Cabin Fever Band is on deck, swinging!

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

The chord progression falls ominously as the bass, mandolin, guitar, and banjo warn of danger. But the players are smirking. Three kids watch and wait in front of the band as one of them blows bubbles. Suddenly, five grizzled performers and the kids start high-stepping in place like a football squad running a drill through old tires. “He’s creepy crawly creepy crawly creepcreep crawlycrawly creepcreep crawly crawly…….” It’s just another Friday night on the deck at Boone Dock’s, and the local legendary Cabin Fever Band is teaching the kids how to avoid “Boris, the Spider.” The question is, are the hairy legs of the imaginary spider scarier than the band’s?
There is an overwhelming sense of fun that infects everyone present as Cabin Fever moves into “Whiskey Before Breakfast.” Comprised of Jim Curtis on bass and vocals, Tom Keen on guitar and vocals, Jack Sharry on mandolin and fiddle, Tom Fordyce on vocals and harp, and Paul Kirchner on banjo (this night Mark McManus is filling in for Paul), the Cabin Fever Band plays what Keen calls “optimistic music”, an eclectic mix of country swing, bluegrass, rock & roll, pop, and maritime folk. It’s the perfect mix for the crowd of locals and tourists who gather to watch the light fade on a balmy June evening. The band has evolved its repertoire and its precision over the last 15 years, and their menu of tunes is as varied and interesting as the characters who play it. Here’s a profile of the band’s members:
– Smokin’ Jack Sharry, fiddle and mandolin, moved to Empire in 1990 after a 30-year career at GM. Jack was an accomplished high school musician, playing trumpet and euphonium in the band and violin in the orchestra. He played in the Marine Corps band before he was sent to Korea where he received two purple hearts. Then, amazingly, Jack played almost no music for the 30 years of his GM career. “My kids never heard me play much,” Jack admits, “they didn’t really think of me as a musician. I was just the guy bringin’ home the bacon.” But music was always a big part of Jack’s soul. His father played guitar and entertained, and that love re-hatched when Jack retired and moved here. Jack recalls, “I heard the two Toms and Billy Judd playing at the Village Inn in Empire in ‘88 or ‘89, introduced myself, and we’ve been making music ever since.” Jack also played in the pit band for the musical “Big River” at Glen Lake High School a couple of years ago, and his playing is always crisp, precise, and exacting. Jack’s mandolin is pointed and punctuating on a Jimmy Buffet Caribbean calypso tune, for example, while his fiddle on the swing tune “A Long Way From St. Louie” is chuckling, commenting on the action, sort of snickering from the doorway before the expert fall and a sweet closure. He captures the lively mood of the dance hall or the broken-hearted syrup of love with equal aplomb. Jack can go from mountain front porch blue grass foot-stompin’ knee-slappin’ licks to French cafe tunes that are as sweet as a grandma’s kiss. Jack Sharry is a local virtuoso and the musical conscience of the Cabin Fever Band.
– Paul Kirchner, banjo, is originally from Ludington. He has been a tool and die designer, a building trades and industrial arts teacher, and most recently Director of Technology for the Grand Rapids Public Schools. Paul will be Tech Director for the Mesick Schools starting this fall. Paul was an MP in Korea in the demilitarized zone from ’66-’68, after which he went to Ferris State and got married. A guitar player since he was 10, Paul got his first banjo as a gift from his wife Jean in 1970. Paul has honed his incredible pyrotechnical skill in several bands, including Blue Grass Reunion (with fellow banjo picker Dick Anthony of Third Coast), The Wildwood Band, The Pine River Valley Boys, and from ’84 to ’94 Paul played with the renowned Blue Grass Extension Service around Lansing, MI. He has performed frequently with Mack Wiseman, the nationally known guitar player and singer, and at festivals all over the midwest and Canada. As with all of the guys in the Cabin Fever Band, music runs in Paul’s family. His grandfather was a Swede from Karlskroner who toured all over Europe playing concertina to packed houses. Then he immigrated to Ludington and worked in the sawmills for 8 years to save up enough money for passage for his wife and 4 kids. Because his name sounded Jewish and he was fleeing the persecution he experienced in Europe, Paul’s grandfather changed his name from Rosenblad to Swanson when he reached Ellis Island. Then Paul’s father took the name Kirchner from his stepfather. Paul picks dazzling, inspired licks on that banjo, meteoric riffs that electrify the crowd and energize the band. Just hang on as Paul leads the band mad-dashing through the theme from Bonny & Clyde, “Foggy Mt. Breakdown,” or the classic “Rocky Top.” With his amazing technical mastery Paul Kirchner makes it look easy.
– Tom Keen’s grandparents came up here on their honeymoon from Chicago and immediately bought a lot from DH Day. “We’ve always had a foothold on Glen Lake,” Tom assures. His father played ragtime piano, his grandmother taught music, and Tom started playing a $12 guitar at the age of 12. Tom quips “My folks wanted to make sure I was serious.” Now Tom makes his own guitars. “My wife got me a Martin guitar kit one Christmas. Last winter I made a dobro, the Resophonic.” Tom plays both at every Cabin Fever performance, and they are beautiful looking and sweet sounding instruments. His wheatstraw beard always framing a smile, “Keener” is the bread’n butter of the band, layin’ down the chords, providing vocal harmonies, anchoring each tune and providing witty repartee between numbers. He is like everybody’s favorite uncle or brother-in-law. When one of the players tells me how pleased they are to get to live here year around, Tom Keen chuckles “We can’t afford to leave!”
– Jim Curtis is an audio engineer originally from Grand Rapids who’s been around here for 20 years. In his boyhood a guitar player, Jim bought a Beatles book in high school and started a rock band in the 60’s. “In the late 80’s I heard the Toms, Jack, and Bill Judd play at the Cedar Tavern,” Jim remembers. “A short time later they had a gig at Le Bear and their bass player quit. So I strapped on a bass guitar with an electric cord for a strap, winged it, and I’ve been playin’ with ‘em ever since!” Then Jim smiles and adds, “We’re a lot better now.” Jim’s bass is energizing, exhorting the band along. The perfect roll-player bassguy, Jim deftly pushes the beat, encouraging each tune, as steady as a father’s shaving hand. His vocals are solid, practiced narratives, clean and conversational. He’s the one who hauls around the gear and turns the knobs to create that perfect blend of instruments and voices in every Cabin Fever song.
– Tom Fordyce, vocals, harmonica, and percussion, has been a local since 1976. He moved a lot with his military family until his father retired to Colorado after 30 years in uniform. When Tom came to help build his Dad a house near here he fell in love with the place and “just stayed.” Tom’s family was also musical. “Dad used to sing along with old Hank Williams country songs on the radio in our ‘55 Pontiac when we took road trips to grandma’s house in Illinois,” Tom reminisces. “I was always lying in the back window harmonizing.” Always a singer, Fordyce was in the high school choir and glee club, and he sang in a rock band in Colorado called “Chaos.” “Then I went to college in Boulder and sang in a band called ‘Chocolate Hair’.” But it was wartime, and Tom was drafted. He joined the Air Force as a medic and flew air rescues in Viet Nam in 1972. “It was nearing the end of the war,” Tom recalls. “We were just tryin’ to get those guys out of there.”
Looking back, Tom Fordyce recounts the history of this band of locals. “Jack Lane was playing guitar at Art’s one night in ‘81 or ‘82, so I sat in with him and sang, and then Keener showed up with his guitar. We met Billy Judd in ‘82. He was a helluva (banjo) picker, knew all the songs. Jack Sharry and Jim Curtis joined us in the late 80’s, so we’ve been together more or less for 18 years. I guess we must know 200-300 songs by now!” Fordyce is the personality of this band, his voice cutting yet smooth, resonant, certain, and precise, a singing voice as country as mailboxes and hubcaps nailed to the barn and three-legged dogs.
When I asked the band about their “best” gig, the response was unanimous. “A friend got married on Grand Island in Munising Bay,” Fordyce tells. “They hauled a Plymouth Volare and a Chevy Van and 200 people to the island on a 20’ pontoon boat. We put 600 miles on the van in that one weekend hauling the generator and all the equipment to and from the boat. That was at Rainbow Cove, there was no one there but us, and we really had more fun than humans should!”
Now the 4-year-old boy who was blowing bubbles and is wearing a t-shirt with a picture of his dog on the front gives Tom Fordyce a crayon drawing he just made during “Sittin’ on top of the world.” Talkative and ebullient, Tom Fordyce works the crowd, passing out more bubbles and taking requests. This set spins through songs by Michael Martin Murphy (“Geronimo’s Cadillac”), The Grateful Dead, John Prine. Then they shift into a poignant Civil War tune, “Soldiers Joy,” and romp through a round of polkas, including the politically correct “She’s Too Smart For Me.” Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” eases the crowd back down as the pink and orange sky colors up with the sunset. The Cabin Fever Band’s versatility and artistry are astonishing and polished from years of playing together and entertaining just this kind of local crowd. It’s too easy for those of us who have been listening to these guys play over the years to take their excellence for granted, and that’s a mistake. They rock into their own choreographed version of “Great Balls of Fire,” grin through “I’m My Own Grandpa,” and then swing on Bill Monroe’s fiddle tune “Uncle Penn,” (“You can hear it talk, you can hear it sing!”). Bringing it back home to the Great Lakes, they finish with Bill Staines’ “Loggin’ Song”: “Way, hey, another brand new day — on the wild and windy shores of Supeer-I-Aaye!”
The tip jar is full on a good night. They may look like a pack of grizzled old field hands (on this night they sport 4 beards and a broom mustache), but the girls sure love ‘em.. Every Friday night the Cabin Fever Band creates a scene filled with youthful energy and earthy exuberance that delights this crowd of deck diners and hand clappers at Boone Dock’s. They are available for private parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs. Just call Tom Fordyce, or his brother Tom Keen. They’re in the phone book, just local guys with day jobs who happen to be extremely gifted musicians and who put on a great show consistently right here in our town. Make sure to check ‘em out this summer, and throw a few bills in the tip jar! Let’s celebrate our musicians!!