A young friend of mine posted this video online yesterday. It’s a song that I haven’t heard in many years, Down in Mexicofrom The Coasters in 1956. This was their first single and was a mild hit although ost people remember The Coasters for the string of hits that followed, all written , like Down in Mexico, by the legendary songwriting team of Lieber and Stoller. Songs like Young Blood, Yakety Yak, Charlie Brown, Along Came Jones and Poison Ivy. A virtual soundtrack for the young ears of the time and for a generation or so beyond.
This made me think of my nephew and his wife who have been travelling in Mexico for last couple of months, climbing volcanos and surfing before heading further south. I thought this would be a nice jolt to waken them and everyone else on a Sunday morning. Enjoy!
I mentioned Woody Guthrie in yesterday’s post and it reminded me of a musical release that is coming out in the next month. It is the release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessionsfrom Billy Bragg and Wilco, which incorporates the remastered first two volumes from the original 1998 release with a new volume of 17 songs.
These sessions were the result of the Guthrie family asking singer/activist Billy Bragg along with Wilco to have a go at interpreting some of the many songs left after his death in 1967. Guthrie didn’t read music so his unrecorded songs’ melodies were stored only in his memory, leaving only the lyrics. But the lyrics were terrific and provided Bragg and Wilco plenty of inspiration to produce a memorable set of music. I have used several songs here over the years and often find myself switching on Mermaid Avenue (named after the street in Brooklyn where Guthrie lived at the time of his death) in the studio to work by.
Here’s one of my favorites, Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key.
I don’t know a lot about famous harpists except for possibly Harpo Marx, who I have featured here before playing an ethereal Take Me Out to the Ballgame. To tell the truth I can’t think of another harpist at the moment except for Joanna Newsom. My nephew introduced me to her music a few years ago and I have to admit it has taken some time for me to warm to it. It has not been the harp playing, the sound of which I really love.
No, it was getting past her voice.
It’s a high, flat voice that some have called childlike, a term to which I understand Newsom objects. Others have said it is reminiscent of the voices of the Appalachian hill folk and their traditional songs. I kind of find it in somewhere in between and had a tough time hearing it set in contrast against the beautiful tones of the harp. But I keep listening and there are now many moments when I really see the beauty in her truly unique talent. The Sprout and the Bean is such a moment.
I’ve been working on a group of new work that will be going to a gallery in the Indianapolis area that is new to me. I’ve been working on pieces that I feel are very representative of my voice, knowing that it will be a first view of my work for most of the people who may see it there. I’ve focused on imagery, forms and colors that feel almost ingrained in my body of work wanting to give the viewer a quick insight into what I try to do with it.
As I’ve been working away, I keep coming back to the idea of these as internal landscapes, meaning that they are attempts at creating an inner harmony. Harmony is the key word here, the concept of separate parts working together to create a unified whole. I think we often feel fragmented and unsteady in our external lives, never fully feeling in harmony with the world around us. Perhaps I make a mistake in using the term we here when I mean I, not really knowing what the rest of you feel in your own relationship with the world. But I do know that I have often felt this way, out of sorts with the world in many ways and that it really is an unsteady feeling and that I turn inward to try to find an inner rhythm, a harmony within that can steady me. Something to allow me to function outwardly.
Like many things, this a difficult thing to explain. Perhaps I should just point out this new painting, a smaller canvas, 12″ by 16″, that I call Rooted In Harmony, and let it speak for me. This piece probably says more about what I am trying to describe in a single glance than I can with all the struggling words and sentences I could possibly write. I find great pacification in this painting, a feeling of relaxed ease forming inside. It tempers my confusion, calms my angers and slows the turning wheels of my inner self. My outer self is better for it. And maybe that is what I hope for with the title of this piece, that by finding an inner peace, the root here, it will spill outward in a harmonious attitude.
Okay, I have to stop the words. For another example of harmony, a great example of musical harmony, here’s a little classic Simon and Garfunkel from a 1966 performance on Dutch television. It’s I Am a Rock.
I’ve been pretty busy in the studio lately. That’s not unusual at this point of the year because it is when I’m gearing up for upcoming exhibitions but in past years this is when I have often felt a bit blocked and far removed from the point where I wanted my work to be . But thus far this year, things have been flowing easily and I feel as though I am near that sometimes elusive groove where the act of painting becomes more instinctual than cerebral. When I feel myself in this groove, I start to trust these instincts, this pushing back of conscious decision making. As a result, there’s no dwelling over decisions at the table or the easel. I just make the mark and move on from there.
And each piece brings an inspiration and desire for the next painting with ideas gushing forward. I often find myself making quick little sketches on scraps of paper, little rough stick drawings really. Just enough of the thought to be able to rekindle the idea later. Often, I don’t make the sketch and the idea floats away and is sometimes fortuitously recalled at a much later date or is gone forever. I sometimes think my best thoughts have taken this fleeting route.
The piece shown here is from this recent burst, a smallish canvas, only 6″ by 18″ that I call Tangled Up In Blue. The title is, of course, taken from the old Bob Dylan song. This is a simple composition, very typical of much of my work, but it’s carried strongly forward by it’s colors and contrasts. It has a dramatic edge to it. I think the red of the mound really highlights this feeling of high emotion. I try to envision it in other, more natural colors and the result is less potent, more understated. This feels to me like the tangled trees are two lovers springing from the same red bleeding heart. The intensity of the red mound and the trees is a sharp contrast to the cooler blues of the water and sky, even though they still have their own intensity.
But the piece is probably brought to completion by the break of pale yellow in the sky, the light that comes through creating chasms in the blue night wall. This break sets off all the other color and creates a sense of moment in this small, simple piece. The result is that the result is greater than the sum of its parts.
Or at least I think so.
Here’s a little music. I bet you thought it would beTangled Up In Blue. It was going to be but I came across this version of a different Dylan song, Love Sick. I really like this film and performance of a song that has been a favorite since it first came out in 1997 and decided to share it instead. Enjoy.
I have never seen the HBO series True Blood. Maybe I’m reticent to get sucked into the current vortex of popularity created by the return of vampires and zombies in pop culture. I don’t know, but I have never felt a strong desire to watch the show. Maybe that will change.
One thing that might make me switch on True Blood is their use of music in the show. Apparently, each episode is titled after a piece of music that is used in that show. I came across one such piece of music created for an episode that really piqued my interest. It’s a remake of the 1964 hit She’s Not There from the classic 60’s British Invasion band, The Zombies, performed by my favorite, Neko Case, and the provocative Nick Cave. I immediately knew that this would not be your typical cover/remake.
Normally, I wouldn’t even want to hear a remake of a song like She’s Not There. It has held up spectacularly well over the almost 50 years since it was released, as do several of The Zombies’ other songs. Probably why they still perform and tour after a half decade. But the idea of these two performers singing it expressly for a vampire series brought up some the possibility of something different than a straight cover.
And I was right. It has a creepy Cajun bayou thump in its bass and with Nekos’s voice soaring over Cave’s growl, it makes a compelling cover. Old yet new. Like a vampire, I guess.
So, here I am, despite my protests, endorsing a song made for vampires originally sung by zombies. Here is the new cover with Neko and Nick (hey, that’s kind of catchy) and, if you’d like to compare, the original from The Zombies.
It’s always a little disconcerting to come across someone, a performer or artist, that is well on their way to a brilliant career yet remains completely off your own radar. That’s how I felt the other day when I saw a segment on the CBS Sunday Morning show, where a reporter, Bill Flanagan, was talking about music to give this holiday season. He talked about the new box sets from the big names then he talked for a brief moment about a 21 year-old British singer/songwriter named Laura Marling who he said, “ Is not only wiser than her years – she’s wiser than MY years.”
He also said that older listeners would hear echoes of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and that young listeners would hear the voice of a new generation coming into its own.
Pretty high praise. I decided I had better check out this person.
Wow.
I was knocked out. There were tons of videos out there and going through several, I couldn’t find one that wasn’t verging on brilliant from this very young looking girl with a sad, detached blankness on her face. You could hear traces of the artists he mentioned in the easy phrasing of her lovely voice which made it somewhat familiar but there was indeed something new in her synthesis of what she had absorbed in her very young life. Something well beyond her years. It was all just wonderful, even the music from her earliest album released just days after she turned 18. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t stumbled across a talent this big before now.
But thankfully, I have. As I said, there is a great number of her songs out there online and I have yet to find a clunker. Here’s a newer song called Sophia. I was captured by the line from its chorus–… I am wounded by dust…
A couple of things stuck out recently for me when following the mass media. On The Daily Show, comedy writer Merrill Markoe appeared this week and during her interview made the statement that there are now so many socially acceptable ways to exhibit a pathological lack of empathy. I knew this already but it was so succinctly put that it stuck in my mind, especially when listening to the GOP candidates such as Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich basically attack the poor in recent appearances, blaming the poor’s own lack of initiative for their condition.
I do not disagree there are ways for some to dig out from the depths of poverty. But for some it is a pit that can’t be escaped. I often think of a man I worked with for a number of years at the Perkin’s Restaurant where I worked when I first started painting. He was a few years older than me which put him around forty years old at the time. He worked as a dishwasher and busboy making around six dollars an hour. I can’t remember what the minimum wage was at the time since I was a waiter and was only paid $2.35 per hour. This fellow’s wife was ill with some sort of chronic disease and it was constant struggle to stay afloat without assistance for their medical bills. To me, he remains the face of the working poor.
Now this man had no escape routes in his life. He had little education and it was painfully obvious. His prospects for doing a lot better than his current position were slim, at best. The jobs that once might have paid more in the factories and plants of our area were gone and probably weren’t coming back anytime soon. He couldn’t leave. He didn’t know where to go and if he did, he couldn’t afford to move what little he did have. He made a few extra dollars helping a friend pick junk but he was unfortunately near the top of his potential. This was a man who worked hard and did the right things, all that he knew, but still found himself at the very bottom.
He deserves our empathy. He deserves a hand extended.
Instead he and many thousands, maybe many millions, like him are categorized as merely lazy slackers who suck on the public teat. The hubris dispalyed by these politicians makes me angry. They anxiously seek to protect the wealthiest among us whose fortunes have been made possible by the blood and sweat of people like this dishwasher, who have been both the primary workers and customers for their businesses. Yet do they feel a tinge of empathy for anyone other than the so-called job-creators?
I don’t think so. At least, it’s not something they dare to exhibit in public.
Maybe I’m wrong in talking about such things here. Maybe this verges on political statement. I don’t care. Too many of us have remained silent and on the sidelines or have started to buy into that Ayn Rand-ish tenet that selfishness is a virtue that these people spout at every turn. Maybe someone will not like what I say here and suddenly find my work not to their liking.
So be it. I have to believe that people who find something in my work also have high capacities for empathy towards others. Those are the people for whom I want to paint. People who believe there’s a better world a-coming, as Woody Guthrie sang in his song many years ago. When I see how forcefully he stood up for his beliefs and the rights of others, I am ashamed at how little I have done myself. Here’s his song:
This song is That’s a Rockin’ Good Way sung by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton amd it made it to #7 on the Pop charts and #1 on the R&B charts in 1959. I heard this song on the radio yesterday and it made me think about Washington’s career and legacy.
Known as both the Queen of the Jukeboxes and Queen of the Blues, Washington was one of the biggest recording stars of the 1950’s, singing jazz, blues and pop songs with her earthy delivery. Her body of work is impressive yet she is seldom mentioned alongside the other jazz greats such as Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. In fact, she is little known today which is a shame not only because so many are missing out on her vast talent but because her story is such a compelling story.
There are all the elements of great drama in her biography, her rise from a poor girl in Alabama to her great success as a major recording artist being only one aspect. There were all the men in her lives including 8 or 9 marriages, depending on which source you believe, and a number of other lovers. There was her battle with drugs and alcohol as well as a struggle with her weight which led to emotional swings that found her fighting with everyone around her, including her fans at times. There was the constant struggle with her record company for the respect she deserved. She had a big, big personality and finally seemed to be coming into her own as an artist when an accidental overdose brought her life to a close in 1963. She was only 39. There’s a nice concise bio online from jounalist Dean Robbins that I recommend.
So, here’s just a small sample of her talent. Hopefully, her legacy will continue to grow…
A young friend of mine posted this video online yesterday. It’s a song that I haven’t heard in many years, Down in Mexico from The Coasters in 1956. This was their first single and was a mild hit although ost people remember The Coasters for the string of hits that followed, all written , like Down in Mexico, by the legendary songwriting team of Lieber and Stoller. Songs like Young Blood, Yakety Yak, Charlie Brown, Along Came Jones and Poison Ivy. A virtual soundtrack for the young ears of the time and for a generation or so beyond. 
Redtree Times 