News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Ward Stroud. photo by Jim Cornelius
Ward Stroud has been making music in Sisters and around the world for years. The musician and maker of Native American flutes has returned to Sisters from a long blues odyssey and is celebrating his homecoming with a full band concert at Sisters Athletic Club on Saturday, December 13, at 7 p.m.
"I wanted to do something in my own community," Stroud said, noting that he had explored some venues in Bend. "It's nice because it's a non-smoking, upbeat venue."
Stroud and his fellow musicians are contributing $1 from each $10 ticket to SOAR.
The concert will feature an appearance by ace Portland bluesman Robbie Laws, fresh off a 2003 Muddy Award for Best Northwest Album for his acoustic album "River City Blues." Laws has won 13 Muddys.
Laws said Sisters could expect an evening of "good dance music, blues, good soul stuff."
Laws was one of the Northwest blues musicians Stroud learned from in his musical odyssey, a trek that started when he decided to learn guitar to add some new sounds to his flute CD "Indiginary."
"We actually started off as instructor and instructee and built a friendship off of that," Laws said.
Stroud has sold about 50,000 CDs of native music. Like most artists, he is creatively restless.
"I wanted to take it to a different audience and blues is really my vehicle for doing that," said Stroud.
"It" is a musical vision, one that sees common ground among many forms of music that all flow from the same stream of primal rhythm and soul-touching notes.
"It's not a separate thing," he emphasizes. "It's just an extension of that indigenous music."
Laws shares Stroud's outlook. He said that blues has more in common with other forms than might first meet the ear. He cited flamenco music as another form that "beats a little closer to the heart."
Like blues, "it's a music of emotion and passion."
Stroud has found that common chord in the most unusual places. He recalled traveling to Easter Island with a film crew.
"I could sit down with people I could not speak to -- but, man, we could jam," he said.
Stroud hopes to share the discoveries he has made with his hometown crowd.
"I want people to know I'm home," he said.
In addition to special guest Robbie Laws, Stroud will play with his band, featuring Joe Leonardi on bass and vocals; Steve Kulin on keyboards and guitar and Rod Norman on drums.
Sisters Athletic Club is located at 413 W. Hood Ave.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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