Aug. 18, 2022 – There’s a new release of old recordings by Cheri Knight, my dear friend, collaborator, and housemate back in college days in Olympia, released on the Freedom to Spend label. Cheri’s had a long and varied career in music, but this material had been largely forgotten and has finally resurfaced forty years later.
Cheri and I first met in 1979 at The Evergreen State College, in a group program called The Making of Music. We hit it off pretty quickly and became good friends, and I ended up playing on some of her recording projects. Cheri also contributed two tracks to Regional Zeal, a compilation of vocal experiments I produced with Steve Fisk for the Palace of Lights label.
For a while Cheri and I shared a cold, drafty, moldy house in the woods near the college. We had to move out when it was sold and I got an apartment downtown. Cheri hung around town for a bit, painting graffiti images of goats in the alleys of Olympia, playing bass, and washing dishes at the Gnu Deli before going off to study with composer Pauline Oliveros and performance artist Linda Montano at Zen Arts Center in upstate New York.
Cheri, Steve Fisk, me at TESC in Olympia – 1980? (photo: by David Rauh or Toni Holm)
Cheri had grown up in western Massachusetts and moved back there when she was done with school. She lived for a few years in a big old farmhouse in the Pioneer Valley with our friend, the writer and painter Leslie Staub, raising goats and chickens and vegetables under the name Rancho Blanca. They also had a rock band with poet/drummer Steve Ruhl. Cheri later joined the Boston-based alt-country band Blood Oranges, and then made two solo albums of her original songs. Both are good, but I’m especially fond of The Northeast Kingdom, produced by Steve Earle for his E-Squared label. After a rough tour for the latter, Cheri hung up her bass and started growing flowers, making soap, and doing other non-musical things.
A few years ago I got an email from the folks at Freedom to Spend, asking for Cheri’s contact info. They were interested in releasing the more experimental music Cheri had made back at Evergreen. I put them in touch with her, not expecting anything to come of it. But I was wrong! After much digging through the archives, we finally have the new album American Rituals, with liner notes by yours truly. It’s great to hear all of this music again, and I’m so happy that Cheri’s early work is finally being acknowledged and reaching a new and more appreciative audience. It’s also been wonderful to be in more regular contact with her.
Last week Greg Davis in Vermont did a Zoom interview with the two of us in which we ramble on all geezer-like about the old days. I think it might be the first time I’ve seen her face since I left the East Coast in 1988. I’m not sure how interesting it will be for anyone who didn’t live in Olympia in the early 1980s, but have a look if you like.