Author Archives: Easy Ed

Bruce Langhorne: For the Benefit of Mr. Tambourine Man

Bruce Langhorne, Carolyn Hester, Bob Dylan and Bill Lee. September 29, 1961

To those of us who were around the folk music scene of the sixties and to either academic or armchair ethnomusicologists, guitarists both old and young of the past and present, Bruce Langhorne is not unfamiliar. And should you not know the name, you know the man.

Born in Harlem in 1938, Langhorne was a regular at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, where he accompanied many of the musicians who would perform at the hootenannies. He developed a unique style of fingerpicking and would sometimes attach a soundhole pickup to his 1923 Martin 1-21 and run it through Sandy Bull’s Fender Twin reverb.

By 1961, he was in the recording studio as a hired gun, first with the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, followed by Carolyn Hester, and then he contributed to several tracks on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. He’s likely the guitarist on “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Corrina, Corrina,” though in the deep dark world of the Dylan defenders of mythology, that’s been disputed.

Occasionally at performances or recording sessions, Langhorne would play a large Turkish frame drum that had small bells attached to the interior. He used it mostly on the Vanguard albums by Richard and Mimi Fariña that he is featured on, and it inspired a young Bob Dylan to write a song about him. Recorded by The Byrds and serving as an introduction to a wider audience, “Mr. Tambourine Man” has undoubtedly kept the Nobel Prize winner swimming in a steady stream of royalties.

“He had this gigantic tambourine,” wrote Dylan in the liner notes to his anthology Biograph,  identifying Langhorne as the inspiration for “Mr. Tambourine Man.” It was, like, really big. It was as big as a wagon wheel. He was playing, and this vision of him playing this tambourine just stuck in my mind.”

On Jan. 14, 1965, Langhorne was called to Columbia’s Studio B along with a full electric band to back Bob Dylan for his fifth album. With no rehearsal, they worked on eight songs and in three and a half hours and came away with master takes on five of them. The next day, most of the same musicians were back to knock out the rest of Bringing It All Back Home. Although the album was originally recorded with a full electric band, Dylan decided to use only half the songs from those sessions and re-recorded the other half acoustically, with Langhorne playing countermelody on his amplified Martin. You can hear his lead guitar featured along with the full band on this iconic video of  “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

I found a profile of Langhorne published in August 2016 on the Acoustic Guitar website, written by Kenny Berkowitz. I’ll let him pick up the story:

“For years, it seemed as though Langhorne had played with everyone. Before and after those Dylan sessions, he recorded with Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Richard and Mimi Fariña, Hugh Masekela, Odetta, Babatunde Olatunji, Tom Rush, and John Sebastian. He was at the epicenter of change in the folk world, back at a time when session guitarists simply showed up ready to improvise, and an album could be recorded in a single day, or even in a few hours.

He recorded a few songs on his own, but they never materialized into an album, and as folk-rock turned into rock, Langhorne went on to score soundtracks for Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand(1971), Idaho Transfer (1973), and Outlaw Blues (1977); Bob Rafelson’s Stay Hungry (1976); and Jonathan Demme’s Fighting Mad (1976), Melvin and Howard (1980), and Swing Shift (1984).

But despite a long list of accomplishments, Langhorne has largely been forgotten, living out his days in Venice, California, too ill to walk along the beach. He hasn’t played guitar since having a stroke in 2006.”

This Gordon Lightfoot song was covered by Peter, Paul and Mary back in 1964, and it prominently features Langhorne’s guitar work. I was a little too young to know who he was at the time, but I’ve listened to this song hundreds of times.

It was a message from my oldest son that prompted me to write this column. He works for an organization promoting concerts of experimental music in New York and through guitarist Loren Connors he learned of a new album being released in February titled The Hired Hands: A Tribute to Bruce Langhorne.

Dylan Golden Aycock, with Connors and his partner and collaborator Suzanne Langille, compiled the project, which pays homage to Langhorne’s work and specifically to the soundtrack he composed for Fonda’s film. Here’s how they explain the concept:

“The goal here was to ask artists to cover or reinterpret a song of their choice from the soundtrack. No rules on whether the music should be derivative of a certain song, if the soundtrack inspires a mood, then the artists use their intuition.

Bruce has come on hard times in recent years, having suffered a stroke that prevents him from playing the guitar. He’s currently in hospice care awaiting his final curtain call. A large percentage of profit go to Bruce and his family.”

I linked it above, but if you click here you can preorder this handcrafted set of music from some of todays finest players, some you may know and others you don’t. It’s available both as a double CD with extensive liner notes from Byron Coley (reprinted on the Bandcamp page), and a digital download. There are also nine tracks you can stream for free right now.

Bruce was placed in hospice care in late 2015. Friends, as well as people who only knew of Bruce by reputation, came from near and far to pay their respects and, often, play some music for him. The huge outpouring of love boosted his spirit (and his body), and he was upgraded to palliative care. (Several months after this story was published,  Bruce passed away on April 14, 2017)

“Yeah, he was a wizard. My part is pretty basic on ‘Urge for Going,’ but he was the one who did those triple pull-off things, the diddey-bump kinda lines. He’s in California. He had a stroke, and he can’t play much anymore which is really a shame. He was such a good player. Actually as a kid he had blown off most of his thumb and first two fingers on his right hand with fireworks, which got him out of the draft because they figured if he didn’t have a trigger finger, he couldn’t fire a rifle. So, of course, he became a guitar player, and then decided he was going to be a piano player later in life. Since his stroke he doesn’t play much at all. He’s supposedly the guy who inspired ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ Dylan’s song, ’cause he also played tambourine and just about anything you can imagine.” Tom Rush, April 2015

Postscript: For another look at Bruce’s story, check out The Perlich Post‘s article.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com

Welcome Back: A Spoonful of John Sebastian

John Sebastian (left), with Happy Traum. March 2016. Photo by Jane Traum.

At about ten after ten on Christmas Eve, I was sitting on the couch across from my oldest son, each of us engrossed in our own digital universes. Mindlessly killing time by scrolling through Facebook on my phone, an image posted by Woodstock-based musician Happy Traum caught my eye. Painted by his mother back in 1929, I saw that some mutual friends of ours had already hit the “like” button and I read a personal holiday memory of Happy’s mom that was left by Catherine Sebastian.

Although we’ve never met, I knew Catherine was both John’s wife and a photographer whose work I’ve seen and admired. You can read about her work here.. But it was at that very moment, as if Santa himself had just slid down the chimney carrying an autoharp and harmonica, that I heard the following song blast through the speakers of my son’s computer.

Recognizing the opening notes of one of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s most famous songs, my head shot up quickly as I looked at him with bewilderment and asked how he knew what I was reading. He looked over and asked what I was talking about. C’mon dude … how would you know to play this and what the hell is it? He shrugged and looked away. Does that a lot.

Susan, sometimes spelled Suzan if directly taken from the Japanese katakana transliteration of her name, is a pop singer and model who began recording in the early eighties, and often collaborated with members of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Her records were never released in America. That my twenty-two year old NYU music major graduate would actually know of this obscure recording would not be surprising if you knew him. That he chose to play it at this particular moment was the absolute f*cking Miracle on 34th Street.

When I woke up on Christmas morning, I had a song in my head, one written by John Sebastian and the late Lowell George. Still laying in bed, it took only a minute to locate it in my digital library.

“Face of Appalachia” is from Sebastian’s fourth solo album, Tarzana Kid. It was produced by Erik Jacobsen, who I believe did most if not all of the Spoonful’s records. The list of musicians and backup singers who played on the album, in addition to Lowell George’s guitar and vocals, include the Pointer Sisters, Emmylou Harris, David Grisman, Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Phil Everly, Jim Gordon, Buddy Emmons, Amos Garrett, Kelly Shanahan, and Ron Koss.

The album originally came out in 1974 but was never really promoted by the label. In 2006, Collector’s Choice Music reissued it along with the other four of Sebastian’s Reprise Records solo albums. In the new liner notes for Tarzana Kid, music journalist and author of Music USA Richie Unterberger wrote:

“With so many skilled singers and instrumentalists pitching in, it’s unsurprising that Tarzana Kid travels across a considerable range of rock and folk combinations, though this eclecticism had been a constant feature in Sebastian’s work. The singer-songwriter had a rather overlooked eye for ethnic styles that were not widely known in the US in the early 1970s, using a steel band from Trinidad on his 1971 LP The Four of Us, which also included a cover of a tune by then-obscure zydeco giant Clifton Chenier.

Tarzana Kid‘s opening track, a cover of Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo” (featured in the classic 1972 movie The Harder They Come), was a pretty adventurous move at a time when reggae was just starting to make inroads into the American consciousness. Certainly one of the most noted tracks on Tarzana Kid was “Dixie Chicken,” which guest guitarist Lowell George had previously recorded as part of Little Feat on the 1973 album of the same name.”

If I had time to write 50,000 words instead of 500, I’d love to share my love, respect, and admiration for the music that John Sebastian has created and collaborated on. His Wikipedia page is a damn good place to start if you’d like to learn more. From jug band music to film and television work, doing classic sessions with the Doors to CSNY, playing with NRBQ and his own J-band, appearance in the film documentary Chasin’ Gus’ Ghost, he’s a great storyteller, performer, music instructor, and activist.

I’ll close this out exactly how I got here, through Happy Traum. On his website bio, it notes that he studied guitar with the blues master Brownie McGhee. Coincidentally, the Lovin’ Spoonful recorded McGhee’s “Sportin’ Life” on their album Do You Believe in Magic?, and Sebastian revived it on Tarzana Kid, although it seems he chose to skip this verse:

Now, I’m goin’ to change my ways
I’m gettin’ older each and every day
When I was young and foolish
I was easy, easy let astray.

This was originally posted as an Easy Ed Broadside column, at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Easy Ed’s Favorite Un-Americana Albums of 2016

Last week the Americana Music Association released its year-end list of songs that got the most airplay on Americana radio, and in the next few weeks No Depression and other like-minded music websites and mags will publish their own music polls. If I were a betting man, I’d lay down a few hundred dollar bills that there’ll be little variation or surprises between them. Ever since the term roots music has morphed into a more definable mainstream “Americana” tagline, diversity has seemed to have left the building. While you won’t get much disagreement from me on the quality of music on AMA’s list since virtually all of the artists are located somewhere in my digital jukebox, it seems that lately I find myself taking the road less traveled.

Every year I designate much of my listening time on studying music from the past, and this year I dipped deeply into the catalogs of Norman Blake, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Delmore Brothers, Doc Watson, and a lot of jazz: Lucky Millinder, Chick Webb, and several anthologies from the 1920s and ‘30s culled from lost and found 78s. For a few weeks this summer I blasted through the box set This is Reggae Music: Golden Era, which covers only 15 years beginning with 1960, and breaks it down into mento, rocksteady, ska, R&B, early reggae and the birth of roots. Good stuff.

As for albums released in 2016, I’ve come up with a short list of my own favorites that somehow have failed to make the “official” Americana chart, and consequently may be missed in this endless parade of polls and lists that’ll stalk the internet with killer click bait titles. I’m choosing to call it Un-Americana … and that’s a name and a genre descriptor that just might stick.

The Handsome Family – Unseen

“Unseen finds Brett and Rennie Sparks two years after an unexpected spike in popularity due to True Detective fame, while simultaneously finding the duo displaying an outward reverence for the genre and subsequent fan base that has bolstered them to alt-folk antiheroes … one would be hard-pressed to find more true-blue progenitors of the darker side of American music who are still working hard to get you to question a bump in the night.” Jake Tully/Elmore Magazine

Jack and Amanda Palmer – You Got Me Singing

“Amanda Palmer has long been divisive – dedicating poems to bombing suspects, dressing up like a conjoined twin, doing things that make outraged thinkpiece writers jiggle with glee. Her latest album, however, a collection of folk, blues, country, and contemporary covers with her once-estranged 72-year-old dad, Jack, strikes the right chord.” Kate Hutchinson/The Guardian

Marissa Nadler – Strangers

“Marissa Nadler, the galaxy-gazer of American somni-folk, is not of this world. She is an extraterrestrial unloved, a wanderer nonplussed, an inhabitant of a realm that aligns dissonance with wonderment. She is ethereal, moody, and dark like early morning, and with Strangers, Nadler’s seventh full-length album, our indelicate eyes are able to adjust to her clear, clairvoyant lens.” Cassidy McCranney/Slug Magazine

Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms – Innocent Road

“On their new album Innocent Road, Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms stake a claim as two of the finest traditional musicians in America. Their sound is a throwback to the heyday of rural American dance-hall music.” Jerad Walker, NPR Music

Tom Brosseau – North Dakota Impressions

“Tom Brosseau’s unique tenor is instantly recognizable, and it imbues his songs with a palpable feeling of loss, regret and nostalgia. His phrasing, the emotional quiver in his voice and the bare-bones production evoke the feeling of a late-night, working-class living room with friends sharing their most intimate secrets.” j. poet/Magnet 

Kaia Kater – Nine Pin

“The banjo’s recent return to favor has seen the likes of Otis Taylor and Rhiannon Giddens reclaim the instrument as part of African America’s musical roots. Twenty-three-year-old Kaia Kater from Québec studied mountain music in West Virginia and writes songs from the here and now. Her second album manages to triangulate bluegrass, Nina Simone, and Toni Morrison.”  Neil Spencer/The Guardian

Dori Freeman – Self-titled

“For the love of God just let the songs speak out and choose their own path, and that’s what happens in this self-titled release. The sentiments are so naked and pure, and as potent to stirring the spirit as the smell of a baby’s head that it awakens more than just an appreciation for music, it awakens an appreciation for life.” Trigger Coroneos/Saving Country Music

Freakwater – Scheherazade

“The darkly austere alt-country group Freakwater has kept their simple, gothic sound consistent through the years, but on their eighth album they overhaul it almost completely. It’s their most cinematic album yet, with the music functioning almost as a soundtrack to their short, violent songs.” Stephen M. Deusner/Pitchfork

 

Finding Peace and Serenity With The McGarrigle Sisters

While some fans of The McGarrigle Sisters know only of Kate and Anna, older sibling Jane was a collaborator in both songwriting and the occasional performance. She also managed their career from the mid-seventies through the nineties. That would be Jane standing in the middle of this photo taken by Michel Gravel, from the archives of La Presse. I published this article on the No Depression dot com website the week after the American presidential elections, and the original title was ‘Hiding Under The McGarrigle Sisters’ Blanket’. I am currently out of bed, taking long walks outdoors, going to work, visiting with friends and family, and living in mortal fear of what is yet to come. 

Hour by hour as the polling places of each state closed across the country from east to west, the speakers of my television seemed to grow larger and louder as fanfares of trumpets and timpani reported the results and announced the arrival of a new world order. For millions of us who chose to cast our vote earlier in the day, it was not simply a resounding political defeat, but a fist-smashing, gut-wrenching challenge and rejection of our core beliefs and values. It wasn’t supposed to end this way, but it did, and that old familiar feeling of flight or fight came over me.

Where to go, where to hide, what to do. The initial thought of having a good stiff drink or filling a pipe, neither of which I’ve done for over 20 years, came strong and left quickly. Chocolate seemed a likely alternative, but there’s none of that in my cupboards. So I turned off the sound of one tube and searched through another, looking for a specific musical tranquilizer.

The song I wanted to hear is not very hard to find, but it was this particular video performance that I sought out. It always touches a space in my heart and never fails to prompt tears at the opening shot of Anna’s fingers on the piano keys, Rufus’ first lines of lyric, and watching Martha in the background clutching her arms close to her body until she finally moves to the microphone and raises her voice in harmony, about a minute or so into the song.

Inexplicably, and despite the sadness of knowing that composer, sister, and mother Kate has passed on in the most horrible way, this single performance provides me comfort when none is at easy reach. For someone who often doesn’t pay close enough attention to lyrics, these words shine like gold in a sea of rust:

I bid farewell to the state of old New York
My home away from home
In the state of New York I came of age
When first I started roamin’

And the trees grow high in New York state
And they shine like gold in the autumn
Never had the blues from whence I came
But in New York state, I caught ’em

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait, must I follow
Won’t you say, “Come with me”

And it’s on to South Bend, Indiana
Flat out on the western plain
Rise up over the Rockies and down on into California
Out to where but the rocks remain

And let the sun set on the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I’ll rise with it till I rise no more

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait, must I follow
Won’t you say “Come with me”

In November of 2015, when Anna and Jane published their book Mountain City Girls (Amazon USA and Amazon Canada), which is subtitled The McGarrigle Family Album, I decided to take a trip into the city so I could buy it at The Strand bookstore on Broadway. The act seemed more meaningful than choosing the simple method of opening an app on my phone, clicking the “buy” button and having it delivered the next day to my front door. (Yet…I’ve added the Amazon links to make it easier for you not to put off buying this wonderful book. Surrender to the technology I suppose.) When I got home, I placed it on the table next to my bed and it has remained closed and gathering dust. Sometimes when you already know the ending is painful, reliving the journey takes time and courage.

The music of Kate and Anna has not always been prominent in my listening circle, but that changed in October of 1998 with the release of The McGarrigle Hour. A family and friends compilation of sorts, it was an aural scrubbing of whatever else was occupying my musical interests at that moment, and the most perfect introduction to their work. It also introduced me to sister Jane and her daughter Lily Lankin, the Wainwright kids, collaborators Chaim Tannenbaum, Joel Zifken, and Phillipe Tatartcheff, and old friends like Emmylou Harris and Linda Rondstadt.

On the day after the election I began to read Mountain City Girls. I suppose that my expectation that this book was going to follow some standard shallow “musical career memoir” format had likely kept me away for a year, and that was a mistake. It is a rich and dense family history, with personal stories that bring the characters into close focus, and freely shares intimacy. On the back flap of the cover, Emmylou Harris describes it best:

“From the moment I met the Mountain City Girls, Kate, Anna and Jane, I wanted to be a part of that magical McGarrigle circle – the songs, the suppers, the families and fellow travellers, and they blessed me with it all. This book is a charming history, written with affection and wit by Anna and Jane, and now everyone can share in the story of their lives and lineage. It is a love story really, of a time, a place and a remarkable sisterhood that has given the world some of it’s most unique and stunningly beautiful music.”

I told a friend the other day that this is a book I only care to read two or three pages at a sitting, because I want it to last forever. But I have begun to pick up the pace now that I know the story doesn’t end with Kate’s death, but rather in the mid-seventies when she and Loudon split up and Anna goes to New York to bring her and the kids back to Montreal. Anna soon after wrote “Kitty Come Home”:

The birds in the trees call your name,
Nothing’s changed, all the same
Home, come home, home, Kitty come home. 

I’ve told those people who I’m closest to that I fear there will be dark days ahead. Many are scared, as am I. Perhaps I’m finding peace in the pages of this book because history brings context to the momentary fears and sorrows we experience through life. There is a grounding when you can stand back in tragedy or loss … something like that phrase that one “can’t see the forest for the trees.”

I think of this time of the year as “McGarrigle Season,” because it’s when I often listen to their music, and I know that January is the month that Kate passed. My father also died from cancer in that month many years before, and perhaps that’s a connection I subconsciously make. This year brings a new album from Martha Wainwright that I’m enjoying immensely, and I hope to attend her aunt Sloane’s annual Christmas “whiz-bang” concert at the church in Bedford Falls, just down the road from me. (It was wonderful!)

For now, in the aftermath and while awaiting what’s ahead, I’m quite content in hiding underneath this blanket of McGarrigle. And you know what? There’s plenty of room for you too.

Postscript: The videos I shared here were posted on YouTube in 2012,  from the Up Close session at CBC’s Studio 211. For a special holiday treat, if you haven’t seen it or even if you have, I highly recommend watching the film  Sing Me The Songs That Say I Love You” A Concert for Kate McGarrigle, which is currently available in the US from Amazon. There is also a soundtrack album that was released by Nonesuch Records that features highlights from the three tribute concerts honoring Kate in London, Toronto, and New York and it is one of my most prized possessions. Net proceeds from the sale are donated to the Kate McGarrigle Foundation—a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising money in the fight against sarcoma and also to preserving her legacy through the arts. For further information, visit katemcgarriglefoundation.org. I’ll close this column out with a clip from the film. Fare thee well.

Discography (Wikipedia)

A Cold and Broken Hallelujah

On the Sunday after the election, I went to the local Unitarian fellowship for no reason other then to be in the company of others, and to hear the thoughts of a minister who always seems to find comforting words when there are none to be had. And as I expected, she did it well. Yet it was a voice from somewhere in the back of the sanctuary that brought me to a place that gave me an understanding of exactly how I felt in the moment.

There’s a tradition in this liberal religion of little tradition that we light candles to acknowledge both the joys and concerns of the past week. A woman took the microphone from the usher and spoke of her dear friend who had passed away on Monday night after fighting a losing battle to cancer. And this was not presented as a concern, but rather a joy. Why? Because her friend did not have to live another day to witness Donald Trump’s victory.

There is something so perversely desperate when death seems to be the best option, and yet I can’t deny thinking a similar thought while sitting in front of my television on election night and witnessing the willful bludgeoning of democracy. Not that I would ever contemplate doing something to myself, but I did have a moment of solace knowing I will turn sixty-five on my next birthday with many good years behind me and less in front. But for my children and all the others who shall inherit the sins of their parents, I mourn.

To be clear, this isn’t about politics. We all seem to have agreed that this was a contest between two flawed candidates, neither of whom would claim a large enough mandate to lead decisively and without rancor. To many people, and ironically the majority of those who voted, the choice was to reject Trump’s brand of pop culture fear, hate, and discrimination. Yet as a result of an electoral system few understand or can explain, the loser wins.

The death of Leonard Cohen was not a complete surprise. He telegraphed the expectation when he released his latest album and met with David Remnick for a beautiful New Yorker profile that ran in October. As he spoke of the challenge in finishing his final album You Want it Darker, he shared what it feels like when one is at the end of time:

“The big change is the proximity to death. I am a tidy kind of guy. I like to tie up the strings if I can. If I can’t, also, that’s O.K. But my natural thrust is to finish things that I’ve begun. I don’t think I’ll be able to finish those songs. Maybe, who knows? And maybe I’ll get a second wind, I don’t know. But I don’t dare attach myself to a spiritual strategy. I don’t dare do that. I’ve got some work to do. Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

I found it peculiar that Leonard Cohen died the night before the election and yet we didn’t learn about it for several days after. I don’t know why his family waited to share the news but would like to imagine it was to allow the news cycle to do what it does and create a sacred space for Leonard’s life to be honored apart from the political cacophony. Given that every newspaper, magazine, and website has run hundreds if not thousands of stories on his life and work, it has been a passing of both love, respect, and memories.

By the time Saturday Night Live came on, I was already in bed and under the covers. In no mood to laugh or feel elevated, I dropped a sleeping pill to take me far away from the pain in my heart. On Sunday morning when I awoke, social media was smokin’ with news of Kate McKinnon’s moving performance of what may be Leonard Cohen’s most treasured and memorable song, played in the character of Hillary Clinton. I’ve watched it now a few dozen times, with tears never far away. This is how I am choosing to remember what once was, what could have been and what is yet to come.

I’m not giving up and neither should you.

This article was originally posted on the No Depression dot come website, as an Easy Ed Broadside column. The original title was Leonard Cohen Versus Donald Trump: Hallelujah Hallelujah.

Many thanks to artist Michelle Gengnagel for allowing me to use her image of Leonard Cohen. Based in the Seattle area, Michelle thinks getting a nose job is a waste of a good caricature. She studied traditional illustration at the Academy of Art and is qualified to create aesthetically delicious original art for advertisement, editorial, or narrative purposes.

On Fighters and Bullies, From Hope to Despair

This article was originally published on the No Depression dot com website a week before the American presidential elections, the one where Clinton beat Trump with popular votes but was trounced in the more more important Electoral College. The original title was ‘The Pivot from Warren Zevon to Maureen McGovern’ for reasons that will be clear if you choose to read it. The new title speaks for itself. God help us all.

I was thinking about the phrase “the long and the short of it” when I plugged “tall man and midget” into the Bing Image Search without regard for using an offensive term now considered to be perjorative. Pop culture aficionados and armchair athletes who still believe that professional wrestling is a sport will likely recognize Andre the Giant but might not know who the smaller man is.

By the smile on his face in that photo, you can probably figure out that this is a a staged photograph and Andre is not about to beat the little guy to a pulp. It’s a publicity stunt, and the shorter of the two men was a former champ and featherweight boxer by the name of Bobby Chacon, who was promoting a 1979 fight with world champion Alexis Arguello. He lost by a knockout in the seventh round.

Three years later, Chacon came back strong, winning five fights in a row, and was considered a serious title contender again. But his first wife, Valerie, wasn’t a fan of Bobby’s chosen profession, and pleaded with him to give up boxing. He refused, and the night before a big fight she used a rifle to kill herself. Choosing to move forward — and dedicating the fight to her memory — he beat his opponent. Over the next few years, he went on to hold two world titles.

Some may recall that Chacon makes an appearance in the 1987 Warren Zevon song, “Boom Boom Mancini.”

Chacon’s success continued throughout the early 1980s. He remarried, bought a large mansion, had over 40 horses, and collected Rolls Royces. And while his life appeared to be one of success, in 1984 he was convicted of beating his wife, and seven years later his son was killed in a gang shooting. By 2000, he’d remarried and divorced  three more times, lost most of his savings, was being cared for by a nurse, and suffered from dementia pugilistica. Valerie’s earlier fears came true, and last September Bobby Chacon passed away at age 64.

While there’s nothing quite like a feel-good story to put things into perspective, please allow me to pivot.

If you’ve been following my Broadside columns over the past few months, it should come as no surprise that I’m hoping the American people will turn their backs on the con man with hate in his heart and choose instead to elect a slightly flawed woman as our new president. I am not naive: regardless of the outcome, the cacophony of hate and rhetoric will continue, as will increasing economic inequality and political gridlock.

We’re living in dark times with only slivers of sunshine. Some days can feel like an episode of Walking Dead.

Wait … cut to Zevon again.

Alright.

So, “the long and the short of it” is that while part of me feels as if we’re on a stinking, sinking ship, I’m a sucker for a great Hollywood ending. Which made me think of The Poseidon Adventure — one of the first big-budget disaster films ever made, back in 1972, about a cruise ship that drowns in the drink. It features that schlocky but beautiful theme song by the great Maureen McGovern.

There’s got to be a morning after
If we can hold on through the night
We have a chance to find the sunshine
Let’s keep on looking for the light

Just singing the first verse lifts the weight from my heart and, for the briefest of moments, I think I too can see the sunshine.

Oh, can’t you see the morning after?
It’s waiting right outside the storm
Why don’t we cross the bridge together
And find a place that’s safe and warm?

Yes. Yes — that’s what I want, too. Safe and warm.

Join me, America. Wake up on election day and vote for Hillary Clinton. And if, for some reason, it all goes crazy wacky bananas and the orange man gets the gig, hold someone you love close to you and sing:

It’s not too late, we should be giving
Only with love can we climb
It’s not too late, not while we’re living
Let’s put our hands out in time

The Prairie Home Antidote For American Political Anxiety

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By the time this column is published, the last presidential debate will have either occurred or been cancelled, more women may or may not have come out to tell their stories of sexual abuse at the hands of a repulsive Republican nominee, Wikileaks will have posted information that indicates HRC is indeed a typical hack politician who says one thing to one group and something completely different to others, accusations will be made, lies will be told, and 92 percent of Americans will have already decided who they’ll vote for in less than three weeks.

If life was fair, we could just hit the the fast-forward button, race to the punch line, and be done with it all.

Whether you lean to the left or feel proud to be alt-right, everyone in our country is in the same boat: The U.S.S. Stressed Out.

While I think a solid argument could be made for dumping a strong dose of Xanax into the nation’s water supply, many humans find natural ways to soothe our souls and chill out when the going gets tough. Exercise, eating good food, hanging out with friends, dancing, taking nature walks, getting a massage, watching sporting events … you get the idea. And with 286,942,362 Americans currently connected to the internet, many are shopping, doing research, streaming films and music, engaging in meaningful dialogue on social media (yeah … I’m joking) and, of course, there’s always porn. Back in 2013 Google reported that there were more visits to porn sites than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. It’s huge!

But all this is just locker room banter — boy talk.

So lets get to the music.

Almost every Saturday night when I get off from work, I run to my car and turn on A Prairie Home Companion. Not one to actually sit still in front of the living room radio for two hours each week like they did back in the old days, my experience with Garrison Keillor and crew has always been more hit-and-miss. Fifteen minutes here, another five or ten there. Catch a comedy sketch, listen to a musical interlude. Over the years, I’ve read Keillor’s books, watched a lot of videos, loved the Robert Altman film enough to own it, and I have hours and hours of show snippets sitting in the digital jukebox that I liberally sprinkle into my playlists.

Last week, October 15 to be exact, was the official coming out party for Chris Thile as the new host of APHC. This is a great opportunity for Thile, but ever since Keillor announced his retirement, his departure has been mourned by many as the end of a grand American institution. I too have shared my own trepidation and despair on these pages as well. But surprise, surprise, surprise!

With the weight of the daily news cycle on my head and politics consuming my thoughts, it was with a low threshold of anticipation that I tuned into the show while driving home from work, and was confronted with the perfect antidote for my ballot box blues.

Making my way home, I hopped in and out of my car a few times — at the local Korean market for steamed fish and rice, a quick sprint through Trader Joe’s for uncured all-natural beef hot dogs, zucchini, and coffee, the local fluff and fold — and sweet music flowed in my ears every moment I was behind the wheel. Although it wouldn’t have been fair to expect that Thile would offer up the intellectual depth or comedic talents of Keillor, the applause coming through my car radio speakers sounded as if he won over the crowd at the Fitzgerald Theater with a stellar band and great guests. As you can hear for yourself, the show continued with the tradition of delivering the goods in American roots music.

 

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression dot com. Because of space consideration I didn’t include a few other videos that I wanted to share,  featuring Jack White, Margo Price and Lake Street Dive. And so now, here they are.