Category Archives: My Back Pages

Listening To Music In Solitary Confinement

PIxabay License

I was standing in a crowded subway car the other day, and by doing a quick scan I estimated that about 80% of my fellow riders had some sort of personal sound delivery system plugged into their ears. Inexpensive wired earphones are the majority of what most people tend to use, followed by those popular wireless short white sticks that seem to be growing out of ears, and then big, padded, sound-cancelling headphones.

Being a somewhat curious type who enjoys digging into data and statistics, I tried to gain access to Report Buyers‘ annual and exhaustive market survey on headphones, but they charge almost $4,000 to download it, and I assumed that even if I had a No Depression expense account, it probably would be denied anyway. So I searched for a brief summary from their latest report, from last year, which I found for free on PRNewswire. I learned that there are currently over 3,000 companies engaged in the earphone/headphone industry, with five companies capturing two-thirds of the market share value and 50% of unit sales. It’s a growth industry, with revenue predicted to exceed $20 billion by 2023.

Wired headphones are 59% of the market, the report says, with wireless obviously making up the balance. However, that is rapidly changing, with the trend now leaning toward noise-cancelling and smart devices that appeal to “highly social, tech-savvy, affluent and young consumers.” But anyway … enough numbers.

As a teenager and into my 20s, music consumption was often done in group settings. My friends would come together to partake in adult beverages and other mood enhancements while sharing with each other our latest music discoveries. It was a highly social setting that now seems rather lost in the wind. There were also endless hours of solo listening time alone in my room, with music pumped loudly through speakers that could be heard throughout the house. “Edward … turn that goddamn music down or else” was the nightly mantra from my parents.

In July 1979 we had a revolution. The Sony Walkman was introduced and marketed as the world’s first low-cost portable stereo, costing $150 in the US and branded as the Soundabout. They sold 50,000 units in two months, and while vinyl albums had the largest market share, utilizing magnetic cassette tape technology to create your own portable personal playlists was highly appealing. In thinking about modern popular music, I break it down chronologically like this: Sinatra in the ’40s, Elvis in the ’50s, The Beatles in the ’60s, arena rock in the ’70s, and Sony in the ’80s. It seems that popular culture was impacted in that decadent decade more by the delivery system than the actual music.

By 1984 the Walkman was replaced by the Discman, but Sony later changed the name to the CD Walkman. Whether it be tape or shiny discs, the portable personal music device became our preferred way of listening to music and was only further enhanced by digital technology and the introduction in 2001 of the first iPod. You could carry hundreds of albums in your pocket instead of just a handful of tapes or discs, and today, with streaming, you now have instant access to around 40,000,000 songs, give or take.

A quick aside: Spotify reported this week that 10,000,000 songs in its assortment have never been played, not even once.

What I wonder about most when I’m walking the streets of Manhattan or riding on a plane, train, or subway is what other people are listening to. Is it rap, rock, country, jazz, classical, blues, reggae, K-pop, J-pop, or hip-hop? A podcast, audio book, an album of choice, or a curated playlist? Sometimes I’m listening to something so amazing or special that I feel as if I want to scream out “Hey everybody, check this out!” and somehow magically broadcast it. Perhaps one day a digital streaming boombox will become the rage.

These days it doesn’t require much effort to find and read reviews or get recommendations from algorithms based on your music library. What’s missing is that personal connection we used to make when we could easily share enthusiastically with others. In using social media we do it with our meals, pets, clothes, vacations, politics, and yes, to some degree, music. But for a large part of the day, our hours awake are spent in our own plugged-in universe where we keep the stress and anxiety of a cacophonous world at bay. I don’t know if you have the same feeling as I do, but when it comes to music it just seems as if we’re each living in our own private Idaho.

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

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.

Molly Tuttle: From Her Tweens to Her Twenties

The Tuttles With AJ Lee

Considering that she is only a quarter-century old and just released her first solo album, one might suggest I could be jumping the gun on writing a retrospective of Molly Tuttle’s musical career and highlights. And had she not grown up in the era of the magical time machine also known as YouTube, we might have thought she just landed under a Nashville cabbage patch one day and — poof — a star was born. But this young woman began playing guitar at the age of eight, recorded her first album of duets with her dad at 13, and has won more awards than the number of ants on a Tennessee anthill.

Molly, Michael, and Sullivan Tuttle’s bluegrass version of “El Cumbanchero” was uploaded in 2006 and has been viewed more than 1,750,000 times. And just to see what four additional years of practice and growing up can do to one’s musical skill sets, here is their 2010 version, with Molly moving from guitar to banjo:

Jack Tuttle is a distinguished bluegrass musician, teacher, author, and historian, and he came from a musical family in rural Illinois where he first learned to play guitar at age 5. Migrating to California, he began developing a complete lesson program for fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and guitar and has taught thousands of kids and adults since 1979 from his home base at Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto. Known as the “Dean of Bay Area Bluegrass,” he taught his own three children how to play and through the years they’ve been highly active on the festival circuit and at music camps, through the California Bluegrass Association (CBA), Northern California Bluegrass Society (NCBS), and the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA).

For those of us guitar players who’ve been around a while and think we might be pretty proficient, watching Molly Tuttle’s right hand technique is a jaw-dropping experience. It seems to be a hybrid of Merle Travis’ style combined with clawhammer banjo, and the result is stunning. When you add in her abilities as a cross-picking, lightning-fast flatpicker, it’s no surprise that in 2017, Tuttle was named the IBMA’s Guitar Player of the Year, an honor that was repeated the following year. She also won this year’s Americana Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year award. In addition to her fretwork virtuosity, she’s an exceptional banjo player, singer, and songwriter. Here’s one she wrote back in her teens.

The first album Tuttle recorded was in 2006, a duet project with her dad titled The Old Apple Tree. Around that time, the IBMA began a program for pickers between ages 4 and 17 called Kids on Bluegrass. Held during the annual World of Bluegrass festival, the kids get to meet up with others for the chance to play and perform together. Tuttle was one of many talented participants, as were Sierra Hull, Sarah Jarosz, Alex Hargreaves, Molly Cherryholmes, and another Californian, a bit younger than Tuttle, named AJ Lee. Here’s Lee, Tuttle, and Angelica Grim with Luke Abbott in 2009 at the Brown Barn Bluegrass Festival in San Martin, California:

Like Tuttle, Lee began studying and performing bluegrass at a very young age. She was about 10 or 11 and attending a CBA event when Jack Tuttle introduced himself to her father, Rodney, and shared that he was working with groups of kids and wondered if Lee might want to join in. That was the genesis of The Tuttles with AJ Lee, featuring Jack on bass and occasional vocals, with the three Tuttle kids and Lee taking the spotlight. Here they are in 2010 at the Strawberry Music Festival at Camp Mather, California. Molly Tuttle is 17 here.

The group released their first self-titled album in 2010, followed by a second release titled Endless Oceans. Lee, whom I’ve written about before, is now 21, plays in the band Blue Summit that also features Sullivan Tuttle on guitar, and has won the Best Female Vocalist award from the Northern California Bluegrass Society seven times. Her mom, Betsy, has told me that “what AJ learned mostly from her work with the Tuttle family was humility among greatness and the ability to play with intent.” While Lee was poised to make the move to Nashville, as Molly Tuttle has done, a year ago, she’s backed off for now, telling me not too long ago that her “heart is in California.”

In 2012, Molly Tuttle had a huge year when she was awarded merit scholarships to the Berklee College of Music in Boston for music and composition as well as the Foundation for Bluegrass Music’s first Hazel Dickens Memorial Scholarship. She won the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest and received both Female Vocalist and Guitar Player awards from the Northern California Bluegrass Society. (The Tuttles with AJ Lee took home the NCBS’s Bluegrass Band award that year.)

In October of that year, she and her father participated in a duet contest on Prairie Home Companion and won second place. In an article for Bluegrass Today, she wrote:

“I have been listening to Prairie Home Companion since I was a kid, so it was a dream come true to play on the show. I loved seeing how it all comes together. Everyone who worked on the show was so professional, but also really friendly and nice. After the show Garrison invited us all to his house for a party, which was wonderful with lots of good food and people. He led a jam around the piano and asked if I would like to sing a Hazel Dickens song with him, so we sang ‘Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.’ All in all it was such an honor to be on the show and one of the best weekends of my life!”

Over on the Tuttles with AJ Lee website, on the front page it says “We don’t really play together as a band anymore but most of us still do still play music a lot. Thank you for being so supportive of our music over the years. Please keep in touch with us and we hope to see you some time at a show or festival.”

Molly Tuttle is on tour supporting When You’re Ready — you can check the dates on her site. This is the link to AJ and Sully’s Blue Summit site, and if you’d like to learn more about Jack Tuttle and perhaps want to take some lessons, just click on his name. I’ll close this one out with one of Molly’s signature concert tunes, the Townes Van Zandt cover she’s been doing for years. This video is from the family band’s Freight and Salvage gig in Berkeley in 2014 and it’s a barn burner. Great music from fine folks.

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

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed 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.

Post-Concert Madness at the Merch Table

Festival (Destroy Capitalism), Banksy, 2006

After reading my fellow No Depression columnist Isa Burke’s recent column, The Absolute Truth About Post-Show Conversations, I thought it was a great topic that I might expand on with a slightly different perspective. If you aren’t aware, Isa performs with Eleanor Buckland and Mali Obomsawin in Lula Wiles, a trio who are touring extensively at the moment in support of their album What Will We Do. It is one of my favorite releases of the year and they appear to be a critics favorite who are well deservedly on the verge of breaking out in the folk-roots music-Americana genre. Here’s a musical interlude from them before I dive deeper into the subject at hand.

Isa’s column speaks to her experience as both a fan and performer, sharing the awkwardness one can feel on either side of the merch table. For the past few years I’ve volunteered at a concert series here in New York, and my responsibilities are usually limited to making sure the table looks inviting, offering suggestions to a new fan on what CD they might like to start out with, handling the finances, and quietly remaining out of the way to allow the musicians to connect with members of their audience. Unlike large venues with bigger name acts, we operate less as a T-shirt and CD superstore and more like a space that provides a continuation of the complete concert experience.

It’s a balancing act for many musicians, as many are somewhat uncomfortable with “selling” or even simply holding a brief but meaningful conversation, but the cold reality is that the evening’s profit or loss will likely be determined at the table. I’ve witnessed the good, the bad, and the ugly. The artist who retreats backstage and is either fearful to come out or feels as if their job ended onstage at the final note. Some will focus all their attention and bantering on fellow band members or family and friends, while ignoring the fan holding out a disc or simply their hand to shake. And on the flip side, some fans take zero notice or care of the long line forming behind them and take up too much of an artist’s precious post-show time, when the interest in buying something is at its peak.

In my previous life working in music sales and marketing from the early ’70s until about a dozen years ago, I witnessed the business of music merchandising go from virtually zero to now bringing in over $3 billion dollars per year. What was once a bootleggers paradise out in the parking lot is now likely to be controlled by artist management, who offer services such as design, manufacturing, and licensing in addition to all the other expected functions. And as revenue from music sales has dwindled, larger record labels have transformed themselves by offering a smorgasbord of services that includes marketing an artist’s merchandise and music, of which they take a healthy percentage.

A man who taught me a lot about audiences and merchandising, although not on the level of most Americana-type musicians, was Chip Davis from Mannheim Steamroller. His challenge was a Christmas-based catalog that sells for only six weeks each year, which severely narrowed his window of opportunity. Knowing that most of the people who came to his shows already owned his music, Chip created a broad line of products, from wearables to his famous hot chocolate. He blended a spice rub to create a brand that could be sold year round, and on the table he had items that would run the gamut from a few dollars to hundreds. Knowing that a holiday concert brings out the little ones, he had plenty of candy and kid-sized clothing.

Another person who knew a lot about the buying habits of their audience was Garth Brooks. While you wouldn’t see him after the show, for many years he would do afternoon “meet and greets” at the local Walmart near where he was playing. He had the ability to stay laser-focused on the person in front of him, and he’d take the time to give everyone the opportunity to create a special experience that they’d treasure forever. Unlike some musicians who would only sign an autograph if you bought something, Garth could care less. He knew that the time he invested in people would yield a lifelong fan base, and I also believe that he took from it as much as he gave.

Bringing it back down to the musicians in this genre, most of whom play primarily at small to midsize venues and on the festival circuit, I’ve got a few thoughts based on what I’ve seen through the years.

For musicians: Don’t overcharge for your music. While it may seem to you as if 15 bucks for a disc is a fair price, remember that most of your audience already owns it. And more are streaming it. So they’re looking for a souvenir or maybe a gift for someone. The band that I’ve seen take home the most money on any given night was one that had no price tags on anything. They have a “pay whatever you want” policy, and it works beyond belief. Others do well with a “three for $20” approach on discs, especially if there’s a number of titles in their catalog. And while it varies by audience, unless you’re Jason Isbell, Lucinda Williams, or Wilco, you probably won’t sell many expensive wearables. Skip the tees and sweatshirts and think small. More options at lower prices can earn you a better payday.

And for fans: I wish there were an app on everyone’s phone that allowed you to tip a musician or band that you’ve just finished listening to. Instead of just walking by the merch table on your way to the parking lot, you could send them a ten spot and they could respond with that evening’s set list or a link to a private fan page on their website. And for you folks who want to buy something or just simply want to meet the musicians, be polite, keep it brief, know that cash is preferred and don’t keep it buried too deep in your wallet or purse. Time is money, as they say, so y’all please do your part in creating less madness at the merch table.

Thanks again to Isa for the inspiration, and let’s close this column out with another Lula Wiles clip.

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

Hello In There…Can You Hear Me?

I published this at the No Depression website on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Living in California at the time, I was inspired to write it after listening to a favorite song of mine. You know it too…John Prine’s ‘Hello In There’. As much as it’s about growing older, for me it also represents the stories of those that passed away too soon. It’s curious that this past year has seen Prine release his biggest selling album, going out on a long tour that sold out at every stop and receiving accolades far and wide. I saw him perform for the first time right before last Christmas and he was sharp and spry, literally dancing across the stage at the end of the night. He sang that song I like, and as usually the case when I hear it, I cried a bit. It used to be about old folks, now it’s about me. And maybe you, too.

My mom will turn ninety next month and my sister has been going through boxes in her basement looking for old photographs. She found the one above just last week, and mom is on the right looking very fashionable while standing with her Uncle Alfred and Aunt Tiny on the roof of the Empire State Building. I think it must be sometime in the late thirties before the second world war started, and it looks so peaceful and calm so far up in the air. That this was found just days ahead of the tenth anniversary of what we simply call 9/11 was not lost on me.

For the second time in as many years, yesterday I learned that an old friend, someone I’ve known and cared about, died. I’m used to seeing social media reminders that this or that musician was either born or died on this date, and we’ll watch a video, say nice things about them and move on with our lives. News about people you really don’t know personally is just that…news. But when you find out a person you’ve spoken with, shared time together with, broken bread with, laughed and cried with has passed on, it’s a very different experience. It’s hard.

Throughout the past week my fifteen year old German exchange student and I have sat on the couch together in front of the television and watched many of the special broadcasts about 9/11. She was just five when it happened, and seemed as interested to learn about that day as I was in trying to forget about it. It’s been many moons since I’ve watched the footage of the planes smashing into the Towers, the dust storm as they fell, the people searching for survivors, the doctors and nurses waiting to treat the sick and injured who never showed up. Three weeks after the attacks I stood at Ground Zero and ten years later I can still smell of death.

Last night down in Florida there was a Republican presidential primary debate, hosted by the Tea Party people. I didn’t watch it, as I’m not interested in the venom they spew and the hate they peddle. It was reported in the news that when the talk turned to health care issues and a question was asked about what you do with a sick and uninsured person…do you let them just die…several in the crowd yelled “Yeah!”. Not one single candidate spoke out against that “Yeah!”…and they’re not ashamed of it and they don’t give a shit. Just let ’em die.

As we remember the lives lost on 9/11, we also think of those that are slowly dying today due to the after effects of toxic exposure. I imagine that survivors, family members and loved ones who’ve lost someone must think of those final moments over and over in their heads every night as they lay in bed. And often I think of the indescribable pain suffered on the nights and days after 9/11 as they hopefully waited for husband, wife, son, daughter, relative or friend to come back home.

My mom will be ninety next month. I’ll be flying into New York in about ten days to visit with her and my family. My sister and I will drive her down the turnpike to Philadelphia where we grew up and lived for much of our lives, and visit the grave of my father. Maybe we’ll drive by our old house on the way back. The next day I’ll take the train alone into Manhattan to visit Ground Zero . And as I fly back to California, when I pass over Ohio, I’ll look down and remember my old friend who died too young.

Postscript: A lot has changed since then, a lot hasn’t. My wife and I divorced the year after, the boys and I moved to New York, the exchange student I mentioned went back home to Germany (she turned twenty-four this week) and many of my friends and family have passed on. Mom’s not with us anymore, and if you’re a believer she’s in a batter place with dad, the love of her life. If you two are looking down or listening in, I just wanted to take a moment and say…hello in there.

Easy Ed’s Broadside Outtakes #11

R Crumb, cover art: Blues: Great Harmonica Performances of the 1920s and ’30s (Yazoo, 1976)

Easy Ed’s Broadside column has been a fixture for over ten years at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website. These are odds and ends, random thoughts and fragments never published.

New Release Spotlight

This week Steve Earle releases his tribute to mentor Guy Clark and Rolling Stone Country has published an interview. (Photo by Tom Bejgrowicz) Heres the intro but click this link to get to the full story:

Earle has been closely linked to Clark since 1974, when they first crossed paths in Nashville. The following year, he contributed backing vocals to Clark’s debut masterpiece Old No. 1 — singing on “Desperados Waiting for a Train” with Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris and Sammi Smith — and joined his touring band as a bass player. When Earle recorded his first-ever demo to shop around Nashville, he did so in the kitchen of Clark’s modest home in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, where Guy’s wife Susanna was busy frying bacon.

And here’s a video of three songs and an interview that he did at Paste Studio this week.

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore

Sad news that Scott Walker has passed on. An American-born 60’s hitmaker who found much greater fame and respect in Britain through the decades, he’s remembered in this article from Amanda Petrusich for the New Yorker. Titled “The Weird and Vast and Periodically Devastating Music of Scott Walker”, I’ll start you off but do click this link to read it in full:

There are a handful of niche artists whom I love to play for friends who have never heard them before. Music critics are infamous for these sorts of overbearing displays—smugly dropping a needle to a record and then staring, expectantly. It’s awful! Yet the first time that a person hears the singer Scott Walker—who died on Friday, in London, at the age of seventy-six—a palpable transformation occurs, and it’s extraordinary to witness.

Praise The Lord…Here Comes Julie and Buddy Miller Again

NPR broke the news that there’s a new album and within the article they share two new songs. Here’s an excerpt but y’all need to click this link to get all the news and hear the tunes:

The public absence of the Miller’s singular, beloved dynamic — she the mischievous empath, he the soulful stoic — has been felt acutely, but their influence on multiple generations of artists in the Americana scene remains profound; it’s evident in never-ending new interpretations of songs from their catalog; in vocal harmonizing that generates warmly affectionate friction rather than a seamless blend; in repertoires that make room for rawboned strains of Appalachian folk and honky-tonk, unguarded, diaristic singer-songwriter confession and the lurching, rhythmic looseness of early R&B and rock and roll.

And just in case you’ve forgotten…

Do You Know What This Is?

Keaton Music Typewriter

It’s the Keaton Music Typewriter, patented in 1936, later updated in 1953 and marketed for under $300. If you’d like to learn more, click this link.

From Tejano To Polkas: Americana Lost and Found

Note: Shameless self-promotion. This is an article I wrote and published a while back for No Depression, and it’s right here on my site now should you care to read it.

Back in the fifties when I was just a little squirt, most Saturday nights were spent at my grandparents’ house, where we ate boiled chicken, played endless card games, and watched television on a small Dumont black and white. It was always the same routine: Lawrence Welk, Jackie Gleason, Gunsmoke, a bowl of cherry Jell-O and then off to bed. Not sure how my older sister escaped these tortuous nights, but while she was out at sock hops dancing with her friends and cruising the parking lot at Bob’s Big Boy on the boulevard, part of my musical DNA was being formed by the sound of Myron Floren’s accordion playing, an Amercan-ized, white-bread version of polka music.

The Story of Bonnie Guitar

Paul Sexton has written an excellent article on the late Bonnie Guitar for uDiscoverMusic and I suggest you go read it here. I’ll kick you off with this:

The woman born Bonnie Buckingham in Seattle on 25 March 1923 is remarkable not only for a recording career that took her into the Billboard pop top ten in 1957 with ‘Dark Moon’ but then into the country top ten on three occasions; then for a parallel executive career in which she co-founded the Dolton label, who made national and international stars of vocal trio the Fleetwoods and instrumental group the Ventures. What’s more, Bonnie was still occasionally playing live into her 90s (as you’ll see from the video at the bottom of the story), before her passing at the age of 95 on 12 January 2019.

The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily

You probably found this article on my Facebook page with the above name, but if not…please come over and follow me. Throughout each day I try and find interesting articles to post and at the close it’s always a video clip. This was one of the most popular over the last few weeks. Enjoy, and maybe I’ll try and keep this format going.

How Music Scratches A Niche

Pixabay License

Between my weekly column for No Depression, keeping my own website updated, maintaining a digital magazine, and aggregating music news on a Facebook page, I devote about three or four hours each day to scanning headlines, as well as searching for interesting musical tidbits in the less traveled corners of the internet. Perhaps it’s become an obsession, because it’s done not for money but simply for my own sense of curiosity and interest, and the enjoyment of sharing. To be transparent, and this is in no way a complaint but just a fact, if I was to live on my monthly stipend for writing, I’d be living in a cardboard box under a freeway, weigh less than a hundred pounds, and you’d find me at Union Square with three rusted strings on an old busted up guitar, singing the blues out of tune for spare change.

And so it is that I have a regular day job with salary and benefits that keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, one kid in college with the other now on his own, access to exceptional health care, and even a moderate savings account. Now, it’s not at the level when I will ever actually be able to retire and enjoy the so-called “good life” promoted in television advertisements from wealth management institutions, but that is of little concern to me. I am fortunate — knock on wood — to live a frugal and utilitarian lifestyle that allows time to enjoy film, art, music, and books.

For 40 hours each week, I interact with hundreds of people from many walks of life. Rich, poor, young, old, born either here or there with multiple ethnicities and religions, conservative, liberal, apolitical, privileged, just scraping by, in good health, and at the beginning, middle or end of life. While it’s not the sexy fast-paced executive position in music distribution that I once enjoyed over a decade ago, in many ways it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. My days are filled with human interactions, mini-relationships that can last from a minute to several hours for my patrons, and months and years with my associates.

It’s not important what my job is or who I work for, but what I can share is that a large part of my day is talking about music and learning not only what people enjoy listening to, but how they do it. For someone like myself, who has been an avid music collector with the fortune to turn a passion and interest into a career, it’s interesting to get out of my bubble to understand how other people relate to music in their lives. And while I won’t say it has surprised me, personal observation flies into the face of the ideas and statistics that are often touted in the media.

Let me offer some examples. First off, for the majority of the people I meet, music is simply a soundtrack that plays in the background at a very low volume. They don’t necessarily seek it out, but rather accept whatever happens to come up. It’s a push rather than pull experience. Those who actively choose what they listen to will almost always stick to what they know, rarely going out of their lanes. There’s a relatively small percentage of people who actually collect physical music anymore, as most enjoy the ease and variety of satellite radio inside their cars and homes, and are rapidly adapting to subscription streaming. With all the news stories about people who are actively buying and collecting vinyl albums, and an endless parade of new turntables being marketed and promoted, I’m hard pressed to actually meet these people, as they are few and far between. In my experience, it’s just a small bump, folks, not a movement.

The vast majority of urban and suburban twenty-somethings are listening to hip-hop, while for those in rural areas it splits by gender to either bro country and muscular rock, or the lite pop of Katy, Arianna, Taylor, Miley, or whomever. Instagram notoriety supersedes actual musical output; selfies and fashion are now wrapped up in a ribbon of unfulfilled aspirations. When you’re in your 30s and 40s, settling into relationships, careers, and family, the music preferences default to whatever you were listening to in college. I suppose it’s hanging onto your youth and the concept of independence. Once you hit your 50s there seems to be a divide: those that stick with the same old thing and those finally taking the time to color outside the lines. Am I totally stereotyping? Of course. But I’m purposely painting with a wide brush and skipping over the fine-line exceptions because it isn’t about you or me. It’s about the majority of people.

What we call Americana is rolling along quite nicely, but it’s simply a scooter on a highway of long limos and SUVs. You can toss jazz, blues, bluegrass, folk, world, classical, and any number of smaller genres into the same bucket. Put aside for the moment that some young folks have gone to summer music camps, become music majors at college, and now play and/or listen to roots music. To appropriate and re-invent a phrase from Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols’ manager and provocateur: All this scratchin’ is making me niche.

My personal observations should be considered neither dark nor dreary nor musical snobbery, because music brings to everyone enjoyment, emotional attachment, and connectivity to the world around them. And today more than ever before, it is live music that shines most brightly. Putting aside the cost of tickets to see top-tier acts, never before have we seen such a rise in festivals and the ability to discover exceptional performances in unlikely venues from local farmers markets, your neighbor’s living room, or the tavern down the street.

The inability to be financially rewarded from recordings and airplay has resulted in a shift of the paradigm. It’s not unique. From medieval fairs, minstrel and medicine shows, vaudeville, dance shows from American Bandstand to Soul Train, terrestrial radio, player pianos to DAT cassettes and beyond … it’s always changing. With the ease of both creating music and listening to it on an electronic gizmo that fits into the palm of your hand, what we have should be viewed as opportunity, not misfortune. And that serves not only the masses, but you and me. Another way of concluding my essay on the state of music today is that it, well, scratches our niche.

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

Johnny Otis and That Crazy Hand Jive

Johnny Otis (center), shown playing with his band The Johnny Otis Revue/ Capitol Records

When Johnny Otis passed away on Jan. 17, 2012, the Los Angeles Times obituary described him as this: “singer, musician, composer, arranger, bandleader, talent scout, disc jockey, record producer, television show host, artist, author, journalist, minister, and impresario.” And over on the History of Rock website, they begin their biography of the man like this: “A pioneering figure in the development of R&B following the demise of the big bands in the late ’40s, Johnny Otis was the most prominent white figure in the history of black R&B.”

Ionnnis Alexandres Veliotes was born to Greek immigrant parents in the North Bay region of San Francisco in 1921, and he grew up in a black neighborhood of Berkeley, where his father owned a grocery store. In his biography, Midnight At The Barrelhouse, written by George Lipsitz, Otis explains his heritage and cultural identification this way: “Everybody I came into contact with as a kid, all my playmates were black. I was around thirteen when the ugly head of racism really reared up. I was told very diplomatically at school by a counsellor that I should associate more with whites. After that I left and never came back to school. I never felt white. I wouldn’t leave black culture to go to heaven. It’s richer, more rewarding and more fulfilling for me.”

During his teens he started playing the drums and eventually learned piano and vibraphone. In the late ’30s he made his professional debut with the West Oakland House Rockers, changed his name to Johnny Otis, and moved to Los Angeles, which he made his base of operations while playing in a number of big bands. Fronting his own band by 1945, he recorded several songs for the Excelsior label, and their version of “Harlem Nocturne” was popular enough to support several national tours.

In the late 1940s he opened the Barrelhouse Club in the Watts neighborhood of LA and picked up an A&R gig with King Records. At this point he made his transition from jazz and jump blues to becoming a pioneer in rhythm and blues, credited with discovering and working with Willie Mae Thornton, Jackie Wilson, Little Willie John, The Robins (later becoming The Coasters), Hank Ballard. Mel Walker, and Little Esther Phillips. The Johnny Otis Rhythm and Blues Caravan he put together crisscrossed the country and was the forerunner of the later traveling rock and roll revues.

By 1950 Otis was recording under his own name, and he began producing sessions and leading the studio bands for Little Richard, Willie Mae Thornton, and Johnny Ace. He also wrote “The Wallflower” (aka “Dance with Me Henry”) with Etta James, which was an answer record to Ballard’s “Work With Me Annie,” and he co-authored “Hound Dog” with Thornton. In 1958 he wrote and recorded “Willie and The Hand Jive” for Capitol Records, using the “Bo Diddley beat” based on the phrase “shave and a haircut, two bits.”

History of Rock describes his stage shows in the late 1950s and early ’60s like this:

“They would open with him doing a solo on the drums and vibes that would last ten minutes before the rest of the band would come on stage. There were always female vocalists (Little Esther, Willie Mae Thornton, and Marie Adams) that could really shout the blues. They would then be followed by a male vocalist (Mel Walker) who was smooth with the ballads. The show climaxed with a vocal group, usually The Robins, followed by a number or two by the band with Otis frantically switching back and forth from the drums and vibes. All the while his dark Greek complexion led most in the audience to believe he was black.”

Following the Watts riots in 1965, Otis became very involved in the civil rights movement. He ran unsuccessfully for political office and then wrote the first of four books, Listen to the Lambs, which was a discussion of the significance of the riots. He was a radio disc jockey and later had his own television program. In the late ’60s he would tour with his son Shuggie Otis, who at 15 was an accomplished blues guitarist with a contract at Epic Records. Often joining his dad’s groups, Shuggie and Johnny were guests on Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats album, and below is from a gig they did with guitarist Roy Buchanan in 1971.

Johnny was ordained as a minister in the 1970s and opened a nondenominational church, working to help feed the homeless. He moved to Sonoma County and became an organic farmer in the ’90s, opening a grocery store to sell his produce. The store also doubled as a club where he and the family band performed, and he continued with his weekly radio show and occasional tours. During this period he also published three books: a musical memoir, Upside Your Head!: Rhythm And Blues On Central Avenue (1993); Colors And Chords (1995) which was devoted to his artworks; and Red Beans & Rice And Other Rock ‘n’ Roll Recipes (1997), a cookbook. He passed away in 2012, just three days before Etta James, his ’50s collaborator.

I’ve been wanting to write about Johnny Otis for a long time, and this serves merely as an introduction and thumbnail sketch of the man. Dave Alvin, who along with his brother Phil would frequent the black clubs on Central Avenue in Watts, has recorded a really nice recollection of Otis and those times, which you can watch here. Wish there were more live video clips of the man, but I’ll close this out with a profile that appeared on The Today Show in 1983. Hats off to reporter Boyd Matson for posting it and keeping the story and memory of Johnny Otis alive.

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