Northern Michigan Songwriters in the Round

Northwest Lower Michigan is home to dozens of talented songwriters as well as plenty of cultural diversity and natural beauty to inspire them. Their words and music reflect directly on our times, our lives and our community. In appreciation of their contribution to our sense of place, we featuring songs and songwriters of the Grand Traverse Region.

 

These songs are being provided courtesy of the Northern Michigan Songwriters in the Round, an affiliation of over 50 local songwriters who perform on a rotating basis every third Friday night at Horizon Books in Traverse City. For the past nine years, Songwriters in the Round has featured over 100 performances of original music in the Rise & Shine Cafe and three concerts at the Milliken Auditorium.

 

This month, Your Place is proud to feature a song by Dennis Palmer. 

He wrote the song Cedar Tree shortly after moving to Leelanau County 22 years ago. It is actually about the Village of Good Harbor which became a thriving community back when wood burning steamships roamed the Great Lakes. Good Harbor proved awkward as a title so he exercised a little poetic license and came up with "Cedar Tree".

If you take County Road 651 north to the Lake you can still see evidence of the Village in the form of pilings in the water and the remains of building foundations in the nearby forest. The site is now part of the Sleeping Bear National Lake Shore.

 

Click on the play button below to listen to Cedar Tree:

Remnents of the former village of Good Harbor can still be seen in the Bay.

Cedar Tree 

By: Dennis Palmer

 

Long before the white man came

The Ottawa had their own name

For a the place now know as Cedar Tree

It was there on the shore the lake

The native tribes would celebrate

Giving thanks for natures gifts and Cedar Tree

But the lure of the hardwood trees

Brought the white man and his creed

It seems their God had other plans for Cedar Tree.

 

(Chorus)

Times change and seasons pass

I guess some things weren't meant to last

Just the cold blue water and Cedar Tree

 

They built a town by the water's edge

And kept the wood burning schooners fed

With the logs and firewood cut from Cedar Tree

The cargo change from wood to ore

The northern mines brought many more

People like ships passing through Cedar Tree

 

Chorus

 

Some stayed on to work the land

Building homes that now still stand

In the wood and fields around Cedar Tree

 

Now its there on the shore of the lake

The tourists go to celebrate

The summer sun on the water near Cedar Tree

And the city people get their thrills

Skiing down the nearby hills

When the snow and cold come to Cedar Tree

 

Chorus

 

 

Dennis is still living in Leelanau County and has released 3 CD's while performing his songs in Café's and Pubs from Escanaba to Port Huron.