Misty Magenta Magic: Theater hosts first of reunited band’s CD release concerts

What’s with all the misty music around here? It traces back to Carol Harley and her habit of forming bluegrass bands called Misty.

First came Misty River, which launched in 1997 and enjoyed a successful 15-year run, playing dozens of gigs per year and selling thousands of recordings before starting to dissipate. There was no bitter, Beatles-style breakup, just a natural evolution as life happened: musicians (including Harley’s daughter) grew older, started families, moved away. Harley herself battled CML leukemia, a rare and serious disease. But last year, the members of Misty River pulled back together for a happy, healthy 20th anniversary reunion concert.

Meanwhile, though, Harley returned to the local musical well for a second spray of mist. She rounded up the Misty Mamas in 2005 after catching musicians Katherine Nitsch, April Parker and Eileen Rocci at open mics and bluegrass jams at Clark College and Ridgefield’s Old Liberty Theater.

“Carol called the three of us with this idea. She always had something up her sleeve,” said Nitsch. “She heard us and figured we would have a nice blend.”

That’s a pretty keen and imaginative ear, because the future Misty Mamas came from disparate, non-bluegrass musical roots — everything from pop-hit cover bands to classical choirs. Still, everybody said yes. They jumped into learning the language of high-lonesome harmonies over lush acoustic strings and rootsy rhythms.

Part of that stylistic education came from attending the former Bluegrass at the Beach and the ongoing Bluegrass in the Gorge summer-camp intensives, where striving musicians spend hours a day working on their harmony singing, instrumental chops and improvisation skills — and then many more hours just jamming the night away.

“I remember playing so many hours, the strings of my guitar were poking through my fingers,” Nitsch said.

“The first year I went, I just watched,” said Eileen Rocci’s husband, guitarist Tony Rocci, a veteran of other groups who joined the Misty Mamas in 2014, after founder Harley decided to call it quits and focus on being a grandma. “I was a temporary substitute. There’s nothing so permanent as that,” he joked.

Tales of internment

ncerts, the Misty Mamas recorded and released one CD, “Wild Rose of the Mountain,” with Harley in 2009. Now, nearly a decade later, they’re getting ready for their second CD release and a handful of summer concerts. The official release show is set for May 5 at Magenta Theater in downtown Vancouver.

“We never did a second CD after our original one,” said Nitsch. “We set ourselves a goal of making a CD with Tony, because we really need something that represents our sound now.”

It’s the sound of musicians who have more time on their hands than they used to. Bass player Eileen Rocci was a full-time mom, she said, but her reasons for daily chauffeuring and other duties have grown up; meanwhile her husband, lead guitarist Tony, has retired after a career with Patriot Fire Protection. Guitarist Katherine Nitsch recently retired after working as a speech therapist in Battle Ground Public Schools. April Parker, who plays mandolin and accordion, still works as a mental health therapist; part of what she offers is music therapy, she said.

Music is therapy for Parker, whose husband, Pat, died in 2016. The new CD, “Come On Home,” is dedicated to his memory, and two of its songs were written by him — “Pickup Truck” and “Slow Train,” which features the voice of his widow singing words he wrote decades before his death, with deeper poignancy now:

“There ain’t no way getting back to you. If there were, I would stay one more day, and see this whole thing through.”

Perhaps the most remarkable song on the album is April Parker’s original immigrant story “Our Home,” which describes her Japanese-emigre grandparents’ imprisonment during World War II. “It’s a story my mother told me,” she said. “My parents didn’t know each other yet. Both families were sent to internment camps.” Parker’s daughter, Claire, contributes a descendant’s verse to this dramatic track, which feels topical to today’s immigration controversies, Parker noted.

Just plain fun

Don’t get the mistaken impression that “Come on Home” is all melancholy and mourning. It includes bouncy, old-fashioned country (“Hey, Conductor”), traditional folk (“Maid on the Shore”), stirring Gospel (“It’s Gonna Rain”) and original expressions of faith (like Rocci’s meditation on passing time, the Pacific-Northwesty “Reflections in the Fall,” and Nitsch’s “Autograph of God,” with some words drawn from her grandmother’s autograph book, circa 1898).

It’s even got just plain fun in the mostly forgotten, full-length 1908 version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” in which a girl tells her date where she wants to spend their Saturday. Most people only know the chorus of that song, Tony Rocci said.

The Misty Mamas worked for 23 days on the recording with producer (and world-class fiddle player) Billy Oskay at Big Red Studio, in Corbett, Ore. “He helped to bring out the best in us,” said Nitsch. “We didn’t want someone who would just roll the recording, we wanted a real producer. He treated each song like its own little vignette, which it is.” He also helped enlist special guest stars for extra tracks featuring banjos, percussion and more harmonies.

All the band members collaborate with other musicians too, and continue to take music lessons and vocal coaching as well.

“Playing music alone isn’t near as much fun as playing in a group,” Tony Rocci said. “Having an upcoming concert motivates you to do your best. When people are listening and enjoying singing along — it’s pretty magical.”