Music fans of all ages swarmed the streets of Ann Arbor’s west side on May 6 for the Water Hill Music Fest. The festival, which took place in the neighborhood near Mack School off of Miller Rd., involved a day of music from members of the Ann Arbor community. Bands played on porches, in backyards and in the streets. Residents from all over Ann Arbor flocked to Water Hill to hear many different kinds of music, from bluegrass to jazz to punk to folk. All of the acts had ties to the Ann Arbor community, and many of the musicians live in the Water Hill neighborhood.
Paul Tinkerhess, local activist, founder of Water Hill and owner of the Birkenstock store on Fourth Ave., initially had the idea for the festival ten years ago. It was only last year that Tinkerhess decided to actualize Water Hill. “I sent about ten or 15 emails to the musicians that I knew in this neighborhood—I knew there were quite a few musicians in the neighborhood—to see if they might be open to this crazy idea of all coming out on the same afternoon and playing music on their porches, and people started writing back, and they didn’t say it was a good idea. They said it was a great idea, and they wanted to participate,” he said.
Claire Tinkerhess, Paul’s wife, was coordinating volunteers at the festival on Sunday. “We had brainstormed a lot of ways that we [could] have some kind of musical event in the neighborhood, and somehow this is the one that kept bubbling up … then Paul, last year a couple of [months] before May, just decided to go for it,” she said. Under the direction of Paul and Claire, the Water Hill neighborhood worked together to execute essential aspects of the festival. Neighbors volunteered to mow lawns and pass out maps of the area. Some even allowed the public to use their bathrooms for the day. “[My favorite part is] building the community in our neighborhood, and getting to know people who volunteer to help, and to see people singing,” Claire said.
Water Hill has now proven to be an overwhelming success two years in a row, and the amount of musicians and attendees has grown immensely. However, the Tinkerhesses are not looking to expand the festival outside of Ann Arbor. “We’re not interested in growth,” said Paul. “We’re not interested in growing the festival other than we want next year there to be even more neighbors playing music. That’s what it’s about. We like having visitors coming in from out of the neighborhood, and everybody’s welcome, but we have no interest in promoting this outside of Ann Arbor.”
Paul wants the place the festival occurs to remain equally important as the festival itself. “I think part of the good feeling that we all had last year—and part of what we hope to maintain—is that this is an event happening in a place where the place is very special, where the place is respected. This place is actually the most important part of the earth to many of these musicians: it’s where they live,” he said.
Nick Ayers, a lifelong resident of Ann Arbor and a member of the jazz-funk-soul band The Macpodz, said that Ann Arbor’s dedication to the arts is incredibly unique. “My travels with the Macpodz have taken me all over the country, and I’ve never found a community that is as music-friendly as Ann Arbor … the musicians, the talent, the community within them, it’s really special. It’s what keeps me coming back to this place. I haven’t been able to find that anywhere else,” he said. “It’s what makes this community really special. It’s one of the reasons why we still call Ann Arbor home.”
