Demonstrating admirable reinvention skills over the decades since its “Dixieland Jazz” start in 1990, this year’s 34th annual Redwood Coast Music Festival (RCMF) in Eureka now offers a wide spectrum of American roots music at eight different venues from Oct. 1-4.

I’d like to celebrate the extraordinary variety, high quality and diversity of music in Humboldt County and the fascinating constellation of musical subcommunities in our music scene.

A great many years ago in my increasingly dim past, I was a bit of a musician. I never had the talent or stamina to stick with an instrument. As a kid, I took piano lessons, and then classical guitar; I almost killed my mother when I inadvertently threw my despised clarinet through a window, showering her wit...

How did a simple, homegrown idea from upstate New York take root right here in Humboldt? When I sat down with Humboldt Hot Air station manager Neroli DeVaney to talk about Porchfest in Sunny Brae on Oct. 4, that was the first thing on the table.

Musical tributes to aging and elders abound, including many remarkably sensitive songs by young artists — John Prine was 26 when he wrote “Hello in There” about the loneliness of old age, and Paul Simon was 27 when his “Old Friends” with Art Garfunkel, about friends on a park bench, came out on “Bookends” in ...

I grew up in the 1950s in Connecticut, where the farsighted school system subsidized music lessons for kids on Saturday mornings. What a deal! When I turned 8, my mother asked the high school music teacher which instrument he would need in his orchestra in four or five years. “Cello,” he guessed. A lucky choi...

Humboldt County is home to a variety of choirs that give singers, musicians and audiences opportunities to enjoy many different kinds of music programs and genres. One of these, the McKinleyville Community Choir, has performed during the winter and spring for over 20 years. With about 50 singers (we need teno...

In the dark the thoughts come. Fear. What’s going to happen in this country? What is that twinge in my body? I have no control. And then songs come and replace the fear. Wendell Berry, who died in August, wrote these words, a blessing, especially as we’re going into October and November and I struggle with th...

The 1960 movie “Bye, Bye Birdie” featured the song “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” It was a cute number that captured the popular and timeless sentiment of the generation gap between parents and kids. Now that summer has given way to fall and kids are back in school, I catch myself every now and then hum...

I was 16 in February 1968 when I heard over the car radio that there would be a free rock concert in a park not far from where we lived in South Pasadena. The bands were Blue Cheer (after the laundry detergent?) and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Perhaps you or a friend have had this experience — lamenting on Monday or Tuesday that there was a wonderful concert the previous weekend that you would happily have attended, if only you had known about it. How delightful yet discouraging it is to hear the glorious details about the fine performances, the in...

Providence-St. Joseph Hospital has been top-rated by two national evaluations. The Eureka hospital and Redwood Memorial in Fortuna both earned four-star ratings from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), placing them among the top 37% of CMS-rated hospitals nationwide for overall quality. “This ...

Imagine living in the fourth largest metro area in the country. You retire. You turn 70. You realize ya gotta get out of there. You need breathing room. You pack your worldly goods and depart for a town where you know no one. Being an ol’ gal, you must visit the Social Security office in your new town. Waitin...

Last summer, I had the joy of performing in Humboldt Light Opera Company’s production of “The Sound of Music.” I played Sister Berthe, the “Grumpy Nun,” alongside a talented group of “nuns” from 12 to 83. The full cast ranged in age from 6 upward — a reminder that the joy of musical theater has no age limit....

The first time I heard a steelpan orchestra up close and personal, I was struck by the physicality of the music. The players have to move around to get to the notes, especially the bass players. They’re surrounded by six fullsize oil barrels and, as they move back and forth amid the drums to the rhythm, it’s ...

Music brings life to a community, and people living in and around Trinidad are fortunate to have their own piano lady — Jackie Hogan. When she was just 3, Jackie played “God Bless America” by ear on a neighbor’s piano in Malden, Mass. That — and her perfect pitch — prompted her parents to buy her a baby grand...

Chased from their Sierra foothills home by wildfire in 2021, Chuck Supple and his family — including two donkeys, six chickens, two German Shepherds and one cat — explored the ever-wetter coasts of Sonoma and Mendocino counties before resettling in Freshwater. The family, donkeys and all, had never considered...

Correction for “Health Care a Human Right?” in September’s Senior News (page 10).

The Redwood Coast Dixieland Jazz Festival was the brainchild of the late Patty Berg and good friend Bonnie Nealy back in the early 1990s. Patty, a longtime friend of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, was looking for ways to support local senior programs facing declining funding. She heard about a jazz fest...

My father, Charles Junior, his brother Carl and sister Mary Francis were born in a rented parsonage in Kernersville, North Carolina, where their father, Charles Senior, served as principal of a secondary school. After Charles Senior and his wife Mary built their home on Alamance Church Road on land given them...