Community Guide 2017
During this time, Kate became interested in radio. She began a show called “Uncommon Country” and later hosted the “Sonoma County Singers Circle.” Her shows and per- formances brought new recognition. She was offered fund- ing for an album. Kate formed her own record company, Owl Records, and recorded Back Roads . The next year, after she released her second album, Lines on a Paper , she went on her first tour of California. In 1977 she performed in the Midwest and Northeast. She separated from the Wildwood Flower the next year, but began to play with Nina Gerber, a talented guitar and mandolin player who would accompany Kate through most of her career. Too busy to continue with her own label, she released her third album, Safe at Anchor , on Kaleidoscope Records. Utah Phillips introduced Kate to the East Coast dur- ing this time. They met after she had invited him to the Santa Rosa Folk Festival. After hearing her sing, he wanted people in the East to hear her music. He made the booking arrangements, and they went off on tour. On her way to a rally for Karen Silkwood in Washington D.C., she wrote her song “Links in the Chain.” She sang it there for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. Kate continued to tour the country. Her popularity grew, but her concerts never lost their intimacy. Regardless of the size of the audience, each could feel as if she touched them individually. She was always available to talk to people about her music after the shows and continued to perform at benefits. In the spring of 1982, Kate went on a vision quest to the Joshua Tree National Monument with a small group of peo- ple. She fasted alone for three days, drinking only water. It was in this way that she was following a ritual path to gain insight. Each day, Kate and another participant would add to a stone pile. The stones let the others know that everything was well, without having to see each other. On the last night of the quest, Kate built a circle of stones in which to sleep. Through the long night, the circle is a sym- bol of being inside the womb of Mother Earth and reborn to your vision of how you will live the next phase of your life. During this time, she wrote her songs “Desert Wind” and “Medicine Wheel.” Aspects of this experience would come out later in Brother Warrior . The vision quest is an example of how Kate was constantly searching through direct experience or reading, and then coming back to audiences to share her new songs of life. When Kate returned to the Bay Area from the vision quest, she moved to the San Geronimo Valley. While tak- ing massage classes to become a certified practitioner, she became involved with the community. She wanted to get a sense of the history here. She eventually became one of the Center’s directors. Kate wrote a song about the Valley for a Center benefit in 1982.
Summer 1987 Kate Wolf Looking Back at You by Terry Fowler
Kate Wolf moved to the San Geronimo Valley in 1982. She was a vital part of community life, and her music was an inspiration to many. Kate served on the Community Center’s Board. In 1986, she died following a bone marrow transplant for acute leukemia. Terry Fowler was married to Kate, and his work was invaluable in completing the landscaping dedicated to her memory. (See photo on page 27.) Kate began her musical training at the age of four, taking piano lessons from her grandmother. Later in her life, she was influenced by “singers that you could hear the words . . . a progression through honest songs and honest sing- ers.” Her early influences included the Weavers, Rosemary Clooney, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams. Eventually, this love for music took her in a new direc- tion. At the age of 27, while in Big Sur, Kate met people playing music in their living rooms. As she heard their songs and played with them, Kate realized that expressing her thoughts in music was the next, natural step. She left her first husband and family and moved to Sonoma County. She secured a job at the Sebastopol Times and gradually began to have her children with her more often. Perform- ing once a week, she went on to form her first band, the Wildwood Flower, with Don Coffin.
Kate Wolf at a friend’s house in Massachusetts during her concert tour back east in 1985
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