From Timberline to the Tides: Jon Tullis’ River of Songs

Jon Tullis in the studio.

Music has always been part of life on this mountain – written, played, and shared across generations. Indigenous peoples told stories in song; pioneers carried fiddles and guitars along the Oregon Trail. As communities grew, dance halls, churches, and lodges rang with music – proof that Mount Hood has always had a soundtrack.

This is the first piece in a series exploring our local music – its history, what’s happening now, and the people who shaped it. We begin with a familiar name: Jon Tullis, whose decades of bringing music to Timberline Lodge, and beyond, helped define the sound of the mountain; his own performances have been immortalized on YouTube. Today, he lives in Astoria and hosts a weekly radio show, sharing the songs that have meant so much to him.

On Friday mornings, when Tullis arrives at KMUN’s Tillicum House studios, he usually pauses at the picture window to watch ships slip past on the Columbia. “On a clear morning, I’m reminded of what it means to live at the mouth of this great river,” he says. “I want the songs I play on the radio to mingle with the tides, the gulls, and the salt air. That’s the idea.”

That idea drives River of Songs, the two-hour folk music program he now hosts on KMUN, Coast Community Radio. For Tullis, it’s about weaving music into place – the weather, the waves, the timber, the towns. Though the venue has shifted from mountaintop amphitheaters to a coastal booth, his passion hasn’t waned.

Tullis is best known for the music legacy he built on Mount Hood during nearly four decades at Timberline Lodge. His Timberline Acoustic Music Series began in 1997 as a way to fill quiet midweek nights with song. Word spread quickly, and soon Timberline was hosting bluesman Curtis Salgado, songwriter Craig Carothers, and folk greats including Bill Staines, David Mallett, and Steve Forbert. Oregon Public Broadcasting even filmed a pledge special at the lodge.

The success of the series spilled outdoors in 2012, when Tullis helped launch the Timberline Mountain Music Festival in the lodge’s historic amphitheater. Timed with Timberline’s 75th anniversary and the centennial of Woody Guthrie’s Columbia River songs, the festival became an annual highlight. Tullis still laughs remembering the 2013 event, when fog rolled in as bluegrass legend Peter Rowan took the stage. “A lesser performer might have balked,” Tullis says. “But Rowan blew into a conch shell like a foghorn, and the band leaned into it. Magic was in the air.”

For all the years Jon Tullis spent booking other artists, he was also making music of his own. “You know, I’m a lover of songs,” he says. “I’m no guitar wizard, but I get by. I like to play Americana, country blues, folk – and I love a good cowboy song.”

He picked up the guitar and harmonica in college, and by the early 1990s he was writing songs on the mountain. With encouragement from local musician Tom Teven, he recorded a handful of early tunes on cassette. “I was cutting my teeth on songwriting and Tom was encouraging. It meant a lot to me.”

A neighbor, Jim Huntington, urged him to keep going. “I wrote a song I called Living on the Mountain, and Jim said, ‘Go home and write a few more like that and we’ll make a CD!’ I did, and we did. I called it The Mountain and sold it in the Timberline gift shop. That was fun.”

Tullis still plays with friends and occasionally performs at listening rooms or farmers’ markets near his home on the North Coast. “I continue to play music with my friends, and every once in a while I’ll take a turn on stage. Music has always been a way to connect – with place, with people, and with memories.”

Radio, though, was always in the background of Tullis’s life. Raised back east with a transistor radio under his pillow, he discovered folk music through DJs Gene Shay and Dick Pleasants. “Those guys showed me the importance of curating playlists, providing context – but ultimately letting the songs shine,” he says. That philosophy guides him now.

“For the most part, the songs I play are filled with imagery of fishing boats, tall cedars, big rivers, waterfront towns, and the wind on the water,” Tullis says. Each program opens with Greg Brown’s rendition of Pete Seeger’s Sailing Down My Golden River, then rolls through two hours of folk, Americana, and roots. His playlists often feature artists he once booked at Timberline – Peter Rowan, Eliza Gilkyson, Jonathan Edwards, Tom Russell, and many more.

Though relatively new to the DJ role, Tullis credits longtime KMUN programmer Albert Smith with helping him find his footing. “He generously took me under his wing and eventually shared the Friday morning timeslot with me,” Tullis says. Now the show is fully his, and he’s energized by the response: “I’m finding my way and connecting with listeners. I love it.”

Jon Tullis has found a way to keep the music flowing. For him, it’s all about connection – to place, to memory, to community. “River of Songs is on the air and making waves each Friday,” he says with a smile. “If folks on the mountain want to go online and listen in, they can. Welcome aboard.”

He pauses, then adds the simple truth that has guided him from Timberline amphitheaters to coastal radio booths: “The beat goes on.”