Don and Eunice Mast may have left for California, but their tradition of monthly folk music sessions remains.
About 80 people showed up at the Mast house at 528 Calhoun St. in Woodstock last weekend to sing, tell stories, play an instrument, listen and laugh-all the fun activities that have drawn more than 20,000 people to the Mast house since the first folk music session there 14 years ago.
“I love being here. It’s like a ’60s folk fest or hootenanny,” said Mike Buhrmann of West Dundee, who has been attending the 7 p.m. first-Saturday-of-the-month performances for the past five years. “The music and sing-alongs are moving and special. There are times when this is the closest thing to a religious experience you can get outside of church.”
After learning that Eunice has cancer, the Masts decided to move to California to be near their children. That looked like the end of the Mast musical tradition. But Steve and Sylvia Francois of Sleepy Hollow and 18 other local musicians and friends of the Masts organized to see that it lives on.
“Don and Eunice built a wonderful tradition, and we’re trying to keep it going,” Steve Francois said. “Anyone who wants can get on stage and perform. They can sit in the audience and sing along. Or they can just listen and enjoy.”
The Masts have rented their house to two families, both of whom love folk music and don’t mind opening the house once a month for the performances, which are held in a special room with a loft ceiling and balcony that the Masts added to the back of the house some years ago. One of those renters is David Ashby, who has been a regular Mast house performer for the past five years.
“Woodstock has two cultural houses,” Ashby said. “One is the Opera House. The Mast house is the other one. I’m glad I live here.”
