Posted: Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:00 am
A year ago, as JP Houston and his wife and co-host, Julie Van Dusen, sought places to record their radio show, American Parlor Songbook, they discovered Lake Arrowhead and the Tudor House.
A mountain setting intrigued the couple as he hails from Canada and she from Michigan. After taping several shows here on the mountain, Houston and Van Dusen have made the Tudor House their home base, recording two shows a month there.
Houston hosts the show—which he likens to a mix of A Prairie Home Companion and Saturday Night Live—from the piano. He and Van Dusen have created lovable characters like Wendall and Martha, who delight the live audience—and the radio audience at home—with their banter. The show airs on KVCR-FM on Sundays at 4 p.m.
Each episode features special guest artists. This Saturday, Nov. 22, American Parlor Songbook and the Tudor House will welcome comedian Steven Benaquist and singer-songwriter Louise Goffin.
Benaquist has appeared on Conan and other television shows and performs stand-up around the country. He loves improv and “does make-em-ups with the best in the improv world.”
Goffin comes by her singing and songwriting naturally as she is the daughter of Carole King and the late Gerry Goffin. She released her debut album, “Kid Blue,” in 1979. Her latest release, “Songs From the Mine,” was recorded in December 2013 and early January.
Her performance as part of American Parlor Songbook will include songs from that latest album, which she is still touring. But Goffin also plans to work in some new songs from the EP she is currently working on.
“It’s a celebration of my father’s music,” she said, adding there is only one song people haven’t heard before. “I wrote that song with my father when he was alive,” she said. “It is very close to my heart.”
But all her songs, Goffin noted, are close to her heart. She has been heavily influenced, she said, by her father’s lyrics, phrasing and the messages in his songs.
Her mother, of course, was also a great influence—by osmosis if nothing else. Goffin said she was watching some footage of herself playing in Oakland. “You can tell we’re from the same family,” she said. Part of it is the way she and her mother hold their bodies while performing. “There’s genetics going on,” Goffin said.
That new EP is slated for release in January. She has called it Appleonfire. “The apple, as they say, doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Goffin said. “My creative fire is very much a part of the tree I come from.”
She recently launched a pledge funding campaign to help finish the EP. Folks who make a pledge at www.pledgemusic.com/projects/louisegoffin-appleonfire will be rewarded with gifts ranging from an original iPhone song to T-shirts and handwritten lyric sheets.
The songs on “Songs From the Mine” are written by Goffin and a number of co-writers. “It helps me to work with others,” Goffin said. “Partnering keeps everything moving. I have someone to show up for. When I write by myself, it tends to move more slowly.”
But when she does write with a partner, Goffin prefers to sit down in person with that person. “If you’re really writing from the heart,” she said, “you want to explore the interior of what’s going on with two different people and see what song wants to come of life that day.”
As she’s composing, Goffin said, she will sometimes start on the guitar and then move to the piano. “Whatever brings ideas,” she said. “I can always change the arrangement for a different instrument. You want the instrument to talk to you while you’re writing.”
At the Tudor House Goffin will be playing piano, guitar and ukulele. She is bringing percussionist Elsa Chahin-Wilson with her.
Doors for American Parlor Songbook open at 6 p.m. with the show beginning at 7. Dinner and drinks will be available for purchase all night. Tickets for the show are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Visit www.tudorhouseentertainment.com or call (909) 336-5000.
The Tudor House is located at 800 Arrowhead Villa Road, Lake Arrowhead.
American Parlor Songbook
JP Houston and Julie Van Dusen taped a Mardi Gras episode of American Parlor Songbook at the Tudor House last February. They return this Saturday to tape another show.
News From Singer-Songwriter Louise Goffin 