A tribute to Woody Guthrie comes to the Riviera Theatre in Three Rivers this Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m., as a benefit for the Huss Project. Executive director Rob Vander Giessen-Reitsma and blues musician Mick Kolassa talked to Cara Lieurance about the music and reasons behind the event.
The Huss Project is a community center run by the Three Rivers nonprofit *culture is not optional in the former Huss Elementary School, which the group bought in 2009. It runs an urban farm, the city's Saturday farmers market, food distributions reaching about 8,000 people a year, a summer lunch program, a bike shop, and a monthly diaper distribution for about 150 children. About 10% of the building is renovated so far, and the next phase carries a $4 million price tag.
"We're really good at doing all of the practical things and all of the nitty gritty work and all of that sort of thing to make magical experiences for people," Vander Giessen-Reitsma says. Lieurance asked about their response to the tornado that touched down on March 6. He says their staff put out a call that night for volunteers: “We knew that we needed to respond to help our neighbors in some way." The next morning, 120 people showed up. For weeks afterward, the Huss Project distributed food and supplies from partners including the South Michigan Food Bank, the Facebook group Michigan Storm Chasers, and a West Virginia food bank, filling and emptying its hallway several times. It continues to support long-term recovery through After the Storm.
Kolassa, born in Three Rivers and raised in Sturgis, returned to Michigan after about 35 years in Mississippi and Tennessee, where he recorded some 16 blues albums and taught at Ole Miss. He got to know the Huss Project's organizers at its farmers market and proposed the fundraiser. About a dozen performers will join him, including guitar maker Mike Siegel, Dennis Martin, Lisa Chilton, Nathan Moore, Liz Montgomery, Abby David, Kolassa's daughter Megan and grandchild, and Vander Giessen-Reitsma on bass and guitar.
The program moves from Guthrie's playful family songs through songs about labor and migrant workers, closing with "This Land Is Your Land." Siegel performs "1913 Massacre," about the Italian Hall disaster in Calumet, where 73 people, most of them children, died at a copper miners' Christmas party.
"Woody knew and wrote about the soul of America. And it's the soul of the American working people," Kolassa says. "He wrote love songs to America. But a good love song also understands that there's some things that aren't perfect and we need to make it better."
Tickets are on a sliding scale from $10 to $500, available online at hussproject.com or at the door.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
