Coffeehouse queen

Anchorage singer/songwriter Marian Call had a busy day last Thursday: a snowy road trip to Talkeenta to autograph and deliver a stack of 200 CDs to Whole Wheat Radio before zipping back for her presentation on the "Art and Science of Songwriting" at the IgniteAnchorage event in the evening.

Call is an accomplished social media presence and the CD expedition sprang from a promotion for a recent WWR show in Talkeetna. She decided to offer a special edition of live recordings to supporters in the hours surrounding the online concert thinking she'd sell 20. Demand was ten times higher than Call expected, though, and instead she was confronted with a mini album release.

Days later a free lunchtime concert at a UAA reached the opposite extreme.

"It was kind of funny to go from the Whole Wheat Radio gig with hundreds of Internet listeners and raising thousands of dollars and then go to UAA the next Monday and have absolutely nobody listening, in an empty room, playing for $50," she said.

Call is working on a new album, "Something Fierce," which she plans to release in the spring, and has several concerts scheduled in Anchorage and Homer.

"You have to really want to be an Alaskan to stay here and be a musician because the touring is very hard and much more expensive," she said. "It would make so much sense for my career to move down to the Lower 48. I don't want to, though. I just like it here."

Contact Stephen Nowers at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Member Comments

Posted By: myalaska @ 01.21.2010 1:50 AM

Great job on the video. Marian is definitely one of Anchorage's jewels (yes, pun intended). Truly, having met her a couple of times and talking about nothing really - she still manages to put off a true and sincere vibe...oh yeah, and her music is fantastic too! :D

Posted By: tomgok @ 01.21.2010 6:38 AM

Really nice job Stephen. And once again Alaska Dispatch connects the worlds. You read the tweets from Marian Call and you begin to wonder about her music, you link to Talkeetna and Whole Wheat radio and listen to her songs and then AkD makes the connection. Gathering the most talented writers and visual artists in AK, AkD is continuing to connect our worlds. Great work.