{"id":3252,"date":"2021-09-15T12:18:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T16:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/?p=3252"},"modified":"2021-09-15T12:35:24","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T16:35:24","slug":"song-of-the-lakes-keeps-sailing-onward-northern-michigan-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/song-of-the-lakes-keeps-sailing-onward-northern-michigan-band\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Song of the Lakes\u2019 Keeps Sailing Onward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iconic band celebrates 40 years<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Norm Wheeler
Current Contributor<\/strong>

\u201cOh Lake Michigan, beautiful pearl of America, thank you for finding me a home\u2026\u201d<\/em> sings Ingemar Johansson, the transplanted songwriting Swede who wrote his anthem to the big lake in the 1980s. Along with his wife, flutist Lisa Johansson, and multi-instrumentalist and singer\/songwriter Michael Sullivan, the band Song of the Lakes is about to complete 40 years of celebrating the \u201csweetwater seas,\u201d the region\u2019s maritime culture, and the magical beauty of the lake-blessed center of the United States. 

\u201cWe are still on a mission,\u201d Lisa Johansson declares. \u201cWe are reclaiming our self-appointment as ambassadors of the Great Lakes!\u201d 

Now without popular percussionist and one-of-a-kind hippie artist Rick Jones\u2014who passed away in May of 2020 and was profiled in The Betsie Current<\/em> (see our online archives<\/a>)\u2014the trio is back on the tall ship Manitou<\/em> for their traditional Wednesday night sails through August, and they are also back in the current of local musical events.

It all started in 1982, when curator Jed Jaworski filled a shack on Betsie Bay in Frankfort with his flotsam and jetsam collection of maritime memorabilia, named it the Northwest Michigan Maritime Museum, and got his friends who had been \u201cfireside jamming\u201d at Michael and Joan Sullivan\u2019s house in Interlochen to go public. They called themselves Song of the Lakes, and with that impromptu show, they were launched. Their high-energy, interactive, sing-along style was infectious.
 
\u201cWe started playing around Traverse City at restaurants and pubs like Conley\u2019s, eventually landing a weekly sailing gig on the tall ship Malabar<\/em>,\u201d Ingemar Johansson says. \u201cWhen that boat was sold, we started playing on the tall ship Manitou<\/em>.\u201d

With a blend of sea shanties, ballads, shipwreck songs, Swedish folk music, Irish jigs, reels, and originals that are based on local places, the quartet quickly got popular\u2014and then they got really busy.
 
Additionally, Song of the Lakes was hired by the state of Michigan to perform as part of the Chautauqua series for several summers all over the state, always singing about the Great Lakes.

\u201cIn 1998, we were hired to play in the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland,\u201d Ingemar recalls. \u201cWe travelled there and performed for three years running\u2014playing outside for thousands of people. We also made some great memories hanging out in the green room with the big headliners.\u201d 

Then in 2002, a grant sent them to play in Michigan State Park Campgrounds. 

\u201cIt was a pretty big contrast,\u201d Ingemar explains. \u201cIn one week, we went from playing for thousands in Switzerland to playing for six senior citizens with hearing aids in a park in the woods in Michigan!\u201d

\u201cAnd they loved us just as much!\u201d Michael Sullivan chimes in. \u201cAnother important part of those first 20 years was the annual St. Patrick\u2019s Day show at Dill\u2019s in Traverse City. We got tight with the Irish community, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and we have continued to play on that holiday for them somewhere around town for nearly 40 years.\u201d

Ultimately, Song of the Lakes played in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, at the Mystic Sea Music Festival as representatives of the Great Lakes, as well as at Riverfest in Cleveland, Ohio; at the Chicago Maritime Festival; at the Chicago Celtic Festival; and in Milwaukee, as well as in Lund, Sweden. Their 25th-anniversary show at Corson Auditorium in Interlochen in 2007 drew a full house. 

\u201cWe performed at least 100 times a year for about 10 years,\u201d Sullivan figures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lisa
Original members of the band Song of the Lakes, pictured from left to right, are Lisa Johansson, Ingemar Johansson, Michael Sullivan, and recently deceased Rick Jones. The Northern Michigan-based band has played all over the world over the past 40 years together. Photo courtesy of Song of the Lakes.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Song of the Lakes has played more than 1,500 concerts during their 40-year run, and they have shared the stage with the likes of The Indigo Girls, Loudon Wainwright III, Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt, and John Hartford.\u00a0

As the band expanded their sound palette with piccolo, mandolin, bouzouki, concertina, harmonica, and nyckelharpa, they produced seven albums: Pearl of America, Walkin\u2019 the Plank, Live Bait, Horndance, Poets Say<\/em>, Song of the Lakes 25th Anniversary DVD, and a brilliant musical retelling of the Holling C. Holling classic book Paddle to the Sea<\/em>.

\u201cAnd our music has been scored for orchestra,\u201d Ingemar adds. \u201cSo we have played with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra, the Benzie Area Symphony Orchestra, and the Grand Rapids Symphony.\u201d\u00a0

During their run, the group has crafted many original songs.\u00a0

\u201cIt should be noted,\u201d Ingemar explains, \u201cthat we sing a lot about and get our inspiration from the Benzie\/Leelanau area.\u201d\u00a0

The late Rick Jones used to say: \u201cWe end every show singin\u2019 the praises of the sweetwater seas!\u201d
\u00a0
For instance, \u201cBenzie Rover<\/em>\u201d is usually their big finisher. Ingemar\u2019s song \u201cPearl of America<\/em>\u201d was born on Platte Bay. \u201cMe and the Sea<\/em>\u201d is about Otter Creek beach. His song \u201cWhite Bird<\/em>\u201d was written on the 17th floor of the Holiday Inn in Chicago.\u00a0

Meanwhile, Michael Sullivan\u2019s songs tend to be about people and relationships, though he does have a song called \u201cMontreux<\/em>.\u201d \u201cMichigan Farmer<\/em>\u201d is about Sullivan\u2019s neighbor in Interlochen, Charlie Bertch. \u201cPoets Say<\/em>\u201d is a wedding song for Sullivan\u2019s niece, and because of the size of his Detroit family, he has written \u201cabout 10 wedding songs,\u201d he says. \u201cThe Dancer<\/em>\u201d is about traveling to Green Bay, Wisconsin. \u201cSailboats on the Water<\/em>\u201d came to him when son Ryan wrote a homesick letter from Camp Hayo-Went-Ha years ago that reminded Sullivan of his boyhood times at camp. (The family of percussionist Rob Mulligan of Northport loved that song so much that it became their family song, and the siblings sang it for their father as he was dying in 2015.)

The journey of Song of the Lakes has endured some rough seas.\u00a0

Rick Jones\u2019 wife, Carol, a victim of bipolar disorder and depression, took her own life back in 1995. Ingemar\u2019s song \u201cFire in the Western Sky<\/em>\u201d commemorates that day. Michael Sullivan also wrote a song about it entitled \u201cOld Testament Sky<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0

\u201cWe were just trying to make sense of her death, how sudden it was and how painfully tragic,\u201d Sullivan says. \u201c[My song] starts the same as \u2018Winter Waltz<\/em>,\u2019 so it shows how grief can take the same images and make them dark and lonely.\u201d

Rick Jones also struggled physically in recent years before his death in 2020. His exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam resulted in a host of physical ailments, and so he was on a veteran\u2019s disability. He called it \u201cthe war that keeps on giving.\u201d\u00a0

Jones was the loud, brash member of the band with his big voice, loose tongue, and outsized personality; he played bodhran or bones or rattled deer antlers together. His recitation of \u201cThe Three Sisters,\u201d the Great Lakes legend from the Steven Dietz play Ten November<\/em> about the disappearance of the Edmund Fitzgerald<\/em> ship, was unforgettable.

Lisa explains:\u00a0

\u201cHe was the wild card, and that\u2019s why people enjoyed watching him. He was Mr. Inappropriate!\u201d

\u201cHe was the original Benzie Rover,\u201d Ingemar says.

\u201cRick had an unvarnished honesty that people respected, even if they didn\u2019t agree with it,\u201d Michael Sullivan declares.

The Song of the Lakes trio is keeping the wind in the shoulder of their sail. They have collaborated over the years with local musicians like cellist Crispin Campbell, bassist\/singer Frank Youngman, and yours truly on cornet\/spoken word, and you can expect to see any number of local musicians relishing the opportunity to perform with Song of the Lakes as they sail onward. Check them out on Wednesday nights in August on the tall ship Manitou or with the Benzie Area Symphony Orchestra at the Benzie Central High School auditorium on August 22, 20221, as they continue to celebrate and sing the praises of the sweetwater seas. For more information and to see their schedule visit, SongOfTheLakes.com<\/a> online.<\/em>

A version of this article first published in the Glen Arbor Sun<\/strong>,<\/a> a Leelanau County-based semi-sister publication to <\/em>The Betsie Current.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>

Featured Photo Caption: <\/strong>Lisa Johansson (left), Michael Sullivan, and Ingemar Johansson perform at the Old Art Building\u2019s annual fundraiser on July 24, 2021, in Leland. Image courtesy of the Glen Arbor Sun<\/em> newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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