Something about that music really worked for me. He sent me home with some Count Basie records, some Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, Carmen McRae, some Sarah Vaughn. Well, Alan had this individual talent as a drummer. That’s what they’re supposed to do… keep those kids marching, keep them organized, doing something as a group. Pretty rare, because most music teachers, most band directors at the high school level, are all about the marching band. A small town in rural Iowa, that you would have a high school band teacher who had a phenomenal amount of jazz talent. She told me, “He and I are still good friends. Alan Jacobsen was a Buddy Rich-type drummer working as a music teacher at the Manchester High School. Susan counts her blessings when it come to the education she got in her small-town high school. Susan at the 2010 New Bedford (MA) Summerfest …that is an instant cure for most neuroses, You learn what you can worry about and what you can’t worry about.” When you grow up and there’s your corn out in the field and here comes the hail storm and there goes your season… there’s an acceptance of things beyond your control that in a healthy way counteracts neuroses.
There’s a humility about how they live their lives. When pressed further, she distilled the varying elements of a rural personality for me this way: “Other people who grew up in the countryside, people I’ve met who grew up on farms or ranches… there’s a practicality to those people, a straightforwardness, a plainspokenness that I find really wonderful. I couldn’t let go of the image of the farm as a character builder. That’s the greatest triumph of any family, that the kids get to be the kids. They were not little league parents, they were not hovering, helicopter Suzuki parents. That’s one thing my parents really did right. If you have a talented kid, let the talent be the kid’s talent. That’s a great gift, because they didn’t need to express themselves through our success in the arts. My parents did not expect any ownership over what I did, what their kids did. Hopefully they give you enough room, so it’s yours and not theirs. You will always feel and hear your parents laughing at your jokes. If you have parents who enjoy what you do, you will never stop doing it for your entire life. “For many performers, their first audience is their parents. This was one of the things they really supported.” My parents bought us whatever instruments we wanted to play. Part of that is genetic and part of it is habit. I have another brother who’s a performing drag queen. I have one brother who it a performing stand-up comic. Socialized isolation that pays dividends, I guess… you could call it. When you make your own entertainment, if you have music around the house… You might wind up playing your instrument longer, you might wind up actually practicing, you might wind up experimenting with it. You wouldn’t even bicycle into town, it’s so far. We were 5 miles away from the nearest town. She stated: “It makes you a practical person, an unfussy person. While I tend to invest a lot in the psychology of the farm lifestyle, Susan sees things in more practical terms. That’s all I wanted him to do.” Her brother played in the folk mass and then, Susan followed suit. I said, ‘How do you do that?’ He showed me three chords, and that was it. As she recalls, “My older brother learned guitar from Sister Marie Claire of the Franciscan nuns of Saint Mary’s Chapel School in Manchester, Iowa. We present here… Susan Werner.Īs with most prodigies, Susan’s musical life began early. The girl blossoms as a musician whose talent usually dwarfs those around her and leaves audiences enthralled. Case in point: A musically gifted girl raised on an isolated hog farm in Manchester, Iowa, surrounded by a loving, supportive family. There may be a stronger sense of purpose, a drive to overcome any obstacle, an unshakeable emotional center. The effect on those who live with that contract can be profound. In all that quiet beauty, I could not help pondering the delicate, sometimes brutal, sometimes violent contract made between the farmer and nature.
Under the cerulean blue of the sky, with clouds like cotton pulled apart, floating in tufts, there were no people in evidence. Aside from varying road traffic, there was a solitude, an isolation in the landscape. I was passing through farmland, marvelling at the quiet beauty of corn rows, of the silos that peeked out from beyond them, and the stately, weathered white of the homes and barns.
On either side, the stately procession of Queen Anne’s lace swayed as I rushed past. I was driving home from the 2010 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, the two-lane blacktop of Route 22 South stretching out in front of me.