can get some sleep in the meantime. barry. right? yeah. wow all right. well, thanks for joining us. we'll be back tonight at 11:00. hope you can joins u joe rosato jr.: this is an nbc bay area news special. tonight, we meet up with a san francisco musical family, taking their music higher. maestro curtis: music is who we are, as the curtis family. joe: we'll meet up with a bay area photographer heading to his eighth olympic games. jeff cable: my job is to figure out what is the story that's unfolding in front of me and tell that. betty reid soskin: the music saved me. joe: we'll go inside a new movie revealing an unknown chapter about a bay area icon. betty: but there's a part of my life that i've kept hidden for half a century. joe: and we'll visit a wine country natural phenomenon, now up for sale. chris conway: it's time for someone else to take it over. joe: hello, i'm joe rosato jr., and thanks for joining me for this edition of "fog city stories."

well, the bay area has a very special musical legacy and at times it's gotten a little funky. let's meet up with a san francisco family carrying that musical torch. joe: there's a sound in san francisco's bayview district, a musical sound, maybe best described as the sound of a living room. this particular living room in a bayview apartment building is home base for the curtis family, a.k.a. the sea notes. nola curtis: we took all of the furniture out. instruments only. joe: it turned out the instruments gave it more life than most living rooms. kiki curtis: we barely used it before because we used to have to clear everything out to practice. so it's better this way.

joe: at the helm of this homegrown family band, parents, maestro and nola curtis, and their five kids, zahara, nile, isis, kiki, phoenix. maestro: music is not something we do. music is who we are as the curtis family. and this is what we always try to transmit to everyone. joe: the curtis family is transmitting on a different frequency than most families or bands. after a lifetime teaching music and leading musical groups, papa c, as dad's known, discovered his most satisfying musical act right under his own roof when his kids started picking up instruments and learning to play. maestro: at that point, i knew i was pretty much done with running orchestras and bands, i'm done. because they have to do what i tell them to do.

♪ i shall wear a crown. ♪♪ joe: during the pandemic, the curtis family began delivering its living room music to other people's living rooms through a weekly livestream. it's a practice they've kept going every monday night through their social media pages. over the last few years, the sea notes moved beyond their own apartment, performing at warriors games, jazz clubs, and "america's got talent," their music, their look, a nod to cultural heritage. nile curtis: because of the, you know, the hair and the way we dress too. it's, like, very signature. joe: but there was a time not long ago when the curtis family didn't have a living room or even a roof. maestro: we were homeless at one time, as a family. it was pretty tough. sleeping in our van. joe: a friend took them in until they could get back on all 14

feet, and crisis and the music brought them closer. maestro: it gave us a bond and a sense of family i believe the way that family is supposed to operate. joe: family life operates around the living room turned rehearsal studio, which also doubles as a classroom for the home-schooled kids. nola: music has been a great vehicle for learning and teaching life lessons. zahara curtis: it's a dream mostly because, like, the evolution of how this became to be and seeing how all my siblings and i have just grown. phoenix curtis: there's a certain connection that happens when you're playing with family, not just anybody. joe: within the music and voices, there's a special kinship. isis curtis: there's this moment where you feel like you're ascending into, like, a different reality.

maestro: the other thing is that we laugh a lot. we laugh in this home a lot. joe: laughter and music seem the perfect recipe for family, the notes that make up a composition you might call living room music. joe: well, since we're talking music, let's head across the bay bridge and meet up with an east bay performer who found her calling tickling the strings of the harp. destiny muhammad: my dad was in the navy and so we were stationed at port chicago. my mother put the radio on and we'd hear this menagerie of music from the beatles to johnny taylor. joe: there are some who find their calling right out of the gate. destiny: wow, this music is just, ahh. joe: and some who take the scenic route. destiny: it's the long way around.

joe: as a kid, the long way around took destiny muhammad and her family from the bay area to the gritty southern california city of compton, where one day, in the most unlikely of places, she got a glimpse of her future. destiny: so i go to the den and there is the episode of "i love lucy" on television with harpo marx. harper was doing this beautiful rendition of "take me out to the ball game," and i was like, "that's what i wanna do when i grow up." joe: but life had other plans for muhammad. destiny: so we're living in the projects and i'm looking at our life and i'm like, "if--i don't know what's gonna happen to my folks if i leave." so my mother talks me into becoming a barber. so i go to school--i know. joe: in pursuit of the practical, muhammad spent the next 14 years cutting and styling men's hair, eventually opening her own barber shop at the age of 21. destiny: there was this little part of me said, "i said i was gonna do something else, but what was it?"

joe: and then that little thing called fate stepped in to pull some strings and remind her. destiny: i'm still cutting hair, thinking it's gonna be that. and i start dating a man whose best friend is a harp builder. and i get my first harp at the age of 30 in may of 1992. when i got my first harp and i brought it home, the minute i plucked the string in my house, it brought tears to my eyes. joe: the harp and music lessons filled the space between haircuts. she dreamed of a career in music, yet even a friend was skeptical. destiny: she said, "girl, you are old, you are black, and we don't do that." joe: and then muhammad doubled down. she moved to the east bay in 1994 and started playing her harp at farmer's markets for tips. destiny: literally, for about 10 years. joe: as her skills grew, so did the audience and the venues.

destiny: i went from playing at the farmer's market to playing at sf jazz, herbst theatre. joe: she's played with symphonies and her own jazz trio. in a nod to her roots, calling herself "the harpist from the hood," viewing each of life's challenges as the notes in the scale. destiny: i'm grateful for everyone because each one has catapulted me to the next evolution of what even you see here. i don't care how old you are, if you are still alive and breathing and some level of mobility, go dig up that dream. joe: like harpo marx, who would transform himself from a comic to a musician when he sat down at the harp, the harp transformed muhammad's life into the one she dreamed of, even if it did take a while. destiny: it's a confirmation that the delay was not a denial.

[singing] joe: well, when we return, we'll meet up with a photographer counting down the days until his eighth olympic games.

joe: while we're just a few months away from the start of the summer games in paris, one bay area photographer will be

making his eighth trip to the olympics. let's head down to the peninsula and see some of his favorite shots. jeff: and the job of a photographer is to capture history. so there's always unique challenges. joe: he's never made it to the podium. jeff: this is during opening ceremonies in london. joe: never earned a medal. jeff: good reactions. i love reactions. joe: but when it comes to photographing olympic games-- jeff: simone. joe: --jeff cable always comes home with gold. jeff: so this is a motion pin in london. i've photographed seven olympics, and paris will be number eight for me. this is in rio. joe: the santa clara photographer is a veteran of the olympic games. jeff: this is my first gold medal game i ever shot. this is in london. someone described it as like shooting the super bowl every day for 3 weeks. we worked, like, 9 in the morning until 3 in the morning, like, almost every day. joe: for all the pressure and intense deadlines, you'll never hear cable complain.

jeff: but every time i'm there, like, i treat it like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. and this is jesse smith, one of the water polo players. joe: he's a keeper of once-in-a-lifetime moments. jeff: probably the first highlight was photographing michael phelps in the pool in beijing. joe: he was there as simone biles won gold. jeff: that smile says we just won gold and she knew it. my job is to figure out what is the story that's unfolding in front of me and tell that. and this is ashley johnson. she's one of--probably arguably the best female goaltender to ever play water polo. joe: cable's bread and butter is working for the us water polo team. everything else is pure gravy. jeff: the challenge at the olympics for me is, how do i shoot something differently and more creative than everybody else who's sitting here with me? but you can see the skates, so you know what sport it is. a lot of the athletes have the tattoo of the olympic rings. so it was kind of cool that they matched up. so that was me in london, the summer olympics. we have to wear the vest and the vest has our photographer's number on the back because you wear them every day in the summer. they could walk away on their own.

so these are all my credentials from every olympics. joe: it's funny to think cable's background wasn't in sports or even photography. jeff: i was in technology for many years. i was an executive at many companies here in the bay area. about seven years ago, i decided, "this is what i want to do." i teach wildlife photography in the rain forest of costa rica or in africa. joe: though his canon cameras have already been to seven olympics, he's excited to haul them to paris. jeff: opening ceremonies for the first time not being in a stadium and to be coming down the same river for opening ceremonies is gonna be incredible. joe: for those following along at home, cable plans to resume his popular olympic blog. jeff: i live behind the scenes, so i like to write my blog about what it's like to be a photographer at the olympics. that's in sochi, russia. everybody is looking at the puck. joe: cable sees himself less as a photographer, more as a historian. jeff: serena williams. joe: a collector of stories and moments from the world's greatest sporting event.

jeff: and to be at one is amazing. to be at eight is incredible. joe: well, when we return, you know her as a legendary national park ranger, but did you know she could also sing like a bird?

joe: you probably know the story of betty reid soskin, the bay area woman who became a national park ranger at the age of 85. well, turns out music was also a big part of her life. we head to the east bay to hear about the new film sharing that part of her story. joe: sometimes in life, there comes an opportunity to re-invent ourselves, to start over, and follow a new path into a new adventure. betty: it feels overwhelming. joe: in her lifetime, betty reid soskin has followed many of those paths. betty: i'll put my experience into context. joe: soskin famously became a national park ranger at the age of 85. she worked as a docent at the rosie the riveter national historic park in richmond.

but it turns out that was only the latest act in her theater of life. bryan gibel: i heard about betty the way a lot of people did, through some of the media coverage about her work as a park ranger. joe: when filmmaker bryan gibel met up with soskin nearly a decade ago, he was curious about the rest of her story. bryan: and i heard her speaking and was amazed by the poetry that was coming out of her mouth and the important stories that were coming out of her mouth. joe: but what gibel or few others knew about soskin was that her early life was filled with music. she invited him over to hear the songs she'd written and sang in the '50s and '60s. bryan: and when she put on the first song, i was completely stunned. ♪ little boy black. ♪ ♪ little boy black. ♪♪ bryan: so betty had kept her music in a plastic bin in the back of one of her closets on old reel-to-reel format tapes for probably 50 years. and i was able to get a reel-to-reel player and fix it up. i brought it over here and filmed with betty when she

listened to those songs for the first time in decades. ♪ watch the storm race through. ♪♪ bryan: and so i knew immediately i wanted to make a feature-length documentary about her music and the stories behind it. betty: many of you know me as a park ranger. but there's a part of my life that i've kept hidden for half a century. joe: gibel began creating a film about soskin's life called, "sign my name to freedom," the title of soskin's memoir. bryan: she eventually did sing again, backed up by a full symphony orchestra and a choir of 200 people. joe: the film delves into soskin's back story, how she and her husband opened reid's records in berkeley, which became the country's longest-running black music store. betty: we were the first family of color in walnut creek. joe: it details the family's move to walnut creek in the '50s, where it was met with extreme racism and even death threats. in that dark period, soskin had a breakdown.

she turned to her old martin guitar and wrote herself through the pain. bryan: she says in the documentary that her music saved her. betty: but the music saved me. it really did. di'ara reid: music was really therapeutic for her after her nervous breakdown. bryan: betty's probably, like, 25 there. joe: soskin's daughter, di'ara reid, is working with gibel to tell the story of her mother who is now 102 and mostly homebound. di'ara: it's an important film to make because it's another way of getting to know my mother because she's been so famous as far as being a park ranger and right after that got married. joe: gibel is seeking donations for a crowdfunding campaign aimed at raising $150,000 to edit the project. what he can't raise more of is time. bryan: we want to complete this film while betty's still around to be able to see it. it's one of her dreams. di'ara: she feels like she's accomplished what she needed to accomplish while she was here with us. but there's one last thing that she wants done.

joe: the film, like soskin's life, is a collection of chapters. it's the story of a woman who, through the ups and downs of life, always seemed to land on a high note. di'ara: betty is a living example that we can have a second or a third act and that it can be a meaningful one. ♪ ways weave madness. ♪ ♪ blackness-- ♪♪ joe: well, when we come back, we'll visit a wine country destination that's a freak of nature and time.

joe: the bay area is filled with natural wonders and one of them has been drawing visitors for more than 150 years. and guess what? you could actually own it. let's head to calistoga's famous petrified forest. joe: just up the hill from calistoga, in the middle of wine country, sits a rare vintage of land. it's a unique place where the forces of nature have thrown some strange twists. chris: so volcanic ash that covered the petrified tree. joe: it's where more than 3 million years ago volcanic activity in the vicinity of nearby mount saint helena covered these redwood trees with ash, choking their cells and turning them into stone. chris: it was first discovered by charles evans, also known as petrified charlie, in 1870. joe: this petrified forest has long been a curiosity, a tourist destination drawing visitors for 153 years.

chris: robert lewis stevenson came here in 1880. joe: but chris conway always knew it simply as home. chris: we came up here in about 1958 and my mother managed the petrified forest here for, like, 26 years. that was my great-aunt, great-aunt ollie bouquet. joe: conway is a descendant of bouquet who, along with her husband, bought the petrified forest in 1914. chris: she had a buggy whip and if people got out of hand, visitors, she would use it. joe: the land has remained in conway's family for 109 years. chris: these are petrified logs. joe: from the queen tree to the giant. chris: by the time i was 9 years old, i started giving tours. so they dug, pick and shovel, into the volcanic ash. so we'll go up to the coffee shop, huh? my sister and i would have a lot of fun here. we would start the stools spinning. i think it needs a little wd-40.

you could see my mom's house from here and over the years we've been, i think, very good stewards of this property and preserving it. joe: but there comes a time when the time comes for change. with six owners, conway and his family have decided to put the forest and its adjoining lands up for sale. chris: it's time for someone else to take it over and continue in. joe: to commemorate the discovery, veteran real estate agent eric drew is helping the family sell the property, which, in addition to the 146-acre tourist attraction, includes land for building and potential vineyards totaling more than 500 acres, listed for $12 million. eric drew: it's not just a tourist attraction. it's a--it's something--it's a property that reflects most of the history of california. joe: it's a place to witness the play of nature and science evidenced by the hillside of ash.

dolores moorhead: i just think it's amazing. one, you get to be out here in nature and you get to see what nature has done and how beautiful that is. chris: there used to be a turnstile here. joe: for conway, within this forest is a deeper story of family and legacy. chris: such an integral part of our growing up and our identity. joe: but no matter who becomes the next steward of this land, this family tree will forever remain etched in stone. chris: the people here running the place are often more interesting than our attraction. there's a lot of history here. joe: well, thanks for joining me for this edition of "fog city stories." i'm joe rosato jr., urging you to climb a hill and see the world. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪

right now on access hollywood-- richard gadd stars in the hit stalker drama based on his true life. but are some fans too obsessed with baby reindeer as they search for his real stalker? plus, we've got zendaya talking all about her onscreen love triangle in challengers. - mhm. that's right. and gosling's gone swiftie. but it took ryan's swift response to rescue fall guy co-star emily blunt during an on-set emergency. yeah. plus, a future blake shelton and beyonce collab? but who would blake have to ask for permission? zuri: did jerry seinfeld and hugh grant clash on the set of their new movie? scott: but a happy one-year birthday, matilda. so what did kaley cuoco do to earn the title mom of the year? from universal studios hollywood, access hollywood starts-- right now. [theme music]