Pattisongs: Raves

Folk Musician Relives Prairie State history

Music is a unique part of American history, recalling in words and melodies not only the events and characters of our past, but the emotions that define it.

Folk musician Patti Ecker embraces both the art and the memories in her work. She visited Streamwood once more during Summer Celebration weekend, entertaining an intimate crowd in the Hoosier Grove Museum and showing off her latest CD, “Prairieland”.

“Prairieland” is a collection of folk songs with special meaning to Illinois, a labor of local love she’s been working on for over a decade.
“I had been volunteering at the Grove National Historic Landmark in Glenview,” Ecker recalled. “I was programming field trips and doing research and I thought, wouldn’t it be great to put the music and the history together?”
She found help in the form of her husband, Don Sherman. Don, a descendant of Declaration of Independence and Constitution signer Roger Sherman, is a fellow history buff who maintains an extensive personal library as well.
Together, the couple rediscovered the rich, uniquely-American treasury of folk songs heard on the prairie in the 19th century. Not only do each of those songs tell a story, a given tune may tell a number of slightly different stories.
The living nature of folk music is a part of the art that Ecker adores.
“That’s what folk music is all about,” she said. “It wasn’t written by one person, but has really evolved over time.”
It’s a process that continues. Patti noted that, during a performance, children will often make their own contributions and help her build a new version of a song.

She gave villagers a sampling of the sorts of tunes they could expect on her CD, showing off her skill on a variety of instruments, including the guitar, banjo, spoons and Bodhran (Irish Drum).

Patti’s sense of style and humor is part of the entertainment too. She’ll drop her voice down low to emphasize a particularly despicable character in a ballad, or she might make an awful pun at just the right time.
As she picked up the Bodhran, she deadpanned: “The drum head is made of goatskin, which is too baaaad for the goat.”

Every song is accompanied by a brief, intriguing history lesson; just enough to whet the appetite of those who enjoy it as much as she.

Patti recalled the days in the 1850’s when Mayor William Ogden was making Chicago the rail hub of the nation. Then she launched into a rollicking, acoustic version of the famous anthem to a fictional train: “The Wabash Cannonball”.

Ecker melded together the ballad “Railroad Bill” and a mood piece “Freight Train” to paint a picture of trains and trouble in the early days of steel rails. Accompanying herself on the guitar, playing in delta-blues finger style, Ecker creates scenes so vivid that you can feel the sweltering heat, see the smoke and hear hissing steam.
That’s a mere sampling of the tales Patti can tell with her words and her music. Her performances and her CD contain many more.
Selections on “Prairieland”, which she describes as a “patchwork quilt of American folk songs” include well-known standards like “Oh, Susanna!”, “Polly Wolly Doodle” and “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”, as well as lesser-known gems like “Old Dan Tucker”, “Shuckin’ of the Corn” and “Lincoln and Liberty”.
As one would expect from an historical-minded woman, she explains a little of the history of each tune in the album’s liner notes as well.

Patti Ecker is someone who clearly loves her work, but perhaps the best part for the always smiling musician-historian is that there is always something new to find over both the horizon in front of her and the one behind.
“A folk musician’s life is like that,” she says happily. “It’s all about the process. It’s always evolving and changing, and that’s what makes it fun.”
Learn more about Patti Ecker, folk music and history by visiting Patti’s website: www.pattisongs.com.