Just When Ya T’ink Ya’ve Herd It All
By Susan Lampert Smith ’82
Peter and Lou Berryman have made a career of spoofing the city and state they love.
Peter x’69 and Lou ’77 Berryman know what it’s like to be living, breathing, singing souvenirs of your college experience.
They’ll be playing somewhere on the national folk circuit, maybe Ann Arbor or Ithaca or Berkeley, they’ll look out in the audience, and there are middle-aged people wearing red Wisconsin sweatshirts, and singing along.
“People from the UW graduate, go all around the country, and seem to wind up living in these college towns,’’ says Peter. Lou, his wife for a few years while they were in their twenties, and his music partner for many more years than that, remembered a show in Davis, California, where a UW-Madison graduate went the extra mile.
“He had a brat fry tailgate party out in the parking lot,’’ Lou says. “He set up a little corner of Wisconsin in the middle of California.”
After the shows, some of the Badgers usually stick around, and they often have similar questions for the duo. So similar, in fact, that the Berrymans have a song about it. Here’s the refrain:
Peter and Lou Berryman have made a career of spoofing the city and state they love.
Peter x’69 and Lou ’77 Berryman know what it’s like to be living, breathing, singing souvenirs of your college experience.
They’ll be playing somewhere on the national folk circuit, maybe Ann Arbor or Ithaca or Berkeley, they’ll look out in the audience, and there are middle-aged people wearing red Wisconsin sweatshirts, and singing along.
“People from the UW graduate, go all around the country, and seem to wind up living in these college towns,’’ says Peter. Lou, his wife for a few years while they were in their twenties, and his music partner for many more years than that, remembered a show in Davis, California, where a UW-Madison graduate went the extra mile.
“He had a brat fry tailgate party out in the parking lot,’’ Lou says. “He set up a little corner of Wisconsin in the middle of California.”
After the shows, some of the Badgers usually stick around, and they often have similar questions for the duo. So similar, in fact, that the Berrymans have a song about it. Here’s the refrain:
So how’s old Madison,Wisconsin?
Is that Paul Soglin still the mayor?
And is Rennebohm’s expanding?
Is the Club deWash still there?
I used to sit out on the Terrace
and watch my grade point disappear.
For the life of me, I don’t know
how I wound up here.
If you’ve been to Madison recently, you know that Soglin has joined the corporate world, Rennebohm’s sold out to Walgreen’s long ago, and, sadly, the Club de Wash burned down a decade ago. But the Berrymans? The Berrymans, who turn fifty-nine this year, are still going strong. You may have grown up and moved away, but it looks like these ultimate children of the 1960s may never have to.
They’re still writing and singing their weirdly eccentric songs, ranging from the one that warns “I don’t want to hear you use that F-word with your mother,’’ to another about painting the living room while worrying about environmental tragedy. And then there are their anthems about the strangeness of life in Wisconsin. A new one, “Dem Deer,” is about watching the roads for Wisconsin’s whitetail menace, and it’s as likely to get stuck in your head as oldies such as “Up in Wisconsin.”
Is that Paul Soglin still the mayor?
And is Rennebohm’s expanding?
Is the Club deWash still there?
I used to sit out on the Terrace
and watch my grade point disappear.
For the life of me, I don’t know
how I wound up here.
If you’ve been to Madison recently, you know that Soglin has joined the corporate world, Rennebohm’s sold out to Walgreen’s long ago, and, sadly, the Club de Wash burned down a decade ago. But the Berrymans? The Berrymans, who turn fifty-nine this year, are still going strong. You may have grown up and moved away, but it looks like these ultimate children of the 1960s may never have to.
They’re still writing and singing their weirdly eccentric songs, ranging from the one that warns “I don’t want to hear you use that F-word with your mother,’’ to another about painting the living room while worrying about environmental tragedy. And then there are their anthems about the strangeness of life in Wisconsin. A new one, “Dem Deer,” is about watching the roads for Wisconsin’s whitetail menace, and it’s as likely to get stuck in your head as oldies such as “Up in Wisconsin.”
The Berrymans’ road to modest, Midwestern-size fame and fortune has enough weird twists and turns to give them material for another album or two. Along the way, they’ve been the subject of a folk song that made it to number one in Canada and have sung from the mouth of a giant fiberglass musky in a commercial for Wisconsin tourism. They’ve written lyrics for a musical, Love is the Weirdest of All, and had one of their songs recorded by Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys fame.
Their story begins in the early 1960s, in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley, or, as the Berrymans have renamed it in a song, “Squirrelly Valley.” They met in high school in Appleton. Their first group was a jug band with the very folksy name Town Council Morning Valley Craftsmen.
They moved to Madison and began studying at the UW — Lou as a music major and Peter as an art major. But the war in Vietnam was in full gear. Peter was drafted and had his military physical, but like many men of his generation, he didn’t support the war. Lou says that being drafted prompted both their early marriage at age twenty and their decision to drop out of the UW and head to Canada.
“We left after his physical and before they came to get him,’’ she recalls. “I, of course, wanted to go with him, and we stood a much better chance of gaining entry [to Canada] as a married couple.’’
It was there, during what Peter describes as “a five-year Canadian odyssey,” that they first began performing regularly, at a wrong-side-of-the-tracks railroad hotel in London, Ontario, which may have foreshadowed their later gig at the Club de Wash. But they mainly lived in Vancouver, where Peter did graphic arts and Lou was a weaver.
Their story begins in the early 1960s, in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley, or, as the Berrymans have renamed it in a song, “Squirrelly Valley.” They met in high school in Appleton. Their first group was a jug band with the very folksy name Town Council Morning Valley Craftsmen.
They moved to Madison and began studying at the UW — Lou as a music major and Peter as an art major. But the war in Vietnam was in full gear. Peter was drafted and had his military physical, but like many men of his generation, he didn’t support the war. Lou says that being drafted prompted both their early marriage at age twenty and their decision to drop out of the UW and head to Canada.
“We left after his physical and before they came to get him,’’ she recalls. “I, of course, wanted to go with him, and we stood a much better chance of gaining entry [to Canada] as a married couple.’’
It was there, during what Peter describes as “a five-year Canadian odyssey,” that they first began performing regularly, at a wrong-side-of-the-tracks railroad hotel in London, Ontario, which may have foreshadowed their later gig at the Club de Wash. But they mainly lived in Vancouver, where Peter did graphic arts and Lou was a weaver.
As they were getting ready to come home from Canada, a friend, Craig Wood, wrote a song called “Peter and Lou” as a farewell. Later, it was recorded by a Canadian folk singer named Valdy, and their tribute song hit the top of the Canadian charts. (In the mid-1970s, Valdy was second only to Gordon Lightfoot in the Canadian music world.)
“Friends would write to us from Canada and say, ‘There’s this song that sounds like it’s about you,’ ” Lou says. Decades later, the Berrymans, Valdy, and Wood all wound up at a folk festival in Nova Scotia, where they presented a workshop on the song and its history.
But while the Berrymans lived on as a couple in Canadian folk music, they divorced after returning to Madison in 1973, then formed their duo, Peter and Lou Berryman, No Relation.
While people have expressed amazement that a divorced couple can spend thirty-plus years as a successful performing duo, the Berrymans don’t see it as odd at all. Maybe it’s better to view their marriage as the aberration in a lifelong friendship. Both have long since remarried, Peter to Kristi Seifert ’70, a veterinary technician, and Lou to Mark Hodgson, a computer programmer. Both couples live on Madison’s east side.
“Friends would write to us from Canada and say, ‘There’s this song that sounds like it’s about you,’ ” Lou says. Decades later, the Berrymans, Valdy, and Wood all wound up at a folk festival in Nova Scotia, where they presented a workshop on the song and its history.
But while the Berrymans lived on as a couple in Canadian folk music, they divorced after returning to Madison in 1973, then formed their duo, Peter and Lou Berryman, No Relation.
While people have expressed amazement that a divorced couple can spend thirty-plus years as a successful performing duo, the Berrymans don’t see it as odd at all. Maybe it’s better to view their marriage as the aberration in a lifelong friendship. Both have long since remarried, Peter to Kristi Seifert ’70, a veterinary technician, and Lou to Mark Hodgson, a computer programmer. Both couples live on Madison’s east side.
On a blustery winter day, the Berrymans got together at Lou and Mark Hodgson’s home to talk about their unique career. The couple’s home has a view of Lake Mendota and is across the street from Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin JD’89’s restored lakefront Victorian. As Peter talked, Lou hauled out a souvenir of their first paying gig in Madison, playing at the World Dairy Expo on a stage made from half a silo. There, they met fellow folk singer Pat MacDonald, who became a longtime friend, and won a trophy inscribed “First Place, Silo Singing.”
But their real break came in November 1977, when a bartender friend got them a gig at the Club de Wash.
In the 1970s, the Hotel Washington, owned by brothers Rodney and Greg Scheel, was a wildly eclectic collection of low-cost rooming, clubs, and office space. (Isthmus, Madison’s alternative weekly, had some of its first offices there.) Each venue had a unique personality: the Barber’s Closet, with its secret entry and ice cream drinks, was the ultimate first-date bar. Unless, of course, you preferred Rod’s, a regionally known gay bar in the basement. The hotel also housed the Cafe Palms, a spot for late night dining popular with restaurant workers, and the New Bar, a dance club.
And then there was the Club de Wash, which can nicely be described as a dive. It smelled of antiseptic cleaning products and boasted a clientele that ranged from UW students to railroad guys who still lived upstairs, even though the depot next door had long ago closed. Public Radio’s Michael Feldman ’70 hosted an early version of his radio show there, as did local writer George Vukelich.
Because residents still lived upstairs, any music had to be acoustic. Rodney Scheel was skeptical that anyone would come to Club de Wash for music. But the Berrymans said they’d play for whatever they got at the door; for years they charged a cover of twenty-five cents.
But their real break came in November 1977, when a bartender friend got them a gig at the Club de Wash.
In the 1970s, the Hotel Washington, owned by brothers Rodney and Greg Scheel, was a wildly eclectic collection of low-cost rooming, clubs, and office space. (Isthmus, Madison’s alternative weekly, had some of its first offices there.) Each venue had a unique personality: the Barber’s Closet, with its secret entry and ice cream drinks, was the ultimate first-date bar. Unless, of course, you preferred Rod’s, a regionally known gay bar in the basement. The hotel also housed the Cafe Palms, a spot for late night dining popular with restaurant workers, and the New Bar, a dance club.
And then there was the Club de Wash, which can nicely be described as a dive. It smelled of antiseptic cleaning products and boasted a clientele that ranged from UW students to railroad guys who still lived upstairs, even though the depot next door had long ago closed. Public Radio’s Michael Feldman ’70 hosted an early version of his radio show there, as did local writer George Vukelich.
Because residents still lived upstairs, any music had to be acoustic. Rodney Scheel was skeptical that anyone would come to Club de Wash for music. But the Berrymans said they’d play for whatever they got at the door; for years they charged a cover of twenty-five cents.
“You could see people outside at the door, trying to decide if they wanted to pay,’’ Peter remembers. “A whole bunch of people came. Rodney was beside himself.”
Convinced of their appeal, Scheel loaned the Berrymans money for their first album. The duo played a regular weekly gig at the Club de Wash from the late 1970s until about 1986, inaugurating a place that would become a regular home to musicians ranging from bluesman Paul Black to Free Hot Lunch. Folk singer Willy Porter started his career there, and touring bands from Soul Asylum to Smashing Pumpkins to Alanis Morissette played there, too.
“It was so cool how Rodney mixed up all those subcultures — gay, straight, different races — and everyone got along,’’ Peter says.
Looking back, the Hotel Washington seems like a mirage, a 1970s experiment in true multicultural entertainment. Rodney Scheel died of AIDS in 1990, and the hotel burned down, the victim of a smoldering cigarette, on a bitter February night in 1996.
By then, the Berrymans had long since left their spiritual home. Since the mid-1980s, they’ve toured on the national folk circuit. They’ve appeared on Prairie Home Companion three times, and opened for national folk stars such as Tom Paxton. They’re also regulars at festivals ranging from the Philadelphia Folk Festival to the Big Muddy Folk Festival in Missouri to the Funny Songs Festival in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
One odd twist in their career came in the mid-1990s, when they got a phone call from Pat MacDonald (of Timbuk3 fame). Recalls Peter, he asked, “Didn’t you write, ‘Are You Drinking With Me Jesus?’ ” Indeed, Peter had written the anthem during the duo’s early days, and it appeared on their first album. MacDonald had heard a CD recorded by Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra, which attributed the song to an unknown writer. It turns out that someone had handed Nixon the lyrics to the Berrymans’ song at a concert in Minneapolis. Once Peter contacted him, he says, Nixon was very gracious.
Convinced of their appeal, Scheel loaned the Berrymans money for their first album. The duo played a regular weekly gig at the Club de Wash from the late 1970s until about 1986, inaugurating a place that would become a regular home to musicians ranging from bluesman Paul Black to Free Hot Lunch. Folk singer Willy Porter started his career there, and touring bands from Soul Asylum to Smashing Pumpkins to Alanis Morissette played there, too.
“It was so cool how Rodney mixed up all those subcultures — gay, straight, different races — and everyone got along,’’ Peter says.
Looking back, the Hotel Washington seems like a mirage, a 1970s experiment in true multicultural entertainment. Rodney Scheel died of AIDS in 1990, and the hotel burned down, the victim of a smoldering cigarette, on a bitter February night in 1996.
By then, the Berrymans had long since left their spiritual home. Since the mid-1980s, they’ve toured on the national folk circuit. They’ve appeared on Prairie Home Companion three times, and opened for national folk stars such as Tom Paxton. They’re also regulars at festivals ranging from the Philadelphia Folk Festival to the Big Muddy Folk Festival in Missouri to the Funny Songs Festival in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
One odd twist in their career came in the mid-1990s, when they got a phone call from Pat MacDonald (of Timbuk3 fame). Recalls Peter, he asked, “Didn’t you write, ‘Are You Drinking With Me Jesus?’ ” Indeed, Peter had written the anthem during the duo’s early days, and it appeared on their first album. MacDonald had heard a CD recorded by Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra, which attributed the song to an unknown writer. It turns out that someone had handed Nixon the lyrics to the Berrymans’ song at a concert in Minneapolis. Once Peter contacted him, he says, Nixon was very gracious.
“He conceded all the copyright to us,’’ Peter says. “To this day, we still get royalties from it.” All that for a tune that Peter described to Acoustic Guitar magazine as a “sophomoric bar song” that they almost never perform anymore, because, says Lou, “We don’t want to offend anyone.”
“It’s such a strange story that maybe we should write a song about that song,’’ muses Peter.
While the Berrymans’ sense of humor is gentle, their appreciation for the quirks and strangeness of Wisconsin is what makes their music special. They have a waltz to the “Weyauwega Moon,” and a tribute to some of the often overlooked benefits of Wisconsin winter — the fact that “snow and beer and cheese, all keep well at thirty degrees.”
Their song “The Limburger Ballad’’ is about a standoff back in 1935 between a Wisconsin dairyman and an Iowa postmaster who refused to deliver his cheese on the grounds that it smelled so awful. (We’re not making this up.) And who else would sing about Poniatowski, the Wisconsin burg that’s:
Exactly half the way from the equator
to the pole
A quarter of the way around the
planet as a whole
It’s very hard to find it on a map
of county roads
Ridiculously easy on a four-inch globe.
“It’s such a strange story that maybe we should write a song about that song,’’ muses Peter.
While the Berrymans’ sense of humor is gentle, their appreciation for the quirks and strangeness of Wisconsin is what makes their music special. They have a waltz to the “Weyauwega Moon,” and a tribute to some of the often overlooked benefits of Wisconsin winter — the fact that “snow and beer and cheese, all keep well at thirty degrees.”
Their song “The Limburger Ballad’’ is about a standoff back in 1935 between a Wisconsin dairyman and an Iowa postmaster who refused to deliver his cheese on the grounds that it smelled so awful. (We’re not making this up.) And who else would sing about Poniatowski, the Wisconsin burg that’s:
Exactly half the way from the equator
to the pole
A quarter of the way around the
planet as a whole
It’s very hard to find it on a map
of county roads
Ridiculously easy on a four-inch globe.
James Leary, professor of folklore at Wisconsin and the author of a book on Wisconsin folk humor, is one of the Berrymans’ fans.
“They’re really funny,’’ Leary says. “They’re very grounded and don’t pretend to be from anywhere else. They have broad appeal in the same way a folk singer from Tennessee who evokes the mountains does.”
Leary, who used to co-host the Down Home Dairy Land show on public radio, says that the Berrymans have lasted so long because they’re also good promoters and entrepreneurs. They sell their CDs through their Web site. And Lou’s dining room table is filled with correspondence on their latest venture: renting scripts of their musical, Love is the Weirdest of All, to theater groups.
All this, plus traveling the country to perform, has allowed the Berrymans to achieve a long-lost goal of much of the sixties generation: they never had to sell out or get a day job. And while others their age may have climbed the corporate ladder only to be shoved off, the Berrymans have created a career with true job security.
“This is the kind of gig you can maintain forever,’’ Lou says. “If your looks go to hell, or your voice does, that’s okay. Old folk singers are supposed to look and sound that way.”
“They’re really funny,’’ Leary says. “They’re very grounded and don’t pretend to be from anywhere else. They have broad appeal in the same way a folk singer from Tennessee who evokes the mountains does.”
Leary, who used to co-host the Down Home Dairy Land show on public radio, says that the Berrymans have lasted so long because they’re also good promoters and entrepreneurs. They sell their CDs through their Web site. And Lou’s dining room table is filled with correspondence on their latest venture: renting scripts of their musical, Love is the Weirdest of All, to theater groups.
All this, plus traveling the country to perform, has allowed the Berrymans to achieve a long-lost goal of much of the sixties generation: they never had to sell out or get a day job. And while others their age may have climbed the corporate ladder only to be shoved off, the Berrymans have created a career with true job security.
“This is the kind of gig you can maintain forever,’’ Lou says. “If your looks go to hell, or your voice does, that’s okay. Old folk singers are supposed to look and sound that way.”
Actually, the Berrymans still look and sound pretty darn good. They sold out a performance on New Year’s Eve 2005, a rare Madison show to raise money for the Atwood Community Center. Peter reported to the crowd that one of their tunes, “Wonderful Madison,” is up for consideration as the city’s official song, which will be named this year to celebrate Madison’s 150th birthday. It’s ironic, he told the crowd, because he’d written it “teasing the jingoism of city promotions.”
But, like nearly everything the Berrymans perform, “Wonderful Madison” is pretty funny and appeals to the never-graduating university student inside all of us:
She wears her lakes like a diamond tiara
Her necklace is known as the mighty Yahara
Around her the Beltline is draped
like a garland
And brings in commuters from way
past McFarland
Oh Wonderful Madison mother of cities
Queen of all Dairyland, waiting for me
Wonderful Madison, jewel of Wisconsin
With more than one high school
and cable TV
Hard working mother you lion of business
From Shopko to Oscar’s and all through
the Isthmus
But if getting a job doesn’t seem to
be prudent
You can take out a loan and return
as a student.
But, like nearly everything the Berrymans perform, “Wonderful Madison” is pretty funny and appeals to the never-graduating university student inside all of us:
She wears her lakes like a diamond tiara
Her necklace is known as the mighty Yahara
Around her the Beltline is draped
like a garland
And brings in commuters from way
past McFarland
Oh Wonderful Madison mother of cities
Queen of all Dairyland, waiting for me
Wonderful Madison, jewel of Wisconsin
With more than one high school
and cable TV
Hard working mother you lion of business
From Shopko to Oscar’s and all through
the Isthmus
But if getting a job doesn’t seem to
be prudent
You can take out a loan and return
as a student.
Unless, that is, you’re content with reliving the experience via a Berryman concert and a beer, beside the clear waters of [your state’s name here].
Susan Lampert Smith ‘82 attended her first Lou and Peter Berryman show at the Club de Wash as a UW-Madison student in the late 1970s. She often quotes their lyrics in her Wisconsin State Journal column, because they describe life “Up in Wisconsin” better than anyone.
See Peter and Lou’s Web site.
Who the heck is Valdy and what are the lyrics to his song Peter and Lou?
Find more information on the duo at the FolkLib site.
For a printer-friendly version of this story, click here [pdf]
Susan Lampert Smith ‘82 attended her first Lou and Peter Berryman show at the Club de Wash as a UW-Madison student in the late 1970s. She often quotes their lyrics in her Wisconsin State Journal column, because they describe life “Up in Wisconsin” better than anyone.
See Peter and Lou’s Web site.
Who the heck is Valdy and what are the lyrics to his song Peter and Lou?
Find more information on the duo at the FolkLib site.
For a printer-friendly version of this story, click here [pdf]
