(swooshing) (bright music) - [Carolyn] I'm Carolyn Currie, singer-songwriter, mother, and lover of music.

Join me as I listen to and speak with some of Maine's premier musical artists on "Sound Waves."

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(bright music) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) ♪ I went to a party up on the hill ♪ ♪ In a house that was divided ♪ One side red and the other side blue ♪ ♪ The rest were on the side ♪ I come to play this manulenjo I tell the man at the door ♪ ♪ Go around back he said to me they don't dance here anymore ♪ ♪ 'Cause there's an elephant in the living room ♪ ♪ A donkey in the hall ♪ Between the braying and the trumpeting ♪ ♪ They don't hear the music ♪ They don't hear the music at all ♪ ♪ Woo (gentle lively music) ♪ Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪ So it's around the back to the kitchen ♪ ♪ There's a party going on ♪ I take out the manulenjo and play this amazing song ♪ ♪ It's a little like a ukulele, a banjo and a mandolin ♪ ♪ And a little like how we the people became American ♪ ♪ We moved a little bit left, a little bit right ♪ ♪ We found a way to compromise ♪ With a little bit of love and a little bit of light ♪ ♪ We danced to the manulenjo ♪ Danced to the manulenjo ♪ Again (gentle lively music) ♪ Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪ Now, maybe you have never heard this song before ♪ ♪ Or maybe you just didn't realize ♪ ♪ It's an eight-string metaphor ♪ ♪ If you listen with your heart ♪ ♪ And if you take the chance ♪ You will hear the manulenjo calling us to dance and move ♪ ♪ A little bit left, a little bit right ♪ ♪ It's so good you could dance all night ♪ ♪ With a little bit of love and a little bit of light ♪ ♪ We can dance to the manulenjo ♪ ♪ Dance to the manulenjo ♪ Oh ooh ooh ooh ♪ Oh dance to the manulenjo - Noel Paul Stookey, welcome.

- Thank you, Carolyn.

- As always.

- Thank you, nice to be here, nice little studio.

- It's a very cool studio.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

I was telling my husband that we're in the control room, and he said, "Where's the outta control room?"

That was in there.

(both laughing) Okay, all right, so I have to just start this way.

- [Noel] All right.

- Five Grammy Awards, 13 top 40 hits, six top 10 hits, eight gold albums, five platinum albums, and a marriage that's last 62 years.

- No, I think more than that.

No, no, 62, you're right.

- I know it is because I- - You looked it up.

- Did the math.

- Yeah, Google.

Hello Siri, how long have?

- No, no, no, I saw when you were married and did math.

- Yeah, okay.

- In fact, yes.

- Yes, it's been wonderful.

And I think no small part of the success is her immense patience, and the fact that we knew each other in high school.

- [Carolyn] Did you really?

- 'Cause there's a kind of a hidden language when you know somebody that long.

- [Carolyn] Right.

- You know, the unspoken language, yeah.

So yeah, it's been wonderful to be in love with Elizabeth Bannard for all these years.

- Do you remember meeting her?

- Oh, sure.

- What happened?

- Well.

(laughing) - Well, I know what happened ultimately.

- No, the second meeting is the important one.

The first one we went to high school together.

So when you pass somebody in the hall, hey, she's kind of attractive, but I never asked her out.

Then flash forward to '19, six, no, no, '19, I can't remember the year, but I've moved to New York.

She's going to school at Columbia, but I don't know that, 'cause I haven't kept in touch with her.

She was a year behind me in high school, but coming up out of the subway is this woman I recognized, and I say, "Betty Bannard?"

And she says, "Noel Stookey."

And from there on it was magic, that's great.

- I love that.

- Yeah, me too.

- It's still magical.

- Out of how many million people in New York, I should bump into this person from Birmingham, Michigan.

- It was meant to be.

- It was meant to be, yeah, that's exactly right.

- It was meant to be.

- All right, so how did you start music?

I mean, was this just something in you forever?

- Oh, well, lemme see.

My earliest recollection probably is riding with my parents in the car.

And mom is in the passenger seat.

My dad is driving and I'm kinda sandwiched in between as a three or four-year-old.

And Arthur Godfrey is singing.

(singing) Oh, I don't want her, you can have her.

She's too fat.

(Carolyn laughing) Some song on the radio.

And my dad says, "Come on."

And we start singing along, and then all of a sudden dad goes to harmony.

And I had never heard harmony, never thought of it before, but there's this buzz going on when somebody sings harmony with you.

And that was the beginning of my fascination.

Also, I gotta say, being an only child, you tend to just follow whatever direction calls you.

You're not diverted by your siblings and say, "Why, are you crazy?"

So from my young childhood, I was always comfortable with music.

When I went into high school, I started a rhythm and blues band called (singing) The Birds of Paradise, doo-wa, are here.

It was during that era of doo-wap.

- Did you dance, I mean, did you play at dances?

- Oh, I won the Ed, what was it?

The Ed McKenzie Talent contest with my group.

Yeah, the Birds of Paradise.

- Did you?

- Yeah, I have a plaque on the wall.

- Next to the Grammys?

- You got it.

It's more valuable to me in a way, but yeah, so my musical career lasted, but when I went to the Village, I was just playing chess.

I had a job.

I always loved photography, have always loved photography, visuals.

So I had a job in New York working for a photochemical company, and would go to the Village to play chess.

And one day I went there and the table for the chess wasn't there anymore.

There was a stage.

And then I sort of said, "Well, what do you have to do to perform?"

He said, "Come down and audition."

Well, in a three-piece Brooks Brothers suit, which was not Greenwich Village style at all, I came down and did some of my songs, originals, some of the sound effects.

And mostly, Carolyn, and I'm sure you found this in your career, since you do so much interviewing, I just was comfortable talking to other people.

And so I became the master of ceremonies 'cause most artists, artistes, do not like to introduce other artistes.

They have their own.

- Oh, that's right, because you've got your own thing.

- [Noel] Yeah.

- So this is 1959.

- Yeah, in the Village.

- [Carolyn] In the Village.

- Uh-huh, through '62.

- And what is it like down there?

So, first of all, in your suit, you're not, you're clearly not a beatnik.

- Well, that changed, I started wearing turtlenecks.

- Oh, and that really gave the right effect.

- I could be identified as a beatnik, even though I probably wasn't, but I lived in a kinda crummy apartment on the Lower East Side and it was great, loved it.

Stayed up too late, ate bad food.

Roomed with Tom Paxton, he was my roommate for, you know.

And then Albert Grossman came into the picture.

Now Albert Grossman was known for running the Gate of Horn, which was a club in Chicago and for his, you know, dealings with Odetta.

Yeah, he was pretty amazing.

And said, "Would you be interested in joining a group?"

And, you know, I was kinda disappointed because I had just done this great show at the Gaslight.

- You wanted it to be a solo.

- Oh, well, yeah, I'm an only child, don't you know?

- That's right, front man.

- And I said, "No, I don't think so."

So he went, according to what Peter told me later, Albert went back to Peter and said, "I talked to him and he said he doesn't wanna be in a group, but I don't think he meant it."

(chuckling) (gentle music) ♪ O beautiful for spacious skies ♪ ♪ For amber waves of grain ♪ For purple mountain majesties ♪ ♪ Above the fruited plain ♪ America, America ♪ God sheds his grace on thee ♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ ♪ From sea to ♪ Shining sea (gentle music) ♪ Oh, nation of the immigrant ♪ The slave, the native son ♪ Whose loyal families labor still ♪ ♪ That we may live as one ♪ America, America ♪ Renew thy founder's call ♪ Let liberty and justice be ♪ The right of one ♪ And all (gentle music) ♪ Oh bountiful of forest green ♪ Of lake and fertile lands ♪ Where seeds of hope are tended by ♪ ♪ Thy sons and daughters hands ♪ America, America ♪ The earth still calls to thee ♪ ♪ Where human life and nature strive ♪ ♪ To live in ♪ Harmony (gentle music) ♪ O beautiful for spacious skies ♪ ♪ For amber waves of grain ♪ For purple mountain majesties ♪ ♪ Above the fruited plain ♪ America, America ♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ ♪ From sea to ♪ Shining sea - When Peter and Mary and I finally got together because of a phone call that Mary made to me, I knew, Mary lived right across the street from the Gaslight.

And I worked on a few guitar arrangements for songs for her.

And she said, "There's this guy here.

Can we come over and sing with you?"

Sure, and one thing led to another.

We sang, "Mary Had a Little Lamb," actually.

It was the only song we could agree on the lyrics for 'cause folk music has got all these different interpretations, so.

- What was it like to meet them and sing for the first time?

How did that feel?

- Well, a little awkward in the beginning.

It was at my apartment, but the thing was, we sang, (singing) Mary had a little lamb, little lamb.

And then Mary sang lead, and I sang harmony.

And we just seemed to, I don't know, we had a wide enough range, and a simpatico that seemed to work really well.

So we learned three, or four, five songs.

and then sold ourselves as a trio where Peter would go on first as a solo, and then he'd introduce me as a solo, and then we would introduce Mary, and we'd do the three or four songs that we had worked out.

And that's how it was in the beginning for us.

- And Albert Grossman was the one that put you guys through?

- Yeah, he was the one that suggested Peter, Paul, and Mary as a name.

He said, "If Noel changes his name to Paul."

I said, "Well, I'm not gonna do that, but I'll take it on as a middle name."

Not realizing that the middle name was gonna take me on.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Right, yeah.

- And it certainly has.

Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two, Lord I'm three, Lord I'm four, Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home Five hundred miles, five hundred miles, - Okay, '60.

- Yeah, 'cause the first album was recorded and came out I think in '61, but, you know, we were right on the cusp of the Kingstons, and the Limeliters, but I gotta say, having an attractive woman like Mary singing, who had a great traditional career singing with Seger in a group.

Not The Weavers, of course, but yeah, she had a lot of experience.

And Peter taught a course in folk music at Cornell.

- Oh really?

- Yeah, which incidentally is where he wrote "Puff the Magic Dragon" with Lenny Lipton.

- Interesting.

- Yeah.

He came back to find his roommate had left a sheet of paper rolled up into the typewriter that had Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea.

It was a poem.

- Yeah.

- And Peter set it to music.

- Oh, how interesting.

- Yeah, that became the biggest hit off of the first album.

- I was gonna say, that's kind of anthem, really.

We all sing it to our children.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

and other fancystuff, oh Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee, - Wow.

All right, so you started your career with them.

Did it just take off immediately?

Was it just, like, explosive, or?

- I think, you know, in those days, air play, radio play meant a lot.

And Buck Herring was a disc jockey on the West Coast who discovered "Lemon Tree" on our album, and played it and played it and played it, and reported it to "Billboard Magazine" where other disc jockeys said, "Oh, "Lemon Tree," okay."

And so it became, I don't remember, I think it was top 10, top 20, whatever, because in those days, radio would make your career, or certainly announce your coming to the world.

These days it's really so much more difficult for anybody to, you know, establish themselves as an artist.

- Yeah.

- Which means you have to start small, build a constituency.

That leads me to another one of my theories, which is in this day of streaming, and access to vast amounts of music, I think our hearts really yearn for a more intimate experience.

- Yeah.

- So I think coffee houses are gonna come back.

I think the local place is gonna come back, and pretty soon it'll be more than 15 people in the club.

It'll be like 30 people in the club.

And somebody will emerge from that, and go to a slightly larger town where there'll be another coffee house.

And so it will begin, the cycle will begin again.

(soft lively music) (soft lively music continues) ♪ Let's talk about love with a capital L ♪ ♪ When was the last time you heard it spelled ♪ ♪ With the emphasis in the proper place ♪ ♪ Ooh yeah, let's talk about love in the upper case ♪ ♪ Some might call it amazing grace ♪ ♪ Or the author of all time and space ♪ ♪ Let's talk about love ♪ You may recall a situation ♪ A change of heart and you didn't see ♪ ♪ Where love's the only explanation ♪ ♪ For a miracle that set somebody free ♪ ♪ So let's talk about love with a capital L ♪ ♪ Not talking about witchcraft or a magic spell ♪ ♪ Or hanky-panky in a cheap motel, no ♪ ♪ Let's talk about love, love, love, love, love ♪ ♪ Now I'm not saying that I love you ♪ ♪ Any more or any less ♪ I'm just saying that there's more here ♪ ♪ Than we are usually willing to confess ♪ ♪ Ooh, let's talk about love where it all began ♪ ♪ Yeah, love, love, love like a master plan ♪ ♪ If you believe me, then raise your hand ♪ ♪ Let's talk about love, love, love, love, love, love, love ♪ ♪ Love, love, love with a capital L ♪ - In 1969 you had a reawakening.

You reacquainted yourself with your sense of Christian faith.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, what caused that?

- Oh, 'cause fame and fortune just will suck you into believing that you are the center of the universe.

And once again, the dark side of the only child syndrome is that you are the center of the universe with your parents, but just the kind of freewheeling, no holds barred life that you're offered through fame and fortune.

- What woke you up?

- My love for my wife and my family.

- [Carolyn] Okay.

- You know.

'Cause there's an emptiness to the kind of self-gratification that occurs in showbiz success.

And yeah, I was very fortunate and, you know, and an angel came backstage, you know.

The guy came back and said, "I wanna talk to you about the Lord."

And I went, "Whoa, really?

Oh, okay."

And so, you know, to confess to a higher power, which is not unusual for let's say somebody who's an alcoholic, but to confess to that there's a lack in your life of connection with the fullness that's offered when you're in love, right?

And I'm talking about the big L love.

- [Carolyn] Yeah.

- That totally changed my life.

And so, you know, the "Wedding Song" came shortly after that as an answer to a request by Peter to bless his wedding with a song that I knew, as I have said in concert many times.

I was not authorized to dispense blessings.

- Right.

- But I knew where I could get one.

- Right.

- So it was prayed for.

- So, all right, so you prayed for this song, which is the "Wedding Song," which is your biggest hit on your first CD, or first album record, right?

No CDs then.

Your first record.

- Mm-hmm.

- And when you first started singing it, the pronouns were a little different.

- Yeah, you noticed.

I got self-conscious because prior to singing it at Peter's wedding, I sang it for my wife and she said, "They're not gonna understand, you know."

It was very close to my conversion time.

I am now to be among you at the calling of your hearts was gonna be interpreted as me announcing the fact that I was the Second Coming, you know.

So I said, "Uh-uh."

And I didn't realize that gender of love would be questioned, you know, because then, I don't know, he and God interpreted as he was not unusual.

So I changed the pronoun to he.

And that's the one, unfortunately, the one on the record, but the way the song came when I said, "How would You, capital Y, manifest yourself at Peter's wedding?"

And the lyric came, I am now to be among You at the calling of your hearts.

- Right.

- So.

- So it's more the spiritual Lord at the wedding.

- Absolutely.

- As opposed to you sitting there singing the song and blessing them.

- That's right.

- Different blessing.

- Different blessing.

Matter of fact, I've made a joke of it at concerts and I say, "If I had a rear bumper on my car that was long enough, I would have a bumper sticker that said, in matters of theology, it's wise that we remember in Christ there is no east or west.

In God there is no gender."

And I usually get, you know, a large smattering, particularly from the females of the awareness that this is a much, you know, love is a much bigger concept.

- Than gender.

- Than trying to nail it down, yeah.

- [Carolyn] Absolutely.

- [Noel] Yeah.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) ♪ Well I'm now to be among you ♪ At the calling of your hearts ♪ ♪ Rest assured this troubadour is acting on my part ♪ ♪ The union of your spirits here has caused me to remain ♪ ♪ For whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name ♪ ♪ There am I ♪ And there is love (gentle music) ♪ Well a man shall leave his mother ♪ ♪ And a woman leave her home ♪ And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one ♪ ♪ As it was in the beginning, is now until the end ♪ ♪ Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again ♪ ♪ And there is love ♪ Ah, then what's to be the reason ♪ ♪ For becoming man and wife ♪ Is it love that brings you here ♪ ♪ Or love that brings you life ♪ For if loving is the answer then who's the giving for ♪ ♪ Do you believe in something that you've never seen before ♪ ♪ Oh, there's love ♪ Ah, there's love (gentle music) ♪ Uh-Huh Mm-hmm ♪ Mm-hmm ♪ Uh-huh hmm Huh-hmm ♪ It's the marriage of your spirits here ♪ ♪ Has caused me to remain ♪ For whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name ♪ ♪ There is love ♪ There is love (gentle music) ♪ Mm-hmm (swooshing) (bright music)