What does it mean to be a community, to be part of a community?
A few weeks ago, ABC 7 Television sent a team of reporters to Petaluma
to learn about stories that might have escaped the normal news scan. At an
evening meeting at City Hall, they listened to representatives of over a dozen
organizations. They heard about people who were working to make the lives of
their fellow Petalumans a little bit healthier and happier. After two hours, as
the meeting was ending, one of the reporters couldn’t help but comment on what
great community we had in Petaluma.
Community: common unity. People who share something – in this case, the
Petaluma River watershed – sharing their time, talent, and energy to help each
other have a better life.
A wonderful example of this is Keith Allen and his community of music.
Keith died on January 1 of this year, abruptly ending a song that filled so
many lives. This Sunday afternoon and evening, we are uniting Keith’s community
in a marathon all-ages musical party and benefit at Petaluma’s Mystic Theater.
Keith was an electrifying guitar player. Petaluman Frank Hayhurst (of
Cotati’s Zone Music and the non-profit Musicians Helping Musicians) said Keith
had the talent to climb up there with Eric and Stevie Ray.
But Keith’s greater calling was to nurture new musicians. His teaching
talent was sought by struggling novice and seasoned professional alike. His
method of instruction put the interests of the student first. Rather than drill
beginners on scales, he’d encourage them to bring in and learn to play music
they liked, and he’d work in the fundamentals around it. If a promising student
wanted to learn a new instrument, like mandolin, Keith would get a mandolin and
learn it first so he could teach it.
Keith was a giver. With an ever-ready smile, he was a steady volunteer
for the thirty benefit events sponsored by Musicians Helping Musicians over the
past ten years, says Hayhurst. And he’d take on any job, from roadie grunt to
headliner. Many people who knew him well told me Keith “had no ego.” He might
have been a guitar god, but he chose instead to be here for his family-- his
grown sons Tom and Jack, his baby girl Leah, and his wife Diana.
Keith had a large extended family through his teaching. He helped many
young people, especially boys, at a time in their lives when nothing much but
music held any interest. Through their playing, they would gain the joy,
self-esteem and self-discipline for what Hayhurst calls “a foundation for
success in life.” Petaluma singer-songwriter Larry Potts tells of this in “The
Magic in the Music”: “A legend as a teacher -- a skilled and gentle hand / It’s
hard to say just what it was that made him such a man / Hidden in the lesson –
when all is said and done / the magic through his music – that’s how he saved
our sons.”
Keith was a compassionate and unifying presence among North Bay
musicians, and that’s why they are uniting this Sunday in his honor and in
benefit for his two-year-old daughter Leah. The Mystic Theater’s doors open at
4PM, the show roars to a start at 4:30 with the dance eclectica of Mumbo Gumbo.
Hayhurst says “it won’t let up” until the party ends at 11:30. Hear Norton
Buffalo, Bonnie Hayes, The Haggertys, Gary Vogensen, Nina Gerber, Peter Welker,
Toast Machine, The Delectables (with Jack Allen), and many more. Tickets are
$15, $10 for students/seniors. You can mail donations for the “Keith Allen
Fund” to Zone Music, 7884 Old Redwood Hwy, Cotati CA 94931. For more info, call
707-664-0872.
If you want to help Keith’s
family, if you want to share the community spirit of local musicians and music
lovers, or if you just want to party with a musical line-up you’re not likely
to ever hear again, come join us this Sunday.
I’ll let Frank have the final
words, which came at the end of our discussion about the personal and community
benefits of a music-rich culture: “It’s the solution. Music is the solution.”