Paul Bass Photo
The massacre of black parishioners in Charleston, S.C., led Steve Mednick to make a political statement — not a speech, but a “musical op-ed.”
Mednick (at right in above photo) has made many political speeches in his career. And courtroom speeches. He was a Democratic New Haven alder (then called “alderman”), campaign strategist, city corporation counsel, and in his continuing day job, an attorney specializing in municipal law.
Chris DePino (at left) made his share of speeches, too, as a Republican New Haven alder and state representative, then state GOP chairman.
That’s how New Haven and Connecticut knew them for decades. Now, in their 60s, each has pursued a side career: recording music and performing onstage.
On Thursday they stopped by the WNHH-FM studios to talk about that, and jam.
DePino (whose day job now is as a lobbyist) talked about studying the Chromatic harmonica as a train engineer, then putting it aside in the early aughts during his GOP chairmanship — except to raise money. His harmonica once helped him haul $100,000 for the party by luring then-Gov. John Rowland onstage at Toad’s. The two (dressed in Yale shirts and Blues Brothers-style shades) performed “Mustang Sally.” People paid $1,000 a pop to attend a backroom meet-and-greet, then others ponied up money to buy the recording.
DePino picked the Chromatic back up for real after 2004, and reached new heights, recording and touring with New Haven-based, Czech-born jazz trumpeter Laco Deczi,. They’ve recorded CDs and toured the Czech Republic 14 times, playing for President Vaclav Klaus.
Mednick, meanwhile, had also put away the guitar of his youth during the height of his political career. Then he picked it back up, and sat back down at the piano as well. And songs kept pouring out. They continue to. He has recorded 12 CDs, and counting.
Many of the songs have a political twist. The CDs get lots of airplay in — you guessed it — Norway. (On a side musical note, Mednick was the attorney who helped New Haven’s Harp administration figure out a way to get the old Palace Theatre reopened as the College Street Music Hall; read about that here.)
“Some people go to the golf course,” Mednick remarked. “I go to the recording studio.”
Mednick also plays Connecticut dives, and some larger stages, with his band Hard Road. The band shared a bill with ZZ Top in a Chattanooga festival.
In between spinning stories Thursday in the WNHH studio at 51 Elm St., the pair performed “Why? Tell Me Why,” a new Mednick composition about the Charleston massacre as well as the plight of “Wounded Warriors.”
I’m so disgusted and mistrustful
I feel I’ve been let down …
Tell my why we must explain
The church bell rings for the latest horror …
Sometimes there’s only one side to a story …
For that moment, a Democrat and a Republican harmonized, in D minor.
“The whole world,” DePino remarked, “should be a bipartisan moment.”
Click on the video at the top of this story to watch the performance, the inaugural “Elm 51 Session.”
And click on the above sound file to listen to entire program, as two passionate men chart a continued quest to live their dreams.