Welcome!
To "Special Projects"
In addition to songwriting, recording, and performing, Charlie Maguire often gets interesting opportunities by institutions to use his talent and music in a variety of ways. Oftentimes you can see the result of these collaborations at various venues in your area. Check the Calendar page for upcoming dates, and the résumé page for previous partnerships.
Here are some projects Charlie has worked on recently. If you have any questions about these, or would like to invite Charlie Maguire to be part of a project out of your office, please write him at mellojam@visi.com.
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 Fasten your seatbelts!
Two of Charlie Maguire's songs now heard on four major airlines.
If you fly JETBLUE, FRONTIER, AIRTRAN, or EXPRESSJET, in the near future, you may hear "Fall Is Here" or "Play Us A Waltz: as you board or deplane your aircraft wherever your flight originates or destination may take you. Charlie's agent Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) has made these songs available to the above carriers. Have a safe flight, and "Happy Landings!"
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Smithsonian Institution/Museum on Main Street, and Minnesota Humanities Center
"Journey Stories -- tales of how we and our ancestors came to America -- are a central element of our personal heritage. From Native Americans to new American citizens and regardless of our ethnic or racial background, everyone has a story to tell. Our history is filled with stories of people leaving behind everything-families and possessions-to reach a new life in another state, across the continent, or even across an ocean.
The Museum on Main Street exhibition Journey Stories will examine the intersection between modes of travel and Americans' desire to feel free to move. The story is diverse and focused on immigration, migration, innovation, and freedom. It is accounts of immigrants coming in search of promise in a new country; stories of individuals and families relocating in search of fortune, their own homestead, or employment; the harrowing journeys of Africans and Native Americans forced to move; and, of course, fun and frolic on the open road."
Here are the locations. Check Charlie Maguire/Calendar for details as they become available or Email him at mellojam@visi.com. Good luck wherever your journeys take you!
Chisholm -- Early summer 2010
Thief River Falls -- Late summer 2010
Madison, MN -- Early Fall 2010
Winona -- Mid-Fall 2010
Waconia -- Early Winter 2011
Buffalo -- Late Winter 2011
Credit-Henry DeWolf Aerial Photographer-Rochester, NY
Parks and Trails Council of
Minnesota to Honor Nine Who Have made Significant Contributions to Minnesota's Great Outdoor Legacy
CREDIT: Minnesota Office of Tourism
| "Minnesota's parks, trails, and other assorted wild outdoor places have long been celebrated as part of our state's great outdoor heritage. On April 24, 2008, at the Nicollet Island Pavilion in Minneapolis, the Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota is celebrating the extraordinary people behind these special places" -- and Charlie Maguire is one of them.
Since the mid-1980s, musician and songwriter Charlie Maguire has devoted a significant portion of his career to acting as a voice for Minnesota State Parks (as their "Centennial Troubadour") and also for the National Park Service (as their first official "Singing Ranger").
Producing two albums (see Recordings) and writing over 35 songs form both agencies on themes of wilderness, unsung heroes (like the first woman ranger Mary Gibbs, Reverend Robert T. Hickman, and river lamplighter Jane Robinson) and the Mississippi River, Maguire has chronicled the establishment, triumph, and struggle for conservation in Minnesota and the heartland of the United States; further, he has taken these songs across the nation and around the world.
With a 34-year career that has spanned recording, touring, teaching, musical theater, film, and television, the Parks and Trails Council award is a celebration of just one significant facet of Charlie's work.
For more information on the Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota, and the honors, please visit www.parksandtrails.org.
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Minnesota 1858-2008 Sesquicentennial Book
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| Challie's song Itasca: A Place of Beginnings has been quoted in the new book published by the Minnesota Historical Society celebrating a new exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in Saint Paul, and the Minnesota Sesquicentennial in 2008. The song is only one of two in the entire book (the other one is Bob Dylan's) and the only song to have an entire verse quoted in its entirety. The song quote leads into an acknowledgment of Itasca State Park at the Headwaters of the Mississippi River as one of 150 "people, places, and things, that shape our state."
Itasca: A Place of Beginnings is from Charlie's album of songs about Minnesota State Parks; entitled: Stepping Stones. Click on the Recordings page and STEPPING STONES CD cover to hear it! |
U.S. Department of State: Washington, D.C.
Malta! The Press & Reviews are in!
Charlie Maguire gave performances and conducted residencies on the Mediterranean island of Malta in July. Concerts at the Saint James Cavalier Center for Creativity, a restored 12th Century battlement, were held in the capital city of Valletta. Sponsored by the United States Embassy, U.S. State Department Fulbright Grant, Charlie also included programs for children in surrounding towns, which provided some unforgetable moments in his first-ever U.S. State Department concert invitation. Media interest in his own brand of American folk was heavy. Charlie appeared in both daily newspapers frequently during, and after his tour was complete. A review by Maltese writers Astrid Vella, and an article by Catherine Maubert from the The Times of Malta and The Malta Independent appear below.
Click here or on one of the images above for a PDF version of the full articles (1.4 MB).
National Endowment for the Humanities-Washington, DC
An Army nurse giving an enlisted man an innoculation.
CREDIT: U. S. Army/U. S. Government Printing Office
"Khaki and Camaraderie"
"Khaki and Camaraderie: World War Two Men and Women" came at the invitation of the Minnesota Humanities Center and the Golden Valley (MN) Historical Society. A special initiative of the Minnesota Humanities Center and the National Endowment for the Humanities, "We the People" grants are given in support of projects that examine the history, accomplishments, and culture of the United States.
"Khaki and Camaraderie" brings World War Two veterans, especially women on the front lines and the home front together with their stories, letters and photographs in a community program for everyone. The program features up to 4 veterans sharing a story of their wartime experience interspersed with music from the time. as well as original music and historical commentary.
G.I. Nightingale
Words and music by Charlie Maguire-2005-Mello-Jamin Music
All Rights Reserved
Looking back 60 years as we observe the anniversary of the end of World War II, there are still elements to the human story that are just now just being fully explored and appreciated. I'm speaking of the women of the United States Army Nurse Corps, almost 60,000 strong, who volunteered to serve in hospitals to care for wounded GI's under all kinds of conditions. Long known by their grateful patients who came home to live productive lives after the war, their story, aside from some brilliant early efforts, is just beginning to be told.
Two A.N.C. nurses had a positive effect on the creation of this song; one is Frances Slanger, a nurse killed in action in the ETO and the subject of a well-written and profoundly touching book by Bob Welch (American Nightingale: The Story of Frances Slanger Forgotten Heroine Of Normandy, Atria Books-NY). The other is Esther Schmaedeke whom I interviewed for "Khaki and Camaraderie" who served stateside caring for returned soldiers from the ETO, and later for wounded evacuated to Saipan and Guam from other fighting fronts in the Pacific.
Esther is the embodiment of an A.N.C. veteran, and her living inspiration added so much to this song. To me, it was as if she were speaking for Frances as well as for all of her surviving sisters then and now in the present day. "G.I. Nightingale" could not have been written without her.
Army nurses on Okinawa washing in helmets
CREDIT: U. S. Army/U. S. Government Printing Office
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
In 1889, this could have been Minnesota's first state park: Minnehaha Falls.
CREDIT: www.charliemaguire.com
Commission: "A Song For The Parks"
"A Song For The Parks": Charlie Maguire has been commissioned by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, to write the first song for the Minneapolis park system in its 122 year existence.
FACT: Minneapolis has one of the oldest parks system in the nation. "Public spirited pioneer Edward Murphy" donated 3.33 acres of land for the first park in Minneapolis in 1857, "one year before New York City had its first park, the present Central Park.." (Wirth). When the Minnesota Legislature failed to secure present-day Minnehaha Falls park as it's first state park in 1889 (They would finally succeed in doing so in 1891 with the establishment of Itasca State Park) the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners already established since 1883, "manifested its courage and good judgment to secure title to the land" (Wirth).
A Song for the Parks
Words and Music by Charlie Maguire-Copyright 2006 Mello-Jamin Music-All Rights Reserved
-verses-
Theodore Wirth welcomed the children
The first to let them run and play
Soccer, tennis, basketball, baseball on the field
A continued invitation to this day
Before Minnesota was a white star on the flag
Before Central Park was in New York
The City of Minneapolis had established Murphy Square
For long parkside evening walks
-refrain-
In a city shining in the sun
With trails to gardens all in bloom
With a forest over everyone
And the Mississippi River running through
-additional verses-
The working falls of Saint Anthony
That helped build the city seen today
And the wispy beauty of Minnehaha Falls
Continue on their way
The Grand Rounds link the river to the lakes
Joining the paddle with the sail
Our heart's desire with pioneering conservation
Is seen every day out on the trail