Articles about Mack and Rachel

ASPEN — “Friend for Life,” a song from Mack Bailey & Rachel Levy's new album “White,” puts music up on a mighty high pedestal. Music — or more specifically in “Friend for Life,” songs — can provide comfort, spark warm memories, and tie people together.

“When you're down and out on a two-lane road/Your friend the song will be there to ease your load,” the two sing to the spare accompaniment of acoustic guitar.

Bailey and Levy can't claim credit for the song; it was written by Bill Danoff & Bryan Bowers. But the twosome stand as validation of the song's theme, that music can be something beyond a pleasant, momentary distraction, that diving into music and playing it can be life-altering. Making music is at the core of their social circle. It has provided Bailey with some of the peak experiences of his life; it has steered Levy on a road to happiness. And it has been a key bond for the married couple.

Bailey and Levy were part of Friday night's Wheeler Opera House concert, Doin' Their Own Thing, which had musicians associated with the late Aspen icon John Denver performing their own material. Bailey is featured Friday and Saturday in the Tribute to John Denver concerts, which have the same cast of players covering Denver's songs. Last week saw the release of “White,” Bailey & Levy's debut recording together, which includes original compositions, and several covers, including the Denver hit “Annie's Song.”

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Levy was raised in Aspen; her mother, Denison, still lives in the house off Cemetery Lane where Rachel grew up. Levy was a four-sport jock as a kid, and was named all-state in soccer. Her artistic high point came when, as an 11-year-old, she played the title role in Aspen Community Theatre's production of “Annie.” She liked music, but relegated it to a far-off place in her life.

“Being in ‘Annie' in Aspen when you're 11 doesn't propel you into that world,” Levy said of the notion of making music her livelihood. “It was always in the dream category. I always sang, was never shy about it. I just never took action about it to make it a career. But music was always in the back of my mind. I'd be lying if I said I didn't accept 400 Grammy Awards in my head.”

In the physical world, Levy accepted a Juris Doctorate from Portland, Oregon's Lewis & Clark Law School, got married and moved to Maryland to practice law. None of it lasted; after six months of being a dissatisfied lawyer, Levy quit and became a housewife looking for a way to occupy her time. She bought a guitar.

“I started taking lessons and thought, This is much more interesting to me,” she said. “In my head I figured I'd keep playing till ... something.” Still, Levy didn't know how to make that something happen.

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Bailey put music in the forefront early on. Growing up in Troy, a small town in the dead center of North Carolina, Bailey started with piano lessons. The piano was lost on him. But the guitar, which his brother had similarly abandoned, looked intriguing. A big part of the attraction was the style of music that could be played on the acoustic six-string: folk songs by the Limeliters and the Kingston Trio. And above all, John Denver.

“So I took his guitar and had all the John Denver songbooks laid out around me,” said Bailey, who graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts with a degree in music performance and then joined20the Hard Travelers, a folk group whose roots went back to the '50s.

Bailey said his interest in Denver's music waned some in the '80s. But clearly it didn't take much to restoke that interest. In the mid-'80s, Bailey was the in-house entertainer at a New Hampshire hotel when his childhood idol came to perform. Bailey put together a packet of his songs and threw it in Denver's limo, yelling that the materials should get to Barney Wyckoff — an Aspenite, and Denver's road manager at the time. Several weeks later, Bailey received a polite but disappointing note: “There's nothing we can use on here.”

In 1997, Bailey finally had his John Denver moment, a seminal experience in his life. The Hard Travelers — which includes part-time Snowmass resident Kenn Roberts — were presenting their annual benefit concert for cystic fibrosis, in the band's home base of Maryland. Denver was booked to headline, and asked Bailey to stand in for him at the sound check. Denver listened as Bailey sang “Thank God I'm a Country Boy” — written by Roaring Fork Valley musician John Sommers — and was impressed enough to suggest that the two of them trade verses on the song at that night's performance.

“That was as full circle as it comes — me singing with the guy who inspired me to learn guitar. I sang my butt off,” Bailey said. Three weeks later, Denver died when the plane he was flying crashed into California's Monterey Bay. “I have no regrets, but I wish I could have seen, if he had survived, if we could have sung together again, and where that would have went.”

A more enduring relationship was kicked off in 2004, in Woody Creek. Levy, divorced and spending a year back in Aspen, was bridesmaid at the wedding of her Aspen High friend, Anna Patterson, who was about to become Anna Thomson (and, eventually, the graphic designer for the “White” album). The entertainment was a burly, buoyant singer whose services had been auctioned off at the previous year's John Denver tribute concerts. Over the course of seven months, Levy and Bailey became romantically involved.

Levy was still playing around with the guitar, and one of the first topics of conversation between her and her husband-to-be was music. “She told me she played Annie,” Bailey said. “I remember asking her, ‘Did you get the bug?' She brushed it off. But a week later she said, ‘You know that question you asked me? Well, yes.' That told me she wanted to pursue it.”

Levy's entrance into the music business was on the business side. The Limeliters — the folk group that was founded in Aspen in the 1950s, and named after the Limelite Lodge, and which Bailey joined in 2003 — needed a manager.

Levy, figuring she could read and write a contract, took the job. Soon she was also overseeing Bailey's solo career, which eventually meant becoming part of the act. (They also got married, two years ago, near Reudi Reservoir.)

“We started singing together, wrote a couple songs. Then it became a show. Then we made a CD,” Levy said, giving the condensed version of her path to becoming a musician. Levy, 34, and Bailey, 49, spend more than half their time on the road, performing in coffeehouses, churches and at house concerts. (Bailey remains a member of both the Limeliters and the Hard Travelers.)

Perhaps as something of a payback to Bailey for giving her a start as a musician, Levy has helped bring her husband back to his musical essence. Bailey had made a series of solo albums, produced by Chris Nole (a former John Denver bandmate who is music director for this weekend's concerts) that veered toward a country sound. “White” finds him in the folk mode, a more comfortable fit.

“I loved the sound he gave me,” Bailey said of Nole. “But I was like a folk singer with a country sound, and it wasn't meshing.” “White,” he added, is a closer representation of what he does in performance.

Marrying Levy has also brought Bailey closer to where he wants to be geographically. The couple live in Denver, and say they'd love to find a way to settle closer to Aspen.

“I feel like I was destined to be here,” Bailey said of Colorado. “All those ties. I finally feel I am where I should be. And that's a good feeling. I definitely didn't have that feeling on20the Washington Beltway.”

If Bailey was less than content during his Maryland years, he didn't let it seep into his songs. Music, he says, should lift people up.

“I love to feel positive and that's what I focus on,” he said. “I don't play heartbreak songs, drinking songs, cheating songs. Even if it is a tougher theme, I like to put a positive spin on it.”

A fine example on “White” is “As the First Snows Fell in Colorado,” co-written by the late Buddy Renfro, a member of the Hard Travelers. The song is about John Denver and his death, but is emotionally upbeat, addressing the lasting impact a song can have on a listener: “He left us ... music treasured for all time.”

“I would much rather have John here singing, and listening to him. But what's happened in my life since his death is unbelievable — the musicians I've worked with, the places I've gone. So I want to pay all the due respect to John's music that I can,” said Bailey, who is featured on the songs “Calypso,” “Eagles and Horses,” “The Garden Song” and “My Sweet Lady” at the tribute concerts.

The main place Bailey had been led — thanks to picking up the guitar to play Denver's songs, thanks to becoming associated with Aspen through his appearances at the Denver tribute concerts — is to a partnership with Levy. It's a promising duo.

0The best thing I've seen in our growth together is how many people come up to us and tell us how well our voices go together,” Levy said. “He's got an amazing voice. I don't have that voice yet; I have a sweet, pure, innocent. But our voices really go well together.

Meeting Mack Bailey and Rachel Levy was very enjoyable; hearing them sing was even better. About 100 of us attended the Spa Apartments in Clifton Springs. Fine acoustics in the chapel and its Tiffany stained-glass window enhanced the experience.

The Denver-based couple met in Aspen, Colo. That’s where John Denver called home, and Mack Bailey is often compared to him. They were friends.

The couple performed several of their own songs from an upcoming recording, so we could call this a CD pre-release party. Backed only by his own guitar and Rachel’s harmonies, Bailey’s tenor voice was clear and seemingly effortless – music writers have used words like ‘soaring’ and ‘wondrous’ to describe it, and that works for me.

He is a fine songwriter. His North Carolina roots come through in the lyrics. You can easily picture John Denver singing Mack Bailey songs. Bailey’s renditions of Denver’s hits are incredibly accurate. Rachel Levy tightly wrapped her harmonies around Mack’s lead, and did some fine solos as well.

She told me they were heading to Pennsylvania for a show the next day, and then on to Annapolis before heading for Maine. The couple and their RV “tour bus” will be back in Colorado by the end of July. They spend many months on the road living their dream, sharing their lives and their music.

Most of us did not know Mack Bailey before this concert at the spa. He would like to be, and clearly deserves to be, more known for his own singer-songwriter work. For now, he is probably more associated with the John Denver tributes and one other thing.

Remember the Limeliters? They were an excellent and extremely popular folk trio during the early 1960s. Glenn Yarbrough was the tenor and later had a solo career (“Baby the Rain Must Fall”). For the past six years, Mack Bailey has played banjo and guitar and sang tenor with the current members of this trio.

A quick reflection. During our high school years, the guy who became a lawyer, the guy who became a nuclear scientist and I performed Limeliter’s songs like “Gunslinger” and “Mama Don’t ‘Low” at various talent shows. Had they stuck with me, they would have had respectable jobs and make something of themselves.

Our evening in Clifton Springs was a definite good time and a Rocky Mountain high. We hope Mack and Rachel come back this way soon. It has been a long time since an American folk music show was staged around here – maybe we could put one together with the Limeliters. We could have a hootenanny!

Mack Bailey and his wife, Rachel Levy, are longtime friends of Jim Clare. So when Clare and other musician friends started up a series of regular folk concerts in Clifton Springs, booking the folksinger couple was a natural choice.

“We’ve been getting notices — he tells me there’s an incredible musical presence especially there and ‘you gotta come up and check it out,’” Bailey said during a phone interview last week. “Unfortunately, we aren’t able to stay long — we have to turn around and go back the next day.”

But he’s hoping that next Wednesday’s concert — the “Tunes by the Tracks” show, moving from its regular library venue to the bigger room of the Spa Apartments — will be the first of many visits to the Finger Lakes.

Bailey and Levy play what’s best described as “Americana” music, infused with elements of folk, country, bluegrass and more. Lyrically, there’s an emphasis on the positive, the impetus to seize the day and move ahead on what’s right — for oneself, one’s loved ones, one’s planet. As on “It’s Time,” a featured track on the couple’s MySpace and other Web presences, a song encouraging listeners to a greater environmental consciousness:

“I always feel like I want to have a message in every song,” Bailey said. “My mind always wants to find a message to put in every song — ‘this is the way it is, and this is the way it could be,’ or ‘this is the way it was, and this is the way it could be again.’

“The bottom line for me is, when I play a concert, the songs I want to play, I want the audience to feel empowered and I want me to feel empowered. I want to feel so empowered that I’m ready to take off, and I want the audience to feel that way too.”

It’s an attitude toward performing reminiscent of Bailey’s biggest musical hero, the late John Denver, a major influence on his music — the reason he learned to play guitar, in fact. Bailey actually eventually got to play with Denver, trading verses with him on “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”

In addition to his work solo and with his wife — “we get to travel together, we get to perform together, we share ideas together — we really love all our time on the road” — Bailey performs with the folk group The Limeliters (more early heroes of his) and with the band The Hard Travelers. He’s shared stages with artists from Tom Paxton to Chet Atkins to Brooks & Dunn.

Bailey’s musical journey began when he was around 8, performing for his mother’s church group and the like. When he played the part of a courier in a production of “1776” while in high school, the director, from the North Carolina School for the Arts, urged him to enroll. He earned his degree there and later attended the University of North Carolina for awhile. Academically it didn’t work out that well, but it’s where he got some of his first tastes of playing in club settings with the Blue Moon Saloon Band.

“I had a lot of other jobs to help pay the bills, but music was always a given for me; I would look for every opportunity,” Bailey said. “Finally, I took the leap of faith and said, ‘that’s it, let’s go.’ There are times I would love to have a steady paycheck, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

It’s fitting, then, that he’s got a song called “Lucky Man.”

“What makes me truly lucky is that I know it,” he said. “What I try to get people to do is dwell on the good stuff."

Looking at the world around us, it doesn’t take long to see that the problems most of us face don’t amount to a hill of beans. Colorado songwriter, Mack Bailey and his partner Rachel Levy do a great job taking stock of just how lucky he is with the veritable list of good luck charms and fortunes, with a really solid, classic folk melody and infectious chorus. “Lucky Man” can be heard on Mack’s Choose Your Attitude, released by Spa Creek Music.

The Aspen Times, Aspen, CO Colorado, Stewart Oksenhorn,

Stewart Oksenhorn
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO Colorado

The Aspen Times, Aspen, CO Colorado, Stewart Oksenhorn,

Stewart Oksenhorn The Aspen Times Aspen, CO Colorado

Stewart Oksenhorn
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO Colorado