Talking with Walking Each Other Home

Photo from the duo’s Facebook page.

Two Door County locals who once provided music to a bygone Ellison Bay church are still playing acoustic covers around the peninsula today.

Cristy Christensen of Sevastopol and John Iverson of Sister Bay, who perform together as Walking Each Other Home, have brought their blend of guitar and vocals over the years to local nursing homes, non-profit events and restaurants like the Hitching Post, where they have made regular appearances.

In advance of their next set at the Hitching Post on April 27, I chatted with Christensen and Iverson about how they came to play together and why they do what they do. The conversation has been edited for clarity.

Sam Watson (SW): How long have each of you been playing music? 

Cristy Christensen (CC): I learned to play guitar when I was about 15. Then I took classical guitar lessons from a teacher in the Chicago area, and I went back to school and took a couple of years of applied music. So I’ve probably been playing for 50 years, maybe a little longer.

John Iverson (JI): I’ve been playing for about 11 years.

SW: What brought you both to Door County? 

CC: My family used to camp up here when I was a child. Then my sister moved up, my cousin moved up, my mother was in a nursing home up here. So I moved up. 

JI: I’ve been coming here my whole life in the summer. Now I’ve been a full-time resident for 11 years. I love it up here. 

SW: John, you started playing music around the time you moved here – why is that? 

JI: I was reinventing my life. I was sick of playing golf and hanging out with guys. I saw some people playing music in a room at the Brew [Coffeehouse in Ellison Bay], and I thought, “I should check that out.” One thing led to another and now I’m sitting here talking to you.

SW: How did you two start playing together? 

JI: We were playing music at a song circle up in Ellison Bay, and then we got roped into playing with the Cowboy Church with Lloyd Michalsen [church founder and pastor] 10 or so years ago. We played with them for four or five years, and we just evolved into playing more of our own kind of music and started playing gigs. 

SW: Tell me about the Cowboy Church. 

JI: It was a non-denominational church set up in Ellison Bay at Bob Tidball’s barn. 

CC: A lot of different musicians would all join in on Sundays. Sometimes we would get an audience of about 50 people in the barn, and two horses. Lloyd Michalsen was a phenomenon up here. He unfortunately passed this November, but he loved the Cowboy Church. He played the banjo; Kari Brandt played the mandolin; John and I played guitars. The Rass family would come up and do music with us too, and David [Hatch] and Lynn Gudmundsen.

SW: As a duo, what kind of music do you play together? 

JI: You just never know. We have such a wide spectrum of musical tastes; we go from artists from the ‘40s and further back to Ed Sheeran and other musicians that are popular today. 

SW: What do you two enjoy about performing?

CC: It’s calming, healing. You’re giving joy to people. When people connect with the music and some of them sing along, when you see people enjoying it and participating in it, that’s really the best part. 

JI: We play at nursing homes from time to time, and we’ve had wonderful experiences at Scand [Serenity Spring Senior Living at Scandia Village.] We were playing an arrangement of Summertime [composed by George Gershwin and later recorded by Billie Holiday, as well as Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Armstrong.] We got, like, two measures into the song. There was a lady in the back row, kind of slouched over sitting in a wheelchair. All of a sudden, she pokes her head up, raises her hand, wheels up the aisle and says, “I got this.” So Cristy hands her the mic and she nails it. 

CC: She was a singer in a past life. 

JI: That’s kind of the beauty of making music that connects with people.

SW: What’s the story behind the name, Walking Each Other Home? 

JI: Everybody’s walking each other home on some level. We’re on this path and we try to be supportive and connect with people as we move along our journeys. 

Walking Each Other Home will perform April 27, 3-5 pm, at the Hitching Post, 4849 Glidden Dr. in Sturgeon Bay.