."
So, every first Monday, Potter says, she has no idea if there'll be thirty people or eighty or whether they'll be strong singers or what songs they'll sing. She just knows they'll come and they'll keep coming.
To watch our WKAR-TV special, visit A Community Sings.