Category Archives: My Back Pages

Country Blues in Black and White

Big Bill Broonzy/udiscovermusic.com

Over one billion hours of content are viewed each day on YouTube according to Alexa Internet, a web traffic analysis company. They’ve also calculated that over four hundred hours of new content are uploaded to the site each minute of every day. And while those numbers don’t really surprise me, it’s hard for me to believe that the site only launched 13 years ago since it’s become such an integral part of my life. Whether it’s for news, entertainment, research, music, or simply sheer boredom, it’s a rabbit hole that leads me from one video to another and a timesuck that makes me wonder how I could have possibly lived without it.

This past April a music video titled “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee became the most-watched video at over five billion views. Justin Bieber is the only musician who has had five videos seen over a billion times each. Others who’ve surpassed that billion-view mark more than once include Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Adele, Ed Sheeran, Shakira, and Bruno Mars, to name but a few. Bob Dylan doesn’t make the top 100 list, nor do The Beatles, Stones, Elvis, Garth, Prince, Tom Petty, Neil Young, or obviously anything in the Americana or roots music genres. But popularity isn’t what makes YouTube so special; it’s all about infinite variety.

A few nights ago I came across a music documentary produced by BBC Four, a British television channel whose primary role is to reflect a range of UK and international arts, music, and culture. Folk America was first televised in March 2012 and it comes in three episodes: Birth of a Nation, This Land is Your Land, and Blowin’ In The Wind. I’d seen it a few years ago but decided to watch it again since they offer footage that is rarely seen. If you search for it you’ll find that it has been uploaded in a number of different configurations, from the complete program to a series of ten-minute clips.

I’ve always been enchanted by country blues, the acoustic variety that was made by rural African-Americans in the South during the 1920s and ’30s. After being recorded by folklorists like the late John Lomax and labels such as Paramount and Okeh, most of the musicians faded away from the public until the folk and blues revival in the early ’60s brought them back to the attention of a younger white audience. Appearances at the Newport Folk Festival, Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest television show, and other venues were caught on film, and although they don’t quite have the popularity of Mr. Bieber or Ms. Swift, they share the same space on YouTube and wait patiently to be discovered.

Falling down that crazy rabbit hole again, these live performances are a few of my favorites that aren’t meant to be definitive but rather reflective of the times. If you’re interested in learning more about the music, there are a few resources I can suggest. Check out the Smithsonian Folkways site, Ranker’s Top 40 songs, and this site dedicated to contemporary acoustic blues that also offers some interesting historical essays and references.

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

This is America: Folk Music from Childish Gambino

This is America/Video by Childish Gambino

On the morning of May 5, a Saturday, I woke up at the crack of dawn, made a pot of coffee, had a bowl of cereal, took a shower, got dressed, and went to work. After standing on my feet for over eight hours I drove back home, played guitar for a bit, made myself a small meal and did a fine imitation of a potato laying on a couch while binge-watching Norwegian crime noir on Netflix. When it was time for Saturday Night Live to begin broadcasting, I put it on, watched the cold opening and saw that the host was Donald Glover. I had no clue as to who he is or what he does. The jokes during the monologue failed to make me laugh, so I turned it off and went to sleep.

I would not identify myself as a fan of hip-hop music, but it is not an unknown nor unpleasant genre to my ears. Most of my exposure runs from the mid-’70s to the turn of the century, and after then I sort of lost interest. In all candor, I don’t understand most of the lyrics, the bass-heavy beats can’t compete with the whine of a pedal steel guitar, and I’m completely turned off by the misogyny. But I don’t exactly fit within the demographic and I’d guess that neither do you. While we easily praise and acknowledge the African-American contribution and influence to roots music, hip-hop remains largely ignored by this audience.

Donald Glover is a graduate of New York University, a writer for 30 Rock, an actor on the sitcom Community, and the creator, star, and occasional director of Atlanta, a series on FX. An Emmy and Golden Globe winner, he has appeared in several films, will provide the voice of Simba in the Lion King remake,and will play Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. His music career began as a DJ and producer, putting out DYI mixtapes beginning in 2008 under the name mcDJ, and he performs under the stage name Childish Gambino with three albums and a few Grammy nominations under his belt.

While Glover hosted SNL and I slept, he debuted a new song, “This Is America,” which he co-wrote and co-produced with his long-time partner Ludwig Göransson. They simultaneously released a music video directed by Hiro Murai and in 24 hours it was viewed 12,900,000 times. Ten days later, as I sit here writing this, that number is now 123,622,585 and the song debuted at number one on Billboard’sHot 100. If you haven’t yet seen it, I won’t dare spoil the experience by going too deep, but I will warn that this is a violent representation of violent times in America. It is rich in texture, with multiple storylines that create a surreal atmosphere that takes repeated views to capture the various movements and symbolization.

Hip-hop has long ago surpassed traditional folk music when it comes to creating influential protest music for a mass audience. It’s as powerful as anything I’ve ever heard, and as I watch “This Is America” it takes me right back to the first time I heard people like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and the early work of Bob Dylan. This is a passing of the baton, this is the new folk music.

Postscript: For those interested in exploring the context and meaning of this video, there have already been a number of articles written and videos posted that will help guide you through it. Inside Edition offers an in-depth video explanation from Dr. Lori Brooks, a professor of African and African-American Studies at Fordham University. Time Magazine enlisted Guthrie Ramsey, a professor of music history at the University of Pennsylvania for its coverage.

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

Gospel Americana and That Old-Time Religion

Collage by Easy Ed

The small town of Ferriday, Louisiana, has produced two celebrities who happen to be cousins. You likely know that one is Jerry Lee Lewis, whose nickname is “The Killer” and is considered one of the pioneers of rock and roll music, while the other is televangelist Jimmy Lee Swaggart. In the ’50s, when Sam Phillips’ Sun Records was recording Jerry Lee, he also offered a contract to Jimmy Lee to kick off a new gospel label. He declined, citing a calling to preach, and by the late-’80s his weekly televised revival was featured on more than 3,000 stations around the world. An excellent singer and pianist, in the mid-’70s he began releasing gospel recordings that earned him quite a few Dove Awards and Grammy nominations.

We’ll get back to him later.

When I was just a little boy the devil did not call my name, but my parents sent me off to Hebrew school so I could learn the Torah and prepare for my bar mitzvah, a rite of passage when one turns 13. After the big event I didn’t continue with my religious education and spent most of my adult life declaring myself an atheist. But as strange as it sounds for an unsaved nonbeliever, heathen, and sinner such as I, the sound and glory of gospel music reached my ears when I was in my early 20s and I’ve always kept it close at hand.

Although I have no interest in getting too academic here, gospel and spiritual songs are largely an American-made type of music, albeit down racial lines. According to the New World Encyclopedia, “The relationship between the origins of white and African American gospel music is a matter of some controversy. Some argue that gospel music is rooted in Africa and was brought to the Americas by slaves. However, gospel harmonies and many of the hymns themselves also show a clear Scottish influence. Although white and black gospel singing may have grown up side by side and cross-fertilized to a great extent in the South, the sharp racial division in the United States, particularly between black and white churches, has kept the two apart. While those divisions have lessened slightly in the past 50 years, the two traditions are still distinct.”

Thomas A. Dorsey, the son of a Georgia Baptist preacher was originally a blues and ragtime jazz composer and singer. Often referred to as the “father of black Gospel music,” he is credited with teaming up with Mahalia Jackson — herself influenced by blues singer Bessie Smith — to bring the rhythm and energy of secular music into the church, and they formed the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, which is still thriving today.

In the late ’20s, gospel music began getting recorded and released by folks such as the Carter Family and Blind Willie Johnson. Within a few years, the Grand Ole Opry began to feature bluegrass and traditional gospel singing, while pioneering urban gospel performers gained popularity among black audiences. As the recordings became a solid revenue stream for record labels, distinct subgenres began to appear. Here are a few clips that reflect the various styles.

The Stanley Brothers

The Five Blind Boys of Alabama

Blackwood Brothers with JD Sumner

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

It’s hard to escape the influence that gospel music has had on almost every form of American roots and popular music. It’s always fascinated me that some of the greatest spirituals have been performed by pill-poppin’ and bottle drinkin’ fornicators and sinners, and there is a long list of those who have easily crossed that highway. Little Richard and Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Sam Cooke quickly come to mind.

Which brings me back to the aforementioned Jimmy Lee Swaggart.

In February 1988 Swaggart admitted to his audience that he had sinned, and was suspended by the Assemblies of God for sexual immorality. Because they felt he wasn’t repentant enough, he was defrocked. Two years later, now an independent Pentacostal preacher, he was found in the company of a prostitute for the second time. Instead of offering yet another public apology, he stood on the pulpit and declared “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business.”

On my own spiritual path, somewhere along the way I’ve moved from atheism to becoming a reluctant agnostic. Ceremonial trappings, century-old traditions, preachers on television with toll-free numbers on the screen, and the hypocrisy of those who espouse family values yet embrace politicians who ritually lie, cheat, and steal will not cause me to repent nor accept a savior. But to each their own. Nature, emotion, art, and music in all its glorious forms are my higher power. And I say amen to that.

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

I Got The John Prine Rabbit Foot Blues

Photo by David McClister/Billboard.com

I can remember a hot summer day in 1961 when the trucks and cars towing shiny Airstream trailers with exotic license plates from states like Florida, Alabama, and Georgia pulled into the massive parking lot of the local shopping center just down the street from our house in Philadelphia. My friends and I sat on our bikes and watched with anticipatory excitement and awe as men with tattoos on their muscular forearms and exotic-looking women who all seemed to have long flowing black hair worked in tandem to rapidly set up the midway rides, food stands, games, and a main stage.

This carnival had no tents, and the shows were performed for free under the stars by clowns, acrobats, a bearded lady, Siamese twins, and The Elastic Man. The latter stood over seven feet tall and couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds, yet he would fold himself up and fit into a child’s red covered wagon that would barely hold a medium-sized dog. There was also a live band that featured two male singers, and while I can’t confirm it, I’ve always believed it was the Brooklyn-based duo Don and Juan, who coincidentally recorded for the Bigtop label. I recall they covered all the current hits, and finished the set with their own top ten song.

From early morning to late at night, a few of us hung out with the carny folks, running errands or doing simple jobs. We were given free passes for the rides, had our fortunes told by some of the women, and soaked up a lifestyle and language unlike anything we’d ever experienced. They were only there for a few days, but it was long enough to put the thought in my head that I was going to run away and join them.

We had all grown up watching Circus Boy on our small black and white televisions, a show that starred future Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz playing the part of Corky, an orphaned kid who was adopted by Joey the Clown. On the morning after the last performance, I ran down the street to the shopping center carrying a small bag of clothes and found an empty parking lot. I was heartbroken, and other than the vivid memories I still carry with me, all I had to show for it was a rabbit’s foot on a keychain that I won in a stupid game. Put it into my pocket every day for years.

Unlike most people I know, there is no real or imaginary bucket list that I’ve come up with of things to do before I die. No exotic places I want to visit, no desire to skydive or walk on red hot coals, no particular women I want to date (that’s a lie), no dreams I need fulfilled. I’ve got some regrets for sure, and what comes to mind around the subject of music are the concerts I never went to and the musicians I never got to see.

It’s a short list: I was close to going to Woodstock with my friend and neighbor David, but my parents stopped me at the last minute. He went alone and came back with some crazy bug that laid him up in the hospital for a few weeks, so I was sort of okay with missing it. I never saw the Beatles play together, although over time I managed to catch three out of four and had lunch with Paul once. I was on my way to see Elvis Presley one night but made a quick stop at a record release party for Patti Smith. I never left. She was transformational, he was soon dead. Had a ticket to see Springsteen in 1975 at a small theater and was approached by a girl who said she’d do anything to get in. Half-joking I said “two hundred dollars” and she quickly counted out the dough and I was fine with it. Managed to see Leonard Cohen on his final tour, and last year scored tickets for a Gillian and Dave show.

A John Prine concert was the last must-see event I’ve had on my mind for some time, and last February I was fortunate to buy a ticket at face value for the first night of his tour: Friday, April 13th, Radio City Music Hall, New York. Center stage, second mezzanine, aisle seat. It was the day his first new album in ten years would be released, and everyone in the audience was to be given a free CD. Sturgill Simpson was opening and Brandi Carlile would join Prine’s band. While they were in town he taped The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Eight days before the show I got sick. Very sick. My lungs filled with fluid, my doctor pumped me up with steroids and antibiotics, and I stayed home from the day job to rest. As time passed with little improvement, I remembered that old rabbit’s foot and wished I still had it. On Friday the 13th I woke up, made a pot of tea, and with a couple of clicks on the keyboard I sold my ticket and went back to bed. Rolling Stone posted an online review of the concert that I read the next morning:

Friday night’s Radio City concert was a generations-spanning, culminating celebration of the late-career resurgence of John Prine, who over the past decade has unknowingly and unassumingly taken on the role of spiritual and musical godfather to an entire generation of 20- and 30-something country/folk-leaning singer-songwriters.

Playing at Radio City for the first time in his 50-year career, Prine’s age-weathered voice was in fine form from the onset, accentuating the time-tested vulnerability on old classics (“Hello in There”) and newly personal confessions (“Boundless Love”) alike.

The night came to a fitting close when Prine, joined by his wife, son, Carlile and several kazoos, bade farewell to the capacity crowd with his new album closer “When I Get to Heaven.” Prine delivered the song’s gently-strummed verses in a captivating, fully a cappella arrangement before erupting into the song’s ramshackle sing-along chorus with the band. But before he took his final bow, the singer neatly summed up the celebratory evening with the song’s final words. “This old man,”Prine sang, “is going to town.”

Do you want to know how I felt after reading that? It was exactly the same feeling I had 57 years earlier on the day that the carnival left town without me. And instead of a good luck charm in my pocket, I’m left with this special duet. Guess it’s just the way the world goes around.

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

The Mammals Return on the Ashokan Express

The last time I inhaled was 23 years ago and it didn’t take long for the cravings to fade away. My motivation coincided with the birth of my first child, and the fear we’d go to the supermarket together one day and I’d forget to bring him home along with the potatoes, bacon and eggs. The image etched inside my mind was of driving off behind the wheel as he remained strapped into the metal cart all alone in the parking lot, crying and bewildered. And so I traded smoke for fatherhood and have happily walked the peaks and valleys with a clearer head, and quickly discovered that music, art and the written word could still deliver a mountain high without an altered state of consciousness.

On the morning of April 20th – a special day of celebration for those who still appreciate the power of things green and leafy – two of my favorite musicians and storytellers released a new album featuring a group of collaborators and old friends. Minus original founding member Tao Rodriquez-Seeger, The Mammals have re-emerged from their self-described hibernation with a collection of songs that weave together and showcase a unique ability to easily slide in and out of the various nooks and crannies of roots music that expand the fluid borders of Americana.

When I posted the video of the album’s title track “Sunshiner” on my Americana Roots Music Daily Facebook page, this is what I wrote: “Lovin’ the new album from The Mammals. The title track sounds to me like this is what happens when you blend a Mazzy Star vibe with two-part harmony, and sprinkle in some cosmic country dripping with pedal steel magic.” What I didn’t share was that for a brief moment I had a strong desire to allow myself one more chance to fall under the influence, lay down in a meadow of wildflowers and float away into space. Instead, with my eyes shut and ears open, I arrived at the same place sans the four-twenty experience.

From their home base and humble abode in Woodstock, New York, Mike Merenda and Ruthy Ungar have raised their family in a supportive arts community steeped in history, continuing in the tradition of past folksingers who have traveled the musical ribbons of highways across America. On their Web site, this is how they describe what they do: “Woody Guthrie’s guitar killed fascists. This family carries the torch.” A Mike + Ruthy concert, now performing again as The Mammals, has always touched me as a two-foot process: one planted in the past traditions of old-time music, and the other into the yet unexplored.

No Depression‘s former editor Kim Ruehl recently posted a review ofSunshiner over at Folk Alley, and I’d be a fool to try and improve on her words:

“The Mammals are here to reorient us to the beauty of the natural world and our place in it, and the opportunities that lie therein. Nature, after all, contains plenty of reminders to slow down and step back. (Consider how many generations can come and go—with all their petty squabbles—in the lifetime of a single tree.).

Similarly, music has a practical role to play in helping us survive times such as these, whether by providing an escape route or a tool box for building a better way. Count Sunshiner among the latter.

For context, the Mammals have populated these songs with the moon and the stars, the water, the birds, and a path into the unknown. There’s a floating leaf from a maple tree, an ode on solar power and geothermal energy (the title track, of course). There’s the abundance of children, family, and friendships, graceful confrontations with mortality, and even the very human (mammalian?) desire to be alone for just a moment.”

The reference to Ashokan that I used in the headline of this column refers to the center and retreat in the Catskill Mountains, whose mission is ‘to teach, inspire and build community through shared experiences in nature, history, music and art.” Founded in 1980 by Ruthy’s father Jay Ungar and his wife Molly Mason – themselves a beloved performing duo of traditional roots music – in addition to a number of educational programs, they also run a series of popular week-long music camps “where people come together to become better fiddlers, guitarists, mandolin players, uke players, percussionists, singers, dancers and teachers.”

In 2013 Mike, Ruthy and other musicians from the area began a festival series called The Hoot, that takes place twice a year in Winter and Summer at Ashokan. Described as a “down-home, multi-generational celebration of live roots music, local food & crafts, and the joyful spirit of this amazing community where the Catskills meet the Hudson River Valley,” this summer it runs August 24th – 26th.

The Mammals have listed upcoming tour dates on their site, and the album is available either directly through them or from the usual suspects. If you get the chance to see them live – they usually do either small venues or open air festivals – it’s easy to fall under the spell of their charming observational stories that they weave with music that’s easy on the ears and gentle on the mind. Good people, good times. No need to inhale.

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

Nashville Cats on a Tennessee Ant Hill

The Lovin’ Spoonful

Yeah, I was just fourteen way back in 1966 and “you might say I was a musical proverbial knee-high.” My entire life swirled around the sounds of the times as a compulsive record collector and a late-night radio-dial twirler who was all ears and in possession of a Silvertone guitar bought straight out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. I was teaching myself how to play by sheer repetitive listening, catching the latest riffs of the day from the opening notes from songs like “Sounds of Silence” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”

It was the year of the mixed bag, with the airwaves not dominated by one band or genre over another, but a hodgepodge of one-offs and classics. Wilson Pickett blended into the soundtrack with Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass and Ike and Tina; Nancy’s boots walked alongside The Supremes’ chiffon dresses and choreography; The Beatles, Stones, and Beach Boys pumped out one hit after another, and one song released the week of Thanksgiving became my obsession.

Yeah, I was just thirteen, you might say I was a musical proverbial knee-high
When I heard a couple new-sounding tunes on the tubes and they blasted me sky-high
And the record man said every one is a yellow sun record from Nashville
And up north there ain’t nobody buys them and I said, “But I will.”

Released two years before Gram Parsons and the Byrds’ Sweetheart of The Rodeo, considered by many to be the keystone to modern day Americana, John Sebastian’s slightly geographically misplaced love for country music and the folks who played it — Sun Records was 200 miles away in Memphis — it was both a lyrically poetic and instrumental masterpiece that didn’t sound like anything else being played on the radio at the time. “Nashville Cats” was the ninth track of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s third studio album, Hums of The Lovin’ Spoonful, and each song sounds different from the next. The first big hits were “Summer In The City” and “Rain on the Roof,” and the only commonality with the other 15 tracks were that Sebastian either wrote or co-wrote each song and sang lead on most.

Well, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville
And they can pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee ant hill
Yeah, there’s thirteen hundred and fifty-two guitar cases in Nashville
And any one that unpacks ‘is guitar could play twice as better than I will

I’ve read that Johnny Cash’s “I Walk The Line” was one of Sebastian’s influences, since he was indeed just thirteen and living in Greenwich Village when it was released on Sun Records. The real story of how the song came about can be found here in this interview Sebastian did in 2016 for Epiphone, but the inspiration was the late Danny “The Telemaster” Gatton.

Zal Yanovsky was the guitarist and co-founder of the Lovin’ Spoonful, and I must have listened to him playing on “Nashville Cats” ten thousand times while trying to capture and replicate that great lead he did on his big Fender. When he passed away in 2002, Rolling Stone ran his obituary and quoted Sebastian on his playing: “He could play like Elmore James, he could play like Floyd Kramer, he could play like Chuck Berry. He could play like all these people, yet he still had his own overpowering personality. Out of this we could, I thought, craft something with real flexibility.”

Thirty-three years after it first came out, Del McCoury and his band covered it on his album The Family. Although I’m not able to confirm it, I think he may also have performed it with Steve Earle on The Jools Holland Show in 1999. In addition to Johnny Cash’s version and the Homer and Jethro parody, it was also done by Flatt and Scruggs. And while I hate to throw in this pretty awful novelty record, for you completists out there, this is The Lovin’ Cohens.

Nashville cats, play clean as country water
Nashville cats, play wild as mountain dew
Nashville cats, been playin’ since they’s babies
Nashville cats, get work before they’re two

I’ll close this out with Tony Jackson, the former Marine and banking executive who had a viral video (over ten million Facebook views) with George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” a couple of years ago. Hustled into a studio to record his debut album that came out in May 2017, he was backed by an incredible group of musicians and covered “Nashville Cats” for his first single, featuring John Sebastian, Vince Gill, Steve Cropper, Billy Thomas, Glen Worf, and steel guitar legend Paul Franklin. It’s a mighty fine version of the classic song that takes me right back to those late nights in my bedroom alone with my Silvertone, tryin’ hard to “pick more notes than the number of ants on a Tennessee ant hill.”

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

Headphones and Hair Loss

Pixabay License

Although my kids are grown and I no longer need to buy 200-count boxes of diapers or 10-pound bags of pancake batter mix, I’ve maintained my Costco membership and usually stop by every few months to pick up a few personal necessities and cat litter. Now, realizing that this may fall into the “too much information” zone, I’m going to nevertheless take a chance and share with you a recent revelation: I no longer need to buy shampoo. Ever. Again. Never. Done. It’s over.

With the exception of a small amount of gray fuzz on the sides that I shave off each morning, I’m now as bald as Yul Brenner, Telly Savalas, and that Australian dude from Midnight Oil. I know what you’re thinking … age, genes, and male sexual dihydrotestosterone. But hold your horses, Mister Ed. I suspect a musical connection.

Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, I went from a crew cut to flat top, a buzz cut to a modified duck-tail pompadour. My three main style influences were Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, and actor Edd “Kookie” Byrnes, who played the parking valet on the television show 77 Sunset Strip and was always combing his hair. He even had a novelty song he did with Connie Stevens – “Kookie, Kookie Lend Me Your Comb” – that was a top ten hit. And while the most popular male hair products on the market back then were Brylcreem (“a little dab’ll do ya”) and Vitalis Hair Tonic, I opted for this one.

On Feb. 9, 1964, millions of American families sat around their black-and-white DuMont or Admiral television sets to watch four moptops appear for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show. Modestly short by today’s standards, the way they wore and shook their hair when they sang was an aphrodisiac to teenage girls, and a few months later I had grown my hair out over my ears and collar, carried a cereal bowl down the street to the barber shop that I placed on top of my head as a guide, and got my first official Beatle cut.

By the Summer of Love in 1967, men’s hair flowed longer and longer. When the Byrds sang “so you wanna be a rock and roll star,” we all said “yeah yeah yeah” and let it grow despite the social constraints. We all dressed in costumes anyway, so the musicians and audience looked indistinguishable from each other. In England there were Mods, Rockers, and Teddy Boys, and in America it was simply greasers and hippies. My father didn’t speak to me for two years; we ate our meals separately at different times and I wasn’t allowed to get a driver’s license until I got a suitable haircut, which never happened.

After college my career goals were pretty simplistic: I wanted a job where I could always wear jeans, get stoned, and keep my hair long. That led to spending the next 35 years being a music business sales and marketing weasel, with a variety of long hairstyles often tied back into a ponytail. By the late ’90s it had morphed into – God save me – a mullet. I was wearing cowboy boots, drove a Ford Bronco, and was influenced by way too many trips to Nashville. It was the beginning of the end, and it broke my achy breaky heart.

By the time Y2K came rollin’ around, I was sporting a short, combed back Vic Damone thing with an ever-growing spot of skin in the back, and I began to ponder possible solutions. Toupees, hair weaves, restoration, ointments, plugs, and assorted medicinals were considered and tossed aside.

For reasons unknown, India seems to have become the hotbed of new treatments for baldness. There are lettuce and carrot juices to drink, shampoo made from milk and licorice, a process of wearing a paste of seeds and coconut oil in the sun for seven days and something called Binaural Beats, which are frequency modulators that encourage your hair follicles to grow when you listen to them. You can check it out here for free if you’d like, or follow another suggestion I just read about: maintain a regular bowel movement every day.

For the past few years I’ve been rockin’ the bald head with a close-cut Van Dyke beard that’s favored by Ultimate Fighting Champions, border security guards, and dudes who like to take their four-wheelers out into the California desert on weekends. Recently I thought that I finally discovered why I’m bald: it was my darn headphones. Seriously … I read it on the internet. In an article I found from Seventeen published last year, a “celebrity hairstylist” named Castillo claims that wearing over-the-ear headphones can rough up your hair strands and cause them to break off. Another credible authority called Hub Pages  speculates that “traction alopecia usually happens when there is a strain on the hair, so if your headset is pulling your hair or putting undue stress on your hair in some way, you could risk losing your hair to this method of hair loss.”

Don’t believe any of it. All these theories have been debunked by scientists. Mystery solved and this case is closed. Headphones, earbuds, or going to see live music will absolutely not cause your hair to fall out. On the other hand, it could lead to hearing loss. What? Huh? Did you just say something?

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 and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.