It only took 35 years for the San Diego folk combo Folding Mr. Lincoln to record its first CD.
Mind you, founders Harry and Nancy Mestyanek weren't just spinning their wheels during those decades. They dated, got married, raised two daughters, started a business and moved from Orange County to San Diego.
So perhaps they can be forgiven if recording a CD wasn't top of the priority list.
"When the kids moved out of the house, we had some more time on our hands," Harry Mestyanek said last week of the genesis of their CD, "Within My Reach."
"At about that time, Nancy's mom was getting real ill. She passed away in February of 2006, and it was literally then that Nancy and I were looking at each other and saying, 'Let's do this music thing together again.' That right then and there was the beginning of this Folding Mr. Lincoln thing."
As Nancy put it, music is their midlife creative outlet as well as their social life.
"This is our tennis or golf. We've always loved doing this, and all of a sudden to get the opportunity to do it together with other wonderful musicians and get these songs out there -- we've gotten such nice support from it," she said.
Folding Mr. Lincoln, which plays Friday at Wynola Pizza Express just outside Julian, started off as just the two of them playing acoustic open mic nights at coffee houses near their San Diego home in spring 2006.
"We told ourselves we'd try to be a band and get our duo thing together and real tight. And that took about a year, or maybe not quite a year. We just played hard, Nancy started playing drums at that point, hand drums, congas and djembe and an Irish drum. We sort of just woodshedded ourselves and played real tight here at night," Harry said.
At the same time, they also began to write their own songs.
"I wrote songs in my 20s," Harry said, "and, of course, they sucked because I didn't know what I was talking about and didn't have much command over the English language -- but I always thought I'd write songs again.
"In 2006, one of the things we wanted to do was work on the craft of writing. I started writing, she started writing, and we started performing and practicing those songs," he said.
The writing of new music led, indirectly, to the CD, he said.
"When we had 11 or 12 of them, I purchased some entry-level recording software here at home. I wasn't thinking of a record, but wanted some demos thinking it would help us get in some clubs or festivals.
"A year ago, we hunkered in and recorded here at home and we were thinking maybe we could do a home EP, and it kept growing and evolving."
"I thought I was doing a pretty good job recording the instruments, but when we got to the vocals, I wasn't liking what I heard. I didn't have the right mics or the knowledge or savvy to do it right," he said.
At that point, they hired Jeff Berkley to engineer and produce their CD, and he brought in other musicians to fill out the sound -- which created a challenge for the Mestyaneks.
"Folding Mr. Lincoln went from two to five from November to December," Harry said. "At that point, we'd made the decision that if we're going to go out and play this record, we're going to go out and add some more people."
In addition to Harry, who sings and plays guitar, and Nancy, who sings and plays hand percussion, the band now includes Jeffrey Joe Morin on guitar and backing vocals, David Ybarra on bass, and Alicia Previn (daughter of noted conductor Andre Previn) on fiddle.
The roots of the band, though, go back to a jam session in La Habra in 1973.
"A mutual friend of ours was having a sort of musical get-together. I'd see Nancy maybe four times a year at these things," Harry said. "It took me a few years to get the courage up to ask her out.
"We married in '77. I was just about to get out of college, she was still in college.
"We still played music together then -- we were a sort of acoustic duo, and would do weddings."
Harry said he and Nancy pretty much gave up performing in public once their oldest daughter was born in the late '70s.
"We continued to play after that, we just didn't perform much. It was barbecues with friends, on the couch with the kids," he said.
Now, they're having the most success they've had with their music.
"We're having fun with this five-piece," he said. "Some of our goals for 2009 are to play bigger and better gigs, maybe play some festivals. Keep working on the next record."
Nancy added, "It's definitely been an interesting journey.
"All the green flags are up, so we're just going with the ride," she said.
Folding Mr. Lincoln
When: 6 p.m. Feb. 20
Where: Wynola Pizza Express, 4355 Highway 78, Wynola
Admission: Free
Info: (760) 765-1004 or wynolapizzaexpress.com
