12/31/04
Hurricane affected entertainment too in 2004
It was a year that brought acts like Merle Haggard and Bob
Newhart to Charlotte County stages. But that was all before Hurricane
Charley slammed into the Southwest Florida coast and ripped some of those
stages away. As we wave goodbye to 2004, Let's Go remembers how the
entertainment world reacted to the hurricane that was never supposed to hit
here.
Here is a snapshot:
A hurricane immortalized in song
It was a few days before Steve Blackwell felt like picking
up an instrument after Hurricane Charley.
The folk musician and Charlotte High School librarian lost
the house he shared with wife Margie and the school where he had worked for
more than 30 years in the storm.
But he kept his 1948 Gibson guitar outside, where he and
his wife lived for two weeks after losing their house, and perhaps it was
inevitable that Blackwell sought refuge in it. Music, he says, was the one
thing the storm had not changed.
Within a month, he had penned his first Charley song, "The
Day We Looked Charley in the Eye," immortalizing what many across the
community felt in the days and weeks after the tragic storm.
Its words describe how Charley changed Charlotte County
forever, yet could not kill the impenetrable spirit of the community.
Blackwell first performed the song in the park one night
and then with his band Steve Blackwell & Friends at a handful of concerts
and benefits. School district officials even asked to use the song during a
computer presentation of the damage local schools sustained.
"It's kind of taken on a little bit of a life," Blackwell
said.
Although he says he usually doesn't write "sad songs," he
has since written another Charley song to say goodbye to his house and is
working on another.
"Part of it is an effort to internalize this experience,"
he said. "It's so huge. I guess it's just part of being a songwriter and
reacting to things."
While one song details his sadness over losing his house,
he says the focus of his original Charley song is to show that the community
will eventually triumph.
Blackwell closes the song with this verse: "You can tear
off our roofs/You can knock down our trees/Blow away parts of our lives as
you please/Like that mythical bird we will rise up again/Our brothers and
sisters made us stronger than the wind/On the day we looked Charley in the
eye/On the day we looked Charley in the eye."
Now, Blackwell is trying to decide whether he should
record the song. He doesn't have enough material to record a new CD right
now, but many people, he said, have asked him for a copy of the song.
"We're a little bit up in the air about it."
Local venues gone
The newly-built Charlotte Performing Arts Center may have
been able to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of Hurricane Charley after
suffering only slight damage, but many other local venues weren't as lucky:
* The Charlotte County Memorial Auditorium in Punta Gorda
served as a home to doll shows, graduations and musical acts like the rapper
Mystikal for nearly 40 years. But the building now sits battered and empty
after sustaining more than $2.5 million in damage during the hurricane.
The fate of the defunct auditorium has yet to be decided.
* The Turner Agri-Civic Center in DeSoto County once
played host to rodeos and country music acts alike, but the roof of the
relatively new building collapsed during the storm, while 1,400 evacuees
were still inside.
Officials are still trying to determine whether to to
rebuild or replace the center and who is at fault for the collapse.
* The Boom Boom Room in Port Charlotte
Before Charley, the Boom Boom Room, which is connected to
the House of Prime restaurant, was on the verge of becoming a different sort
of venue in Charlotte County by offering an upscale atmosphere where old and
young could come together and where national acts came to play.
They were on the right track. But eight days before The
Rembrandts (of "Friends" theme song fame) were scheduled to play there,
Charley struck, damaging the restaurant and the club.
While the restaurant has already reopened, the club is
still undergoing repairs and is anticipated to be open early next year,
workers there said.
Entertainers pull together to raise money for
hurricane victims
Michael Winslow (otherwise known as "the man of 10,000
voices") came to help. Local musicians played to raise money. Pop stars
donated proceeds from concert ticket sales. AC/DC rocked to raise relief
money. And a local guitar shop sold some of its salvageable guitars to raise
money for a hurricane-battered high school's band program.
That's just part of how local and national entertainers
came together to raise money for hurricane victims across Florida this year.
You can e-mail
April Frawley at afrawley@sun-herald.com.
By APRIL FRAWLEY
Staff Writer
