(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Marilyn Maye is still going strong [1]
['More From Author', 'August', 'Julie Gammack']
Date: 2022-08-23
My husband, Richard, and I are perched in Okoboji, where nostalgia reigns. It’s a place for classic cars, an old-time amusement park, and where an iconic vocal artist performed this week, as she has for over 60 years.
Despite a legacy connection, I almost missed the chance to see Marilyn Maye, live and in person.
Have you had the experience of taps on the shoulder by the universe guiding you one way or the other? Maybe you think that’s too woo-woo, but this feels beyond coincidence.
In mid-June, I received a note from my pal, Geneva Overholser, saying she and her husband, David Westphal, were in the Birdland Jazz Club in New York City when they spotted Marilyn Maye. Geneva (former editor of The Des Moines Register) and Marilyn lit up their respective Iowa connections in the women’s restroom, and our small degrees of separation became clear. The Des Moines Register/GordonGammack/Julie Gammack/Des Moines/Okoboji/Geneva.
Geneva and Marilyn exchanged emails, looping me in, and we had a fun exchange.
Her scheduled Okoboji shows slipped my mind. Maye would be making her 66th annual appearance in the Iowa Great Lakes region this summer, and we almost missed it.
But the next tap on the shoulder came about when I was in a conversation with David Thoreson (who deserves a fully reported column at some point soon). Maye has been a long-time friend of the Thoreson family, especially David’s mother, Judy Thoreson. They connect when Marilyn comes to the Lakes region, and Judy often hosts the star in her beautiful West Lake Okoboji home on Haywards Bay. The Thoreson family sponsored Maye’s performance at the Lakes Art Center.
Small world.
David Thoreson said the Marilyn Maye show was sold out opening night, but tickets remained for the following performance. We heeded the call to action and happily showed up.
The lives of the Gammacks and Marilyn Maye have been entwined for decades.
In 1969 I had the best summer job ever, taking the cover charge for nightclub entertainment at the New Inn. I collected the $5-$25 a person charge downstairs from the main dining room, played solitaire during the shows, and drank whatever the bartender slipped me. During the day, I rented a small fishing boat for the season, spending days pounding through the waves with my new puppy, Krishna (the best dog ever), his ears pinned back in the wind.
When Marilyn Maye came to town, The New Inn was packed.
Marilyn had been playing for audiences at the New Inn even before then — she performed at the grand opening in 1957. Iowa’s favorite cabaret singer has survived, but the New Inn didn’t.
Truthfully, I expected the audience would be there out of respect for her longevity, having outlived a lot of folks who came to her shows through the years. But they got a helluva show, too.
Marilyn Maye is 94 years old, still going strong, and not missing a note.
As a Des Moines Tribune columnist, my dad covered the Iowa-kid-makes-it-in-the-big-time beat. The red-headed East High School girl turned national singing sensation was a story that kept giving, column inch by inch.
Radio, too?
Holy Cow. I did not know my dad did a regular radio show. Look what I discovered searching old newspapers for ‘gammack, marilyn maye.’ It feels eerily like our Monday Zoom Lunch interviews! How did he write a DAILY column, typing with two fingers on a manual typewriter, AND do a radio show three times a week? Seriously.
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