Back to In The News

Musical marathon

Twelve-hour jam session to raise money for a good cause

The Chapel Hill News
By Dave Hart, Staff Writer
01.28.09

CHAPEL HILL - Even over the phone, you can practically see John Santa smile and shake his head at the improbability of it.

"I'm a writer and musician, and like most writers and musicians I have no money," he said. "Yet I've managed to find a way to give away a lot of money. That's crazy.

"And it gets crazier -- last year I was able to give away more than $10,000 from an event that technically didn't even happen."

For six years now, Santa and a loose rabble of other musicians called the RDU Session Players have played an annual marathon jam session to raise money for charity.

They collect pledges of X amount of dollars per hour played, and then they play for 12 hours straight.

This year the Marathon Jam will run from noon to midnight Saturday at American Legion Post 6 on Legion Road. All proceeds will go to Fisher House, which provides free or nearly free room and board to the families of soldiers being treated at military or VA hospitals.

Last year's Marathon Jam was cancelled due to the threat of snow. Disappointed, Santa and a few other musicians decamped to a friend's house in Carthage, near Southern Pines. Once they were there, they figured, hey, why not play anyway?

"We ended up raising $10,500 for Fisher House from a cancelled event," Santa said. "It just gets cooler and cooler."

It'll get cooler still this time around, because this year the Chapel Hill Marathon Jam has spun off satellite Marathon Jams in five states and Iraq.

At the same moment that Santa and the rest of the crew pitch into their first number at the Legion hut, other musicians will do the same in places like Boston, Tucson, Richmond -- and Baghdad's Camp Victory, where a group of music-playing soldiers who call themselves the Baghdad Bad Boys will participate.

"It's amazing how this thing has grown," Santa said. "I mean, it started with a bunch of guys getting together once a month to play music, drink beer and howl at the moon, and the next thing you know we're on blogs, in the newspapers, on Google. We're like, 'Holy cow, this is a real thing.'"

Santa is a local author and musician who creates music for films and other productions. Some years ago he and some of the session musicians he hired to play on the tracks started getting together to jam for fun once a month.

"These guys are absolutely phenomenal musicians," Santa said. "One day someone said, 'I'll bet we could play all day and never repeat a song.' I thought, 'That sounds like both a challenge and a great idea.

"So one Saturday we did it -- played for 12 hours straight. It was great. But afterward, on my way home, I thought, the only thing wrong with it was that aside from us, nobody benefited from it."

The Marathon Jam was born. The first few years they raised a few thousand dollars for various beneficiaries.

Then Santa met Lt. Col. Greg Rawlings of Southern Pines. Rawlings had grown interested in bluegrass music, and his wife had given him a copy of Santa's book, "Bluegrass is My Second Language: A Year in the Life of An Accidental Bluegrass Musician."

He wrote Santa an appreciate note. Santa wrote back. They and their families became good friends, and when Rawlings was stateside they played music together.

"John told me about his group and the Marathon Jam and asked if they could use the proceeds for body armor or something for me," Rawlings wrote by e-mail from Iraq, where he's now serving his third tour of duty overseas; he'll play with the Baghdad Bad Boys on Saturday. "I told him that he'd been watching too much '60 Minutes' and that even if I could accept it, body armor isn't an issue for me or my comrades. During my tour at the Pentagon I was exposed to the Fisher House Foundation and I recommended them as the beneficiary. John latched on like a pit-bull."

He hasn't let go yet. The Marathon Jam on Saturday will feature an ever-changing roster of musicians and an equally varied collection of tunes -- everything from Miles Davis to Bill Monroe, depending on who's playing when and what whim strikes the players.

Santa hopes to surpass last year's fundraising total, but he knows the economic climate may make that tough.

"They have a saying in the military, 'Take a knee,'" Santa said. "When I start angsting about whether we can raise any money in the economy, Greg tells me, 'Take a knee. Chill out. Whatever you make, it's great. For the guys over here, it's the fact that people are doing this at all that's important.'"

dave.hart@nando.com or 932-8744

Back to In The News