Marilyn Cannon

Marilyn Cannon has played a significant role in shaping the musical culture of Chico. She's one of the original Butte Creek Canyon hippie settlers, and was there for the earliest jam sessions. Her personality had a calming effect on what was a pretty wild time period. She has a unique perspective on the cultural history of the canyon, and of Chico over the past twenty-five years. She's a beautiful woman who plays beautiful music, and someone who's helped to make Chico special. Today she is still living in the canyon, she teaches botany to elementary school children, operates a nursery, and plays flute and penny whistle with the Pub Scouts.

Marilyn...I first came to Chico in the fall of 1971.

And where did you come from and why did you come here?

I came from Venice Beach, California, and went straight to Cohasset and lived in a little cabin, and came here just because I guess I needed a better life. I was one of those people who was an urban refugee. Had to get out of the city after so many years.

Is that where you grew up, down in Venice Beach?

Different parts of L.A., not just Venice Beach.

Did you go to college here, or there, or anywhere?

Half and half.

When you came here you'd already had a couple years of college?

Yeah, and I wanted to finish here because life down there was unbearable.

While living in Cohasset, how did you become involved with the whole Butte Creek Canyon scene and the music?

Men!

Men! (Laughter)

Boy meets girl, that's how. Let's see, I was living in Cohasset, met somebody that lived up in the canyon, was breaking up with my boyfriend (who actually still lives in this town), and went up there a few times and just said, "This is it, this is the kind of lifestyle I want." This is what I'd been looking for, yet I'd felt isolated in Cohasset with just a small group of people, one household. And all of the sudden I just started seeing the potential for lots of friends and lots of family and lots communal experiences. They were still theory to me, I hadn't done it. I wanted to see what it was all about.

And then?

And then we started having communal meetings and it DIDN'T seem like such a good idea anymore. We did pull some things off, like manure runs for the garden. We'd go to town in somebody's pickup. It was a big afternoon to go to Chico and get manure.

Was this all taking place on the piece of land that you live on now, still?

Yes, but a different parcel, but connected. Basically the same area.

Helltown, right?

Helltown, oh yeah! We had a lot of reputations.

What was the scene like up there at that time?

Well, because everybody was kind of trying to probably erase a lot of their past through not working anymore or not dealing with school, everybody seemed to want to hang out in the canyon. It was like, "the big erase time." That's what I felt was going on. Everybody wanted to erase their past, and erase what they'd been conditioned to think was important, like working. Having families right away I guess, would be another issue, and living cleaner, becoming vegetarians, consuming less. All of the sudden we had this practice place to do all this, and it really was a fun thing to get into. But theories and practices are often different. There was a lot of human stuff that would become conflict.

Had you met [future husband] Michael [Cannon] yet?

I met him initially, but he was with somebody else, and we were rather distant from each other, kinda sizing each other up, I think. He had a lot of clout in the community because he was so good, even then, at organizing musical experiences like potlucks, and being the person who would always offer their house for the potluck that night. So there was always a place no matter if someone was sick or if there were kids there, it didn't matter, that was a given, and that's still happening now with our music practices [for the Pub Scouts] on Tuesday nights.

So this is now '72?

Yeah, we're getting into '72, maybe '73.

You know, I lived here then. I never saw you. I was in the dorm though.

Oh, that's why. You hadn't quite dropped out yet.

Yeah, actually '71 and '72 I lived in the dorm with Dan Farney.

Oh my.

And the next year we had a house at 16th and Broadway, and we began to drop out a little at that point. We'd go to Portuguese Hall and see bands like Sub Zero. But to get back to you, how did the music develop? How did the Butte Creek Band finally develop?

Well, I think that, as much as we wanted to drop out and just spend our time growing vegetable gardens, there was still a lot of energy left to do things, and music seemed like such a great avenue because we had a few people that were good musicians, not that many. A lot of people were just teaching themselves how to play, myself included, by ear. And that's a great way to learn music sometimes, 'cause it's just organic.

I think it's the best way.

It is the best way. It's fun to read too, but if your ear can get developed too, it's great. But we would have these potlucks several nights a week, sometimes every night, but often, and we'd show up with our food. I'd be carrying a candle in the rain. It was like flashlights were way too straight. The candle in the rain, in the coffee-can little setup, my potluck dish, and my flute. It was like, really fun.

It sounds like the classic hippie commune scene that most people a few years earlier had only read about. You guys were actually doin' it.

Well, we weren't doing a one-communal-house thing for the whole community. I mean I would make a potluck dish and bring it to the house that was gonna have the gathering. It was a nice semi-communal thing. So we'd sit around and play music, without electricty, all acoustic, totally unplugged, 'cause there were no plugs. Just candle light, kerosene light, and hopefully the firewood was dry, and sometimes we'd all just be huddled. I was so uncomfortable sometimes, sitting on a dirty wood floor by a woodstove, and hoping the fleas didn't get on my--you know, it was funky. We didn't have running water, we didn't have electricty, like I mentioned. The only thing we had was a propane tank, which I still use for a stove, and candles. Generators came later. So music was taught in that environment and was shared. And then it became kind of a hangout. People from town would come up for the dinner, spend a few days. Then it became a hangout for people from Oregon who would come down to Chico to pick almonds and figs and then go back to their little commune situations in Oregon. So we had a little exchange going and that felt good. And then all kinds of romances started and ended. We tried to stay out of town except for music, and then a few gigs came our way. There was the talent there, and there was starting to be a need. Chico was starting to get more and more politically hip in the early '70's. The whole idea of "the benefit" started to come along as the whole scene socially developed, whether it was the People's Clinic, or the Co-op, or some environmental thing. So they needed a free band, and we were willing to play for free. In fact, we would have paid to play, and we still will I think. What do you think, would you pay to play, if there was no more gigs?

Wow, no more gigs? Inconceivable! I would play for free, but if there were no more gigs I guess I'd just sit at home and play.

So that was the beginning of the big scene. The political thing pulled us in.

Then did you start getting gigs at the Odyssey, or Portuguese Hall things, and downtown? We're talkin' like, '74, '75?

Yes, and on.

This is the period right before Butte Creek and Jack Straw got together to form Spark & Cinder, when you guys were really playing a lot.

We were playing a lot, and it was the Butte Creek Family Band then. In order to be in the Butte Creek Family Band you needed very little talent, you needed to come to practice, which would be casual, a couple nights a week, and you needed to just have a good attitude.

So the standards were high in a certain way.

In a way, 'cause that attitude developed a lot of cooperation. We didn't have a lot of those real super egotistical-type of musicians. We had people who were more interested in trying to make music, and it got into a spirtual thing later with gurus. And I think that starting from a point of cooperation and maybe quasi-spiritual ideas our music evolved, and we became good musicians, whereas some people start off as good musicians it evolves into something else. So that energy took us into being fun musicians. I wouldn't say great musicians, but learned and inspired.

You put your soul into it.

Yes.

So eventually and ultimately, the Butte Creek Band and Jack Straw came together to form the East West Transcendental Spark & Cinder Band. How was that for you?

It wasn't a perfect union like that because Butte Creek kept its identity and continued to do some things on its own. But it did take basically a rest and it reformed later, but it still was alive; it wasn't like we just formed a merger or got bought out.

Yeah, once in a while even Jack Straw still played separately. But you guys had this thing now that was Spark & Cinder.

Yeah, and there was Sub Zero, and that other band, what was the name of that other band?

Supa Nova?

Supa Nova! But my new feelings with this merger was that suddenly we were practicing in town more with a PA and mics. Jimmy [Fay] had that East Coast personality, which I wasn't used to, along with Jerry [Morano].

And Billy [Baxmeyer].

And Billy, he was mellow. I suddenly felt like, wow, I gotta get good on this, I better start playing a little better. My standards went up, my insecurity went up, everything went up in terms of being challenged by not even just the people but also the PA system. The electrical music scene was so different than playing in the canyon, in the quieter situation.

Playing acoustically can be a little more forgiving of little inaccuracies than playing electrically. It's just louder, so anything and everything is amplified.

At that same time though, after one month of practices, which was January, early February '76, I found out I was pregnant, so I knew my time in the band was limited. I didn't want to play and still have those late nights and smokey bars. In fact, in hindsight (I didn't quit till I was six months pregnant), it was way too long. Joe [Marilyn's son] hopefully learned some good beats through the embryonic stage that'll make him a better musician, but it didn't necessarily make for a calmer baby-hood.

So you decided to leave, you were pregnant. That was the end of Spark & Cinder for you, as far as your being in the band. Of course, you were married to a guy [Michael Cannon] who was in it for a few more years. It wasn't out of your life completely.

And I'd go sometimes and dance and play a few songs.

Did you continue to play music at home, after becoming a mom?

Right, I was staying home, practicing a lot of stuff from fake books and trying to get a little repertoire, something different together. That helped get the next Butte Creek thing going a little bit. In fact there was a bunch of people who had gotten into Guru Maharaji, and a lot of us up there were getting into meditating, and having a guru, and going to a lot of festivals. We were traveling as a group, and we'd see our guru in Miami, and New York, and Denver, and LA. They had a great band, the premies, so we decided we needed to have band like that. Maybe we could play for Guru Maharaji someday at a festival in Miami, and so that was a goal. And that brought on a whole new type of music, and a really nice period. I enjoyed it a lot. It was kind of a lot of people in the canyon. Some of them had absolutely no prior experience, but somehow we just tried to make it work.

Who was in that version?

Phil La Rocca was on percussion. He did congas, and bells, and tambourines, and timbales. A guy named Richard played drums, Michael Hart played bass, I played flute, Michael played electric piano. Then Stevie [Cook] came on the scene, and I think we all just realized we had this great talent now, Stevie, and Jimmy was starting to help us out a lot. So we condensed it and made it a little cleaner. It was a really nice band, it had big calm roots. Six people that got along real well. We just were really harmonious together.

This was the official Butte Creek Sextet?

Yeah.

Which got going around '80 or so?

Something like that.

Is this when you guys started experimenting with multi-cultural music.

Right. I loved that band because we practiced a lot, and we were very open-minded, and we were playing bossa nova, and stuff from Peru and Czechoslovakia and everywhere. Ethnic music suddenly really attracted us. The sextet lasted for several years, and died a natural death, I can't remember exactly why, or exactly when. But soon enough the next version of the band started, which you were in.

Right, the big ten-piece version that played Motown and oldies, "Big Chill" stuff, as well as a little reggae and world beat. We had Jimmy on drums, Dana [Olsen] on guitar, myself on bass, a horn section, in which you played sax, Therese Chudy and Sam Yarbrough or Jeff Endicott on lead vocals, Michael on keyboards, and Phil on percussion. That band started up about '87 and lasted till about 1990 or so. There actually has been no group known as The Butte Creek Band since then. By this time had you become involved with The Kids on the Mountain?

Yes, while the big ten-piece Butte Creek Band was happening, which had very few people from Butte Creek at that point, it was more of a Chico band. Our interest in Celtic music was getting stronger because of Phil and Vita, our friends up in Concow. That's all they played, and they were doing these Contra Dances every Friday or so at the Women's Club, and so they were really honing up on their tunes, and Phil Morare was from back east where Contra dancing and Irish music are really rich. So he brought a lot of knowledge with him, and they were teachers for us. We'd have practices and we'd be learning song after song. That group did pretty good for awhile. So that was Kids on the Mountain, which became Jenny's Chickens. Then Phil and Vita, there was a little break there in terms of, oh, leadership and a few other things.

Did they fall by the wayside?

They're real good musicians and did something else and are still playing around here.

So, the band is still in existence today, but went through a few changes of name and personnel. Tell me about that.

Well, Irish music comes from the community of the session. You can imagine in Ireland, the winter nights are from three in the afternoon till nine the next morning. You have to have something to do, so a lot of music is played in Ireland, and the session is open to everybody. You don't say, "Oh, you're not good enough to play with us." That's how people learn, by ear. So, that is kind of how the band evolved. Nobody would get turned away. For special gigs with a PA and making money and having to put on a show there would be some organization of who would play and who wouldn't. But as far as the sessions go and more casual events, it's open to everybody. Sometimes that can be intense. People don't know what they're doing, but it's just part of learning. This was Jenny's Chickens going into Reel Time.

Can you give me some personnel for Reel Time.

It's pretty much what it is now with the Pub Scouts. We have a whole slew of violin players. Ginger Vogel, Tatjana, Dawn McConnel. There's Bill, who's wonderful, and this new lady named Carly, who's as sharp as a whip on that violin. My God, I've never seen anybody just sight read music at lightning speed and just play it perfectly. She's a music teacher. She's an incredible player. We have a mandolin player, Jule. We have an electric bass player, Barney. We have John Lapado on guitar, Mary Twoomey on guitar, Michael Cannon on accordion, and myself on flute and penny whistle. And then people come to the sessions that just like to come to practice, that don't play with us. Like you sometimes, and Dave Boos last night, and Mike Lahey.

When did you first start playing penny whistle?

This woman from Australia came to stay with us, and she was a really good whistle player. I was suddenly impressed with the penny whistle. I always thought it was a kid's cheap toy. But then I heard the speed that you can get going on it. I tried to learn the same song on the flute, and I couldn't, so that was pretty inspiring right there.

As good as you are on flute and sax, do you feel the penny whistle is your best instrument?

It's the easiest instrument, that's why it's the best. It's easiest because of the speed that you can get going. It's all speed, and tone is, yes, tone can be worked on, but it's not nearly like playing some of these other wind instruments where embouchure is so important.

Do you feel that in some abstract way, the folks we've been talking about, and the canyon itself, have made this whole area something special?

It shimmers, it's shiny, it's full of life. It's still not cemented over. It vibrates real strong!