Flathead Living Magazine August 2009 – In their carefree, compelling heyday of the 1970s, the Mission Mountain Wood Band was a household Montana name. A college band from University of Montana, ‘the boys’ created a musical microcosm that’s still hard to pigeonhole. From nationwide tours, television guest spots, local gigs, and, of course, UM’s iconic Aber Day beer fest, the boys from Mission Mountain made a quick and definite impact on Montana’s musical scene.
EARLY TIMES
Their irreverent, high energy shows were set up for hand-clapping, boot-scooting entertainment. They loved the crowds, and the crowds loved them. Because they’re so humble and open to their fans, it’s glossed over how iconic they were – and are – to the music scene. From early on, MMWB was matched at shows with names like Bonnie Raitt, Pure Prairie League, Jimmy Buffett and Jefferson Airplane.
“In 1973, after we’d moved to New York City to polish up our act, these promoters wanted to create another Woodstock,” recalls guitarist, Steve Riddle. “It was held upstate at Watkins Glen, and we played with The Grateful Dead, The Band and the Allman Brothers. 600,000 people showed up for that show. That began our friendship with The Dead, and we played with them several times. And at that time, the event held a Guinness record for the largest audience at a music festival.”
From that open field in New York, fast forward to 1992, when four of the original five band members reunited for a memorable and typically rousing show on Flathead Lake. The missing player was Terry Robinson – charismatic and talented, but killed in 1987 when his then-current band all died in a plane crash, poignantly after leaving a gig also at Flathead Lake. For the ’92 show, Terry’s brother, Bruce, was the bittersweet fill-in on guitar and vocals.
But 1992 is a long way back, and the four remaining original musicians – Rob Quist, Greg Reichenberg, Christian Johnson and Steve Riddle – have used those years to move away from other careers and return to their Mission Mountain roots.
“We have all agreed to make a full-scale charge at the music industry again,” states Christian Johnson. “We intend to have a record out this fall, and do a mini-tour through Texas and the southeast this winter. We all have individual music careers, but we play together as Mission Mountain 10-12 times each summer. But if an agent came to us with 40 show dates, we’d want to try it. And now we’ve added a new full-time member and we have several new songs we’re working on for the new album.”
THE NEW GUY
“We’ve added a great songwriter named Tim Ryan, who hails from St. Ignatius, which is closer to the Mission Mountains than any of us ever were. Tim’s been a dear friend of mine through music for a long time. He lives now in Nashville and works with all these Hall of Fame writers, and has done songs for George Strait and Randy Travis. He grew up wearing out our albums, so he knows our music, but also knows where we want to go,” says singer/songwriter, Rob Quist.
Three new Ryan-penned songs were introduced to fans at Woodrock ‘09, held this past August in Libby. One More, Blue Bird Day and Black Beans and Rice were added to a song list that included old favorites like Sweet Maria, Mountain Standard Time and Take a Whiff.
“People want to hear real bands,” muses Ryan, who plays guitar and sings. “The door may have opened perfectly for Mission Mountain, since folks want to go to live shows and be genuinely entertained. I had people come up to me after Libby and rave about those new songs being massive, massive hits. And these guys – they are master performers. When I’m with them, I have to throw out my commercial Nashville vibe and just focus on entertaining.
“And that’s what’s been so enjoyable for me, the part of pure entertainment. I think the power could go out while we’re playing and we could still rock the stage. Many pop acts nowadays, well, without power they’d lose their light show, or their fireworks or their video screens. Mission Mountain can handle any venue there is and folks would still walk away saying, ‘It was a great evening, and you know what? Those guys entertained me.’”
And that’s the best thing about the new guy. Besides all the Hall of Fame stuff, he gets what MMWB is all about, and the other musicians appreciate it. Steve Riddle added, “You see what a perfect marriage this is – he’s a songwriter of a style indigenous to what Mission Mountain wants to dive into. It’s easy for us to take his songs off the drawing board and arrange them to suit our audiences.”
Bruce Robinson, still working full-time in the solar industry, realizes the constraints of his personal career, and is completely on board. He says, “You know, these guys are all professional musicians and they make their living with music. Rightfully, they needed someone dedicated to music, and that’s Tim.”
When Brother Bruce does join in, he adds congas, washboard and spoons to the musical line-up. “That doesn’t mean I won’t show up when I can and sit in for a few songs. I think I add a different element of energy, and I have the novelty of these funny little rhythm instruments. There’s so much appeal, it’s never failed.”
THE ‘BOYS’
Christian Johnson was the first player to leave the original Wood Band, in 1978. He took his talent south, playing between California and Nevada, before returning to Kalispell in 1992. Still a full-time musician, he plays in his various bands (Good Wood, Billy Christian and Loose Caboose), while teaching others to play his wide range of instruments: mandolin, banjo, fiddle and acoustic, electric and bass guitar.
He says, “My groups play a sort of new grass or jazz grass – kind of like David Grisman on steroids. I truly believe I’m playing better now than I’ve ever played – working with all these guys is pushing me to a new level as a musician.”
Steve Riddle left for New York to hone an acting career in 1980, returning to Missoula in 1992 to work in radiation therapy with cancer patients. 1992 is when he also started playing gigs with his former band, serving as unofficial MC while playing bass and joining in their trademark four-part harmony. Music has been the plan since he was eighteen.
“When the movie of Woodstock came out, it wasn’t allowed in the Libby movie theater,” recalls Riddle. “So my friends and I went to Troy to see it, and when I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Jimi Hendrix play, well, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I said that’s what I’m gonna do! I’m changing my life right now.”
Greg Reichenberg is the group’s long-time drummer. He and Christian played in a rock band before being recruited to Mission Mountain in 1971. He left in 1981, heading to his new wife’s home area of Atlanta, where he created a career as a certified building inspector.
“But I kept at the music. I played at home, I played with some groups, I kept at it so I felt ready when it all came together again,” he adds. “Playing again regularly, this is good heart medicine. It heals everybody when we get to play. We’re on a mission to touch as many people as possible and bring a smile to their day – and isn’t that great?”
In 1980, with so many original players gone, the name was changed to Montana Band. Rob Quist stayed with them until 1984, when he, like the others, wanted to share time with his young family and spend less time on the road. One remarkable statistic about Mission Mountain Wood Band (besides 2.5 million miles travelled on the band bus) is that all the original guys are still married to the sweethearts they met in the early ‘70s.
Quist says, “Music is my full-time thing. When I left Montana Band, I formed other groups, but played closer to home. Now that we’ve all had time to raise our kids, we’re happy to go back on the road. Playing again with Mission Mountain, it’s so incredible to see how much we meant to so many from the old days. Everywhere we play, we run into fans with these stories of our shows and it’s so heartening. The audience has always been the sixth member of our band.”
THE TALL GUY
Terry Robinson, at 6’6”, was a larger-than-life personality whose charm and talent still infuses the group. He was with the Montana Band when their plane crashed near Flathead Lake July 4th, 1987. Also on board was Kurt Bergeron, who had joined Mission Mountain back when Christian left the band, making the loss even more personal to the original musicians.
“I think about Terry almost every day,” comments Rob. “He was like a magic wand when he walked into a room. He had such amazing social connections…we’d roll into a town and Terry would call some people and before you knew it, we were packed.”
Bruce Robinson, the first tasked to fill in for his brother on-stage, recalls, “It was an honor and a quandary. But we had this brotherly thing together, where Terry would say to me ‘things are always okay after the music starts.’ And it’s so true. Over the years, while the band was on the road, he found that no matter what was going on with the band, any pressure or disagreements, once they were on stage, things were fine once the music started. And it always works for me.”
Quist continues, “There are certain songs we just don’t do any more, like Sixty Years On.
Terry sang lead and there’s that last line, ‘I don’t want to be living, 60 years on,’ and it just gets me every time – it gives me chills when I hear it. So I sort of think of that as Terry’s song and we don’t need to do it. But I do think about adding Country Music to our line-up. I think it would be a nice tribute to those boys.”
“One thing I’ve always wanted to clarify to the public,” Christian adds, “is that the entire Mission Mountain Wood Band did not die in the plane crash. Some people have been stumped when Mission Mountain plays now, because they thought that we are all dead, and it’s just not true. We’re still here and we’re still playing.”
MOUNTAIN STANDARD MUSIC
So what do you call this music that Mission Mountain Wood Band plays? If the Grateful Dead have been labeled ‘psychedelic folk-rock,’ then MMWB could be called a ‘beer-infused country jam,’ but no label quite works. The Mission Mountain sound combines folk, blues, rock, country, swing, bluegrass, barbershop, rock and anything else that strikes their musical fancy.
Rob Quist says, “When we started out, we were strictly acoustic for the first three to four months, until Christian and Greg joined us, with their electric rock background. We didn’t write our own songs right yet, we just took songs from the public domain and re-worked them to suit our instruments at the time. I like to think that what we play is ‘mountain standard music’…we live in the Mountain Time zone and our music is unique to us. We need to just coin that term and use it…”
Add to the variety of instruments – acoustic and electric guitars, drums, banjo, mandolin, harmonica – the harmonizing mainstay of the group is their vocals. They sing with a richness of layers rarely heard, whether the music is a sweet ballad, a southern rock romp or the national anthem.
“And we don’t just do songs,” emphasizes Steve. “We do performances. It’s always been a special skill for our band to entertain and dance and tell stories. We want to stand up in front of an audience and remind people of a time we shared in our youth. And the audiences love it. They are still doing the same thing they did years ago, when we first started out – heading up to the stage with a smile on their face.”
MOVING ON
Now the band is doing a host of live shows, traveling further and for many, kicking up memories of those original Mission Mountain days. In 2006, they produced “Private Stash,” a 5-cd romp through their early days, with a DVD documentary that showcases their then-current tour.
They spend as much time as possible at a private rehearsal space near Polson, prepping for the new album, tentatively titled “Reboot,” featuring several songs penned by Tim Ryan. It will be recorded in nearby Somers, at the Snoring Hound Studio.
PBS has filmed a two-hour documentary on the band, plagued with delays, but slated to air November 15th. Another documentary on the eight years of Aber Day fests is due in October, showcasing old Mission Mountain concerts. Last winter, the band entertained on a cruise of the Caribbean, slated again for Jan. 23-30, 2010 (www.flatheadtravel.com).
Of the first cruise, Bruce remembers, “The ship held about 3,500 people and we had maybe 150 hardcore MMWB fans, along with our families. The first night we played, a couple hundred people showed up. Then word started traveling about “those guys” and by the last night, in typical Mission Mountain fashion, it was standing room only and people were lined up out the doors.”
As Reichenberg says, “Moving forward, we’re looking to record a strong CD. We’re looking forward to another cruise and some equipment upgrades. I need new pedals and sticks and drumheads, which will cost whatever it costs. It’s like an artist who needs certain paints and canvases to create his picture. With Mission Mountain, we still have to finish painting the picture.”