Songwriter, soprano invest in Shalom Center and ‘Change’
By Andy Graham
April 26, 2009
More than one sort of change is coming to Bloomington, with Sylvia McNair, Kent Johnston and many others hoping it all adds up to a nice chunk of change for the Shalom Community Center.
McNair, the spectacular soprano and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music mentor, will stage the Bloomington premier of her one-woman cabaret show, “Subject to Change,” May 1 at Chapman’s Restaurant and Banquet Center. And she is contributing vocals on several tracks of a CD Johnston and friends are recording, titled “Playing for Change.”
All proceeds from both efforts will benefit Shalom.
“I have fallen in love with the Shalom Center,” McNair said. “There are so many great charitable organizations here in Bloomington, every one of them worthy of our time and money and prayers, but I know that the Shalom Center addresses such very basic needs of every human being — warm and healthy food in your stomach, the protection of a roof over your head for eight hours a day.
“And there is career and guidance counseling, and computer access and telephones. There is a special room set aside just for families, and a play room for the children. Shalom is just a special place.”
Johnston found that out personally when, unexpectedly, he recently found himself in Bloomington experiencing homelessness. He rallied determinedly, finding a job with Tree of Life and his own place to live, but felt compelled to write a set of songs about the experience that are the foundation for the forthcoming CD.
“This is the way it’s supposed to go — Shalom offers assistance in tough times and people hopefully get back up on their feet. Kent is a poster child for that, and it also happens that he is a very talented songwriter,” McNair said.
“Playing for Change,” recorded at Tom Yeiser’s Sweet Owen Sound Recording Studio near McCormick’s Creek State Park with arrangement and production assistance from Dan Lodge-Rigal and Yeiser, is widely varied stylistically but unified in theme.
“All the songs are a reflection of Kent’s experiencing homelessness or loneliness,” said Alan Backler, one of the local residents and musicians helping with the project. “‘Hard Times’ is one of the songs specifically about the Kent’s time with Shalom.” Backler supplied a lyric sheet for some of the songs, including this excerpt from “Hard Times:”
Early in the mornin’, sun shinin’ down,
I hit the streets to meet who might be hangin’ ’round.
Old familiar faces, everyone is there.
Wonder who might have a cigarette to spare?
Cuz it’s a hard life, life in the streets,
There’s a finer class of people here
Than you might think you’d meet.
Yeah, it’s a hard life, life on your own.
Sometimes I get lonely, but I’m never alone.
“Cuz there’s the Artist and the Poet, the Joker and Mat-fu.
There’s the Drinker and the Thinker and they got nothin’ left to do.
The Old Sage and the Cowboy, the sweet lost Dreamer Girl.
The couple with the baby, all abandoned by the world.”
Whitney Gent, Shalom’s director of development, said the center is serving more people than ever now. “Meals served increased 20 percent last year over 2007, and that appears to be a trend, because we expect a similar increase this year,” Gent said earlier this month. “Given the projections we have, we’re talking roughly about 6,500 meals a month.
“We’re so grateful that both Kent and Sylvia are investing in the Shalom Center this way. They both have very inspiring stories and they’re helping Shalom empower people in our community in ways we might not be able to otherwise.”
McNair is also contributing to the silent auction accompanying her “Subject to Change” performance by donating a private dinner for four and a brief private concert at her home, with bidding to start at $2,000. Shalom has opened that item up to the community, not just attendees of the show, and those interested in bidding can contact the center before 1 p.m, Friday. Some of the $45 tickets for McNair’s show are still available at the Shalom Center.
Musical selections for McNair’s show are germane to her life, which she values all the more after her brave battle against breast cancer, and she plans to include a song or two from Johnston’s CD. “It amounts to a musical version of autobiography, using songs that I love that have existed for decades, done in such as way as tell a little bit about my life journey,” she said. “And it’s been quite a journey, if I may say so.
“I’ve been so fortunate. It’s been immense, my career, much bigger than I ever dreamed it would be. When I was a little girl, my dream was to play the violin in the Cleveland Orchestra. I was a good violinist and that’s a great orchestra. So that seemed plenty lofty to me. But through a series of left turns, sometimes into oncoming traffic, I have ended up spending almost 30 years as a professional singer. I can’t even believe it myself a lot of the time, even now. The odds of that happening are miniscule, on a good day.”
McNair relishes “stretching” her art to sing on Johnston’s CD, with its genre hopping between folk, folk-rock, ballads with piano and voice, country elements and flat-out rock guitar styles. “I find myself, in the (Sweet Owen) studio, working with very talented people much more fluent in the musical language Kent writes in,” McNair said. “It’s great. It makes me think more broadly about how I can use my voice to tell a story.”
The CD, expected by the end of May or early June, will cost $20.
“The important thing is Shalom gets the money — all the money, “ McNair said. “Kent isn’t taking a dime for this. Every single person involved is donating their services.”
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
