In this June 2 photo, from left, Mike Pierce, Candy Pierce, Julie Schmitts and Ted Howard get together outside the Pioneers Home in Sitka. Their band, Cornsilk, had a reunion over the weekend after a four decade hiatus.

In this June 2 photo, from left, Mike Pierce, Candy Pierce, Julie Schmitts and Ted Howard get together outside the Pioneers Home in Sitka. Their band, Cornsilk, had a reunion over the weekend after a four decade hiatus.

Concert reunites Sitkans, bandmates

SITKA — It’s been about four decades since the band CornSilk played the tunes of the Beatles and Crosby, Stills & Nash in bars along a 160-mile stretch of Highway 200 in Montana.

But Ted Howard expected it would be like old times when his bandmates Mike and Candy Pierce got back with him and his wife Julie Schmitts to play a recent show, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported.

Howard said he remembers back in 1976 they stood apart from other bands playing the stretch of road that runs along the Clark Fork of the Columbia River between Idaho and Montana.

“We were different because we weren’t straight country,” Howard said. “We were more folky. It was just different.”

Howard and Schmitts were in their 20s when they took a break from their inner city Detroit jobs in social services for a trip out to Montana to visit the Michigan friends who had already moved there.

But once they arrived, they realized they had been missing something.

“We fell in love with the Big Sky,” Howard said. “We went back home, packed up everything in a pickup truck, without any job prospects.”

Mike and Candy Pierce, who attended the University of Montana, let Ted and Julie live in an outbuilding on their property in Thompson Falls until they were set up with jobs and found a more permanent place to live.

Mike and Ted had taught each other guitar when they were younger, and so had a musical connection. Before long, the four had formed a band, with Mike on guitar, Candy on percussion, Julie on bass, Ted on guitar, banjo and harmonica, and all four on vocals.

Traveling along Highway 200 between Missoula, Montana, and Sandpoint, Idaho, the band played Friday and Saturday night gigs to earn food, rent and pocket money. They managed to attract and keep an audience with the mix of cover tunes that included not only country — Hank Williams, George Jones, John Prine — but popular music of the day, from the Beatles, Eagles and Steve Goodman.

Learning new songs from jukeboxes, they added two-step, waltz and polka music to their repertoire. After playing together for a year, they had built up a list of about 250 songs.

When CornSilk formed, Mike and Candy were already seasoned performers from their days with the Western Michigan University singing group, The Varsity Vagabonds, which toured the world. They passed on what they knew to Ted and Julie.

“We learned how to present songs, and how to feel comfortable on stage, and how to sing,” Ted said.

Mike and Candy returned to their home state of Michigan, where Mike is now retired from ministry work and Candy is a retired church music director. The four have kept in touch, and all have continued playing music. Mike and Candy sing in the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus. In Sitka, Julie now is a piano teacher, Ted teaches guitar, and both perform regularly in community events. They’re involved with Sitka Folk, the Monthly Grind and the Greater Sitka Arts Council, and Ted plays with the group Belly Meat.

In recent weeks, the four friends have passed song lists back and forth to create a playlist. Mike and Candy arrived and started rehearsing.

Mike Pierce predicted the set list would appeal across all generations.

“We are not young people,” Mike said. “We’ve been at this a long, long time. The music will certainly reflect that.”

More in News

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Aurora forecast for the week of March 25

These forecasts are courtesy of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute… Continue reading

The aging Tustumena ferry, long designated for replacement, arrives in Homer after spending the day in Seldovia in this 2010 photo. (Homer News file photo)
Feds OK most of state’s revised transportation plan, but ferry and other projects again rejected

Governor’s use of ferry revenue instead of state funds to match federal grants a sticking point.

The Shopper’s Lot is among two of downtown Juneau’s three per-hour parking lots where the cash payments boxes are missing due to vandalism this winter. But as of Wednesday people can use the free ParkSmarter app to make payments by phone. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Pay-by-phone parking for downtown Juneau debuts with few reported complaints

App for hourly lots part of series of technology upgrades coming to city’s parking facilities.

A towering Lutz spruce, center, in the Chugach National Forest is about to be hoisted by a crane Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015, for transport to the West Lawn of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to be the 2015 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service)
Tongass National Forest selected to provide 2024 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree

Eight to 10 candidate trees will be evaluated, with winner taking “whistlestop tour” to D.C.

Annauk Olin, holding her daugher Tulġuna T’aas Olin, and Rochelle Adams pose on March 20, 2024, after giving a presentation on language at the Alaska Just Transition Summit in Juneau. The two, who work together at the Alaska Public Interest Research Group’s Language Access program, hope to compile an Indigenous environmental glossary. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Project seeks to gather Alaska environmental knowledge embedded in Indigenous languages

In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, the word… Continue reading

The room where the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee holds its meeting sits empty on Tuesday. A presentation about an increase in the number of inmate deaths in state custody was abruptly canceled here. (Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Republican lawmakers shut down legislative hearing about deaths in Alaska prisons

Former commissioner: “All this will do, is it will continue to inflame passions of advocacy groups.”

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire file photo)
Police calls for Monday, March 25, 2024

This report contains public information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Employees at the Kensington Mine removing tailings from Johnson Creek on Feb. 17 following a Jan. 31 spill of about 105,000 gallons of slurry from the mine, although a report by the mine’s owners states about half slurry reached the creek 430 meters away. (Photo from report by Coeur Alaska)
Emergency fisheries assessments sought after 105,000-gallon tailings spill at Kensington Mine

Company says Jan. 31 spill poses no risk to Berners Bay habitat, but NOAA seeks federal evaluation.

Dozens of people throw colors in the air and at each other during a Holi festival gathering Monday night outside Spice Juneau Indian Cuisine. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Holi festival in Juneau revives colorful childhood memories for some, creates them for others

Dozens toss caution and colored cornstarch to the wind in traditional Hindu celebration of spring

Most Read