NOEL PAUL STOOKEY has been a musical voice for peace, love, and justice for more than 50 years. With his new solo CD/DVD set, At Home: The Maine Tour, he builds on the legacy of Peter, Paul and Mary as well as on his considerable solo work. The 24 songs on this album were recorded in a 2014 tour of nine towns in Maine, where he and his family have lived for some 40 years. They incorporate not just folk, but also rock, pop, and jazz. Although they span his career, they are not a nostalgic gaze at the past but a testament to Stookey’s ongoing creativity and social ethic.
The performances are intimate and relaxed while possessing a vital energy that courses through the whole sequence. They warm the heart, evoke laughter, comment on social concerns, call for justice, touch pain, and promote Love with a capital “L.” Through his stage presence, humor, and invitations to sing along, Stookey connects easily with a live audience. In the DVD, close-up shots of his hands and face give the viewer a feeling of a one-on-one encounter. Adding to the intimacy is the fact that the songs are from one voice and one acoustic guitar.
Stookey’s skillful playing exhibits the right combination of gentleness and boldness.
Stookey and his wife, Betty, continue the multifaith work begun when she served as chaplain of Northfield Mt. Hermon School in Massachusetts. Now called One Light, Many Candles, their presentations around the country combine readings from major world religions with Stookey’s songs. Several of the songs on At Home are part of this program: “One and Many” and its meditative reprise reflect on the unity that is possible when diversity is respected and honored. “Facets of the Jewel” emphasizes how “our lives are connected.”
This multifaith work reflects a spirituality in Stookey’s songs that has matured over the years. He is sensitive to the fact that church language simply does not speak to everyone. His goal is to bridge divides and create community. Never heavy-handed, his call to social justice seeks to open up hearts through music so that the audience can hear messages they may never have heard before and be moved to act.
It is a spirituality that is firmly grounded in everyday life and love of neighbor.
The primary spiritual theme running through the album is love. In a couple songs—“Cue the Moon” and “The Love in You”—it is romantic love. In “Jean Claude” it is the love of friendship, the story of two friends in Alsace-Lorraine in 1941. One young man is leaving on a train to a Nazi death camp and the other is left wondering whether he could have saved his friend.
Many others contain references to what Stookey calls “Big L Love,” which is a way of referring to God. “In These Times” speaks to the crises of climate change, greed, and lack of political and personal responsibility while affirming an incarnational Love. “Familia del Corazon” addresses the issue of immigration and asks questions that are particularly poignant during this time of national debate about opening our doors to refugees.
And who among us is not thankful?
Who among us would not choose
To share what we’ve been given freely...
Who among us would refuse?
Stookey says that “the songs that move us the most are the ones whose melodies invoke a passion and whose lyrics inform and inspire our lives; songs that transcend the moment because they are the articulation of our hearts.”
Such songs are abundant in At Home.
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