During its heyday from the 1950s to the 1970s music spilled from the open doors of Edgecomb’s Merry Barn every summer. Starting Saturday, June 10, music will return to the venue as a regular offering.
Kicking off the series Music at the Merry Barn – Celebrating the Intersection of Story and Song will be Portland-based musicians Emilia Dahlia and Sorcha Cribben-Merrill, who performed a trial run of sorts at the Edgecomb landmark last October.
Cribben-Merrill was impressed with how the interior of the barn transformed into an intimate listening room.
“It was the kind of space where we thought we could share songs that do have … an intricate story,” she said.
With influences that range from Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone to Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Wonder, the indie music duo is known for their bluesy, jazzy vibe.
“I love to rock out and I also love to draw people in.” Cribben-Merril said.
She and Dahlia are excited to expand on their last performance and to push their creative edge, something she feels the history of the space encourages.
“It (felt) like we were tapping into something that was there before and that we were helping … steward back into being,” she said of their first performance at the venue.
The initial steward of music at the Merry Barn was Howie Davison, a Brooklyn born entrepreneur, DJ, and square dance caller who bought the Merry Barn from the Merry family in 1950 and made it famous across the Midcoast for its square dances and sock hops.
“It is not unusual for someone to stop by and ask to come inside the barn, saying they danced here and had their first kiss, met their husband or wife,” said Stephanie McSherry, who purchased the barn in 2018.
Davison’s daughter, Medomak Valley High School English teacher Heather Webster, remembers being at the dances as a young child and watching her father guide couples through the moves: the do-si-do, the weave the ring, the box the gnat, the ladies chain, the promenade,
“My dad used to sit in the off season in the living room and he had spools and rectangular prisms representing the ladies and the men … and he would work out what he would want them to do in the dances. You have to have the right calls to match the music,” she said.
Dancers could earn charms for learning the different dances, like the glow worm or the lollipop or the salty dog rag. There were specialty dances for Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. Once there was even a square dance on horseback performed outside the structure.
Davison had a love for music from an early age. According to Webster, a note found in his baby book tells of him throwing a rock into the water in Round Pond where his family owned a cottage and telling his mother the ripples looked like lines on a record.
As a young man he discovered the big band acts that played in the New York clubs and collected autographs from the performers. But he never learned an instrument.
“Records were his instrument.” Webster said.
The dancing ended when the Merry Barn caught fire in 1978. Webster recalled that someone driving home from a late shift noticed the flames and alerted the family. Her father and her older brother fought the fire with handheld pumps until the fire department arrived. The blaze that damaged the north wall was determined to be an act of arson.
Although he closed the Merry Barn, Davison continued calling dances for the rest of his life. Webster recalled carrying boxes of records down to the dock for dances at one of the nearby islands and traveling back across the water under the stars at midnight.
When Davison’s mother moved into The Lincoln Home in Newcastle, he began calling dances there and at as many as nine other nursing homes in the area.
That passion for music, that joyful noise that makes people tap their toes or swing their hips no matter their age or upbringing is what McSherry wants to bring back.
She herself is a writer and an educator and dreamed for years about creating a series of summer writing adventures for kids. The bright yellow barn was the perfect place to bring that dream to fruition.
McSherry has loved barns all her life. The barn on her grandparent’s property in Connecticut was the center of family gatherings with picnics and music and fife and drum parades on the Fourth of July.
When she moved to Newcastle, she often passed the Merry Barn on the way home and when it came on the market she immediately called her Realtor and told him “I need that barn.”
McSherry spent the last few years building a creative community in the historic building. She partnered with local artists like Morgan Mitchell and Teralyn Reiter to expand her writing workshops and adventures to include art and performance.
But something was still missing.
Music is “so much a part of the history of this place,” McSherry said. “It’s like it’s in the bones of this structure.”
Kelsy Hartley, community outreach and program development coordinator for the Merry Barn, is the one who got the ball rolling. She and McSherry have ambitious plans to present a variety of artists from across the state, spanning genres and cultures from folk and rock to blues and jazz to traditional and indigenous music.
“I want this to be a place where (musicians) feel supported in experimenting with their craft; showing off new material, going back to things that they love and having fun with it,” McSherry said. “We’re intentionally keeping it to 40 tickets so it stays small and intimate. The beauty of this place is there’s an interaction between all of the people who are here.”
Going forward the Merry Barn will host eight artists a year starting in March and running through December with a summer hiatus in July and August when the Merry Barn hosts its summer camp program.
“My hope is that bringing music back to the barn now will bring generations together. Those who first heard music at the barn, their children, and grandchildren,” McSherry said.
Davison’s children recently requested to use the barn for a family gathering and McSherry welcomed them back. A square dance caller was part of the festivities and when music filled the space Webster said “It felt like the barn sighed in happiness.”
Dahlia and Cribben-Merrill will perform at the Merry Barn at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 10. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for kids under 12. Tickets are available at merrybarn.com.
