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Morningstar rises again
For 35 years Raymonds have shared sweet music, family
Courtesy of Roger Raymond
Roger Raymond with his daughter Jenn following a performance.
Courtesy of Roger Raymond
The Morningstar Band, from left, Darrell Nutt, Rich Rahlf, Roger Raymond, Karen Raymond, Jenn Warren and Ray Nesbit.
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When Roger and Karen Raymond began dating more than 35 years ago they hit a sweet note that propelled them into a musical career and family.
Karen and Roger, both Ball State University graduates, started performing together as an off-shoot of Karen’s collegiate group, the Ball State University Singers, which traveled all over the country. Momentous performances included President Richard Nixon’s second inauguration and a performance before then California Gov. Ronald Reagan.
Roger reminisces, saying, “One summer a trumpet job opened up, so I figured I might as well get the trumpet out of the closet and try for the gig. I got the job and enjoyed the summer. I also got the girl.”
In 1975 the Raymonds, both teachers and living in their first home in Mooresville, Indiana, began thinking of forming their own group. By 1977 they had enticed members of the Ball State University Singers to come on board.
In Roger’s usual laid-back drawl, he tells how the band’s name came to be.
“Karen and I had some friends in a band called Park Avenue,” he said, “We looked outside our home at the street signs and saw Sunbury and Morningstar. We didn’t care for Sunbury, but thought Morningstar was nice.”
The original members of the band are all from Ball State.
“We keep in touch with some of them,” Roger explained. “One of the members, David Stroop, turned up as the contemporary music director at Karen’s father’s church in Indiana.”
In the 30-plus years of Morningstar, over 40 people have performed in at least one show.
The core of Morningstar is still intact.
“Our core group for the past 20 years is still available,” Roger said. “It includes Karen and myself, popular local entertainer Ray Nesbit on trumpet, Rich ‘Cat Doc Ferguson’ Rahlf on guitar, bass player Chris Melville of Bimini’s fame and daughter Jenn (Raymond) Warren.”
The Morningstar Show Band’s first performance was in October of 1977 at the Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana. They have performed in more than 30 states and three countries.
“We first went on the road in 1981, playing our first gig in a four-star hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Roger recalled. “It was the first Christmas away from home for most of us and had a very strange feeling about it.”
From the early start in Baton Rouge, Morningstar went on to perform in many cities, including Indianapolis, Chicago, Ft. Lauderdale, Louisville, Philadelphia and, of course, Marco Island.
They performed as many as 320 dates in a year and 63 nights in a row with very large crowds.
“We played two political rallies for the first George Bush, each time playing with The Oak Ridge Boys. These performances had crowds of up to 20,000 and were very tightly secured,” Raymond said. “We also went to places we had never heard of and sometimes ended up in the middle of nowhere.” One booking was Aruba.
Morningstar has recorded more than 200 songs and six albums. One of the songs, We Had Love, written by Roger and Mike Sumen, was written for the families in the band’s home area after it suffered severe spring tornado damage in the late 1980s. After a friend lost their teen daughter to suicide, Karen wrote, Where Does Time Go, in her honor.
The Raymonds’ daughter, Jenn, has been a member of the band since the age of seven.
“She was quite a hit every place we went,” Roger said, “but we got into some trouble a couple times for having such a young performer on stage.”
Since then Jenn has gone on to great success, recording two original albums, one with German rock star Matthias Reim. A Lely graduate, it is Jenn’s recording of the National Anthem that is played before each Lely basketball game.
She is now a full-time singer at Walt Disney World in Orlando and has performed with Jimmy Osmond, soloed for the Boston Red Sox, and was an invited guest at N’Sync’s double platinum party at The Forum in Los Angeles. She occasionally performs as Frankenstein’s Bride in the Beetlejuice Show at Universal Studios and was the host of The Shamu Christmas Show at Sea World.
The Raymonds coming to Marco Island started out as a three to six-week gig at the Marriott Hotel.
“They liked the way we performed and the way we didn’t trash our rooms or run up the hotel bill when we appeared,” Raymond said.
The Marriott signed the band to full-season contracts, playing December through April, from 1986 to 1984.
The Raymonds went from Marriott stays to buying a condo, then a home and then their present home on Maple Avenue.
“Where most bands have to show up to play in trucks or vans with their equipment, we basically just walked across the street for eight years,” Raymond said.
The Raymonds continued playing for New Year’s Eve at the Marriott until 2006, when they took the year off as both are extremely busy with the Marco Island Charter Middle School. Roger is the athletic director and coaches cross country, basketball and track. Karen is the school’s choral music director.
“The last time off was in 1979 when Karen was pregnant with Jenn,” Raymond said. “We were approached by the Marriott to play after the one year absence and so here we go again.”
The Morningstar Show Band will play at the Marriott on New Year’s Eve from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
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