Why I make the music I make

Today I want to again talk things musical, and this time on a highly personal level.  Today my topic is “Why I make the music that I make”.

What prompted my thinking on this topic undoubtedly stems from an incident last summer where I played at an event back in my old neighborhood in central South Dakota. I was asked to “provide the music” at this event, which I gleefully agreed to (without a predetermined price, I might add).

 My partner and I opened the event in the mid-afternoon sun while the audience searched strategically for shade and opportunity to catch an occasional breeze. They weren't so concerned about being able to see or hear us, it seems.

We played for hours throughout the afternoon and late into the evening. We took only a few breaks, mostly because I had so much material that I wanted to do, and by the time we’d ended our first two-hour set I was sweat-soaked, and I’m sure my face was flushed a scarlet red.

At this time an old friend approached and greeted me, and after a few casual “Whatchu been up to?’s” we got to talking about my music activities both at home and abroad. After listening soberly to my account of my current musical status, he made the comment that maybe I should think about doing something else.

I’ll admit that I was a bit taken aback, but not in the way you might think.

It wasn't a put-down, or at least I don’t think it was meant to be. My friend knows well my love of music --  he’s watched for years as I sat enthralled listening to albums, he’s endured listening to me practice instruments, he’s come to jam sessions I played at and followed the progress of the first real band I joined over 30 years ago.

 I even once got him to go half on the purchase of an old electric piano so that I could add it to my practice studio. He was briefly interested in learning to play, which I enthusiastically supported, but I was far from proficient as a piano teacher, and some of the keys didn't work anyway.

So now after watching me sweat it out in the July-in-South Dakota-sun to a less than energetic crowd, playing my greatest hits collection that no one seemed to recognize, I suppose he just thought that it was finally time for me to rein in my musical aspirations and start riding a horse of a different color. After all, it didn't appear as though the whole thing had “success” painted all over it. . . it might have even appeared to be a bit pathetic.

My feelings weren’t really hurt, however; in fact I was a little amused. Little did he know that my unexpressed thought was “Quit now? I’m just starting to get good!”

So again, what makes me go traipsing around these out-of-the-way musical places that my fans and friends are generally unfamiliar with? Or, to be more direct -- What makes me make the music that I make?

The best way to explain myself is to list a few albums that made significant changes in my musical outlook:

·         #1 - “Mother & Child Reunion”, Paul Simon (Columbia Records, 1972).

·         # 2 - “Fingerpicking Guitar Techniques”,  Stefan Grossman, Kicking Mule Records (circa 1974 – but I didn’t hear the album until around 1984)

·         #3 – “Neck and Neck”, Mark Knopler & Chet Atkins (Columbia Records, 1990)

·         #’s 4&5 –  “Old No. 1”, Guy Clark (RCA, 1975), and “Bruised Orange”, John Prine (Atlantic, 1978)

It’s hard to stop with only these few albums, but I need to stop somewhere, and this list should suffice to make my point, which is – Have you heard of any of these people? (which is okay, since they haven’t heard of you. . . or of me, for that matter!)

Paul Simon came busting out with his first solo album following the bitter split with partner Art Garfunkel. Simon had something to prove after the supergroup had been riding high with songs like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and the quintessential classic “Sounds of Silence”; in my book, he proved it. There simply was never an album like that before or after. I love it for the clever lyrics, simple yet profound arrangements, and top-notch playing by some of the greatest studio players existing at that time (Just listen to David Spinozza’s guitar lead on the track “Run That Body Down” to get my drift). Other players on that sterling album were Stephane Grappelli (Django Reinhardt’s violinist, playing on the track “Hobo’s Blues”), and Stefan Grossman (who you might have noticed is listed as the #2 influencer in my list).

Only guitarists might recognize Stefan Grossman’s name, and I’ll wager darn few, at that; but Stefan Grossman introduced me to those spectacular musicians whose works will always be a part of my repertoire. Grossman was a protégé of Rev. Gary Davis, who in turn was a disciple of Blind Blake, and once again I could go on and on, but few would recognize or care. I find it ironic that all the big-name British cats of the 60’s onward were so successful with the music of these people, and yet they were never able to play without ‘dumbing it’ way down! To think of all the mileage that Eric Clapton got from Robert Johnson songs -- and Clapton was never able to finger pick!

There is one British cat who maintained the American music traditions faithfully. Think Mark Knopler, and you’ll likely think “Money For Nothing”, but isn't it interesting at the same time that when Knopler decides to produce an album apart from his Dire Straits band, he chooses the legendary Chet Atkins as his partner? And frankly, Knopler takes Atkins back to school in that album.

The last two albums listed aren't quite as connected as the first three I mention. The reason why I list them is because of the profound songwriting that comes forth in these albums. Guy Clark, the Texas songster, lives in humble simplicity in his Nashville home, where he repairs (and occasionally builds) guitars. Clark left it to Jerry Jeff Walker to make a splash with his songs, but Clark’s playing is exceptional on his albums (just give a listen to the track “Let Him Roll” to hear melancholy Texas folk/blues at its finest). The same holds true for John Prine; his singing and guitar playing are matched exquisitely (The track “Fish and Whistle” supports my opinion, I think).

So I list these minor works here to explain why I make the music that I make. Basically I’m a snob about music, convinced that most people really don’t know what they are talking about. I cringe at Jimi Hendrix posters, believing he was a fairly mediocre player that somehow managed to capture the imagination of a fairly musically naïve generation. Granted, I've never had anyone compare my playing to any of the British guitar greats, and that might have been nice, but shortly after I started learning how to Travis pick and play country blues, a friend compared my playing with Chet Atkins’. The strange thing about that was that I was never that much of a Chet Atkins fan because he had such a different niche (mostly played instrumentals) and he was from corny old Nashville – (see, at one time I used to be musically shallow. . . just like you!).

Now, since I’m spouting all this information about the truly sublime players, where do I fit into all this? Can I play Robert Johnson tunes with panache? Can I play a Skip James tune that will make your jaw drop? My answer is, “No, probably not, but I can sure play them a lot better than Clapton ever did!”

The reason I play the music that I play is because I've heard something excellent, and while I might fall short of this excellence that I seek, I’m  gratified by each step in the progress. Just think of Mark Knopler’s comment post Dire Straits: “After awhile, though, the group just wasn't a good vehicle for the songs I’d written”.  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_knopfler.html#Y9p3cufoOprmi0Z5.99 

Knopler had apparently gotten bored with the musical routine he’d established. I think he knew that there was a lot more ‘out there’ for him to sink his teeth into. As the endearing singer/songwriter Hoyt Axton (who would have been next on my list) sang, “I am less than the song I am singing, I am more than I thought I could be. . . (“Less Than The Song”, A&M Records, 1973)

And so my response to the realists and rationalists and Republicans who suggest I take another look at what I’m doing, investing all my time and enthusiasm into something that doesn't seem to be reciprocating –  “Hold on, now. . . maybe, just maybe I'll get lucky, and I'll finally get some help from a few of these musical geniuses out there, and I'll make an album nearly as good as "Mother And Child Reunion"; hey, I’m just starting to get good!”

What is glory?

What is glory but an ecstasy, an incomprehensible event that arrives in a passing glimpse as one views the full moon while descending a swirling ravine? Too stupendous for us to stay fixed upon, our realization is that the glory remains, yet we cannot linger long before it.

Should we actually be allowed to behold glory, no longer would it be, for that which becomes comprehensible to us is no longer glory. That which is comprehensible to us becomes the corruptible, for our understanding of a thing is the same as conquering it; the things we understand, we cause to be subordinate, as now they serve us.

But glory will never serve us, any more than the ocean will serve the stream. We are under a great belonging to glory, like a molecule of water that will eventually arrive at the vast waters. But we cannot remain as we are at that conclusion without experiencing a transformation, of fresh water to salt, and here the comparison must end, because we will not remain in glory’s ocean while we dwell as mortals.

To say we know glory is a paradox, because glory is a wonder, a mystery awesome and reverent to our souls. A glimpse of glory is an intimation that the best is yet to come, even as we freely admit that we haven’t any idea what the best might be.

While we are obliged to momentarily behold glory, we still see less than the whole, for glory is actually the radiation from its source. When we look at the sun, are we seeing its combustible gases, or are we seeing the light of the flames leaping from the orb?

In the sun’s case we would not value it so much without its glory, but in glory’s true case we will always believe that something terrific exists beyond the wall of flames.

Glory has its flings with the temporal, but its thoughts are set with the eternal, so that one might peer into a small glass from one end and gaze upon the universe from the other. . . glory for us is teemingly magnified degrees of the temporal in a confident expectation of the eternal.

Look what they've done to these blues!

      A fine fellow guitarist finally stopped by the other day to share some tunes and talk. The first thing he wanted to know about was my version of "One Kind Favor" that I played awhile back on Live 95 Breakfast Jam.

      See, he'd heard the 60's folk trio 'Peter, Paul, & Mary" perform it, and then more recently B.B. King's Grammy-award winning performance of the same classic tune. . . so where did I come up with my version? And after telling him it's from a recording of the immortal Blind Lemon Jefferson, he asked where Blind Lemon picked up the tune from.

    I'm sure he meant well, but comments like this sometimes leave me mortified. If you actually listen to Blind Lemon singing and playing this tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX3mxjtpyBc you will readily understand that this man is most likely the originator of the song. This is circa 1928, a very infantile period in recorded music, decades previous to multi-track recording and guitar tabs on the internet; Who (I ask) would have handed this song down to him in this particular form?

    It seems to me that even if this was a traditional, Blind Lemon put his own indelible thumbprint on this tune. If the tune doesn't grab you, well, "different strokes for different folks" I say, but you show me someone  else with the type of mastery exhibited in playing those guitar licks and phrasings while singing those lines, and I'll show you a man/woman (That's right -- political correctness since 1981, friends. . .) who's done his/her homework.

   You know, this happens all the time with the blues. It's a well-known fact that the early bluesmen swapped tunes around like sports trading cards, but that's not my point here. My point is the lack of understanding about the blues and its origins by the so-called spokespeople of the genre, and the total disregard for the true originators of the music.

  Never mind Robert Johnson and all the mutations of his tunes through the years-- that's fairly well-known information. Here are a few other cases in point:

   Skip James, 'I'm So Glad' -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcaH-U4x-T0
   Cream, same title -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZ4IYPy_cE

   I often wonder what Eric Clapton was thinking as he was stripping the gears on this marvelous impresario of guitar mastery.

   And again:

     Blind Willie Johnson, "Nobody's Fault But My Own" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_o4omd8T5c

     Led Zeppelin, Same title -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esZ15n6_5JY

    Well, one thing you can say for The Zep -- They sure knew how to pick 'em.

     If your prefer the rockers' versions in these examples, that's your right. But to insist that you're "into the blues" by referencing Eric, the Jimmies, and Janis. . . well your history is worse than your hearing.

     I would be the first to admit that a heavy dose of the early bluesmen's music can have you wondering if you just heard the same song the track before last. These guys (sorry Ladies -- except for Elizabeth Cotton there are few female instrumentalists/composers during this era), for all their enormous talent and presence, tended to be "one trick ponies" that had only one turning for a guitar and a melodic range of about 4-5 notes.

     Furthermore, their sound is often anything but sonorous. At first you might cringe and want to stand back apiece, wondering what that was all about, but then that emotion starts splashing around again, and the next thing you know your standing on that slippery river  bank, all set to fall in.

    And that's the way it is with the blues. They never went around begging for someone to listen. They aren't ashamed to borrow, nor afraid to improvise on what they've got. They tend to humble imitators, glorify originators. They are genuine, defying our descriptions, making us suddenly wonder what the hell we're even talking about.