Northeast Michigan Oral History and Historic Photograph Archive

Carole Cadarette Interview

Description

Interview Part 2

Interview Part 2

Transcription

so, it's taken me a long ways and I guess if I have to say other than miss - dear, truly missing my father.  He has got to be amazed to what his daughter, what she's playing today.  Would he be happy?  I don't know.  But you know what?  It wouldn't make any difference, because I'm going to play what I'm going to play, you know . . .

CK.  And that's so great, that you are able to . . . to explore new areas and new territory.  

CC.  Yeah, well, it keeps your mind, it keeps your mind active.  And you know, I mean, I'll wake up in the morning and say, "Ah-  I'm going to try that song . . ." maybe I heard it on the radio or on television the night before.  I'm going to give that song a try.  If it don't work, I'm not going to go out and stand in traffic and get all upset, but I'll give it a try, you know.  

CK.  Are there particular groups that you're playing with now?  Do you play solo?  

CC.  I do a lot of solo work, and I am playing with, uh, you know I am playing in a jam session situation at Maplewood - we never know what we're going to be playing.  In fact, one week . . . four weeks ago, the old Playboys, that haven't played together in 33 years, played.  At Maplewood.  A week later, we had a guy that's in the polka hall of fame, who not only plays polkas and that kind of genre, but can play any other style.  

CK.  What's his name?

CC.  His name, uh, I've got it at home, I'm going to say . . . is Eddie Siwiec…that, Siwiec is not exactly.  He lives down in Swartz Creek I think is where he lives.  Um, but . . . 

CK.  He showed up?

CC.  He just showed up.  We never know.  We just never know who we're going to have. 

CK.  Is there a particular night that happens?  Or . . .

CC.  If it's going to happen and we have enough musicians, it's going to happen on Friday.  It's a Friday night thing.  But, as I said, we're not always sure that we're going to be doing this, but my brother and I make ourselves available, the bandstand is set up permanently, we don't have to tear anything down or set it up - it's all set up.  And if musicians come, we have enough instruments, if they, if you don't bring your own, we can supply you with whatever it takes to . . . one of the gentlemen that was the head of one of the bands that was hired to play the big tent at the Brown Trout showed up and said to me, "do you have a dobro?"  I said, "No, but I have an electric slide guitar."  He said, "That'll work."  And he played it and played it wonderfully.  We never met him before.  So now we have another new person, you know that, uh . . . And I think the reason why I'm here with you today, Cindy, is to . . . I think it's a great idea what you're doing, I think it's daunting . . . my mind is going in a hundred directions.   I'm thinking about all the friends that I have in different types of music and how they can be helpful to this project.  Because I go back a ways, but I don't go back as some of the - we've discussed some of those musicians that need to be talked to, so . . .

CK.  Well, we'll get to them.  We'll get to them as soon as we can.  I also have in my notes that you're a vocalist -?	

CC.  I am, yes.

CK.  So, in most of the performing that you, do you sing as well?

CC.  I do.  Yes.  In, again, all different styles.  From . . . I stay away from new country - the 2015 new country is not part of my genre.  But I sing some of the stuff, you know, from the '60s, and some . . . I do at least one Neil Young song.  I do a few Patsy Cline, not all of them - there are some I feel you just should leave alone, they're so iconic that no one else should be doing, like "Crazy", I don't do that song.  I will play it instrumentally.  I am also doing, sad to say, within the last month, I've done two funerals.  

CK.  Oh.

CC.  Now, I don't go into the funeral home and play there . . . there, uh, it's usually an organ.  But if someone lets me know soon enough, I'll go in the recording studio and record the music for them.  Ok.  In fact, like I said, I just did two.  

CK.  That's good to know. 

CC.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Uh, and I, what I believe I'm going to be doing in the next few weeks is going in and doing that type of music, and so that if someone calls me, we can just clip it off of what's pre-recorded and put it over onto something that can be used at, by the funeral home.  

CK.  What kind of music are you recording for that?

CC.  Uh, well, the lady that I did the first one for, she was 105 and I took music - because she was originally from Scotland, and she loved animals - I did instrumentally "Old Shep", we didn't sing it because that can really make everything even more gloom and doom.  Her favorite song was "Danny Boy", so I delivered that vocally.  And then I finished up with, ah, "Scotland the Brave", I played that instrumentally, and I played "Auld Lang Syne".  

CK.  That's wonderful!  So, you sort of put a program together on the information that you get from the family. 

CC.  And then, just two weeks ago, a very well-known lady in this town, business owner, Marie Marzean of Marie's Fabrics, her family called me and of course, I play music with her son, John, and her favorite hymn was "Amazing Grace".   So I took that song, and I did it in a way different way than has ever been done.  So.  Waaay different way than it's ever been done.  It's, ah, I'm quite proud of it, how I did it.  

CK.  How did you get started in that?  In doing the funeral music, was it for a friend or . . .

CC.  It was for a friend, yeah.  Now, before this, with the autoharp, I have went into nursing homes, I can remember a dear friend of mine, I played her funeral - with the autoharp, and I think, if memory serves me right, I did my mother-in-law's funeral.  With the autoharp. So I got started there, and I can remember also what my, one of my friends, this is years ago, that was, uh, she was going from this life to the next, and I sat by her bedside and played her favorite hymns.  Yeah.

CK.  That's a gift.  That's a wonderful gift.  

CC.  You have to really put your mind in someplace else.  

CK.  Uh huh.

CC.  You really, really do.  You know, you've got to, you've got to think about what to do and what not to do, that's for sure.  Yep.

CK.  Ok, I don't want to put you on the spot here, but I do wonder if you can tell us back in the, this time, the early '50s when your family, your dad and his brother had a band - who were some of the other bands, what was some of the other music in this area at the time?
CC.  At the time, there was ah, big band music, um, I can remember back in, when I was in high school, the mid-fifties, when my Dad was still playing country music, that was big band music.   Um, Don Deadman's father and . . . we didn't . . . I'm trying to remember what - I don't want to put a name on it and it's not correct but it was, it was Big Band type music.  And there were other musicians that had . . . there were a lot of bands, a lot of country bands that was around.  We talked about the Burns Family, they had a band.  Bob Bartlomiej  had a band, um, his father, um, Walt, was back in the '50s was still playing. Clint Kirchoff- my dad played with him . . . um, there used to be . . .  I wish I knew, could remember all the bands.  Where the Civic Theatre is right now - that was the old Eagles Club?  

CK.  On River Street. 

CC.  Yup.  And every . . . not maybe every, but often, they would have a what is now - what was referred to later on as battle of the bands.  They put three bands across the back of where your seats are now. 

CK.  Ok.

CC.  And they, they'd have a contest.  Ok?  There'd be three bands, and they'd pick a winner.  

CK.  The audience would pick a winner? 

CC.  Yeah.  Yeah, they'd go by applause.  Um, and I can't rightly remember, it usually was not, you know, three country bands, it usually was different uh, different genre, each from the other.  Um, every establishment in town - bar, tavern, whatever, and there was plenty of them - had a band.  They had a band every Friday and Saturday- there was a band and you're looking at five, six, seven places, plus all the outlying ones, out -  out in Hubbard Lake and you know…

CK.  Club 32.

CC.  And I mean, this is what people did.  Not only that, they, uh I can remember as a kid, going down just a mile down the road and playing music with the Desormeau family.  You know, we'd push, they'd push everything out of the way in the big living room and the folks play and the kids would watch and some would dance.  That's what we used to do for entertainment.  

CK.  That's entertainment.  

CC.  Those days, sadly, are gone.  Uh, you know there's very little getting together at people's houses anymore and playing music and that's very, very sad.  

CK.  I know that when I watch movies and that someone sits at the piano and everyone… 
CC.  Yup, yup. 

CK.  It's just so attractive as a way to commune and . . .  

CC.  Bill, The Bill Desormeau Family- the father played, the mother played, son played . . . my dad would sit in with them, um, and we've kept that line of communication open with that family.  So, you know, we tried, not only as we talked, trying to preserve names and what they did, any time that I can talk to someone that has a recording of their family and it's setting, usually, on cassette - if it's on reel to reel, we've got an issue, trying to find a reel to reel that'll play these things and not tear the, you know, preserve 'em.  But anybody that's got things on cassette, they can be transferred to cd.  And that's what I'm doing right now - I told you, I'm sorting through my things and I'm coming up with stuff that I did years and years and years ago.  

CK.  Do you have the equipment to do that?  

CC.  I don't, but my friend does, that does my recordings.  And he will do them.  He will do them.  He will do . . . He doesn't have this great big huge, ah, recording studio, but what he needs with his computer and his knowledge, he can clean an awful lot of things up and make 'em sound really wonderful.  And even - even if they didn't sound wonderful, it's important that you kept…

CK.  A record-

CC.  A record- of your family.  I have it of my dad and my uncle.  I do, I have 'em.  And the first time my dad's granddaughter, she never knew him, she got to hear a recording of her grandfather.  And she was just blown away.  She said, "I can hear you and dad in grandpa."  So, you know, as I said, my dad died very, very young so, you know I know there are folks out there that can come up with probably actual names of bands.  I can come up with a lot of names of musicians. 

CK.  Well, we'll work on it.  It's a work in progress.  Speaking of recordings, I have a note that when you were talking about the Radio Hill program, do they, does the radio station have recordings?

CC.  No.  No, back in the years when Don Partyka was at WATZ, he looked and searched.  He searched for those things maybe that were kept, but remember, when they moved from Radio Hill, and they moved over here on the lakeside, a lot of stuff was destroyed.  Just thrown away, including not only that, but records and things like that, were pitched.  So yeah, I checked that out, cause had, had that, I had a pretty good in with Don, and he checked all over trying to find - but again, that was late 40s, early 50s, and probably, you know, that old Radio Hill, it was hot in there and there was mice in there and there was all kinds of things in there.

CK & CC.  (laughter)  
CK.  Who knows what would've happened to it.  And that would have been . . . And what would they have used, what were they using to record then?

CC.  Reel to reel.  

CK.  Reel to reel, ok.

CC.  Reel to reel.  And then, of course, the next thing out was 8-tracks and those were terrible, those were terrible things!  I mean, cassettes were pretty nice, that was really nice, and then came the CDs.  You know.  And now those are down within a reasonable price.  I can remember when Three on a String recorded, we had to make a decision, were we going to put it on cassette or CD?  CD was cost-prohibitive, there was no way we could afford to put, you know all of that in and pay that kind of price, so we went with cassettes.  But one of the first things I did when I started thinking about preserving stuff was I took that cassette to, to Gary Cahoon, that's my guy that does recordings and he put it on CD.  And we bumped up all the information in it, uh, the High Notes, we did that from their record, uh, he re-did that and it's wonderful.  Took it from a thirty-three and a third . . . there were scritchy-scratchies & he's able to take them out.  So, uh, yeah.  

CK.  Yeah, Sometimes, like you said, sometimes those scritchy-scratchies are . . .

CC.  Yeah, yeah.

CK.  . . . kind of nice to hear, it really gives you a sense of time when you hear that.   

Ok, in addition to local bands that were playing in the area, which popular musicians influenced your style and taste?  When you were first starting - well, I'm thinking your teens.  Were there-

CC.  My taste - in music?  Of course, I was the first one in Alpena to buy an Elvis Presley record.  We had the tavern, we had a jukebox.  We supplied our own records, we didn't have someone come in.   So we owned the jukebox, we bought the records.  And I can remember going into Northeastern Music right down on Second Avenue, and the lady in there said to me, "you have to hear this new artist, Carole".  And it was 78 rpm record and it was Elvis.  And I just said, "Mother, we gotta to get this," I have the record today. Slightly worn, "Heartbreak Hotel".  

CK.  Where did you get it?

CC.  Right here at the uh, at the music store.  Right down on Second Avenue.  Approximately . . . and today, who is in there?  I think it's the parking lot for the bank right now.  It was right where Jerry's . . . Jerry's Barber Shop, right in there.  

CK.  I can picture it, I just don't remember the name of it. 

CC.  I think her name, the lady in charge, her last name was Hatch-- Sadie Hatch.  I think that was her name.  That was your record store in Alpena.  I bought him, Jerry Lee Lewis . . . for sure

CK.  "Great Balls of Fire". 

CC.  (laugh)  Yeah.

Creators

Cindy Kus, Interviewer

Carole Cadarette

, Interviewee

Media Type

Audio

Item Type

Interviews

Description

Carole Cadarette began playing music at the age of 14 with The Cadarette Family Band. Starting out on keyboards, she took up the autoharp in 1979 and performed with Carol Witherbee and Diane Madsen to form Three on A String. Currently Carole performs solo as a vocalist and keyboardist around Alpena and leads the jam sessions on Friday and Saturday nights at the Maplewood Tavern near Long Lake.

Place of Publication

Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library

Date of Original

2015

Date Of Event

1960s-2015

Playing Time

00:52:23

Subject(s)

Oral histories
Country Musicians
Maplewood Tavern

Personal Name(s)

Cadarette, Carole

Corporate Name(s)

Three On a String ; Maplewood Tavern ; Lady's Choice ; Grzenkowicz, Clarise ; Cadarette, Henry ; Cadarette, Don.

Collection

Musicians of Northeast Michigan

Language of Item

English

Geographic Coverage

Alpena

Michigan, United States

Latitude: 45.06168 Longitude: -83.43275
Long Lake

Michigan, United States

Latitude: 45.05168 Longitude: -84.86143

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