Folksingers visit Sisters schools

A number of Sisters Folk Festival featured performers spent their pre-performance time on Friday in a different kind of venue.

Johnsmith, a traveling songwriter for over 30 years, entertained the third through sixth graders at Sisters Elementary School with an introduction to the life and work of Woody Guthrie. Then he hopped across town to the high school to do guitar work with Americana Project students.

Johnsmith said his given name is, in fact, John Smith. Since both names are so common, schoolmates slurred them together into Johnsmith. Later it was used in one his tours and it stuck.

The trio of Keith Greeninger, Steve Vccello and Dayan Kai had the first -ever middle school Americana Project class enraptured with stories about the sources of music and the evolution of the sounds of music, all accompanied by live music. Kai talked about community and said, "Music is a huge part of why we still have community. It's a force that brings people together."

Next on the agenda was a performance on the high school stage by Eliza Gilkyson, Jeff Plankenhorn, and Gilkyson's son, Cisco Ryder. Gilkyson featured the "before-the-breakup" version of "Richland Boy," about a boyfriend. Students obviously thought the "after-the-breakup" version that followed was more entertaining.

Greeninger, Vccello, and Kai followed, featuring the versatility of Kai on acoustic guitar, slide guitar (dobro), mandolin, clarinet, and flute. The group sang "Red Wine Again" changing the words to "Dr. Pepper Again." to be more appropriate for the "under-age" crowd.

Then the trio returned to the middle school to meet up with Johnsmith for an on-stage performance before the entire student body.

At the middle school Johnsmith introduced one of his songs.

"This is a song I wrote one day when I was questioning where I fit in things," he said. 'It's called Don't Put Me In a Box.'

"A lot of us, when we are real small, we grow up in this state, in this town, in this family. Some of us are rich, some of us are poor, some of us are smart, and so forth. Sometimes those become like little boxes that we live in, with labels. This is a song about realizing how unique each one of us, as individuals, really is. And not by being in a box and getting stuck, but by keeping an open mind. Don't put me in a box."

Kit Stafford, Americana teacher, said, "When these kids signed up for Americana they didn't clearly know what to expect. We started with some folk art and talked about what Americana is and the kids are really starting to understand that it is a wide subject and they belong to part of that -- part of that Americana."

"Today when the musicians came in from the Folk Festival, they just brought a spirit of Americana -- infor- mation, history, comments about the observations the kids can make in their world and connect those back through grassroots American music, which is a wonderful connec- tion for them."