More Songs & Stories From Home

Mark Pearson
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As someone who has faith in the power of stories and songs – who believes in the might, magic, and mystery of loving and being loved – and who trusts that together songs sung, stories told, and love shared can lead us home – I’d like to welcome you to “More Songs and Stories from Home.”

  1. 03/20/2024

    1968 - Part 6

    My wife and I moved out to the Olympic Peninsula in 2002. Not long after we arrived we met Flora May and Bob Bradley. That next summer Bob introduced me to the Olympic Mountains. We didn't talk a lot when we were walking, but grand conversations would often happen when we had reached a place where we were looking back from where we came or from a viewpoint where a bigger world spread out before us. Mount Rainier to the South. Mount Baker to the North. The City of Seattle in between.  It is something to be sharing the story of all that happened in 1968 all these years later. To do it as The Brothers Four prepare to go sing in Thailand 55 years after I went for the first time with the group to sing in Japan. Quite a view from here.   Here's a link to the Blogpost Part of a Bigger Story Here's a link to the Song with Story, Try to Remember

    15 min

  2. 03/20/2024

    1968 - Part 5

    By the end of the Summer of 1968 my dreams of becoming a doctor had been replaced by thoughts of pursuing a music career or continuing to do social work in New York City. After talking with my dad I decided to return to the University of Washington for my senior year. I had no idea at the time that I before the year was out I would be dropping out of college to become a member of The Brothers Four. (I entered UW as a member of Class of 1969. I would return years later and get my degree as a member of the Class of 2019. On my YouTube channel you can watch the Graduation Ceremony I created. This Podcast ends at the Homecoming Concert in 1968 with me standing next to Simon and Garfunkel's manager, Mort Lewis. He was also the manager for The Brothers Four. Little did I know that a few month later I would in his office with the two of us laughing about how we first "met."  Here's a link to the Blogpost Faith, Hope, Love and Family Here is a link to the latest Song with Story, a Brothers Four recording from 1969 of "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream."

    10 min

  3. 03/20/2024

    1968 - Part 4

    The Summer of 1968 opened up new worlds to me and for me. My three college friends and I represented the University of Washington in a national talent show. We got to the semi-finals where we competed against the Carpenters who were representing Long Beach State in their first exposure to a national audience. For the first time in my life I could begin to imagine music as a possible career path.  Doing social work on the Lower East Side in New York gave me access to a world that I could only imagine.  At the same time the country was barreling toward a future untested, uncertain, unknown. It appears today we are living with the backlash of all the changes that were being birthed in the heat of that tumultuous summer.  For me the heat meant warmth and possibility.   Here is a link to the latest Blog Post. Here's a link to the latest Song with Story. This one is mostly Story.

    14 min

  4. 03/20/2024

    1968 - Part 3

    My two monumental experiences of the Summer of 1968 were connected by a flight from Hamilton, Bermuda where I had just spent a week singing for a group of kids from Manhattan's Lower East Side to Los Angeles where my college friends and I then competed in the semifinals of Your All-American College Show. On one hand doing work that felt like it made a difference, on the other singing with my friends on national television. Two experiences that were opening doors to worlds I had never imagined. Worlds that did not collide but combined for the first time in those few days in the Summer of 1968.  Here's a link to a Blog Post of a performance that introduced Karen Carpenter to the world. My friends and I are the four guys in the back in sport jackets and ties. Here's a link to the Song with Story, "Abraham, Martin, and John" recorded by The Brothers Four in January of 1969. Click below and you can take that recording home with you...

    8 min

  5. 03/20/2024

    1968 - Part 2

    In the Summer of 1968 I went back to New York City to do social work. On some level at 21 years old I wanted to do what I could to change the world. Though the world did not change much that summer my life was forever changed and before the year was out going in a direction I never could have imagined.  Early in my time in New York I asked a new roommate and friend if he had any advice on what I could or should do. His advice was timeless and profound. "The most important thing you can do is BE yourself." The truth of that idea was quickly tested when I was asked to provide music for a gathering of inner-city kids on a little island off Bermuda. The kids were African, Puerto Rican, and Chinese Americans. They were not familiar with the music I sang. Yet after a week we all seemed to realize that we were part of something we all needed. To feel we were part of something bigger than ourselves and all in this together.   Here's a link to the Blog Post Being Ourselves  Here's a link to the Song with Story When Johnny Comes Marchin' Home

    16 min

  6. 03/20/2024

    1968 - Part 1

    Albert Einstein famously said that "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." 1968 was a year when the unimaginable came alive for our country and for me personally. For me, prior to 1968 a life different from one I had known was unimaginable. By the end of the summer of 1968 the world I could imagine and lived had grown exponentially. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy made the unimaginable all too real for our country. The year ended with three astronauts circling the moon and shared with the world the "first earth rise." Imagination that Einstein saw as encircling the world would never be the same. Here's a link to Blog Post The Dreamers and Their Dreams Here's a link to the Song with Story, 1968

    13 min

  7. 01/09/2024

    Back to the Big Room - Part 5

    For me there is something special about putting new memories on top of precious old ones. Something about music that can transport and transform us. As I write this it was more than 55 years since the four of us - John Buller, Mike Dwyer, Mike McCoy and I - made our one recording in the Big Room of the Phi Gamma Delta next to the campus of the University of Washington. More than a year since we went back to record again, this time with our families there to sing along. The music, the memories, the moments from those two separate gatherings 55 years apart combine to create a memory of a lifetime.

    12 min

  8. 01/09/2024

    Back to the Big Room - Part 4

    It was something special to go back with three guys who became lifetime friends to where we met and sing again the songs we sang when we were just getting to know each other. To do it this time with family there as well, and to sing songs that have meant a lot through the years made the going back even more meaningful. Also, here's a link to the Blogpost of John Buller singing Desperado with Lindsey and friends. And a link to the Song with Story that shares two renditions of The Song We Sing Together sung nearly 40 years apart.  Below is a downloadable link to McCoy and me singing The Song We Sing Together in concert in 1984.

    13 min
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About

As someone who has faith in the power of stories and songs – who believes in the might, magic, and mystery of loving and being loved – and who trusts that together songs sung, stories told, and love shared can lead us home – I’d like to welcome you to “More Songs and Stories from Home.”

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