For all of Woodstock’s reputation for nurturing artists, musicians, and innovators, one tradition stands out: the weekly drum circle on the Village Green.
“What lies at the center of these events is the sheer frivolity of it,” Kevin Johnson, 72, a trained drum circle facilitator who coordinates the circle on Sundays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on the Village Green in the warmer months and inside the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center as the weather turns cold, wrote in an email. “It is seemingly a totally unnecessary act and yet in the participation with the whole of it all it delivers a sense of peace and a communal belonging through rhythm.”
Johnson, who lives in Hurley and trained at Village Music Circles in Santa Cruz, California, provides direction for the circle, which has drawn upwards of 150 people seeking rhythm and community to round out the weekend.
“There are several ways to ‘facilitate’ a drum circle, from a suggestive ‘follow me,’ to a ‘do this’ with a conductor, similar to an orchestra,” he wrote in an email.
Johnson embraced the role in part because he was born with severely impaired hearing.
“I got into drumming specifically because I was born quite deaf,” Johnson wrote. “Drumming is the only thing I can do without a stack of Marshall amps on each ear.”
The Village Green events trace their roots to drumming at the “Magic Meadow,” near the Hurley Mountain trailhead at the intersection of Meads Mountain and MacDaniel roads. Those sessions began years ago and continue today on the Saturday evening nearest the full moon from May to October.
On Sundays, Johnson brings a robust supply of percussion instruments, mostly from his Timekeeper Drums in Woodstock, where he crafts and repairs them. Attendees donate everything from percussion instruments to chairs. The gathering takes place on the portion of the Village Green owned by the Woodstock Reformed Church, which has supported the circle for years.
Among those on hand last Sunday, the second drum circle of its 27th year, was Nadine Lobosco, a former Jersey Shore resident who has lived in Woodstock for a year. She had participated in a drum circle in Asbury Park and quickly found her way to the local equivalent after she moved.
“I get lost in the drum,” said Lobosco, 58. “I get lost in the music. I get transported to another world.”
After Lobosco and more than a dozen other drummers warmed up, Johnson stepped out from behind his drum and offered some percussive guidance.
“If you get confused, just stop for a second and listen to what’s going on, and you’ll be able to pick up on the train that’s kind of going by in the background,” he wrote. “And if you’re not so much a drummer but more of a dancer, come on out here, we’ve got an open circle here for that.”
The concept of following a leader, though, is relative.
“If you have a rhythm you want to play, just play it enough so the rest of us can pick up on it,” he said. “We’ll follow you.”
Johnson wrote that he doesn’t know many of the drummers who turn up from week to week.
“We have a core group of players who help me manage the presentation, a secondary group that comes occasionally and many tourists,” Johnson wrote. “On any given Sunday, we’ll have everything from players just out of one of the local studios to toddlers playing with mom in the middle of the dance circle.”
Johnson has a favorite story.
“A mom, dad and two to three children are walking down the sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon, stop and are staring,” Johnson wrote. “The kids see other kids in the middle playing away and make a beeline to the toy box, mom, of course, right behind them.
“Dad, stoic, arms folded, looks at the scene before him dismissively, but a rogue foot starts tapping the pavement,” Johnson continued. “He moves closer, a seat opens up with a drum, he slides in and starts tapping away. By the end, mom and kids have to drag dad out of the circle to go home— and they’re back the next week.”
Photos by Michael Sofronski for The Overlook.
John W. Barry is a reporter for The Overlook. Reach him at john@theoverlooknews.com.