This week's story starts with a confession: I am a sucker for a great title, which is how I first got hooked on Oaksong Society for Preservation of Way Cool Music up in Shasta County. I was a huge fan before I ever heard a lick of its way-cool music.
That was back when Oaksong’s concerts were held on the tiny stage at the old Bernie’s Guitar on Bechelli Lane in Redding. At other times events were more pastoral, nestled into oak woodlands out in Oak Run, blues and bluegrass served up with barbecue. Lately, the ongoing preservation of way cool music happens at Pilgrim Congregational Church in Redding—the building itself a surprise, the last church designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
It is all way cool music that would not otherwise make it this far north, especially for the small, intimate performances that have made Oaksong so popular with musicians and audience alike.
That was also long before I knew Barry Hazle, who spins platters on NSPR’s weekly Shasta Serenade show, also heads up the large volunteer crew that grew the Oaksong Society for Preservation of Way Cool Music from an acorn. Both Shasta Serenade and Oaksong showcase all forms of Americana, featuring singer-songwriters including Rita Hosking, Laurie Lewis, Chris Smither, and Chuck Brodsky; groups such as Blame Sally and Marley’s Ghost; and straight-ahead surprises like slack key guitarist Ledford Kaapana and Da Ukelele Boyz. Yes, Americana also includes Hawaiian sound, those concerts typically Oaksong’s most popular—drawing people from Sacramento and the Bay Area as well as regulars from surrounding towns. It’s all way-cool music that wouldn’t otherwise make it this far north, especially for the small, intimate performances that have made Oaksong so popular with musicians and audience alike.
The main points, Hazle says: To always offer music “people just wouldn’t find anywhere else,” and also make sure folks aren’t forced to fork out $10 for a beer. Oaksong concerts are also immensely personal. Events seat just 200 or so, offering artists a chance to meet their fans—and sell their CDs—during the break, face to face. No pretense, just exceptional music and good value at $20-25 for a seat. For students, just $10.
Then there’s the venue, earthy as all get out, designed to look like it grew straight up from the ground. According to church historian Barbara Ashbaugh the congregation crafted the building, with guidance from Wright’s architects at Taliesin West in Arizona. The massive walls were fashioned mostly from wild hunks of stone carted over from nearby Ono, Keswick, and Iron Mountain Mine. Braced and also sheltered by massive steel and concrete beams, the design was described by Wright (tongue probably in cheek) as “pole and boulder gothic.” He intended it to resemble a tent, in the ancient dwelling style of Israel and other desert tribes, a resting place for our temporal, transient, and migratory lives. There are no right angles. Also by design was the slow descent into the sanctuary, suggesting a return to creation and to God’s forgiving, protecting love.
All you just-retired boomers looking for something useful to do, listen up: Rumor has it that the church still hopes to complete Frank Lloyd Wright’s original vision for Pilgrim Congregational Church. What you can see and enjoy today is an impressive 13,000 square feet, but it represents just 20 percent of Wright’s design. What now serves as the sanctuary—and as performance space, ahem, for the Oaksong Society for Preservation of Way Cool Music—was designed to be Pilgrim Congregational’s fellowship hall. Wright’s soaring central sanctuary, with a mountainous roofline and adjacent belfry built from boulders, still needs to be made, along with the 100-seat chapel and 17-classroom education wing. If you’ve got relevant expertise as well as enthusiasm and endurance to contribute—let’s face it, this is a big project, requiring money as well as muscle—contact the church and see what can be done to get Frank Lloyd Wright’s Redding dream a little further on up the road.
In the meantime, enjoy Oaksong at Pilgrim Congregational. The new season’s first concert is Chris Smither—also the first ever way-cool show, in 1999—who’s performing this year on Friday, October 7. Be there or be totally square.
