Burdickville Boys celebrate John Prine with ode “Six Feet Away”
By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
One year ago, on April 7, 2020, warm rain pounded us late in the afternoon, then the temperature dropped like a turd from a tall horse. At sunset it was 20 degrees colder than it was at 6 p.m., and the full moon was rising. The cold air on the warm wet ground created a fog that rose to the treetops. The moon lit the thick fog in a white glow among the trees that was biblical in its brightness. And then the news came that iconic folksinger John Prine had just died of COVID-19 at the age of 73.
Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine’s signature songs like “Angel from Montgomery” and “Paradise” had become folk and country standards, and he had just received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
Here in Burdickville on Glen Lake, Mike Binsfeld was crushed by the news. Both of his daughters had just recovered from COVID, Nancy in Colorado and Molly in California, and Mike and his wife Mindy were just emerging from the trauma of not being able to travel to their sick children because of the lockdown and not knowing just why they were sick nor how dangerous the disease could be. Mike woke up the next day with a song sliding around in his head, and so now we have his moving ode to John Prine called “Six Feet Away.”
Back around 2010 Mike and his brother Greg and cousin Chuck O’Connor began playing guitars together in Mike’s garage on Tuesday nights. They called themselves the Burdickville Brothers. Soon their friend Mike (Sticks) Hasselbeck joined them on his drum kit, which he left in the corner of Mike’s garage. They reached out to other local musicians. Bob DeKorne, whose band the Corvairs had just retired, joined in.
“Then,” Bob explains, “other local ruffians, miscreants, and ne’er do wells started showing up.” By 2020 it had grown to 10 guys, including Tom Fordyce, the lead singer and harmonica player from the seasoned Cabin Fever Band, and neighbor Steve Kraus. Michael Papa started taking lessons on keyboard just so he could join in, and then Jeffery Richard on percussion and yours truly on trumpet were welcomed into the garage. As the little family trio turned into a legit garage band, they started calling themselves the Burdickville Boys. The Tuesday night gatherings have become a happy powwow for “the boys”, a highlight of each week as they sit around sharing stories and adult beverages between three sets of garage band jamming on classic rock and folk songs that just might get better every time.
Late last summer when everyone could still socially distance outside, the local music guru and producer Patrick Niemisto, whose Holy Wah sound studio is just up the hill, brought his audio tech students from NMC to record the Burdickville Boys for posterity. Binsfeld’s song “Six Feet Away” got the full studio treatment over the course of the winter, and now it is being released as a Facebook and YouTube video and shared on social media to honor this first anniversary of John Prine’s death.
Mike and Chuck were interviewed by Ron Jolly at WTCM-AM in Traverse City today, and he posted the song on his Facebook page. Sandy Blumenfeld at WNMC will do the same later. Bob DeKorne has sent a copy of the song to Prine’s wife Fiona at Oh Boy records, and to several stars with whom Prine collaborated including Bonny Raitt and Kris Kristofferson. Who knows how far this song written by a local for his garage band of mostly retired Burdickville Boys will go?
