Looking forward to the Spring 2019 session of the Machine! Rehearsals begin at 3 p.m. on Sunday, January 13 at the Senior Center.

We’ve got some great sub-themes going between the songs for our spring program. One is *Shine*. I’m starting an arrangement of the Joe Jenks song “Lady of the Harbor”:
And she welcomes them with open arms
she says, “Let my children in.”
Shine on, shine on, o you Lady of the Harbor.

From “Everybody Is a Star,” by Sly and the Family Stone:
Everybody is a star—-I can feel it when you shine on me
Shine, shine, shine shine

From John Lennon’s “Instant Karma”:
And we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun

Another sub-theme is voice. From the Wailin’ Jennys, “One Voice”:
This is the sound of one voice. One people, one voice.
A song for every one of us.

From “The Turning of the World,” by Ruth Pelham:
With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along
and our lives will feel the echoes of our turning.

-Jean

Last summer, the Family Folk Machine became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. This fall, we have launched our first annual Appeal in order to build a solid foundation for the choir so we can sustain our work into the future. Please support the Machine with a secure online donation of any size by clicking here. You can also mail a check made out to Family Folk Machine to P.O. Box 1421, Iowa City, IA, 52244. Thanks for your support!

This column appeared in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on Saturday, November 3.

by Jean Littlejohn

The Family Folk Machine will present “Stand by Me: Songs of Friendship” in two concerts this November in intimate spaces: Sunday, November 11, at 3 p.m. at the Senior Center; and Saturday, November 17, at 3 p.m. at the Old Capitol’s Senate Chamber. Since we’re an intergenerational choir, the songs on the program reflect on friendship through the course of our lives: friendship between children, in the teen years, adult friendships, and even friendship beyond the grave.
The younger kids of the Folk Machine will be presenting the premiere of their song “A Friend Is Who I Am” at our concerts. It’s quite a feat to write a song as a group and prepare it for performance in a few short weeks! This new song is catchy and charming, and it benefits from a swinging ukulele part by Nicole Upchurch and the crystalline sounds of a banjo ukulele (“banjolele”?), played by Craig “Pappy” Klocke.
One of the beautiful things about working with the Family Folk Machine is witnessing the transformation that sometimes occurs when a familiar song is brought to life by a community of singers. Many of us have heard these lyrics a hundred times: “When the night has come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we see; No, I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand by me.” When we sing these words as a group, though, instead of a song that’s just about a couple of loyal friends, we have a vision of what we as a community can be for each other when things in our land are dark.
Friendship can help us through hard times. We’ll sing Pete Seeger’s “Precious Friend”: “Just when I thought all was lost, you changed my mind.” Our group of seventh-graders will sing, “Those who feel the breath of sadness, sit down next to me,” from a song by the band James.
A song on the concert program that’s a favorite among our choir members is “Little Bird,” by the Iowa City band The Weepies. It’s a gorgeous and elegantly crafted song, and in our interpretation it expresses the way a friend can help you when it seems like the world is against you: “They tell me I’m crazy, but you told me I’m golden.” Our arrangement of the song will feature the rich guitar playing of Gayla Drake and the intergenerational FFM string ensemble.
It has been wonderful to add Gayla to our band this fall. We’re enjoying the talents of two other new musicians as well: Jon Ranard is joining us on piano, and Scott Wittenkeller is adding drums and percussion to our songs. These two versatile and sensitive musicians join Tara McGovern, Craig “Pappy” Klocke, Jim Schepker, Dave Parsons, Nicole Upchurch, and Jeffrey C. Capps for a stellar instrumental line-up, augmented by our string ensemble and even some brass instruments.
Please join us on November 11 or November 17 for uplifting and thought-provoking songs about friendship. There will be lots of opportunities for singing along, and we need your voice.

Jean Littlejohn lives with her family in Iowa City and directs the Family Folk Machine.

by Jean Littlejohn

Right now I’m finishing up the last few song arrangements for our fall FFM session, “Stand by Me: Songs of Friendship.” I love all the stages of bringing a song to life in the Folk Machine, but the arranging stage is a really exciting one. Arranging gives me the space to think about a song in slow motion, to find its inner logic and structure, and to dream about the meanings and connections that will be layered onto the song when it takes shape in the voices of the choir. It gives me an opportunity to think about how certain lines in the lyrics may have particular resonances for certain people in the Machine (although, of course, I’m sure there end up being many resonances that I know nothing about) and how certain verses would sound in various individual solo voices. I can think about the people who are going to be singing the harmony I’m writing, and it makes the work really fun, like creating a special present by hand for a friend you really like.

Sometimes you don’t know, going in, whether a solo song is going to “arrange up” very successfully for choir. This fall I’ve been very pleased by the way all the songs have arranged up. We’ve got a program full of strong songs, and they’re already starting to take shape in rehearsals.

Press-Citizen Community Music column September 1, 2018

by Jean Littlejohn

The Family Folk Machine has begun rehearsals for our fall program, “Stand by Me: Songs of Friendship.” We’re learning arrangements of well-known songs like Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” and our title song, “Stand by Me,” along with lesser-known songs that reflect on friendship from a variety of angles. The program is a mix of rock songs, traditional folk songs, contemporary folk songs, and original songs.

Being able to present original songs highlights an area of growth for the Family Folk Machine. Last fall we welcomed Nicole Upchurch as associate director, and she has started a songwriting curriculum with the FFM kids. Last spring the kids split into five groups and created five completely original songs; they were able to perform these songs on the Family Stage at the Iowa Arts Festival and at an event for Take a Kid outdoors.

“Autumn Wind,” one of the songs written by FFM kids last spring, will be featured on this fall’s concert in an arrangement for the full choir. The song reflects on the change from summer to fall. The songwriters met with Nicole, local songwriter Gayla Drake, and me to complete final touches on the song before adapting it for the full FFM ensemble, and the result is a beautiful song about how a friend can help you weather life’s changes.

There will be two FFM songwriting projects during the month of September. The younger FFM kids will be writing a song about friendship under Nicole’s guidance, and Gayla will be teaching a songwriting class to a group of teens and adults. Part of the mission of the Folk Machine is to foster individual musical growth, and it’s fantastic to have these new opportunities for individuals to increase their musicianship and hone their creative abilities.

Expanding our leadership has been possible in part due to a new organizational structure. Last spring, the Family Folk Machine became an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Our previous five years of existence had been under the umbrella of the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center. The Senior Center supported and nurtured us from an idea into a robust reality, and we are happy to be maintaining a close working relationship with the Center and its staff. Meanwhile, Nicole and I and our new board are learning about budgets and best practices and record-keeping—definitely an area of individual growth for me.

The FFM will present “Stand by Me: Songs of Friendship” in two concerts this November in intimate spaces: Sunday, November 11, at 3 p.m. at the Senior Center; and Saturday, November 17, at 3 p.m. at the Old Capitol’s Senate Chamber. As I’ve been working on the song arrangements, I’ve realized that these concerts are going to be very special because of the unusually personal and reflective nature of these friendship-themed songs. I hope you can be there!

This Saturday, June 2, the FFM kids will take the Family Stage at 2 p.m. They are going to perform several of the songs they wrote this spring, and you won’t want to miss them! FFM Associate Director had the kids divide into groups for songwriting–words, tunes, chords, and everything–and the results were fantastic. Saturday’s set includes a song about autumn, one about walking in Hickory Hill park, a lullaby to the moon, and a song that considers the everyday problem of having your pickax break when you’re down in a cave.
Here’s an ArtsFest map to help you find the Family Stage:
https://summerofthearts.org/wp-content/uploads/2018ProgramMap.pdf
See you there!

Press-Citizen article published May 5 about the upcoming Family Folk Machine concert

by Jean Littlejohn

The Family Folk Machine, Iowa City’s intergenerational choir, is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a concert at the Englert Theatre on Saturday, May 12, at 3 p.m. We are excited to bring back some of our favorite songs from the past five years for this concert.
In putting together a program of favorite past songs, we wanted to represent certain themes that have been important to the Machine. We included a song by Woody Guthrie (“Deportee”), a song associated with Pete Seeger and the Weavers (the Weavers’ arrangement of “When the Saints Go Marching In”), and a couple of songs with Iowa City roots (including Greg Brown’s “Wash My Eyes”). We are following the Louis Armstrong tradition of using social justice verses in “When the Saints Go Marching In,” with new words written by my sister, Rebecca Littlejohn.
One of our Iowa City songs is “Unsteady Youth,” by Alexis Stevens. The song was Stevens’ contribution to the Iowa City Song Project, a 2012 Englert commission, and it’s full of Iowa City references (“We’ll go for a walk out in spite of the cold, where the sidewalks are paved in words over gold…and the sweet angel face that’s turned black as a crow…”). We first performed this song in the spring of 2013, when the song and our choir were both brand new. It’s been rewarding for us to learn this beautiful song again this spring, with lots of new singers.
Another song that’s been a favorite for singers and for listeners is “Loon,” by Boston songwriter Oen Kennedy. A joyful wilderness encounter with loons brings Kennedy to ask “Will I keep my heart open?” The song inspired a beautiful monotype by artist and FFM member Amy Dobrian. Thanks to Amy’s generosity, we’ve been able to use her image of loons under the starry sky on our concert posters. Amy framed and donated the original piece for a raffle—it is now on display at the Senior Center, and you can purchase raffle tickets there or at our May 12 concert.
We will feature one brand-new song on our concert, a song that was written for the Folk Machine by Jeffrey Capps. Inspired by the iconic image of Woody Guthrie’s guitar, with its “This machine kills fascists” inscription, Jeff’s song states “This machine wages peace.” You may see some photos floating around Facebook of Folk Machine members with a special This Machine guitar. We’re loving Jeff’s new song. From its second verse: “Fight the fight with a lyric and a light ‘til you find the harmony/Fight the fight ‘til the darkness dies/All in all, just takes something pretty small to rock this big ol’ world.”
We hope you can come sing along with us on May 12!

We are very excited to welcome several local organizations to our Calling Me Home concerts. Rather than just singing about our feelings about home, we’re happy to offer our audience a chance to see some of the good work that’s going on in our community to help with issues of affordable housing and homelessness. We’re so pleased to welcome the Iowa River Valley chapter of Habitat for Humanity, Iowa City’s Shelter House, and Trail of Johnson County to offer information and a chance for conversation before and after our concerts and during intermission. We’ll also have information available from the City of Iowa City about their affordable housing initiatives.

Singing all these songs about home have made us think about how much our homes mean to us, and we are happy to be able to expand this thinking to include our whole community.

The Family Folk Machine is very excited to present our fall program in two concerts:

Friday, November 17 at 7 p.m. at the Senior Center
Sunday, November 19 at 3 p.m. at the Old Capitol Senate Chamber

Come and sing along with us! The concerts feature songs by contemporary folk and pop singers and classics from Woody Guthrie, Gram Parsons, and the Velvet Underground. The concerts are free and open to the public. We are pleased to host representatives from community housing organizations at our concerts to share information on local housing issues.

Join us for an all-request sing-along at Uptown Bill’s on Saturday, Nov. 11. We get started about 3 p.m. and sing until 4:30. It’s a fun, low-key way to sing and make connections with neighbors, friends, and acquaintances, and everyone is welcome. We enjoy rediscovering old songs and learning some new ones. Uptown Bill’s is a welcoming and comfortable place to hang out, and you can park in the University lot across the street for free on weekends. Hope to see you there!