News Spring 2007

by Loretta

Happy Spring to you all! First off, for those of you in or near the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, we're doing our annual hometown concert at the Cedar Cultural Center on Saturday, March 24. (See touring page for all the details). The Cedar is one of the premier folk music venues in the upper Midwest, and we can't wait to get back up on that stage. It is a prime listening room, with a warm, intimate feeling, and a state of the art sound system. All the seats are good! It's one of our favorite places to go hear music when we're in town. So mark your calendars for March 24, and come on down!

We're celebrating landmark anniversaries this year. Twenty years ago we were married (to each other!) in Santiago, Mexico (near Manzanillo). People sometimes ask us if it was a "legal" marriage. Yes, indeed, we sent in all the appropriate forms and papers, etc. etc. Of course our marriage certificate is in Spanish, and we can't read it. We figure we're either married or we're Mexican citizens!

Our other big anniversary is the day we met each other, 30 years ago! If you've ever read our bio page, you know we chanced to meet on a beach in Santa Cruz, California. (OK, Curtis picked me up!) We don't really remember the exact date. We may not have even known it then, as we were young starry eyed musicians, with no watches or calendars. But we do know for sure it was 1977. And our best guesstimate is that it was April.

We've covered a lot of ground since then, that's for sure. We went from hitchhiking up and down the West Coast to driving a mini-van all across the U.S., from doing sixties folk songs to writing a lot of our own songs, added several instruments, (oh yeah, got married!), and played about a zillion gigs. For people like you. We are so thankful to all our audience members over the years. Without you, where would we be? Singing to ourselves in the shower, no doubt.

We put something like 40,000 miles on our van this year, touring all over in support of our latest CD, "Just My Heart For You," which is on the "Top Albums of 2006" on folk dj at http://folkradio.org. We're also on that website's "Top Artists of 2006." It's a website that posts playlists of folk radio dj's across the U.S. and overseas.

In the spring we did a tour on the West Coast. On the way out there, we spent two luxurious days at Chico Hot Springs, just south of Livingston, Montana. If you're going that way, check it out! There's an historic lodge where you can get a room very reasonably (plus a newer, modern hotel), and a huge hot springs swimming pool. No sulphur smell either. You can swim in the pool and look right up at snow capped mountains. Exquisite.

We were out West for nearly two months. We returned to some of our favorite venues, including the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle, Three Rivers Folk Society in Kennewick, Washington, Old Liberty Theater near Portland, and Portland State University. And we played at some brand new (for us) places, including The Historic Roeder Home in Bellingham, Washington, Collective Visions in Bremerton, Don Quixote's near Santa Cruz, California, and the Kelsey Schoolhouse, a concert sponsored by our friends Bruce and Cindy Hayden, in the mountains above Sacramento.

We made several shorter trips to do gigs in the Chicago area and out state Illinois, to South Dakota, Iowa, Texas, and Arkansas. And we played a good bit around our very own Minnesota too.

In the fall we headed south to visit Luba Tryszynska-Frederick in Miami. She's the subject of a song I wrote, "Angel of Bergen-Belsen" (see old news). She's a holocaust survivor who saved 54 children from the Nazis while she herself was a prisoner in the death camps. This was our fourth pilgrimage to her place. She's 86 years old now, and her health is not what it once was. But she's feisty as ever, and we had a wonderful time listening to her stories, singing old Yiddish songs with her, and singing "Angel of Bergen-Belsen" to her. It is such an honor for me. Plus, I taught her how to play a little bit of harp! She made us potato latkes one night. Very delicious!

We did concerts on the way to Luba's, in Tampa, Bradenton, and Sarasota. Just a few days after we got to Florida we got word that my mom was in the hospital back in Minnesota. So after we'd visited Luba for a few days, we drove back to Texas, where we'd left our little Yorkie, Molly, with Curtis' mom. Curtis stayed to visit his family for a week, and I flew back to Minnesota.

Those of you on our e-mail list know my mom's been sick and in and out of the hospital and rest home ever since. But there's good news now, that she's going home in the middle of March. She has heart problems (atrial fibrillation), which seem to be under control now with medication. The other problem took months to be diagnosed, but we finally found out she has a rare autoimmune disease called Sjogren's Syndrome. Mild cases of this disease give you dry eyes and mouth. But in her case, it's very severe, and it's given her peripheral neuropathy and vasculitis. So, her feet, legs and hands are numb and in pain, and the disease is also attacking her blood vessels.

They've got her on some heavy duty medicine now, which has really helped with the pain, and the attack on her blood vessels. So, she's hanging in there, and I've had the good fortune to be able to spend a lot of time with her.

If you're still reading this, wow!! Thanks for reading my whole missive. We'd love to hear from you. Drop an e-mail to curtisloretta@att.net. Say hello, tell us you'd like to be on the e-mail list to get notices of concerts, or critique my news writing skills

Spring 2006 Update

by Loretta

New CD, "Just My Heart For You," Now Available

Our new CD, "Just My Heart For You," is finally here! I say it's "finally" ready, because it's been a long process, but a very good one! It actually started several years ago, when I read that newspaper article in Portland, Oregon, about Luba (see below). Luba Frederick was a prisoner at Bergen-Belsen during World War II, forced to work as a nurse for the Nazi soldiers. One night she heard children crying outside. Looking outside, she saw 54 children who had been dumped in a field to die on a freezing cold December night in 1944. She braved the guards with machine guns in the watch towers, and brought all the children inside the barracks. She begged a guard to let her keep them, and though he allowed her to, she was forced to steal food for them, melt snow for drinking water, do whatever she needed to. She kept them all alive till the end of the war 5-1/2 months later, though two died of typhus just after the liberation.

I wrote "Angel of Bergen-Belsen" based solely on that newspaper article, and later on, we searched for her and found out she lives in Miami. We sent her the song, and she loved it, and invited us to come visit her. We went to see her November 2003, and I flew down alone to see her June of 2004.

This past year, we headed south again, and stayed with Luba for a week in February of 2005. We did concerts at Homestead (south of Miami), in Tampa, and in Bradenton. And, we sang around Luba's kitchen table! We brought the mini disc tape recorder again, and recorded Luba and me singing "Tell Me Where Can I Go?" a cappella. It's a Yiddish song, and there were many different versions of the lyrics in the Jewish ghettos of WW II. This is a version that Luba herself wrote.

"Angel" is on this new CD, as is the a cappella song with Luba (for my benefit, we sang it in English rather than Yiddish!). A lot of people have asked when Luba's song would be out, and they've also asked about my mom's song, "Can You Take Me Home?" It's on this CD too. For those who haven't heard it, it's the "sequel," if you will, to "Gone Forever," the song I wrote about my dad's battle with Alzheimer's. In this new song, I tell the story of my mom taking care of him at home for ten long years. He asks, "Where's my wife," and "Who are you?" The whole theme of the CD, of love and nurturing, of angels and regular folks looking out for each other, is summarized in her selfless answer, "You stick with me pal, I'll watch out for you."

No Curtis & Loretta hankies

Lest you think the whole album is packed with tear jerkers (Curtis once suggested they'd have to pass out "Curtis & Loretta hankies" after some of Loretta's originals), fear not! There's lots of fun here too. I took Curtis' hankie remark to heart, and wrote a couple funny songs. Really!

In "Harps in Heaven," harp players try to get into heaven through the back door, and "Somebody I Could Sue" speaks for itself. I have to make a confession here - a friend who heard that song asked who was singing harmony with me on that cut. I've never done this before, but I sang harmony with myself, thanks to the magic of the recording studio. Curtis also sings harmony on the choruses. And he lends his own brand of humor (as always!) with "I Had But Fifty Cents," a song he describes as "a ukulele wooing song from the more realistic side of courting." And don't miss the songs about bugs, and lutefisk!

Rounding out the recording are two more originals ("Your Direction" and "Just My Heart") plus two Irish songs ("A Health to the Company" and "She Moved Through the Fair"), Stephen Foster's classic "Hard Times Come Again No More," and a Yiddish song (which we DID sing, at least partly, in Yiddish!)

There are fifteen songs in all, plus a voicemail from Luba. Way back when we first sent her a tape of her song (via her cousin in Oregon), we put a note in with it, asking her to contact us if she wanted to. Months went by, and we had almost given up. One day we got home and there was a very sweet message on our voicemail. "Hello, this is Luba....I loved my song, it made me cry."

I cried. Then I picked up the phone, and called her for the first time. I call Luba regularly now, and she's been in and out of the hospital lately. Please send some good thoughts her way. We hope her health problems improve soon.

Guest Artists

There are several fine guest artists on "Just My Heart For You." Peter Ostroushko lends his signature stellar fiddle playing, Sandy Njoes plays a mean stand up bass, and there's outstanding bowed cello by Sera Jane Smolen and Lori Smart.

When we weren't working on the recording, we spent lots of time on the road this year. Besides the tour to Florida, we did tours in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Virginia. Also did several weekend tours to South Dakota, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

For more information about the CD, click on CDs. You can order there, and of course they'll be available at all our concerts.

New Web Site

Welcome to our newly designed Web site! Our friend Susan Neff from Illinois has completely redesigned our Web site and added all kinds of cool stuff. She most patiently worked with us (admitted computer-challenged people), and came up with what you're seeing now! There are sound samples, lyrics to our songs, a guest sign-in, new photos, and this "What's Been Happening" feature, which I'll be updating regularly. We are so grateful to Susan for her dedication and hard work (I have to mention she is a great harp player, too!!)

Luba Tour Fall 2003

Here's the update to the "Luba tour" !! The tour lasted most of October and November, with gigs in Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. We played some brand new (to us!) places, and revisited some old favorites. A great tour, and at every concert we sang the song I'd written about Luba Frederick, titled "Angel of Bergen-Belsen."

Luba is the amazing holocaust survivor I'd read about a couple years ago. (Click on old news below for more details). During World War II, as a prisoner at the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, she heard children crying in the night. She looked out to see 54 children who had been dumped in the snow to die. Risking her own life, she took them all inside, and begged the guards to let her take care of them. By some miracle, they allowed her to, and she set about foraging for food and water for them. She kept them all alive till the end of the war 5 months later. Two died of typhus after the camp was liberated.

So, we found out Luba was now living in Miami, and I was determined to meet this heroine.

We sent her the song and she loved it, and invited us to come stay with her. So I booked some gigs in Florida! At every concert along the way, we told her incredible story, and how we were actually on our way to meet this living legend. Everyone said, "Please keep us updated!!" And so, here at last is the update!

By the beginning of November we were in Texas, staying with Curtis' family in Dallas. His dad had congestive heart failure for years, and he was weaker than the last time we were there. We had a wonderful time visiting for 2 weeks. On the day we left for Florida, his dad went into the hospital.

We took a few days to drive to Miami (stopping to play at Fogartyville Cafe in Bradenton, near Sarasota). We called Curtis' mom every night for the update. Every night she said, "He's about the same."

The miles flew by, and on Saturday, November 15 we pulled into Pembroke Pines, a suburb of Miami. We pulled up to Luba's condo building, and there she was, waving at us from the fourth floor balcony. She's a very slight woman, always neatly dressed, her hair softly waved. Her left forearm still bears the number tattooed on her in Auschwitz. And her piercing eyes are such deep intense pools of brown that you can barely see the pupils.

We took the elevator up, and as we approached, she was all smiles. I felt like I was in a dream.

We hugged, and she said, "You're skinny!" I said, "You are too," thinking it was a compliment.

I soon found out it was a reproach, a concern to be remedied. In "the camps" skinniness could easily lead to death.

Curtis & I entered her condo and she gave us a tour. Then, everything came out of the refrigerator - lox, bagels, cheese, bread, cake, cantaloupe, pastries. Coffee and tea appeared. I thought of "her children," and saw the pattern - she always takes people in, and feeds them! We met her friend Isaac, also a holocaust survivor, and she tried to feed him. It was 3:00 pm, and we all insisted we weren't hungry. She convinced us to eat. That night we did a concert at Wallflower Art Gallery downtown.

The next day Luba came along to our gig at Pinecrest Gardens, a beautiful tropical jungle-park. It was a mini-festival, put on by the wonderful folks of the Folk Club of South Florida. There were 5 acts, including us. At our set on the main stage, Luba came up and told her story, and sang a song she had written. She got a standing ovation, and when she went back to her seat several people rushed over to talk to her, some getting her autograph. Then Curtis and I sang "Angel of Bergen-Belsen." It was the fulfillment of a dream, to sing the song to her in person. I didn't cry till the very end. In the last half of the chorus, the children are talking to her, "Sister Luba, sing to me. I can't sleep, I'm still hungry. Hold my hand and I will know, you're the one who won't let me go." I looked at her sitting in the audience and imagined her singing to those children, and it was just too much to bear.

We stayed with her for a week. When I first heard that quiet little voice on our telephone, I thought she was "a sweet little old lady." But as the days went on, we discovered she is a strong, unswaying, determined, fireball of energy. We saw how she was able to risk her life and convince the Nazis to allow her to save those 54 children. She doesn't take no for an answer.

Before one of our concerts she said, "Are you going like that, without a necklace?" She took me by the hand into her bedroom and found jewelry for me to wear. "And how about a little perfume?" I haven't worn perfume since high school. I said, "Sure." She sprayed some on my neck. "Are you wearing those shoes?" I ditched the worn-out Berkenstocks for nicer sandals, and finally got her nod of approval.

We found out she is a very good singer. I brought along a mini-disk recorder and recorded her singing many of the songs she'd written over the years, along with the stories of her life, from growing up, to the concentration camps, to saving the children. She said the children helped her, gave her a reason to live. I felt like Alan Lomax, setting up the little recorder on her kitchen table.

What an amazing thing, to be a singer-songwriter, when you can go inside your own song with the person who lived through it. I could look into her eyes as she spoke and see what really happened. It makes the song so much more real when I sing it now. I can imagine I am one of those frightened children, looking into her loving eyes as she sings me to sleep.

She taught me the song she had sung at Pinecrest Gardens, "Tell Me Where Should I Go?" She said it was inspired by her utter feeling of homelessness. Her entire family was gone, her friends were gone, her whole village was destroyed. I wrote down the words, because she never had. We practiced it everyday. She told me my voice was beautiful, but every time I sang it with her, she instructed "More sadness!" until the second verse, when you enter the promised land, then it was "Now, happiness!!" We had planned to sing it together at our final concert in Miami on November 21 at Luna Star Cafe, sponsored by the Folk Club of South Florida. But Luba wasn't up to coming that night. After "Angel of Bergen-Belsen," I sang "Tell Me Where Should I Go?" accapella. Later, Luba asked Curtis for a critique of how I'd done. "Very good. It was beautiful," he told her.

And every night we called Curtis' mom. Everyday he was still "about the same." Till one day when I forgot to turn the cell phone on for some reason. By the time we found out he'd had a heart attack in the hospital, he had been stabilized, and the crisis seemed past. But the morning after our last gig we hit the road.

We said goodbye to Luba Saturday morning, November 22. Luba's friend Isaac had brought half a cake and a huge loaf of banana bread for us to take along. We said we couldn't possibly eat all that. Isaac walked down to the car with us. We loaded up the cake and banana bread, and Luba threw kisses and waved to us from the balcony.

We raced back to Texas in 2 days - 700 miles a day. The night we got home Curtis went to see his dad in the hospital. The next day we all went to see him. We all sat with him for hours and hours, and at 4:00 a.m. he passed away. Dan Teague was a kind and gentle man. The world is a better place for having had him here for 73 years.

Angel of Bergen-Belsen

Next, we have a truly amazing story to tell everyone. I recently wrote a song called "Angel of Bergen-Belsen." We were on tour in Oregon a couple years ago, and I read a story in the Portland newspaper about this wonderful woman. She was born Luba Tryszynska, in Belarus (then under Polish control), and during World War II, she was a prisoner in the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Her husband, child, and entire family were killed by the Nazis. She was put to work as a nurse in the camp. One night she heard children crying outside, and she looked out to see 54 children who had been dumped outside to die of exposure in the frigid December night. She took them all inside, and begged the guards to let her take care of them. By some miracle, they allowed her to keep them, though she had to smuggle food from the kitchen for them, melt snow for water for them, etc. etc. She nursed them through typhus outbreaks with no medicine, and 5 months later when the camp was liberated by the Allies, all 54 were still alive. Two of them did die of typhus soon after.

Loretta playing at the Central Avenue Festival in northeast Minneapolis, August 13, 2003. Photo by Jennifer Simonson, Northeaster (Minneapolis).

I was so taken by this story, I had to write a song about it. It's a story-song, the story of Luba. We played the song at a lot of our concerts last spring, and I became obsessed with the idea of trying to find this woman, and meet her. She came to the U.S. after World War II, and the article I had read in 2000 said she was living in Miami. I got out the newspaper article again, and found the phone number of the newspaper reporter who had written the story. I called it, and the reporter answered the phone immediately. I told her I wanted to find Luba, and she said, "Yes, I remember her well." She had been visiting cousins in Oregon at the time, and the reporter gave me the phone number of one of her cousins. I called the cousin, and she answered the phone immediately, too!

I told her I had written this song, and I wanted to get it to Luba. We talked for over an hour (I read her the words over the phone), and she agreed to send the song to Luba. I sent her a copy of the song from a live radio show we'd done, and she sent it on. I included a letter saying, "If you get this letter, and have any comments on your song, please write or call."

I was afraid to send her the song. What if she didn't like it, what if she thought, "How could this person possibly know what I'd been through, and then be so presumptuous as to write a song about it?" A few weeks later Luba called, and there had been no need for me to worry. Her first words to me were "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart." She approved, and I felt like I was floating on air the first time I talked to her on the phone. She's a saint, a true war heroine. I told her we would be so honored to meet her someday. She said, "Come to Miami, you can stay with me for 2 weeks." I said we couldn't possibly stay with her. She said, "Why not? I have lots of room!"

The rest of the story is: I booked 4 gigs and a radio show in Florida, even though we've never played there, and it was short notice. (Many places I called had already been booked for several months.) We're going there in November, and we are going to stay with Luba for a week!

I can't wait to meet this woman.

I also want to add that there's a children's book about her called Luba:The Angel of Bergen-Belsen that will be in bookstores in October. It's reading level ages 9 - 12, published by Tricycle Press, ISBN 1582460981. The authors are Luba Tryszynska-Frederick, Ann Marshall, and Michelle Roehm McCann.

More on Elza and Branko

Can there be any more amazing stories? Yes, there is one more!!! What a summer this has been for us. You may recall another song I wrote, "Elza and Branko (The Siege of Sarajevo)" on our 1994 CD, "It's Where You Hang Your Hat." A lot of you know about 3 years ago I found out how to get in contact with a DJ at Radio Sarajevo, and they've been playing the song there, and this DJ also found out what had happened to that couple (I had also read about them in a newspaper article). During the siege, Elza had gone to live with her daughter in Germany, and Branko stayed in Sarajevo. He survived till the end of the war, in 1995, but one year later he apparently jumped from the balcony of his flat, committing suicide. And the DJ found out Elza was living in Croatia.

This June, our friend John Kruth (a terrific musician and author), was visiting from New York City, and told us he and his girlfriend were going to visit her family in Croatia. I said, "Hmm, Croatia - I wrote a song about a woman who lives near Sibenik. Do you know where that is?" He said, "we're going there!" So I gave him a copy of the CD and the original newspaper article I'd read about Elza and Branko in 1993. John e-mailed me from Croatia a few weeks ago. His girlfriend has a cousin who is a reporter for the newspaper in Sibenik. She wrote a story about Elza, and the song I'd written about her, and the next day someone called the newspaper office to say they knew Elza, and that she lives in a small town called Osjek, in the north of Croatia. The newspaper in that town went to visit her, and did a story about her, and gave her a copy of the CD.

I have the 2 newspaper articles, and can't read a word of them!! There's a photo of Elza crying, apparently after finding out someone had written a song about her and Branko. It turns out she lives in a tiny apartment, and has barely enough money to get by. Conditions are still hard for many people in that part of the world. We plan to do a benefit concert for Elza this winter. I'm waiting for the newspaper to send me her address, so I can write to her.

In truth, I never thought I would find Elza. Croatia seemed too far away. I think maybe I was meant to find her......it turned out to be very easy!

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