House concerts have become a thing. Private homes host musical artists with invited guests who help cover the expenses of the musical guests with a suggested donation.
House concerts are small, more intimate, and are not designed to make money, but to introduce new music. Guests are encouraged to bring a covered dish, a chair, and whatever they want to drink. It is a lovely experience, designed to bring people together in an atmosphere of Community through Music.
Cathe Steele, owner of Blue Moon Farm in Silverhill, Alabama, has 17 acres of picturesque trees and horse pasture somewhere between Fairhope and Foley. She calls her house concert venue The Frog Pond Sunday Social.
Cathe moved to Fairhope in 1960 when she was four years old. Her father worked as a truck driver for Mercury Freight Lines in Mobile, but she grew up in Fairhope. “We ran amuck all day, every day. We swam in Mobile Bay when it was clean and clear, and played in the gullies. Our parents' only rule was to be home by dark. It was an idyllic life growing up.”
At 18, Cathe left home for California. She lived in Auburn, California for a year or so while enrolled at Rockland College. She rented a studio apartment at a home called The House of Norad. “It was like a real castle, and my place had windows like a Spanish Galleon.”
She worked at a restaurant on I-80 between Reno and Sacramento and sometimes wrote and played music. “Each evening the family I rented from asked me to play a John Denver song for my supper. The Norads, who were perfect strangers to me when I arrived, fed and took care of my 18-year-old self while I was there, and I’m grateful to them for that help and the experience.”
In 1978, Cathe joined the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), for a three-and-a-half-month semester course in the Wind Rivers. She then became an instructor at NOLS. Along the way, she led groups in Wyoming, Alaska, Wyoming, Baja, Washington State, and Utah. After 15 years in Wyoming, she returned to the Eastern Shore to help with her parents.
Cathe was always good with horses and went to a top-ranked farrier school to learn how to become a professional blacksmith and farrier. For 30 years, Cathe worked locally and at veterinarian clinics as a farrier. “Shoeing horses was all I did for a long, long time. I didn’t plan any of it, I just fell into it. I’ve been retired from shoeing for about 14 years now.”
Always involved in music along the way, Cathe helped Jimmy Louis at Joe Gilchrist’s Silvermoon and volunteered for the Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival. In 2004, after Hurricane Ivan destroyed the Flora-Bama bar and stage, she brought music full-time to Pirates Cove and built a songwriter's music platform there.
Cathe purchased Blue Moon Farm in 1988 and for many years trained, bred, and raised horses. “I had 22 head of Paint Horses, stood a stallion, and was training and shoeing horses every day. That was my life then, and I was really good at it.”
Her close friend, songwriter Grayson Capps, and his wife, Trina Shoemaker, rented the “Tree House” on her property after moving from Nashville. “We brainstormed a lot about building a community around music. I didn’t want to sell alcohol and I wanted to personalize the experience, so we took the platform that Levon Helm was using with his Midnight Rambles, and it all began…”
She found that Folk Alliance International fit the bill for her as a framework for presenting original music. “They have strict guidelines that work for me and so I joined as a Pro House Concert member.” The rules of the FAI are basically that the music is performed at a private home, all money goes to the artists, and you cannot be open to the public or promote through public advertising.
“You can put up posters or use Facebook which offers a friends-of-friends platform. So that, and word of mouth, is basically how we have gotten the word out over the years. We have people come here from all over the country and the world, who’ve simply heard about it through a friend of a friend.”
Cathe calls her house concerts The Frog Pond Sunday Social. The idea was to bring musicians, songwriters, and serious listeners together in an informal setting. She has rules and expects people to abide by them. “The rules are, simply put, act like a decent human being. Be considerate of others, and my home, and no overindulgence of alcohol.”
Breaking the rules means you’ll be asked to leave and be banned from the farm. “Everybody brings a smile, a dish, a cooler, and a chair.” The seat donation at the event is collected at the gate with all proceeds going to the artists, and each guest must sign the house rules and release form before entering.
“We want to bring people together in a positive way,” says Cathe. “There’s lots of good that happens at The Frog Pond. People come from all walks of life. Many folks have found their soul mates here, some have started bands from their collaborations on stage, and some have started magazines and developed lifelong friendships and community.”
“I even had one couple tell me it saved their marriage. We try to expose people to a wide variety of music in the round, and send them home with a smile having had a positive experience to take them through their week.”
As a Pro Member of the Folk Alliance, Cathe has been hosting Sunday Socials at The Frog Pond every other Sunday in the Spring and Fall for 14 years. It’s quite a sophisticated and professional operation in a rustic, homey setting. Each building is “circled up” to buffer the sound from neighbors. The main residence, Cathe’s home, was built in 1909. She has a large barn that serves as a workshop, and she can build almost anything herself. “Many people have come together over the years to make it all happen. The Frog Pond is a community affair, and I sure could not have done it without them and our volunteers.”
In the summer months, Cathe heads up to Rancho Del Rio, a rafting, fishing, and growing music community in Bond, Colorado, right on the Colorado River. She’s been going to Rancho Del Rio since 1994 and lives above the Colorado River all summer in a small cabin, doing pretty much the same musical gathering as she does at The Frog Pond.
“Rancho is not your usual resort,” she tells me.”It’s a bit like Pirates Cove was in the old days, but out in the middle of nowhere off Hwy 131, in the back range of Colorado. Music brings people together in a positive way. Serious thoughts and troubles get set aside, and our goal is to bring joy, connection, and consideration to each other. It tends to just happen. We just provide the environment, the music, and let it all flow.”
Our conversation moved to the state of the music scene in the Scenic 98 Coastal area. “It’s fabulous!” She mentioned John Thompson at Callahan’s “I would bring Grayson Capps in on a Saturday night to Pirates Cove, and John would do Hangover Sundays with Grayson at Callahan's.”
“I’d bring someone to Pirates Cove from New Orleans and they’d play at John's bar on Sundays. It was a nice way to give the artists more than one gig while they were in the area, and we were far enough apart to not affect the numbers of people attending in each other’s venue.”
“The music scene has really developed down here over the years. There are so many more great venues that now bring in some incredible talent from both songwriters and bands. I’m just happy to be here and be a part of it all.”
As we left the stage where we visited, Cathe looked around at the pastoral setting and told me, “Everybody is in the same Frog Pond together. Every ripple you make, everything you do affects someone else. I breathe out, you breathe in.” So true! Thanks, Cathe, for a wonderful Fall afternoon.
You can follow the Frog Pond on their website for upcoming concerts through December 17. Then look for the Spring 2024 Schedule. www.thefrogpondsundaysocial.com
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