After deciding not to run for another City Council term last year, Jacksonville singer-songwriter Christina Duane turned her attention to music and spent months preparing to hit the road…literally.
Starting on April 3, Christina will be taking her band on the road to dozens of towns across several western states from April 3 to April 28. Her new music tour, dubbed, “Romancing the West,” reflects Duane’s love of music and of historic preservation. For Duane, combining her passion for music and historic preservation is a dream come true.
The tour kicks-off here at home at the Applegate River Lodge on April 3 before playing the Rogue Theater in Grants Pass on April 5. From there, the tour moves to other Oregon cities including, the Dalles, Salem, Pendleton, Burns and Bend. After leaving Oregon, the show hits the road in California on April 16, playing Redding, Eureka, Oroville, Fresno, Cygnet, Huntington Beach, San Juan Capistrano and closing at Autry National Center in Los Angeles on April 28. (More tour dates are expected but not yet released.)
Duane says the tour idea was born during Jacksonville’s 150th Celebration three years ago, during which time she was serving on Jacksonville’s Historic Architectural Review Commission. Along with then-City Administrator Paul Wyntergreen, the duo wrote and produced the 150th musical score for a show that played (in the pouring rain) on the Britt Hill. Wyntergreen’s incredible lyrics were a perfect match for Duane’s voice and the show received critical acclaim, giving birth to the idea for Romancing the West.
This April, Duane and her band will appear at more than 18 venues, all of which are theaters of historic significance – some have already been renovated while others await funding to do so. Duane says the smallest of them, Wells Fargo Theater in Los Angeles, holds 300, while the Warnors Center in Fresno has a capacity of 2000. No matter the size of the audience, Duane and company aim to play their hearts out, paying homage to some of the west’s best loved venues and towns while bringing awareness to historic preservation. Incidentally, a portion of the concert tour is being underwritten by Travel Pendleton, where the band performs on April 12.
Duane, who has been a professional musician since 1990, was the lead singer in the band Velvet Bleu for 5 years before moving from Southern California to Jacksonville. She and her band mates include longtime friends, all of whom perform songs spanning 240 years of the history of the West – a time traveling concert complete with visual effects and historic photos, film and video footage.
Through song, two centuries come to life, including stories told by Native American Educator of the Year Jacque Nunez, Sons of the Oregon Trail singers Butch Martin and Skip Bessonette, Melanie, who first appeared at Woodstock and had the #1 hit “Brand New Key,” Jacsonville’s own Gypsy Soul, legendary jazz pianist Patti Moran McCoy, who played with Duke Ellington, Nick Garrett Powell of The Fret Drifters, Martin Gerschwitz of Iron Butterfly, Chuck Girard of Lovesong, fusion rocker Byron Fry, songwriter John Elliott, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Pam Mark Hall and singer, writer and producer, Duane herself.
As for the music, much is rooted in a nostalgic love of the old-west, featuring songs about Native American people and Russian ships exploring the West Coast, building California’s Mission chain, Lewis & Clark’s epic journey west, the blazing of the Oregon Trail, the gold rush and the coming of the railroad. In other songs, gripping tales come alive featuring stories of the Roaring 20’s, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam and present-day political polarization.
All songs in the 2 ½ hour show include three bold themes: the preservation of small town America, respect for one’s fellow man, and the triumph of the human spirit. Tickets are on-sale now at www.romancingthewest.org.