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View ProfilesPublished July 24, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.
The first minute of the Butterfields' new music video, "Alberta Bound," gives the viewer an intimate snapshot of the husband-and-wife folk duo's life at home. The sounds of distant cars and birdsong can be heard over a shot of verdant green grass, just before the camera moves inside the couple's house.
A shot lingers on a guitar case with an old, faded sticker that reads "Surinam Airways," a nod to the Butterfields' history of traveling the world, something the couple started doing even before both became pilots. We see a carved wooden figure and pottery collected while the couple lived in the Dominican Republic and Suriname.
The video then shows a VHS tape loaded into the player, displaying grainy footage of a young Marge and John Butterfield performing live, before director Cynthia Braren cleverly cuts back to the present with a gorgeously framed shot of the couple, now in their seventies, in their Williston living room. They face one another, John on acoustic guitar and singing lead vocals and Marge playing bass and harmonizing, just as they have done ever since they married almost 52 years ago and John gifted Marge a guitar as a wedding present.
Decades later, the two are continuing their musical journey as they gear up for a new phase of their career. They have fresh songs that will eventually form a debut LP; their first-ever music video debuted last week at the Williston Film Festival at the Isham Barn Theatre. And even more important to John and Marge, they have a continuing sense of adventure that started when they first met and promptly got out of Dodge.
"We always knew that we wanted to live overseas after we got married," John said. "We ended up in the Dominican Republic with not a lot other than our guitars and our records, so we just listened and played music the whole time."
"It's where I learned to play guitar!" Marge added, beaming as she recalled those early days. She would switch instruments after she saw a Hagstrom bass guitar hanging in a living room in Suriname and purchased it on the spot.
The Butterfields moved back to Vermont in 1978, settling in Brandon, which enjoyed a thriving folk and bluegrass scene in the early '80s. They immersed themselves, playing with groups such as the Old Time Fiddlers, which Marge described as "an amazing learning experience."
About a decade later, John became a pilot, followed in 1990 by Marge, who would go on to become the first female pilot to land in Budapest after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. They found their twin passions of music and flying to be highly compatible, with each endeavor inspiring the other. Today the couple fly a four-seater single-engine plane and lead the Experimental Aircraft Association chapter of the Franklin County State Airport. They even joined an organization called the Flying Musicians Association, which is exactly what it sounds like.
"They host all these events around the country, like AirVenture in Wisconsin," John said. "It's great, though they don't do much up this way. But when you're a pilot, that's not such a big deal."
Throughout all their years of playing music, the Butterfields never stopped learning and trying to improve. John took lessons from area guitarist Paul Asbell, and both he and Marge signed up for vocal training with Braren, who also performs music locally as Thea Wren. They asked Braren about the possibility of making a music video for them, sending her a few different tracks they had recorded.
"They sent me 'Alberta Bound,' and knowing that they both were pilots, the whole concept for the video just came to me," Braren said of the classic Gordon Lightfoot song. "I called them up and said, 'We're flying to Alberta in your guys' plane!'"
So, together with Braren and her son Noah Ranallo, a flight instructor at Beta Technologies in South Burlington, and director of photographer Macaulay Lerman, the Butterfields took off on a gorgeous early evening from Franklin County State Airport.
"We planned out what the two planes would do ahead of time. And we had the easy part," John said. "We just had to maintain our heading while the other plane did all the flyovers and close-ups."
The resulting footage is truly lovely, as much an advertisement for Vermont's natural beauty as it is for the clear harmonies of the Butterfields. It's not all views from above either. We get shots of the duo performing from the front porch of Blue Paddle Bistro in South Hero and driving country roads in a cherry-red Chevy Corvair they borrowed from a friend.
"We thought about using our Toyota Camry, but..." John said with a laugh. "Well, it just didn't quite have the same feel as the Corvair."
"Alberta Bound" is the first foray into what the band hopes will be a new wave of output. Fifty-plus years into their musical journey, the Butterfields are excited to keep pushing forward. They hope to play at more FMA events and folk festivals and are hitting a slew of local farmers markets this summer, as well as Blue Paddle Bistro for a show on August 15.
"I think the secret to playing music for as long as we have is to be constantly evolving," Marge said. "So that's what we try to do."
Check out the video for "Alberta Bound," streaming now on YouTube.
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