It served as an early example of a lifelong commitment by McCaslin, who performed at fundraisers and community events throughout her career, especially during her time in Santa Cruz. “I remember going, ‘this is going to change my life,’ never knowing she was going to become a dear friend.” Hometown heroĪfter her relationship with Ringer ended, McCaslin moved to Santa Cruz in 1989, where she reconnected with an old friend, Greg Arrufat, whom she would later marry.Īrrufat said he first met McCaslin in the 1977 when she performed at a fundraising drive he had organized to help establish the Santa Cruz Mountains Community Theater. “It was just the whole package,” Mitchell said, remembering the first time she saw McCaslin and Ringer play live at a UC Santa Cruz concert in the 70s. She was also known for her pitch-perfect duets with Jim Ringer, who she was married to until the late 1980s. He said this opened up her songwriting to seemingly endless possibilities.Īltogether, McCaslin released 12 albums where she explored the deeply personal and abundantly universal in subjects such as family and adoption, western self-mythologizing and the ineffable beauty of the California landscape. Nielsen added that McCaslin was also uniquely talented at “open tuning,” a method of tuning the guitar such that strumming without finger fretting generates a major or minor chord. “She played it absolutely identically and I’ve never met anybody who could do that.” They push and pull at each other a little bit, because nobody does it perfectly,” Nielsen said. Nielsen said that it was common for McCaslin to record two separate guitar tracks in a given song that would ultimately be played alongside one another in the final version. “One of the things that amazed me the most was her guitar playing,” said Dave Nielsen, who owns a studio on the westside of Santa Cruz and helped McCaslin record her final album “Better Late Than Never.” McCaslin hit her stride in the 1970s, releasing several acclaimed albums including “Way out West,” “Prairie in the Sky” and “Old Friends.”įriends and collaborators say McCaslin was the whole package – poetic lyrics, a gentle but piercingly beautiful voice and stunning musicianship. An artist, a true artist and it’s such a loss.” The artistīy the time McCaslin moved to Santa Cruz in the late 80s, she had already solidified her place in the folk music canon. “She was just this tender hearted, loving, giving human being, you know. “It’s so amazing, the songs that she wrote when she was so young, with the wisdom of somebody beyond her years,” Mitchell said. The words now take on a heightened resonance for McCaslin’s devoted family, friends and fans who have reveled in her lyricism for more than 50 years. The song was written in 1977, when McCaslin was 31 years old and had just emerged as a bonafide country-western music talent. “But for the ones whose turn is ended / though they started so much the same / in the hearts of those befriended / burns a candle with a silver flame,” sang Mitchell, who broke into an impromptu cover of the tune called “Old Friends,” shortly after invoking its lyrics.
Naturally, it was lyrics from one of McCaslin’s songs that surfaced for Ginny Mitchell, a dear friend and collaborator of more than 30 years, as she shared precious memories of McCaslin with Sentinel earlier this week. McCaslin battled Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a rare neurological disease similar to Parkinson’s disease which she was diagnosed with in 2017. SANTA CRUZ – Folk music icon and longtime Santa Cruz County resident Mary McCaslin died Oct.
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