Playing It Forward Coming to the Center for the Arts March 14th

John Harrison: [00:00:00] Good morning everyone. It’s John Harrison for another edition of Meet Cortland County in the studio with me, Steve, Steve Lundberg, thanks so much for joining me, A longtime area musician and, friend of the station, real great guy, and music lover, talking about a really cool concert coming up.

Steve, thanks so much for coming in.

Steve Lundberg: Thank you John. It’s nice to be back here at WXHC.

John Harrison: Yeah, good to have you back. And, I’m sure it feels comfortable and familiar getting behind the microphone and, chatting with me, but we’re putting you on the spot today cause we wanna talk about playing it foward.

Steve Lundberg: Well, for myself, I, I just got active in this last year, although I’ve been around for it’s entirety, myself, it’s, it’s brand new to me, but there’s so much great history with this. It’s hard to believe, I guess, that it goes back almost 40 years. I think it was 1988 when this all started, and it was done for a fundraiser for the Cortland Memorial Hospital.

Then it kind of, reinvented itself after that, and built into a scholarship fund for youth who, wanted to attend BOCES..

John Harrison: Wow.

Steve Lundberg: And then not too long after that, the Cortland Youth Bureau lost its funding for its music [00:01:00] program. So it was at that time they decided that everything was gonna be generated towards the youth bureau.

Then, around 1996 or 1997, I believe it was Phil Clark, passed away a longtime area musician Tom Rosenthal or Rosie Rosenthal, I guess as everybody would know him, decided that the whole focus was gonna be on youth music in the youth bureau, and then some time after that, Phil passed away. And Rosie decided that from then on the event was going to be dedicated in Phil’s memory.

John Harrison: Right

Steve Lundberg: So he, along with, long time era, musician, Melvin Drake, Mel Drake as we know him, they organized it going forward from there. And then Mel passed away. And after that, Rosie kind of took the torch himself and kept it going until COVID came along, And like so many other things It kind of fell by the wayside until last year.

And, new organizers, Karen Vaughn and Phil Clark’s wife Carol and Paul Simererro have [00:02:00] now taken over as organizing the event and it’s now called Playing It Foward, and it’s in the memory of local musicians who have passed away and I think one of the things so cool for me, John, is, is from playing this last year, they’re running all these old photos behind the stage of very musicians.

And just to see so many of these local musicians that are gone in the great music that, that they, they provided here in the community, whether it was Tex Row or Spiegel Wilcox or Sanford Coochie or Ronnie Dio. And there’s just so many to mention that I should probably stop there so I don’t offend anybody.

But it’s just a wonderful, wonderful event and I’m happy to be part of that.

John Harrison: Yeah. And such an amazing event. And, and too, like you said, just jumping right into the history of the event. So fascinating and just the persistence for the last, 40 ish years, I think just about 38 years.

Of this event and just keeping it going and going and going. And, that message of playing it forward has persisted this whole time. ’cause it’s a, it’s playing the music and, and raising this [00:03:00] money for these great events and like you mentioned with the photos, folks, if you head over to playingitfoward.net and scroll all the way down to the bottom, you can actually find, a gallery of some of these past musicians and you can see some of these pictures.

And, it’s really a fascinating lens through the history of music, specifically up here, in Cortland. It’s such a, such a cool and awesome thing. I mean, I know for me, I’m a music lover, so, this is just a really fascinating event. Why don’t you tell us, just some details like where it is, what people, what people can expect.

Steve Lundberg: Well, that, that, that’s, I think one of the things that makes it so wonderful is, is that it’s right here in Homer at the Center for the Arts. Just a wonderful music venue, as you know, and, it’s, it’s always a pleasure to play in there or just be a, be a part of the audience in there as well. And they open the center up.

As well, to dedicate their time to this as well. Yeah. All the musicians, they donate and dedicate their time, and once again, the music all goes now, it stays with youth, only goes to the music programs at Homer, Cortland and St. Mary’s School. So the, the original [00:04:00] idea, I guess, is. Is playing it forward itself.

John Harrison: Right, yeah, yeah and, just such an awesome thing. And, yeah, opening up the Center for the Arts for just about 12 hours of music. I mean, it’s, it starts at 10:30 AM opening band is gonna be the, Homer High School, Emma, Oliver, and Orion, and then all the way through to 9:10 at night.

Right with, with Yale Hughes, and just so many other great acts in between. It’s just a, a full day affair of music.

Steve Lundberg: Yeah. So many different kinds of music from, from jazz to rock to rockabilly to folk to, bluegrass.

John Harrison: Yeah, have a little bit of bluegrass

Steve Lundberg: Which is obviously close to my heart.

John Harrison: Yeah.

Steve Lundberg: And, and it, and it’s, and it’s nonstop and just a wonderful day of music.

And it’s free, once again, donations are taken and raffles all to go to these music programs at the local school. So it’s just a great day of music, especially this time of year.

John Harrison: Yeah, yeah. It’s the kind of the perfect time where, people are really getting sick of the, the doom and gloom of being stuck indoors and, just having this, this [00:05:00] cool event to, to go to and kind of spend all day at, come and go as you please.

Cause again, like you said, it’s completely free. And at the Center for the Arts of Homer, which is right here in beautiful downtown Homer, New York.

Steve Lundberg: Yeah, 15 bands. Like you mentioned, in 11 of those bands are repeats or folks that have agreed to play from last year, but there’s some new groups coming over.

John Harrison: Oh, yeah let’s hear some of the new ones.

Steve Lundberg: Yeah, a band from Binghamton called Acoustic Brew.

John Harrison: Oh.

Steve Lundberg: And a band from over in Ithaca called True Blue and I’ve heard them and they’re a great trio, and then two local bands that people will be familiar with that are, that are playing this year or the Elderly Brothers and Jazz happens.

So it’s just a, a great mix of music all day long.

John Harrison: Yeah, it’s gonna be really fun. Looking forward to it. And again, folks, that’s gonna be Saturday, March 14th at the Center for the Arts of Homer. We’re gonna be opening the doors right at 10:00 AM and of course, music’s starting up at 10:30. And we’ll go right on through the day, completely free.

So stop on by, there will be food and drinks available for purchase, of course cause you gotta have some refreshments. But, all the, all the money raised through donations [00:06:00] and everything, it all, all goes through a great cause. Well, Steve, thanks so much for, for joining me in the studio today.

Steve Lundberg: Thank you, John.

It’s nice to be here and, hopefully see you again next year.

John Harrison: Yeah, yeah. Hope to see you again next year. And, well, for everyone listening at home, it’s been John Harrison on X101.