Dirty Linen

The year was 1974. The place, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Two young chefs from the Brown Jug restaurant stepped onstage at The Ark coffeehouse armed with only three songs, a dream, and a burning desire to find other employment. It was Wednesday, open-mike night at the renowned venue, and David Tamulevich and Michael Hough had been planning their debut ever since, well, Tuesday.

"It was an impulsive decision," Tamulevich recalled. He and Hough had often talked about their interest in music while stirring pots of stew and layering moussaka. "We quickly discovered that we both wrote music and had really two ambitions: One was to write and sing music. The other was to get out of the restaurant business." Then, one Tuesday night in July, they decided to take a giant step. Without much time to prepare (they had to work until 4:00 p.m. Wednesday), they managed to scrape together two Celtic-style tunes plus one of Hough's original pieces.

The warmth, humor and unique talent that have sustained the duo through the years must have been evident in that first concert. Management reacted by inviting them back to play a full set. Tamulevich and Hough responded with an overwhelming "Now what?"

"We only had two weeks, and I was like, 'Wait a second!'" Tamulevich said. The team pulled together, however, and within 18 months they were working enough gigs to quit their day jobs. Such was the hasty birth of the duo known by a name that might more aptly describe a reluctant condiment, Mustard's Retreat.

The name was also the title of a song Tamulevich wrote for a longtime friend, Nancy Mustard, who showed him some guitar runs. The tune, "a charming instrumental," was reminiscent of "Bonapart's Retreat." Somehow, it seemed a fitting title for the fledgling act, Tamulevich said.

On a rainy spring night, opening for John Gorka at May's Chapel in Timonium, Maryland, they reflected on their career. Respected performers and songwriters, both individually and as a team, they are also multi-instrumentalists. They accompany their well-blended voices with Tamulevich on guitar, dulcimer, penny whistle, harmonica or concertina; and Hough on guitar, bass, or autoharp. Mustard's Retreat have made five recordings and have another in the works, along with two children's books and an accompanying CD. "The next (recording) will be called Ignoring the Millennium, so we have to do it soon," the men agreed. "We've had an amazing run, 25 years of amazing experiences, and I feel so lucky," Tamulevich said. "One of the great things about doing this is you travel and meet people and go places you've never been. It's just a different kind of school."

"We've been through a lot of phases, from bars, to concerts, to recordings," Hough added. They started their career playing bars, and were immediately a hit. "It was the era of the urban cowboy and people were looking for something different, and we were different," Tamulevich said. He recalls the crowd as being the "coffee and tea" set. "They didn't drink much." Years later, Hough said, "We went back to Flint and played at Border's Book Store and they all came out, a lot of those people we used to play for."

But on that damp April night, songwriting is what most warmed their hearts. "Over the last five years our writing has taken an exciting turn," Tamulevich said. "In each of the songs, you can just hear them getting better and better," Hough said.

"We're very similar and very different," Tamulevich said. "We're a good functioning team." Most thrilling is when one of their compositions takes on new meaning in the lives of the listeners.

Tamulevich defined "good songs" as those "that people take into their lives, that live beyond you. It can have all the meaning in the world to you, but part of your job is to communicate," he said, to touch people's lives and create understanding among listeners and artists. "When they do that, you feel you have succeeded."

Hough, on the other hand, loves a good story. "But a lot of the time, a story can be implied... instead of leading the reader along by the nose, it gives them the opportunity to make the jump if they want to." And the lyrics can have an impact on the listener in other ways, Hough said. "If I hear somebody else singing it, it makes me understand immediately that's worth singing about.

"A great song takes somebody who doesn't care, and it gives them the opportunity to care... Also I think a great song is one that you can listen to again and hear something else. It's like going back and rereading a book and picking up something else out of it that wasn't there the first time. It gives you something to think about later."

"The folk world is so eclectic," Tamulevich added, "The best writers go beyond the obvious and address the greater issues."

Their original "Gather the Family" [The Wind and the Crickets..., Palmetto] has definitely been taken to heart. Among their most requested pieces, the a capella performance created quite a stir on the award-winning "Saturday Light Brigade" when the Pittsburgh radio show first aired it in 1997. The station has had numerous requests for music and lyrics ever since and has featured it in its newsletter. But it almost was the song that didn't get written.

One day several years ago, the two were casually discussing the fact that their concerts seemed to be attracting listeners of all ages. "It seemed like something was happening," Tamulevich said. "Although we've never done a children's recording per se, kids love our recordings. It just kind of evolved for us in that what we do is kind of intergenerational."

"The thought came to us," Hough added, "that in folk music, we are already 'our family.' It's just that people don't know about it."

"And then I got stuck," Hough recalled. "I don't know what happened. I thought it was a great idea, but I wasn't able to finish it. Luckily for David and me, we've learned that if one of us gets stuck on something, the other one sometimes will be able to pry you out. So I put that in my notebook, and I thought, 'It's a good idea, and I'll finish it someday.'"

But that day had to wait until they were on a plane bound for the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1994. "Kerrville is very inspirational for songwriters, and we actually wrote this song on the plane," Hough said. "We wrote 'The Volunteer Song' on the plane. We wrote 'Festival Night' while we were there. It was a productive trip!

"It was something that needed to be said," Hough commented about "Gather the Family." "That's also true of 'The Volunteer Song.'"

Most gratifying has been the response from the public and nonprofit organizations, who are doing a fine job of covering "The Volunteer Song" on their own. "People are making up their own verses! That's how it should be," Hough said. "The Volunteer Song," especially, has provided one of the best moments in time for the duo. "We were at Falcon Ridge last summer," Hough said. "We were on stage Sunday morning. Behind us was the volunteer tent. When we finished the song, you could just hear (applause and cheers) from behind the stage."

Through the years, the music of Mustard's Retreat has changed dramatically, they both admitted. Of his earlier efforts, Tamulevich said, "My wife calls them sad boy songs. It was all about being away from home and the angst of youth and heartache." And, he said, "We had a whole series of songs we called apocalyptic visions. They were actually very popular in Ann Arbor." Through these visions, they correctly predicted certain environmental issues, the world triumph of capitalism and its effect on the proletariat, and the post-Reagan woes.

"One of the best things we did was to attend a writers' workshop," Tamulevich said. "I distilled a lot of those earlier things into something that we still use, but most of those old songs are better left forgotten. Songwriting is a whole lot like exercise. You spend a lot of time writing to get to the point where you're in shape to do something good... Finally you get to the point where you consistently write a good song and then hopefully write a great song, and then consistently write great songs.

"One of the things Michael does is write sonnets, which are exceptional little pieces of writing. Mike's sonnets are elegant," his partner said.

"It's just something I do," Hough added, "I was embarrassed about it for a long time, but I guess I'm glad I did it. I just collected a bunch of them together, and I got about 45 of them now that are decent. I began when I was 15 or 16 years old," he said.

"She was a mentor; she gave me a lot of encouragement," Hough recalled. "Yeah — I would have done anything for her. I wasn't too good with girls, so the fact that anyone paid attention to me was earth shattering."

While others made fun of Shakespeare, Hough understood what his teacher was trying to impart. "She would read poetry in front of the class in such a way that you could understand what was going on." Hough has recorded few of his sonnets, for which he uses music as a background to move the lyrics along. That night at May's Chapel he touched the audience with a sonnet he wrote for his wife: "May we lie here like that for 40 years, all content/ And never wonder where the 90s went."

The message, more one of joy than sentimentality, was just one illustration of the bond both men feel for family and home. Their love of music was a natural outgrowth of their upbringing.

Tamulevich grew up in Branford, Conneticut, the younger of two children. "Dad was a real character, always singing weird songs," he said. "He would sing all these songs from the 30s and 40s. I thought he was making them up. He made up funny verses. One of the things he always used to sing was a song called 'One Meatball,' and I had no idea where it came from. The first day Michael and I got together, he started playing it, and I almost fell off the chair," he said. "Mom played viola in college orchestra. I took six years of piano and hated it." In high school, he joined the church chorus, but only "because I was in love." Then, on a high school trip to England, Tamulevich saw someone playing guitar. Shy and withdrawn, he was captivated by the image of everyone singing along. "It seemed like something I really liked and desired."

Pete Seeger also made an impact. In 1969, Seeger took the Clearwater Sloop, the flagship of the environmental movement, on its first trip up the Hudson River. "Somebody had made a movie of it, and it was on PBS...My eyes just bugged out in my head when I saw that, and I was just like, 'Wow! This is what I want to do.'"

By 1970, he began teaching himself guitar. "I became obsessed with it," he admitted. Tamulevich attended American University for two years, then transferred to the University of Michigan, majoring in wildlife and forestry. There, he met Hough, but neither stayed to finish his degree.

This is the full article from Dirty Linen #83 (August/September '99)
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