If, like me, you happen to be musician and music fan who grew up in Carter County, Kentucky, you definitely know who Tom T. Hall is. A native of Olive Hill, KY, Hall is a legendary songwriter and a fine artist sometimes known as "The Storyteller." Here's an excerpt from his bio:
Tom T. Hall is one of the original master craftsmen of country music, a distinct voice who elevated the art form by staying true to himself and fostering a sincere respect for his listeners.
Like the most expertly crafted short stories, Hall’s songs are detailed vignettes, vivid and familiar thanks to his unwavering devotion to the sharply drawn characters who populate them. The Kentucky native’s approach earned him the nickname “The Storyteller.” As a recording artist, Hall had seven No. 1 singles, all self-penned: “A Week in a Country Jail” (1969–70), “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” (1971),“( (1972–73),” “I Love” (1973–74), “Country Is” (1974), “I Care” (1974–75), and “Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)” (1976). The Grammy winner also famously wrote smashes for others, including “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” which Jeannie C. Riley took to No. 1 on country and pop charts in 1968, as well as “The Pool Shark,” a chart-topper for Dave Dudley; “(Margie’s at) the Lincoln Park Inn" and “That’s How I Got to Memphis,” recorded by Bobby Bare; and “Little Bitty,” a mega-hit for Alan Jackson in the late 90s. Hall has earned a total of 31 BMI Awards for songwriting spanning country and pop genres, and six of his songs have accumulated more than one million performances each. In 2008, he was welcomed into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2011, songwriters Eric Brace and Peter Cooper produced their own take on seminal 1974 children’s album Songs of Fox Hollow. The project, I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, featuring top-tier roots artists delivering new versions of the classic songs, was nominated for a Grammy, reflecting the undiminished resonance of Hall’s music.
In addition to Americana, it should also be noted that since Hall's retirement from touring, he has enjoyed mega writing success in the worlds of both traditional and modern bluegrass music and old time country, as well as classic and progressive country. He has collaborated extensively with his wife Miss Dixie, and the Halls were named SPBGMA Songwriter of the Year for 10 consecutive years, garnering them the Master's Gold and Grand Master's Gold award. It is never surprising to see as many as five or six Hall compositions at a time in the bluegrass charts, several of them reaching No. 1, such as “Bill Monroe For Breakfast,” which Hall recorded himself; a new version of “That's How I Got To Memphis” by Charlie Sizemore; “Clinch Mountain Mystery” by The Larry Stephenson Band; “Train Songs” by Ralph Stanley II; “Train Without a Track” by Junior Sisk and Rambler's Choice; and “The Boys In Hats and Ties” by Big Country Bluegrass, just to name a few.
Hall’s personal story is also uniquely tied to BMI: He met Miss Dixie, his wife of 45 years, at the 1965 BMI Country Awards in Nashville.
Recently, I wrote a note to Hall to let him know how much his music has influenced me. He sent a very nice hand-written note in response:
Why was a poet/songwriter,/entertainer/musician/humorist with a last name of “Fromholz” synonymous with the State of Texas? As one Austin reporter put it: “Fromholz was the only one of the ‘Outlaws" that remained in Texas when the great 'Progressive Country Scare’ was over; he’s as well known to Texans as Barton Springs is to Austin – and been here nearly as long!”
Steven John Fromholz was born in Temple, Texas, June 8, 1945, to Lt. Col. and Mrs. A.A. Fromholz. After being discharged from the Army, his father worked for Ford Motor Company and the family was transferred often. When he was 10 years old his parents divorced and Steven and little brother, James, lived and attended school (for extended periods of time) with their widowed maternal grandmother, Hirstine “Granny” Hughes in Kopperl, Bosque County, Texas and their older sister, Angela (who was married and ranching in Bosque County, Texas). Those memories of small town, central Texas were the inspiration for Fromholz’ song The Texas Trilogy, long recognized as the most definitive song ever written about the State of Texas. Entertainer Lyle Lovett recorded the three-part saga on his CD Step Inside This House, a tribute CD to his favorite Texas songwriters. The poetry/writing style Fromholz exhibits in The Texas Trilogy is taught in many classrooms as being authentic, Texas poetry, both in style and cntent. He was often invited to speak to college groups and poetry societies, not only about The Texas Trilogy but other examples of his historically oriented writing, such as Man With the Big Hat and Last Living Outlaw.
Steven’s mother eventually settled with her sons in Denton, Texas, where Steven graduated from high school and attended North Texas State University. Thereafter a stint in the U.S. Navy sent him to the west coast where he began to write poetry, music, play clubs and subsequently launched his music career after finishing his day’s work for Uncle Sam. It’s said that Steven and long-time friend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott cut a wide swath in the west coast music scene in those days!
Steven married, his daughter, Darcie Jane was born and upon being discharged from the Navy Fromholz moved his young family briefly to Arizona. When his marriage ended in divorce Fromholz moved on to Colorado where he teamed up with Dan McCrimmon and the pair performed as “Frummox.” They released one album in 1969 on the ABC Probe Label titled Frummox Here to There – today a valuable vinyl collector’s item. The duo eventually went separate ways and Fromholz accepted Stephen Stills’ invitation to play guitar and sing backup with the group that became “Manassas” on a world tour.
When Rock ‘N Roll wore thin on Fromholz he briefly returned to Colorado, married again and headed home to Texas; settling in Austin where his second daughter, Felicity Rose Fromholz was born. Steven Fromholz literally became a Texas legend during the ensuing Austin years, not only for his songwriting, poetry and performing, but as a community activist. In 1993 he organized a peaceful mooning of the KKK which made headlines all over the world, became a standard for opponents of the Klan and has been repeated over and over in the ensuing years by many activist groups.
Steven and his good friend, the late Molly Ivins, gathered up a group of friends and camped out on the steps of the Texas State Capitol when the powers-that-be threatened to arrest the homeless street people of Austin who were sleeping under bridges. They staged a peaceful “sleep in” complete with little camp fires and their efforts were very effective. No one was arrested and the homeless, thereafter, were able to keep sleeping where ever they could find a place to "crash."
In the 1980’s Fromholz began entertaining on rafting trips in the Big Bend area of Texas, subsequently becoming a river guide, white water expert, First Responder and EMT. He “ran the Grande”(Colorado River/Grand Canyon) in 2000 which is the ultimate accomplishment for whitewater guides and in 2005 Paddler Magazine voted him one of the 10 Best River Guides in America.
In addition to whitewater trips he began hosting trail rides into Mexico; becoming the first “Singing Cowboy”for LaJitas Stables in Terlingua, Texas. A long-time member of the American Legion in Brewster County, Texas (Big Bend), Fromholz was well known as an advocate for Texas Parks & Wildlife and promoted their programs, facilities and projects at every opportunity.
The group featured Jerry Riopelle, who played keyboards on several Phil Spector-producedrecords; Murray MacLeod, an actor who appeared on Hawaii Five-O and Kung Fu; and Allen "Smokey" Roberds, another actor. They wrote a song called "Sunshine Girl" which was picked up by A&M Records, and in 1967 the tune hit #20 on the U.S.Billboard Hot 100popsingleschart.[1] Among the session musicians on this recording were drummerHal Blaine, bassistCarol Kaye, and saxophonistSteve Douglas. Their second single was "She's Got the Magic", for which another actor, Stuart Margolin (later appearing on The Rockford Files) was included, but both this and the third single, "Frog Prince", failed to chart.
The 1968 "Radio Song" bubbled under the Hot 100 at #127, and the
group broke up after two further singles - "She Sleeps Alone" and
"Hallelujah Rocket" - were unsuccessful.[2] Riopelle then signed to Capitol Records as a solo artist, and Macleod and Roberds signed with Epic Records as the duo Ian & Murray.
Roberds also later performed under the name Freddie Allen, and under
this name recorded the tune "We've Only Just Begun", which soon
afterward became a hit for The Carpenters.
In March 2008, Now Sounds/Cherry Red Records released a 23 song best-of compilation album, Sunshine Girl: The Complete Recordings
featuring singles, demos and alternate mixes, as well as a rare Roger
Nichols Trio song "Montage Mirror", for which Murray MacLeod was also
lead singer, along with his sister Melinda.
Bill Nelson is one of my favorite guitar players, and he falls somewhat into the "unsung hero" category, despite the fact that he is both fantastically talented and extremely prolific both as leader of the bands Be-Bop Deluxe and Red Noise and as a solo artist. His guitar lines are very distinctive...they weave in and around melodies in an almost serpentine fashion. And those melodies...so great.
Foreward section by Steven E. McDonald, reprinted with kind permission.
Bill Nelson is both an enigma and a highly public person whose motivations sometimes seem shrouded in complex mysteries, yet whose sometimes prodigious output amounts to public development of song ideas and musical experiments. He has been both a guitar hero and the background figure in any number of art installations, exhibitions and theatrical presentations. While difficult for record company executives to grasp and often obscure to the general public, Nelson has nonetheless built up a strong and loyal fan base around the world.
Nelson was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the semi-industrial town of Wakefield, showing a talent for art and design and a passion for science fiction. His father, saxophonist Walter Nelson, was the leader of a dance band, and his mother, Jean, had once performed as part of a dance troupe, so music permeated the household -- Nelson's brother, Ian, is also a saxophonist, while several close relatives were expert musicians. Even so, Nelson never learned to read music, and was relatively late coming to guitar -- he was well into his teens before his father bought him the Gibson ES345 that eventually became his trademark. His early influences included Duane Eddy, as well as the icon of every budding English guitarist of the early 1960s, Hank B. Marvin of the Shadows ("The Passion," included on The Two-Fold Aspect of Everything, is a veritable chronicle of Marvin's influence). Later influences included Jimi Hendrix, for whom Nelson wrote "Crying to the Sky," a Be Bop Deluxe song.
He went through a relatively normal process of education at Wakefield schools, eventually attending the Wakefield College of Art, where he was able to pursue his painting and graphics interests, as well as his fascination with Jean Cocteau. On the musical side of his life, he was involved with several unrecorded bands. The first known Nelson recordings are of a three-piece band called Global Village, who cut three covers for an EP and dissolved in 1968. Nelson also played on sessions at the Holyground recording studio, various of which have surfaced again in recent years, though Nelson is dismissive of his participation. Around this time he married for the first time, becoming a Pentecostal Christian and joining a church group called the Messengers, who later changed their name to Gentle Revolution. The marriage resulted in the 1970 birth of Julia Nelson.
Nelson's career began in earnest with the recording and release of a solo album, Northern Dream, which was financed by the owner of the Record Bar, a local Wakefield record store. The initial pressing was limited to 250 copies (it has since been reissued several times, much to Nelson's frustration; he has never received royalties from the record), one of which found its way to BBC disc jockey John Peel, whose late-night Radio One shows were a constant influence on British rock music. Peel took an immediate liking to the record, playing cuts from it on a regular basis, with the result that executives from EMI's Harvest label contacted Nelson with the intention of having him record for the label, possibly with a remake of Northern Dream.
Nelson had different ideas by this point, however, and had assembled the first version of Be Bop Deluxe, featuring fellow Gentle Revolution member Richard Brown (keyboards), Ian Parkin (guitar), Rob Bryan (bass) and Nicholas Chatterton-Dew (drums). Brown left before the band went into the studio. A single, "Teenage Archangel"/"Jets at Dawn," was recorded and sold at concerts just before the EMI deal was finalized. Nelson broke the band up after the recording of 1974's Axe Victim, after EMI expressed dissatisfaction with the abilities of the other members. Nelson briefly worked with Paul Jeffreys and Milton Reame-James, formerly of Cockney Rebel, and bringing drummer Simon Fox into the band. Bassist Charles Tumahai was the next addition, with the trio going on to record Futurama. Keyboardist Andy Clark was the final addition to the band, which remained together until the recording of Drastic Plastic in 1978, by which time the mantle of guitar hero was beginning to weight heavy on Nelson, who was intent on expanding his horizons. The band had quickly developed a reputation for quirky songs and musical pyrotechnics, facets demonstrated both in the studio and in a live context -- Live! In the Air Age remains a brilliant document of a great live band. During this period Nelson divorced his first wife, Shirley, and married his second, Jan, for whom he wrote a great deal of music; he also used her as a model for much of his art.
Red Noise was the next phase of Nelson's plan for life, originally intended to begin with Drastic Plastic -- never the same thing twice, in either musicians or styles. Sound on Sound was a fluid, expert document that demonstrated Nelson's ability to experiment, though at the cost of jarring both the audience and the record company -- EMI, looking for moneymakers and easy understanding, dropped Nelson. A second Red Noise album had been finished, but was never released in its original form.
Abandoning the Red Noise experiment, Nelson reworked the album and released Quit Dreaming and Get On the Beam via Mercury Records. In its original format, the album came with a bonus disc -- a full-length album of ambient sketches recorded in his home studio, released as Sounding the Ritual Echo (the album has subsequently been issued by itself). Quit Dreaming and Get On the Beam went into the Top Ten in the U.K. This was repeated with The Love That Whirls (Diary of a Thinking Heart), which also included a bonus album (this time La Belle Et La Bete, a theatre soundtrack recording) and the single "Flaming Desire." This period proved to be the commercial peak of Nelson's career, unfortunately -- Chimera, an EP, failed to generate much interest (it was released with additional cuts in the U.S., under the title of Vistamix) and a subsequent deal with CBS/Epic led only to strained relations and a confused release; the U.K. Getting the Holy Ghost Across was altered, resequenced and released in the U.S. as On a Blue Wing. For Nelson, the main advantage of the deal was that he was able to completely rebuild his home studio, providing him with the facility to experiment more and more, resulting in the release of the first Orchestra Arcana album, which combined synthesized soundscapes with sound bites and tape loops. The name originated as a result of a clause in Nelson's CBS contract that forbade him to release his experimental material under his own name.
Today's selection provides a great example of the guitar playing I described. The lyric is a simple, four-line phrase that he repeats for several bars over a hypnotic electronic rhythm track. And the guitar? Just fantastic.
To hear real passion expressed in music can be a powerful thing. When done from the heart, it can have a transcendent effect that exceeds so many boundaries, and language makes no difference. You can still connect on a deep level.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan had that effect. Born in Lyallpur (now known as Faisalabad) in 1948, he was a Pakistani singer who was considered one of the finest performers of qawwali, a style of Sufi Muslim devotional music.
Nusrat’s father, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, and two of his uncles, Ustad Mubarik Ali Khan and Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, were famous qawwals (practitioners of qawwali) who sang in the classical form. Although Nusrat began to display a penchant for music and a particular aptitude for singing before he had reached age 10, he did not begin to devote himself to the qawwali tradition until he sang at his father’s funeral in 1964. Two years later he gave his first public performance as a qawwal, singing with his uncles, with whom he continued to perform until 1971, when Ustad Mubarik died.
Qawwali originated in 12th-century Persia. The lyrics are based on medieval Sufi poems that often use images of romantic love to express deep religious faith. The traditionally male qawwal, who knows these poems by heart, unites phrases and passages from different poems to create a new expression. Qawwali performances are typically held in shrines and are marked by passionate shouting and dancing. Qawwali is similar in spirit to American gospel music.
Following his father’s death, Nusrat continued to study the recordings of his father and uncles, using them as a springboard from which to develop his own style. Within just a few years he had established himself throughout Pakistan as the outstanding qawwal of his generation, singing powerfully and expressively in a very high register (a family trademark), with remarkable stamina and melodic creativity. In concert he was usually accompanied by tabla (a pair of single-headed drums played with the hands), harmoniums (or reed organs; small keyboard instruments with a foot-operated bellows), and backing vocals.
Khan's performance on the amazing album "The Prayer Cycle" is simply stunning. Described at AllMusic as "...a surprisingly spiritual and moving album masterminded by composer Jonathan Elias, featuring an all-star cast culled from the pop, rock, and world music arenas (including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Alanis Morissette, Perry Farrell, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Ofra Haza, Salif Keita, and more). The album is structured as a nine-movement suite, with each movement dedicated to a different spiritual quality. Elias' material elicits passionate, committed performances from the assembled artists, making it a deeply felt statement on bridging cross-cultural differences."
Listening to the album for the first time was one of the more moving experiences I've encountered, and I return to that recording from time to time to try and recapture that feeling. There are amazing performances from start to finish, but Kahn practically steals the show. He died August 16, 1997, in London, England.
I've always been a fan of music compilations. I've bought many of them over the years, and I've discovered a lot of terrific performers, bands and music that I might not have heard otherwise. One of my favorite series was published by a magazine called College Music Journal. I was a subscriber for a while back in the late 1990's, and as a subscriber, the monthly issues came with a CD compilation bound inside the copy.
One of those discoveries was the Brazilian singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Vinicius Cantuária. Even though he performs the track featured above in his native language Portuguese, a language that I don't understand, I really enjoy this song. It just flows so smoothly from start to finish.
Singer, guitarist, composer, drummer, and percussionist, Vinicius Cantuaria is a well-known Brazilian musician in the sphere of Bossa Nova and Jazz.
Born in Manaus, Amazonas, he grew up in Rio de Janeiro, and after several successful records, he moved to New York in the mid-90s. He has proved himself in a number of fields, directly or indirectly linked to Brazilian music. Leader of the rock band “O Terco”, he released six albums in Brazil in the 80s and with his album “Sol na Cara” (Grammavision), was a pioneer of the neo-Brazilian music in 1996. He then became one of the most important downtown New York figures, multiplying collaborations with artists as eclectic as Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, Brad Mehldau, Arto Lindsay
As a composer, Cantuaria has had many successes, with “Lua e Estrela” (recorded by Caetano Veloso in 1981), “Coisa Linda,” “So Você,” and “Na Cançao”; as a sideman, he has performed with Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, to only name a few.
In New York, he has released internationally recognized studio albums that includes “Sol Na Cara,” “Vinicius,” and “Horse and Fish,” and signed an artist contract with Naïve in 2008 which released his album “Cymbals,” recorded with top New York musicians Brad Mehldau, Michael Leonhardt, Dave Binney, and Erik Frielander. Keeping his New York musicians for "Samba Carioca" (2010), Vinicius Cantuaria successfully returned to his Brazilian roots which once again proved to be numerous. Indeed, in addition to his usual New York team (Brad Mehldau, Bill Frisell), Vinicius was this time surrounded by an impressive line-up of Brazilian musicians from all trends and different backgrounds : Arto Lindsay, who produced the album, veterans like Joao Donato or Marcos Valle, and younger musicians, like Dadi or Sidinho.
Vinicius, who owns his studio in New York and frequently travels to Brazil, works every day and progresses in small steps, hence the impression of a simple, melodic, and obvious music, yet so sophisticated.
I thoroughly enjoy every song on Autour de Lucie's 1997 album "Immobile," even though I don't understand a word of it. It's all performed in the band's native tongue, French. But I still feel like I get it...Valérie Leulliot's breathy voice is lovely and expressive, and her bandmates, guitarist Oliver Durand and bassist Fabrice Dumont (both since departed from the band) provide great instrumental backup on this recording.
The French pop outfit Autour de Lucie originated in Paris in early 1993, when angelic chanteuse Valérie Leulliot met guitarist Olivier Durand while working odd jobs. The two decided they wanted to make music instead of becoming a part of the working class norm and formed a band, mimicking the likes of some of their favorite artists. The band welcomed bassist Fabrice Dumont later that spring and Autour de Lucie inked a deal with the Le Village Vert label, preparing for their premier debut L'Échapée Belle (1994). Whirlwind changes within the band took place over the course of three years with Jean-Pierre Ensuque replacing Durand in 1995. A year later, Autour de Lucie moved on to Nettwerk and issued a sophomore effort entitled Immobile (1997). Tours across the globe and a spot on 1998's Lilith Fair also gained Autour de Lucie a wide following, fervent fans falling for the intriguing European flair from the band, and Leulliot's graceful stage persona. The new millennium, however, defined a much more mature, and spiritually in tune Autour de Lucie. Sébastien Buffet joined on percussion just in time to record and issue the poetically dramatic Faux Mouvement in early 2001.
Musician and songwriter Plastic Bertrand did not sing on his hit single Ca Plane Pour Moi, an expert linguist has told a court in Belgium.
He spent three months comparing the 1977 punk hit to a 2006 cover version by producer Lou Deprijck - and decided it was the same voice on both.
Deprijck has been taken to court by record label AMC for claiming that it was his voice on the original.
An earlier case, in 2006, ruled that Bertrand was the "legal performer".
Deprijck told Le Parisien newspaper that he was "relieved". "I hope I will finally get my rights," he added.
During his evidence, the expert said he could determine that it was Deprijck singing on the record because of his accent.
"The way the phrases end on each record show that the song could only have been sung by a Ch'ti - otherwise known as someone from the Picard region of France," he said.
"It could therefore not have been Plastic Bertrand - who was born in Brussels - and was surely Monsieur Deprijck."
Deprijck, he went on to explain, hails from West Hainaut, a region sometimes referred to as Picard Walloonia, because people in that French-speaking part of Belgium speak with a Picard accent.
In 2006, Deprijck released his own recording of Ca Plane Pour Moi - marketed as being the "original voice" on the track - which prompted record label AMC to take legal action.
The producer said the case was about honour not money.
Plastic Bertrand (real name Roger Jouret) has denied the allegations, of course, but the damage had been done. The song's writer and producer, Lou Deprijck, was revealed to be the true performer of the tune.
Yes, it's still a great little song, but it just isn't the same anymore, sort of like learning that there is no Santa Claus...and I hope that wasn't a spoiler for anyone.
I'm not sure how this song became a hit in this country. I'm not convinced the band Focus is really sure how it became a hit. Thijs Van Leer tries to explain it, but perhaps it's best left up in the air. America is not known for being all that open-minded to diversity in music (or anything else, for that matter), even now. Instrumentals were a rare thing back in the early 1970's when "Hocus Pocus" and Edgar Winter's hit "Frankenstein" made the Billboard charts.
But "Hocus Pocus" did indeed make it to the assorted charts and into playlists at radio stations across the United States. Yodeling, a whistling solo over accordion backing and three great guitar solos...what is not to love? And it lit a much hotter fire under my ass to learn to play guitar.
Jan Akkerman was one of my first guitar heroes, and to this day, I haven't heard anyone else who plays like him. So blisteringly fast, and he played notes out of very exotic-sounding scales most guitarists didn't touch. He wasn't a blues-oriented guitarist from western-centric origins at all. His style was so very much his own, a lot like another master guitarist that I admire greatly, Ritchie Blackmore. He is very easily recognizable, and rarely duplicated.
There seem to be two types of guitar players readily visible on the musical horizon: the guitarists everyone tries to sound like, and the guitarists that few try to sound like.
Many guitar players have tried to sound like Eric Clapton, and they've been pretty good. Few have tried to sound like Mike Bloomfield, a sadly near-forgotten master of the instrument. Eric is good, but Mike interests me more.
Many guitar players have tried to sound like Jimmy Page, and some have gotten nicely close. Few have tried to sound like Robert Fripp. He is an enigmatic figure with a style that defies traditional boundaries. Jimmy is good, but Robert explores the boundaries that fascinate me. I'll follow his path.
Many guitar players have tried to sound like Jeff Beck. Okay, that's a lie. No one else sounds like Jeff Beck. My prejudice? Yeah, but few musicians have reinvented themselves so many times and succeeded as many times as Beck. He gets a shelf of his own.
I'll always love the greats, and I don't care if they inspire imitations or not. But the guitar players that defy easy explanations always get more of my attention. Bill Nelson fits easily into that category, but he is absolutely worth a post of his own that will come along later.
As for Akkerman...believe it or not, I can still play one of his prettiest songs, called "Sylvia" (very fitting...I had a huge high school crush on a girl named Sylvia, but shy guys like me tend to sit things out. Not a good thing), although I may need a little woodshedding before getting up on stage to play that piece.
"I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can." Guy Clark
There are songwriters, and there are Texas songwriters. No one has been able to really pin down why such a thing should exist, but it does. Maybe it's something in the air, or in the water. Maybe it's in the blend of cultures evident across the state, or a nostalgic hold on to an old west-style ethos that still is embraced to an extent.
Or maybe it's just a combination of hard work, hard playing, a dedication to art and craft and maybe a little luck. A healthy dose of great music and great musicians damn sure doesn't hurt.
And few people define Texas songwriter quite as completely as Guy Clark.
The list of artists who have recorded Clark's songs reads like a who's who of great performers: Johnny Cash, David Allan Coe, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner, Hayes Carll, Brad Paisley, John Denver, Alan Jackson, Rodney Crowell, The Highwaymen and Kenny Chesney are but a few those who have found some greatness in Clark's writing.
His best friend, the legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt, is the man he credits as his biggest influence, and it shows. But Clark has his own voice, and it is a finely-tuned one. He also has acted as a mentor to other songwriters, such as Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell, both fiercely talented songsmiths. He is as dedicated to passing along his knowledge to others as he is to his own music.
"There aren't any rules, as far as anything-and that applies especially to writing songs, whatever gets the point across. So you're just kind of brought up to feel-in any field, if you say you can do it, do it. There it is." Guy Clark
Guy Clark isn't just a songwriter and performer; he also is a luthier, and he builds the guitars that he plays. As he puts it, "It's just something I've always done. In South Texas, the first guitar you get is a Mexican guitar. And the first one I got, the first thing I did was take it apart." He applies that same skill to songwriting. He takes his songs apart, learns what works and what does not. He tweaks, he tinkers, he sweats the small details. And only until he is satisfied does it become worthy of performance.
He has lived in Nashville for quite a few years, a town that songwriters need to live in to keep connected to the music industry. Clark has kept busy in that town, writing alone as well as collaborating with others, and his songs are as strong as ever, evidenced by his Grammy Award for Best Folk Album in 2014 for "My Favorite Picture of You." But despite the location change from Texas to Tennessee, Clark will always be a Texas songwriter.
The title track to Guy Clark’s most recent album, My Favorite Picture of You, may be the finest song he’s ever written. This is no small feat. For one thing, there’s his catalog to consider. Guy wrote “L.A. Freeway,” one of American music’s greatest driving songs and the final word for small-town troubadours on the false allure of big cities. His lyrical detail in “Desperados Waiting for a Train” and “Texas, 1947” presents a view of life in postwar West Texas that is as true as Dorothea Lange’s best Dust Bowl portraiture. When he wrote about the one possession of his father’s that he wanted when his dad died in “The Randall Knife,” he made a universal statement about paternal love and respect. Bob Dylan lists Guy among his handful of favorite songwriters, and most of Nashville does too.
And then there’s the equally significant matter of his timing. Those songs were written in the seventies and eighties, when the hard-living coterie of Guy, Townes Van Zandt, and Jerry Jeff Walker was inventing the notion that a Texas singer-songwriter practiced his own distinct form of artistry, creating the niche in which disciples like Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, and Robert Earl Keen would make their careers. Yet Guy penned “My Favorite Picture of You” a mere three years ago, just after turning 69, an age to which most of his contemporaries had chosen to coast, provided they were still living at all.
The song originated the way most of them do, with a line.
Sometimes it only takes a line, a phrase, a simple rhyming couplet. Maybe a sing-song little melody that gets stuck in your head, and you don't know where it came from. But there it is, and it won't leave. And you don't mind...if you have a pocket recorder of some sort handy, you might even sing that melody just so you won't forget it, maybe give it some words, any words at all, to put it into context. And maybe those words will find a life within that melody.
Songs are born in funny ways. The trick is in being there when they happen.
Guy Clark has been there for the birth of some of the finest songs written. And we got to watch them grow up.
"We're gonna play you some songs we know and some we don't. But we're pretty good at it. We have no set list, no agenda and no fear." Guy Clark
This is a track from Gleaming Spires, who had a pair of songs featured prominently in a classic (in my silly opinion, at least) 80's comedy "Revenge of the Nerds." Anyone who has seen the film will probably remember the tracks "Are You Ready For The Sex Girls" and "All Night Party."
But "Fun Type" features a much different sound than those songs...driving, frenetic and guitar-heavy. I first heard it when it was included as a track on a flexi-disc in an issue of Trouser Press magazine. Bonus points to anyone who remembers either of those (and yes, I still have a small collection of those flimsy little discs). It was a great track and a departure from other songs they produced, which tended to be very synthesizer-heavy, and I enjoyed stumbling across it online.
I also came across a great story about Gleaming Spires on the website Dangerous Minds, so here's an excerpt for your enjoyment:
The term “New Wave” is one that was perverted from the starting gate. But in the haze of 80’s nostalgia, so many glom onto the most superficial awfulness of that messy decade. It’s all dayglo legwarmers and tinny Casio badness, but there was an incredible amount of bands with actual depth who could not be so easily pigeonholed into the commercially-safer-than-calling-it-post-punk category of “New Wave.” Perhaps no band quite fit this bill like a custom tux better than Gleaming Spires.
Founded by Les Bohem and David Kendrick, both of whom played together during the early 80’s incarnation of Sparks, which included some of the band’s best albums, especially Whomp That Sucker and Angst in My Pants. Face it, if the eternally cool Mael Brothers approve, then you know it is gonna be good!
Gleaming Spires, while best known for their song Are You Ready For the Sex Girls? which was featured on the 80’s T&A teen film, Revenge of the Nerds, made some very singular and unique music. Even Sex Girls, which on the surface may seem like your standard id-driven, dude-anthem about ultra-willing lasses, but scratch that surface and what you will find is a strange pop tune complete with animal noises and lyrics like, “are you ready for the lonely girls? The sad, sad sad lonely girls. They got time on their hands. They got skin like seals.” All neatly ensconced in what otherwise is a song that knowingly is swimming in a sea snarking on over-sexualised beer commercial type lyrics.
Even better is the music video for Sex Girls. Lacking what Mo Fuzz, Don Cornelius’ terrific character from Tapeheads, would call “production value,” the video centers on Bohem and Kendrick, wearing slacks and nice dress shirts underneath aprons. The two then proceed to make a lemon meringue pie from scratch, with the video ending on a shot of two pie slices and black coffee. That’s it! It is almost Artaud-like in its sheer willingness to not give the audience something that would actually fit the title of Are You Ready for the Sex Girls?. Flesh, giggles and curves, for your prurient viewing pleasure? Nope, you’re getting two dudes baking, complete with Bohem miming the lyrics with nary a lurid jeer, sleazy smile or ANY type of smile at all! It’s perfect.
When many folks think about the Detroit music scene, some of the first things that come to mind are Motown, R&B and Hip Hop, but for some us, it means punk.
No, not the Orlando, FL death metal band Death. I'm talking about Death, a group that became one of the earliest pioneers of punk rock.
The band was formed in 1971 by the Hackney brothers: David, Bobby and Dannis, three young, African-American guys from Detroit. Originally known as the RockFire Funk Express, they started out playing funk, jamming in a spare bedroom at the family's home, but as guitarist and de facto band leader David became more and more fascinated with rock, especially Who guitarist Pete Townsend's playing, he and the band drifted toward a garage rock direction. The description is an apt one...they played their earliest shows in the family's garage, blaring away until the police came to shut down the playing.
In a story from January 21, 2014 published in COS, Sam Willett reports this about Death's earliest days:
"In the 1970s, there wasn’t an audience for this sort of music, at least not in this neighborhood. Neighbors and friends would call the police and pound on their doors to halt the deafening performances, but the Hackney brothers would keep driving forward. The Detroit community expected the black musicians to play Motown or R&B music, as opposed to their boisterous earache."
Jay Hathaway: So, if I could just go back to the beginning, why did you decide to call your band Death? Where did the name come from?
Bobby Hackney: Well, the name came from our brother David, back in the 1970s. Well, I would say '73, really. He had a concept in rock n' roll that he was going to spin death from the negative to the positive. So it was really our brother David's concept.
JH: That's interesting, because not everybody saw it as a positive thing. I heard the story about how Clive Davis wanted you to change the name...
BH: [laughs] And that was our brother David! See, the thing is, Don Davis, who was the owner of Groovesville Productions, who were signed up with -- they were a production company, and they owned United Sound Recordings in Detroit -- he had signed us up, and we were in United Sound recording these tracks. In the meantime, some of the demos of the tracks, he was shopping around, because he had relationships with Arista Records, Columbia Records, Stax Records, he had relationships with a number of record labels.
He had given our tape to a bunch of music moguls at that time. Clive Davis had heard the tape, and we could possibly have had a deal, but he didn't like the name. If we had changed the name, we would've probably had a deal. David just adamantly refused to change the name and said "no way." But at the time, we were young, and we didn't articulate to Don Davis that David had come up with the name Death, and that we had even written a couple of rock operas around that name. Like cocky rock n' rollers at the time, we just took it as an insult for anybody to tell us to change our concept.
Death only managed to record seven songs out of the dozen they had prepared before Columbia Records president Clive Davis pulled his funding for the recording sessions. He wanted the band to change its name to something more commercially acceptable, but the Hackneys aligned behind brother David and refused to change.
Still determined to get their music out, Death self-released 500 copies of what would be their one and only single, "Politicians In My Eyes" b/w "Keep on Knocking." The single didn't take off (a shame...both songs are terrific). According to Bobby Hackney in the Suicide Girls interview:
"When we put out "Politicians in My Eyes", we only pressed 500 of 'em. Up until that point, in Detroit, you could usually walk in with your acetate or your 45 and say to a disk jockey, y'know, "Play this for me, man." They would play it a few times, give it a week or two weeks, garner some response, and then you'd have a local hit. Nobody had told us that the whole corporate scheme was developing in radio to where tapes were being fabricated of pre-recorded music somewhere else. "They were playing "Politicians in My Eyes" and "Keep on Knocking" at maybe 3 o'clock in the morning. Our friends used to tell us that they heard it on the radio, but you would never hear it on enough of a rotation that it would make a difference. They told us that we had to get with a major label to get that rotation. So right around '76, this whole disco, corporate thing came in, and we couldn't get our records played. I think if we'd have stayed in Detroit, I don't know where it would have gone. Even in Vermont, it got worse when the whole John Travolta thing hit a couple of years later. We saw a lot of the rock n' rollers we looked up to jumping ship and doing disco."
After struggling on for a few more years, the Hackney brothers ended Death in 1977. They moved from Detroit to Burlington, VT to record and release two albums of gospel rock under the name The 4th Movement in the early 1980's. David, homesick for his native Detroit, moved back there in 1982. Bobby and Dannis stayed behind, eventually forming a reggae band called Lambsbread.
Meanwhile in Detroit, David continued to make music on his own under the name Rough Francis. With the help of his brothers, he released one single before he died of lung cancer in 2000. Shortly before his death, David gave Bobby a box of Death's master tapes with the hope that Death's music would eventually be heard. Bobby took that box home and stashed it away in his attic, opting to leave Death in the past. By 2000, the people closest to the Hackney brothers were mostly unaware of their old punk band. Even Bobby's three sons didn't know much about them.
But that would all change a few years later.
That all but forgotten single, "Politicians In My Eyes," had caught the notice of the music underground. Record collectors made it a sort of vinyl holy grail, and people began to ask about this band called Death.
Some of those people were Bobby's sons, Bobby Jr., Julian and Urian. So taken by the music, they formed a band with friends Paul Comegno and Steve Williams, calling it Rough Francis in honor of their late uncle, and began performing Death songs.
Word began to circulate and record label interest, and in 2009 Chicago's Drag City Records released all seven of Death's songs from their ill-fated 1975 recording session, releasing it on CD and LP titled "...For the Whole World to See."
Since then, Death has, if you'll pardon the expression, taken on a new life. Bobby and Dannis Hackney are performing the band's old material and writing new songs. Their music has been used in movies and TV shows, and a new album of demos and rough cuts predating their 1975 recordings called "Spiritual • Mental • Physical" was released in January 2011.
And in 2012 came the great documentary "A Band Called Death." It tells the tale so much better than I ever could, and it's a wonderful and touching piece of work.
Quite a trip for a little band from Detroit. All of us musicians with a garage band past (like me) can take heart in this story.
He was a singer and songwriter, a multi-instrumentalist in demand for TV appearances and studio recording sessions, a dynamic performer, one of the pioneers of what would come to be known as "newgrass" music (a progressive form of bluegrass).
Oh, yeah...he also was a licensed riverboat pilot.
John Hartford was a catalog of pleasant eccentricities that wrapped around a prodigiously talented musician, as fascinated with traditional music as he was by helping evolve that music into much more sophisticated styles and approaches.
John Hartford won Grammy awards in three different decades, recorded a catalog of more than 30 albums, and wrote one of the most popular songs of all time, "Gentle On My Mind." He was a regular guest and contributor on the Glen Campbell Good Time Hour and the Smothers Brothers Show. He added music and narration to Ken Burns’ landmark Civil War series, and was an integral part of the hugely popular "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack and Down From The Mountain concert tour. But that hardly explains John Hartford.
John Hartford was an American original. He was a musician, songwriter, steamboat pilot, author, artist, disc jockey, calligrapher, dancer, folklorist, father, and historian.
Born John Cowan Harford in New York on December 30, 1937, John grew up in St. Louis. He was a descendent of Patrick Henry and cousin of Tennessee Williams. His grandfather was a founder of the Missouri Bar Association and his father was a prominent doctor.
At an early age, John fell in love with two things: music and the Mississippi River.
They were passions that would last his lifetime, and their pursuit would be his life’s passage.
In 1965 he moved to Nashville. The following year he was signed to RCA Records by the legendary Chet Atkins. It was Atkins who convinced John to add a "t" to his last name, becoming John Hartford. In 1967 his second RCA release "Earthwords & Music" featured the single "Gentle on My Mind", a song Hartford wrote after seeing the movie "Dr. Zhivago." That year, the song earned four Grammy awards. Hartford would take home two awards, one as the writer and one for his own recording of the song. The other two went to Glen Campbell who had heard Hartford’s version on the radio and decided to record it. Campbell’s rendition became an instant classic, and the song became one of the most recorded and performed songs of all time, covered by everyone from Elvis Presley to Aretha Franklin.
Hartford often said that "Gentle On My Mind" bought his freedom.
He used that freedom to explore his various creative curiosities, and was usually happy to take his friends along on the trip.
John Hartford became mentor and mystic for a generation of pickers, singers, and songwriters. His landmark record, Aereo-Plain (1971) documented his work with Vassar Clements, Norman Blake, and Tut Taylor. Rooted firmly in tradition but sprouting at the top with hippie hair, the group’s instrumental mastery and free-wheeling style bridged a musical gap between traditional bluegrass and a progressive new audience, making every song a cult favorite and every live performance the thing of legend. According to Sam Bush, "Without Aereo-Plain, there would be no ‘newgrass’ music."
The 2000 documentary/concert film "Down From The Mountain," a show that highlighted the songs and performers featured in the Coen Brother's film "O Brother Where Art Thou," was John Hartford's final filmed performance. Hartford, who won a Grammy for his contribution to the the "O Brother" soundtrack, was wonderful as the emcee for the show. Although he appeared frail, his performance of the old standard "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is just beautiful...his voice as wonderfully relaxed and casual as ever and his fiddling fluid and simple and note-perfect, harkening back to an earlier era. This is a fantastic film, and I can't recommend it more highly.
After a long battle with non-hodgkin’s lymphoma, Hartford died on June 4, 2001. He was 63.
John Hartford was a rare creature, a man who seemed to have the power and the talent to take us all back in time with nothing more than a banjo, a fiddle and a few great old songs with every performance. In my case, it was always a good and welcome trip.
"In a world that lacks compassion, John Martyn and his music is a breath of fresh air. John was an incurable romantic who sang from his heart; no other artist sang with such commitment and emotion. People have fallen in and out of love listening to the most enduring and magical songs of deep sensitivity that have been sung over his forty year plus career. A truly progressive artist, John never stayed with a tried and trusted sound, preferring to explore, experiment and break new ground. His trademark melodies and lyrics are in a class of their own and his voice, which is steeped in pleasure and pain, joy and fear and love and hate, expresses emotion like no other and can reduce even the strongest of men to tears. "John Martyn was born Iain David McGeachy on 11th September 1948 in New Malden, Surrey, the only son of two light opera singers. John’s parents separated and his early childhood was spent in Glasgow. John recalls, “You went out and kicked a few heads or you where looked on as a pansy.” John learned to play the guitar at fifteen and upon leaving school at 17 he started playing in some of the local folk clubs under the wing of Hamish Imlach, who encouraged and John to play the guitar. John was influenced by many different music genres including Debussy and soon began to explore music on his guitar. Davey Graham was one of John’s first heroes, as was Clive Palmer, who founded the Incredible String Band and became a good friend. John and Clive lived together for a while in a shed near Alston in Cumbria. “Those were wild times, and Clive was a remarkable man, a great musician and down to earth, absolutely no bullshit, taught me lots of things to play.” With a growing reputation on the club circuit in the North John decided it was time to move on and he started playing in the clubs around London such as Les Cousins and the Kingston Folk Barge, and was soon signed by Chris Blackwell’s Island Records.
"John’s debut album, London Conversation, was recorded in mono and released in October 1967. [It was] An album of innocent songs that won praise from the music press and launched a career that spanned five decades."
During that long career, Martyn's life was marked by a number of dark periods, most likely made even darker by his growing addiction to alcohol and drugs by the late 1970's. It's a too-common tale, and years of self-destructive abuse took their toll. He managed to release more than 20 studio albums in his lifetime, along with numerous singles and material that appeared in anthologies and recordings of live performances.
But by his later years, it was too easy to see and hear that the damage was done. In a late-career live performance of the song May You Never, Martyn's weathered voice, while not as clear and tuneful as in his youth, is perhaps more soulful and expressive...youthful exuberance replaced by maturity and experience. Still, the notes didn't come as easily. And he didn't look at all healthy.
Martyn died of double pneumonia on January 29, 2009, in hospital in Ireland. He was 60.
I've loved Martyn's guitar playing for many years, and I so enjoy how he almost effortlessly used to weave his beautiful fingerpicked lines around the lyrics he sang. I shall always aspire to sound as good. In the meantime, I'll choose to remember how he played and sang, not how he succumbed to the damages done by his addictions and left this world.
Richard Thompson is one of my all time favorite songwriters. His gift for clever and touching wordplay is unrivaled, and he makes me want to be a better writer every time I hear him.
As one of the founding members of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention in the 1960's, Thompson broke ground in that fledgling style of music along with other performers and groups such as Pentangle, June Tabor (who performs a stunning version of his song "Strange Affair" with guitarist Martin Simpson), Maddy Prior and many more. As a duo with his ex-wife Linda Thompson and then as a solo artist, he has produced a wonderful body of work.
I treasure the musical moments of my own life, and I'll always keep a Richard Thompson tune or two in my back pocket to play when I jam with others. "Valerie" is a favorite, as is "Waltzing's For Dreamers." I fail to do them justice, but I play on, regardless. Us musicians can be stubborn that way.
One of the finest shows I've ever had the great good fortune of attending was a performance by a little band called The Bears. It was at a tiny club in Huntington, WV in around 1988 called "The Rock and Roll Cafe," and it seated (sitting, yeah right) maybe 50 or 60 people if everybody pulled their arms in close. On this night, it was more like 100+ folks. And for a good reason.
Adrian Belew, the genius madman behind more guitar sounds than God even imagined that instrument could make was out front, along with Rob Fetters, a masterful songsmith and musician in his own right. The great Bob Nyswonger wrangled the low tones with deft touches when he wasn't balancing his bass on his head and Chris Arduser kept the beat hopping with his terrific drumming.
"Rise and Shine" was their new album of the moment, and they played a few choice cuts from that great recording. One of the things I remember very clearly from that show, besides just how much the crowd enjoyed it, was the enormity of Belew's pedal board. I've never seen anyone use that many guitar effects at one time. There probably should be a surgeon general warning label on it in a prominent place. But use them all he did, and he sounded fantastic, as did the rest of the band. Veterans of the Cincinnati music scene, they were known without Belew as the Raisins, and later, psychodots, and their brand of power pop was, and still is, intoxicatingly invigorating. Hey, I'll always be a sucker for a good melody.
Plus there's nothing like a good melody to help slip in a little socially-relevant message or two. And yes, Belew got the explosion sounds in this song with just his guitar and effects right there on stage, much like Jimi Hendrix did it when he played "The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. The whole band sounded great, and they seemed as though there was no other place they'd rather be than on a tiny stage in a tiny club in Huntington, WV. It was a great show, and I'm glad I got to be there for it.
The whole notion of "gateway drugs" has always seemed like greater and lesser versions of bullshit to me. If you have an addictive nature, everything is a gateway. If you don't, then nothing is a gateway.
But if such a thing as a gateway toward something akin to an addiction really does exist, then this song by the great Emerson Lake and Palmer was my gateway to progressive rock.
I first heard "From The Beginning" on WKQQ (Double Q) back in the mid-1970's when it was a free-form FM station that gave the DJ's a lot of leeway in what they played. They don't swing that way anymore. Too bad. Deep album tracks were a staple of the station's playlist at the time, and I listened anytime I was anywhere near the station's Lexington, KY home base.
I didn't get to hear the station very often, but I was rewarded richly when I did. Even better, one of the local stations I frequented happened to play "Roundabout" by Yes one afternoon as I was tuned in (they never played it again that I can recall) around the same time. Great song, and Chris Squire's bass part still kills, by the way.
I was hooked. I was, and still am, a prog rock junkie. And I'll never apologize for it.
Yeah, I love the odd time signatures, the arcane chords, the lyrics that can be...well, kinda goofy. But the level of musical talent it takes to pull off such intricate and complex compositions just fascinates and impresses me in good ways. I'll never not love prog rock. It's a nerd badge I'll wear with honor from now on.
Enjoy prog rock too? Here are some links to help feed the need:
I was transfixed by this song the first time I heard it on Vin Scelsea's great radio show "Idiot"s Delight," just astonished by the myriad images that Kenny White was able to weave together within the course of one tune. Each verse tells a little story in ways that are sometimes surreal, sometimes absurd and sometimes just heartbreaking. "In My Recurring Dream" is complex, yet emotional and accessible in all the best ways.
White was an accomplished professional musician and producer long before he recorded his first solo record. His commercial projects in TV and radio saw him working with artists such as Gladys Knight, Linda Ronstadt, Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Skaggs, Kim Carnes, Felix Cavaliere, Dobie Gray and Aaron Neville, as well as many others.
According to his bio, "His relationships with Marc Cohn and Shawn Colvin led to his producing Colvin’s Grammy-nominated, “I Don’t Know Why” and to his involvement in Cohn’s eponymous platinum debut record. White went on to produce three records for legendary J. Geils Band leader, Peter Wolf. The second of which, “Sleepless,” garnered the distinction by Rolling Stone magazine of being one of “the 500 greatest albums ever made,” as well as giving Kenny a chance to work with Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Steve Earle."
His list of credits and accomplishments is long and impressive, yet I still keep coming back to that first song I ever heard from him. You know the one. That song where...
"in my recurring dream i give a man a 20 dollar bill ’cause he likes smokey robinson and lives on the street, but still will never confuse the temptations with the miracles when he walks into the grocery and hears them on the radio and i’m sad he’s on the street, but glad he can feel the thrill when “tracks of my tears” comes on and then “blueberry hill” so here’s my 20 dollar bill…in my recurring dream."
And so I invoke here the credo of Vin Scelsea's Idiot's Delight, which I have adopted as my own unofficial credo, as well:
Respect The Elders. Embrace The New. Encourage The Impractical and Improbable, Without Bias. - David Fricke
Charles M. Young on his graduation day from Columbia in 1975 Photo: Hilary Johnson
Originally published in Rolling Stone magazine, Aug. 19, 2014
I am monumentally pissed and disappointed that I missed this. How such a passing managed to slip past my radar is inexcusable.
Charles M. Young was one of my favorite music journalists of all time.
No. He was one of my favorite journalists of all time.
Let me explain...
He sometimes wrote under the moniker "The Rev. Charles M. Young," and I accepted that he might, in fact, be some sort of teacher of things arcane. I didn't realize that it was a playful dig at his Presbyterian minister father. But mostly, Young made me laugh, because he was a damned funny guy who could parse out words to artfully build descriptions and situations in truly hilarious ways.
But he always gave us the story, whatever that story happened to be, and he saw the angles a less trained eye would miss, the details that usually got lost in press releases and mind-numbing meetings with PR flacks. Young put a human face on folks who were more often as not portrayed as being something more than human. And he did it in such a funny way, you couldn't help but laugh as you felt maybe a little closer to the people he was writing about. They fucked up just as much...and sometimes even more...as we did. The divide wasn't quite as great as we imagined, and sometimes that divide needed to be crossed with a bit of piss and vinegar just to provide a little reality check. Consider this passage from his 1977 feature on Kiss (with all due apologies to my old friend Chris Dickerson):
According to Scientific American, every time a buffalo farts in Africa, thousands of dung beetles are alerted to the possibility of manna from heaven. The relationship between the farts and the beetles is a peculiarly honest one. Each species of beetle is genetically programmed to eat a particular kind of dung, so the buffalo need not sponsor marketing surveys to discover where they have to fart for maximum return on their investment. Competing herds do not advertise themselves or offer promo samples. As for the product: buffalo farts do not promise to reveal the meaning of life. Buffaloes do not promise to craft farts that make the whole world sing. They do not promise intellectual respectability if a beetle can interpret their fart sounds with sufficient pedagogy. Buffalo farts promise shit, which is what they deliver. Among contemporary rock & roll bands, the music of Kiss comes the closest to comparing favorably with buffalo farts. Allowing for a few aberrational songs, they, too, do not promise to reveal the meaning of life, make the whole world sing, or any of that. They scream elemental need, placing as much emphasis on words like "I wanna" as the Ramones, only with no condescending satire to sink them in Middle America.
Young was not all for the laughs, however. You only need to read the heartbreaking opening to his story on the disastrous tragedy at the Cincinnati Who concert in December 1979 to realize that. He gave more than a damn for the fans, probably because, at heart, he never stopped being a fan himself. They were his brothers and sisters. When they hurt, he hurt, too. He wrote of this in a piece taking a look at three of the kids who died at the Who concert. Young spoke with Stephan Preston's mother, Anne Votaw, and she told him a little about her son. Stephan, nicknamed Pips, who died that night in Cincinnati trying to rescue a couple of friends who also were killed. From the story:
She takes me to Pips' bedroom with some trepidation. The bed is an old mattress on the floor, well below the waterline from the flood of molding sweat socks, street signs, rumpled posters and dogeared magazines on the floor. Fading paisley bedspreads hang from the ceiling. A collage of dope pictures dominates the left wall. "I want you to know why you're here," she says, standing in the middle of the wreckage. "Some of the broadcast media have behaved like vultures through this, sending film crews in trucks to cover the funerals, always sticking microphones in our faces. Every time they did a simple news update, they would show a paramedic beating on someone's chest. But I decided to let you in my house because Rolling Stone was Pips' favorite magazine." For neither the first nor the last time on this story, my own eyes fill up with tears.
Charles M. Young probably had as much an influence on my decision to follow a journey into journalism as did a handful of other great writers. I doubt that many others gave me as much in return, however. His mix of humor and humanity showed me what real and thoughtful reporting could accomplish.
Sorry I missed his passage, though. He was one of the good ones.
