WHITEFISH – In front of John Dunnigan’s home sits a Lund aluminum fishing boat waiting for another summer day on Northwest Montana’s pristine waters. But on this overcast winter afternoon, the old dinghy lies in wait.
“That’s a folk singer’s boat,” Dunnigan says from the recliner in his living room. “If I was a hip hop star it’d be a lot bigger and there would be chicks all over it doing their bootylicious dances.”
Despite the medical issues that have sidelined one of the Flathead Valley’s most prolific performers for the first time in 30 years, Dunnigan’s sense of humor has not dimmed.
Dunnigan, 60, is probably best known as the tequila-slugging staple of Whitefish’s music scene who up until this winter played four or even five nights a week and upwards of 250 shows a year. But since January, Dunnigan hasn’t set up his gear at the Great Northern Bar on Thursday nights or tuned his guitar at The Boat Club on Saturday evenings. Instead, Dunnigan has been at home reading, relaxing and recovering from a battle with pancreatitis, an inflammation of the organ that results in crippling stomach pain. On March 20, Dunnigan had surgery to remove 30 percent of his pancreas and at this time it is unclear how long he will be away from the stage, but Dunnigan promises that this is not his curtain call.
“I’ve never had this much time off,” Dunnigan says, sitting next to a pile of books about baseball, music and fishing. “But I wish I was out in that boat or doing a gig somewhere.”
Dunnigan has been playing gigs in the Flathead for more than 30 years, after his first band, the Feather River Music Company from California, toured here in the 1970s. Like so many others who have come to Northwest Montana, Dunnigan fell in love with the landscape and lifestyle, and quickly threw down roots.
By day he worked odd jobs or waited tables at the Buffalo Café, then located in Bigfork, and by night he would play music in bars across the valley. In the early 1980s, he started playing solo after meeting another musician at the Blue Moon Nite Club who was making $100 a night playing by himself, big money in those days for a starving artist. It was at one of those solo bar gigs that he met his future wife, Andrea. She was working as a waitress at the Outlaw Inn and was also an aspiring musician. Upon hearing of her love of music, friends told her that she should see Dunnigan play, and so after work one night she headed to Sam’s Bar in Bigfork.
“The moment I looked at him I fell in love,” she said.
Dunnigan approached his future wife after a group of “loud and obnoxious guys” sat down next to her. The two hit it off immediately and started dating soon after. In the summer of 1982, Dunnigan proposed to Andrea in her little flamingo-pink cottage in Woods Bay, where the couple would often hang out and fish off the back porch. For a few years they managed a small resort on Flathead Lake before moving to Whitefish because Dunnigan was booking more shows there and the 45-minute drive night-after-night was growing tiresome. The couple also had two sons, Andy and Jimmy.
By the 1990s, Dunnigan was finding musical success beyond the Flathead Valley and spent weeks at a time on the road playing state fairs across the west.
Alan Bruess, a longtime friend and fair performer in Washington, said that many people in the valley might not realize how big of a following Dunnigan has built over the years, especially in the Pacific Northwest. But that popularity came with a price, as Dunnigan had to spend more and more time on the road away from his family.
“I remember holding Jimmy in my arms and having Andy tugging at my leg as we’d stand at the door to say goodbye to John,” Andrea said. “We wouldn’t be together for weeks at a time and that was really tough on everyone.”
But Dunnigan will always be known best for his work at home in the valley. Dunnigan has regularly played four or five nights a week for years and even at 60 he still has no problem getting a crowd to their feet. Dunnigan has released a number of albums with original work, and he often plays those when he’s on stage, but he also said it’s important to play to a crowd’s desires. Dunnigan will play anything from Jimmy Buffett to “ZZ Top songs in Chinese.”
David Walburn, a Whitefish musician who has known Dunnigan for more than 20 years, said a lot of it has to do with his showmanship and personality.
“He’s a great singer, musician and songwriter, but mostly he has an infectious personality. He makes you feel like you’re part of the family and that’s no act, he cares about people,” Walburn said. “I still go out to see John even though I’ve heard all of his songs. You just go out to see John.”
On Jan. 25, Dunnigan was playing at Casey’s Bar as part of the Whitefish Skijoring awards ceremony. After the show, he went home at about 11 p.m., ate the rest of the steak dinner he had gotten at Casey’s, read for a little bit and then went to bed.
Shortly before 4 a.m., Dunnigan woke up with a sharp pain in his stomach. His first thought was that he had come down with food poisoning so he went to the bathroom before trying to go back to bed.
“When I tried to go back to sleep, the pain became unbearable,” he said. “I realized at that point that it was not going to be a good day.”
Dunnigan’s pancreas, which plays a roll in the digestion of food and drink, had become inflamed. Pancreatitis impacts about 80,000 people every year in the United States and can be caused by a variety of aliments, including gallstones, poor diet, heavy drinking or high levels of calcium in the blood. Dunnigan was rushed to North Valley Hospital where the pain got so bad he became short of breath and nurses worried he would hyperventilate. He was moved to Kalispell Regional Medical Center soon after and would spend the next week in Room 152.
Dunnigan was on a healthy dose of morphine and said the first few days in the hospital are still a blur.
“A friend told me morphine doesn’t make the pain go away, it makes you go away,” he said. “I’m going to write a song about that one of these days.”
Over the coming days, doctors discovered that 30 percent of Dunnigan’s pancreas had died and the musician lost 20 pounds. Because the pancreas needed to heal, Dunnigan’s diet was severely restricted: “I was eating some high quality Jello,” he sarcastically said later. Now Dunnigan, who prior to getting pancreatitis was a self-described carnivore, is eating less meat and has eliminated alcohol from his diet.
“Will I miss tequila? No. Will I miss fried chicken? Oh God, yes,” he said. “People have asked me how will I do my show without having a shot or two of tequila, but all I have to do is think about that pain from that night.”
When Dunnigan was in the hospital, a fellow musician and longtime friend Scott Moore set up a website to help raise funds to cover hospital bills. The response was almost immediate. Moore was not surprised considering how much Dunnigan has given to the community over the years. It’s hard to attend a fundraiser or charity event in the Flathead Valley and not find Dunnigan giving his time and talent to a good cause.
But when Dunnigan heard that his friends had risen more than $1,500 in one day, he started talking about ways to give it to other worthy causes.
“He’s the first person to give someone a hand but he’s the last to ask for one,” Moore said.
Dunnigan said the outpouring of support he and his family have received has been overwhelming. He also said that the fridge has been full of food that friends and family have been bringing over for weeks.
Since coming home in early February, Dunnigan has been mostly reading, watching spring training baseball and playing music. However, the time home hasn’t been totally relaxing. Because of the nature of pancreatitis, the pain can suddenly return, and Dunnigan had to revisit the hospital for a few days about a week after first being released. Since then, Dunnigan has had good days and bad ones.
“It’s to the point where we sleep with our jackets on and the keys on the nightstand,” his wife said. “John’s life has changed drastically.”
On March 19, doctors found that a cyst on Dunnigan’s pancreas had grown. The cyst and 30 percent of Dunnigan’s pancreas were removed the following day during an emergency surgery. The operation was a success and doctors said that the aging rocker is already on his way to a full recovery.
Despite the setback, Dunnigan promises that he’ll be back on stage in the coming months, although he admits he probably won’t be playing four or five nights a week like he was in the past. He said he wants to spend more time with his wife, his kids and his fishing boat.
“You think you’re in control of everything, but you’re really not,” he said. “Something can happen in a split second that will change your life forever.”
Until Dunnigan does set up his gear and tune his guitar at the Northern or the Boat Club, he’ll be at home recovering and dreaming of summer days on the lake. He’s also thinking about writing a few songs about the last few months, although it still might be awhile before he performs them.
“When you’re in a hurricane you don’t start writing a song about it until the winds die down,” he said. “I’m still in the storm.”
For more information about Dunnigan, his recovery and how you can help, visit www.HelpJohnDunnigan.org.