Romancing the West
The inspiration to create the documentary concert “Romancing the West” was a journey of the heart for singer/songwriter and documentarian Christina Lynn Martin, a gentle unveiling of a vision spanning decades that started in her childhood. In reflecting on her life she said, “I will never forget the beauty of Oregon when I first traveled there as a child on an epic journey up the coast with my parents as they sang in in two part harmony in our 57 Chevy. I moved to Southern Oregon as a young mother and fell in love with majesty of the Pacific Northwest, but due to the recession there at the time, returned to California four years later, settling in the Historic Mission town of San Juan Capistrano. It was there I was amerced in the history, mystery and Romance of the West and the legend of Alta California and during a most introspective time in my life wrote and recorded my second release “Capistrano.” "
Christina worked with the Mission, Historical Society, and Native American Educator Jacque Nunez to tell the stories of the people of the West through multi-media and wrote and produced “The Gold Coast” television show sharing the lives of the Native people, immigrants, and pioneers past and present who had left a legacy there.
She would never forget Oregon and had written many songs of her memories there and returned in 2005 just in time for Oregon’s 150th birthday writing “Oh Oregon” in honor of it. She wrote “Sunset over Jacksonville” about the gold-mining town that she called home and was asked by the City Administrator to co-write and produce a 150th birthday celebration to be held at Britt Pavilion. It would span 150 years of history, decade by decade in the music of each era with narration in between. It was the highlight of her music career to take songs she had written about Oregon, write additional songs like “Legacy” and “The Siskiyou’s Called Me Home” and to work with lyricist Paul Wintergreen in putting his words to music. She then began to write her forth release “Centerstage”. She invited her friend Cowboy Poet and Balladeer Butch Martin and many other fellow artists to be featured in the show and Butch would narrate the documentary with her and not only become her partner in the show but their love would blossom during the production into marriage and a life together performing the show and enjoying family life.
In the process, they were creating a show that was educational, inspiring and deeply moving with themes including the importance of remembrance, and learning the lessons of the history of the Great American West as it informs the present. From celebrating small town rural America in songs like “Time Standing Still", and remembering Trail of Tears and Chief Joseph and his fight for his people in “Wallowa Skies”, to remembering life in that glorious Mission town San Juan Capistrano featured in her song “Romancing the West” cowritten with dear friend Pam Mark Hall, and the melded fates of the Native and Spanish people who built the Mission in her song “California”, and the incredible beauty of the Western Landscape captured in “Columbia” and “Oh Oregon” as these works emerged, Christina realized that she was completing a body of work that would become the documentary concert “Romancing the West”, spanning over two centuries of history and teaching us it’s lessons, of faith hope and love through documentary and music. Her work producing her documentary television show The Gold Coast also inspired this work.
She recognized the diverse gifts of the incredible group of brilliant featured artists who had brought history to life in the Jacksonville's birthday celebration show and regathered them to join her when she finished writing “Romancing the West”. They were all touring singer/songwriter/educators and recording artists who are also band leaders in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr’s speech “The Drum Major Instinct” who said, “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.” She also was honored to have “Melanie Safka” of Woodstock fame join the tour. Butch and Christina are now in their 14th year of touring with Romancing the West. In teaching children the songs in summer camps, she then began to realize that through “Romancing the West” she could give back by sharing and teaching children these lessons of history and a plan for a frontier camp and cultural center emerged when she founded the non-profit Oh Oregon Frontier Park and Cultural Center starting at a park and later moving it their home at Cougar Mountain Ranch where they also have their Carriage Barn Theater and are building small cabins for travelers and locals who come to see the show.
"America has been a land of great beauty and triumph and a beacon of freedom to the world but yet we have had our own failings as some American’s enslaved their fellow man, banished the Native people to reservations, interned Japanese American’s in World War ll, denied their sisters and brothers the right to vote, while many fought to abolish slavery, for women's suffrage and for Civil Rights and we are overcoming together and can heal those wounds and showcase to the world forgiveness, faith, hope and love, through music art and education, having overcome powerfully as one people under God. “In the stillness we breathe the air that they breathed, we stand on this dust that moved under their feet, on this mountain of dreams where we follow their lead will we be remembered? Will we leave a legacy?” Christina
