SITKA — It’s been about four decades since the band CornSilk played the tunes of the Beatles and Crosby, Stills & Nash in bars along a 160-mile stretch of Highway 200 in Montana.
But Ted Howard expected it would be like old times when his bandmates Mike and Candy Pierce got back with him and his wife Julie Schmitts to play a recent show, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported.
Howard said he remembers back in 1976 they stood apart from other bands playing the stretch of road that runs along the Clark Fork of the Columbia River between Idaho and Montana.
“We were different because we weren’t straight country,” Howard said. “We were more folky. It was just different.”
Howard and Schmitts were in their 20s when they took a break from their inner city Detroit jobs in social services for a trip out to Montana to visit the Michigan friends who had already moved there.
But once they arrived, they realized they had been missing something.
“We fell in love with the Big Sky,” Howard said. “We went back home, packed up everything in a pickup truck, without any job prospects.”
Mike and Candy Pierce, who attended the University of Montana, let Ted and Julie live in an outbuilding on their property in Thompson Falls until they were set up with jobs and found a more permanent place to live.
Mike and Ted had taught each other guitar when they were younger, and so had a musical connection. Before long, the four had formed a band, with Mike on guitar, Candy on percussion, Julie on bass, Ted on guitar, banjo and harmonica, and all four on vocals.
Traveling along Highway 200 between Missoula, Montana, and Sandpoint, Idaho, the band played Friday and Saturday night gigs to earn food, rent and pocket money. They managed to attract and keep an audience with the mix of cover tunes that included not only country — Hank Williams, George Jones, John Prine — but popular music of the day, from the Beatles, Eagles and Steve Goodman.
Learning new songs from jukeboxes, they added two-step, waltz and polka music to their repertoire. After playing together for a year, they had built up a list of about 250 songs.
When CornSilk formed, Mike and Candy were already seasoned performers from their days with the Western Michigan University singing group, The Varsity Vagabonds, which toured the world. They passed on what they knew to Ted and Julie.
“We learned how to present songs, and how to feel comfortable on stage, and how to sing,” Ted said.
Mike and Candy returned to their home state of Michigan, where Mike is now retired from ministry work and Candy is a retired church music director. The four have kept in touch, and all have continued playing music. Mike and Candy sing in the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus. In Sitka, Julie now is a piano teacher, Ted teaches guitar, and both perform regularly in community events. They’re involved with Sitka Folk, the Monthly Grind and the Greater Sitka Arts Council, and Ted plays with the group Belly Meat.
In recent weeks, the four friends have passed song lists back and forth to create a playlist. Mike and Candy arrived and started rehearsing.
Mike Pierce predicted the set list would appeal across all generations.
“We are not young people,” Mike said. “We’ve been at this a long, long time. The music will certainly reflect that.”
