I spent this entire past week fighting a fatiguing flu that just doesn’t want to say good-bye yet somehow find myself at another Sunday morning, this one marking Mother’s Day for this year. I am reminded of the old school cures my mom would administer when we kids were sick. There was always a can of Cloverine Salve and a bottle of Save The Baby on hand. It was a small glass bottle filled cloudy, camphor-based product that she would heat then dole out in a tablespoon along with a little sugar. The grainy sweetness of the sugar couldn’t hide the pungent camphor taste but acted as enough of a distraction to make it bearable. Plus, there always seemed to be some sort of relief from the coughing afterwards. You can’t buy this product now as camphor has been banned for internal use by the FDA but it will always have a place in my heart as a symbol for the care Mom offered when we were feeling under the weather. Miss you, Mom.
Being Sunday morning, I usually offer some music and this week I have chosen a somewhat topical song. It’s called Mother Knows Best and is from one of my favorite albums, Rumor and Sigh, from the great Richard Thompson. Enjoy your Mother’s Day.
I don’t know if this painting is exactly right for the title of this post or this song. But in the early morning light it has a moonish glow in its center, the gray of the shadows muting the brightness of the color at its edges. For a moment, it looks like it could be a harvest moon. At least, what I think of as a harvest moon.
The actual title of this 18″ by 48″ painting is Traveler, which is also the title of my June show at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria. It has been above my fireplace in the studio for a couple of months now and is wearing well with me. I find myself often looking up at it, letting myself be pulled along that winding path toward that beckoning sun. Or moon, depending on how I see it at any given moment, such as this morning.
I will write more about this painting and the June show at a later date. For now, its a dreary, snowy Sunday morning here and I need some music that will change my mood a bit. Here’s Neil Young with a version of his always lovely Harvest Moon.
Sunday morning. Time for some music to fit the mood of the early day. It feels kind of bluesy today but in a quiet way, typical for many Sunday mornings. I immediately go to my default guy, John Lee Hooker and his 1991 collaboration, from his album Mr. Lucky, with another favorite, Van Morrison. The song is titled I Cover the Waterfront. While it shares a title, this song is not to be confused with the more well known song from the 30’s, most famously covered by the great Billie Holiday with a version that is also a fave of mine. I’m sure Holiday’s version influenced Hooker’s song if only in setting the emotional tone and pace.
Both are beautiful in their own ways. What the hell, I’ll put up both versions. Hope one of these sets the tone for a cool and easy Sunday for you.
“If you were born without wings, do nothing to prevent them from growing.”
– Coco Chanel
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There is a new website, Other Cool Birds, out there in the inter-tubes that has all forms of artwork– visual, musical, performance and literary–that features a bird as its central theme. It is a unique labor of love from multi-talented writer Lafayette Wattles, who also maintains an eponymous and entertaining website devoted to his own writings. There is also a character always hovering around Lafayette named Dave DeGolyer who I first came in contact with a year or two back when he interviewed me for another website. Lafayette took parts of my interview and has put it to good use as he has graciously selected me to be the first Featured Artist on the Other Cool Birds site, an honor for which I am highly appreciative.
I urge you to visit this site and the Lafayette Wattles site. Both are entertaining and informative, plus if you are (or aren’t) an artist, writer, photographer, dancer or musician of any sort, Lafayette is always looking for another cool bird to include in his gallery. Let your wings show!
I’ve gotten accustomed to having some music on Sunday mornings so here’s one of my favorites from the bluegrass kings, Flatt & Scruggs. I just finished watching the film Bonnie and Clydeafter waking way too early and the strains of their Foggy Mountain Breakdown had me digging for a version of a Bob Dylan song they covered years ago, Down In the Flood. I probably have a soft spot for Flatt & Scruggs because of their appearances on The Beverly Hillbilliesbut this is a great version and shows off the versatility and willingness to venture outside their own neighborhood.
I flipped on the radio the other day and heard George Benson doing a remake of the song Baby Workout, the 1963 hit from the late, great R & B singer Jackie Wilson. It wasn’t a bad version but it only made me really want to hear the original once more. That’s usually how it goes when I hear somebody cover a Jackie Wilson song. They usually pale to the real thing and Jackie Wilson was the real thing though he is often forgotten these days. But that is somewhat understandable considering he died thirty years ago, in 1984, after suffering through the after-effects of a stroke nine years before.
He just faded from the public’s consciousness.
And that is the shame because Wilson always seemed to live up to his nickname– Mr. Excitement. His powerful stage moves and soaring voice drove his fans into a frenzy and influenced generations of performers. Michael Jackson owed much of his stagecraft to Wilson, acknowledging it in his acceptance speech for his 1987 Grammy for Thriller. You cans eeit also in some of Bruno Mars’ stagework. Wilson’s charismatic performances also garnered him hit after hit. Reet Petite. Lonely Teardrops. The classic Your Love (Keeps Lifting Me Higher). And many more including Baby Workout, which is a personal favorite of mine.
His life had many highs but perhaps more lows: Arrests, shootings, the early deaths of several of his children, drug abuse, divorces, bankruptcy and, of course, the stroke a that consumed the last nine years of his short life. But I don’t want to focus on the tragedy of his life or even the relative obscurity to which he has been assigned through the intervening years. When I hear him sing and watch him perform, he comes alive once again.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
Here’s a version of Baby Workout from the old Shindig show. You can get a good idea of Wilson’s power if you get by what looks to be the cast of Up With People! gyrating around him in their matching sweaters. Anyway, enjoy and have a great Sunday.
I had this video, Strange Affair, on the blog about four years ago and just wanted to share it again. Good sound for a cold and quiet Sunday morning. Plus the image that I used to accompany the post (a painting that is, of course, titled Strange Affair) is one of those images that both sticks in my mind and meshes well with June Tabor’s beautiful interpretation ( accompanied by one of my favorites, Martin Simpson, on guitar) of the Richard Thompson song.
There’s something stark in both the song and the painting that appeals to my sensibilities. A sort of joy found in certain moments of melancholy. There was a moment like that last week when I was walking through the woods to the studio. It was extremely cold with the sky a flat gray slate and there hardly another sound other than the trudge of my footsteps in the snow. It seemed like such a bleak and sterile moment but then a single snowflake drifted down, dancing delicately in the air, and I was suddenly filled with a joy that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t happiness. Just the joy of feeling connected to the world in that moment.
Joyous melancholy. A paradox. A strange affair, to be sure.
So, pardon me for showing this image and this video again. It was four years ago after all. Enjoy and have a great Sunday.
It was on a Sunday evening on this date fifty years ago that a touchstone event took place here in the States, one that dramatically altered pop and rock music as well as popular culture. If you watch television or read newspapers, it has been hard recently to avoid seeing something about this 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date back in 1964. For some, especially those later generations, this is probably a puzzlement as they have no context to put this event in any sort of historical context. They have no idea what a big moment this was or how it dramatically affected music and popular culture.
It’s always hard to describe something to someone who has only known the resulting change. I used to try to convince those nay-sayers, usually people born in the aftermath of the Beatles’ reign which would be post-1970, of the importance of the Beatles emergence and their music but it became too tiring. So now I just enjoy the music and marvel at their evolution over their short lifespan as a band. What an arc of creativity!
Their listeners might have mourned when they disbanded in 1970 but, realistically, they had completed their journey together, had strung together album after album of memorable and constantly evolving and growing sounds. They were at a peak with nothing more in front of them. Each went on to highly successful solo careers but none matched the true power of their combined efforts as the Beatles.
The legacy of their music has been so evident in the past few weeks. I’ve seen a number of lists from critics and other musicians of their favorite Beatles songs and each is so different from another. There is no consensus of which are their best songs and each list is truly valid as each contains a group, usually ten, of songs that are quite memorable. Even the list of the top ten underrated Beatles songs would qualify as someone’s best of the Beatles list. I sat down and tried to make a list of my Top Ten Beatles songs and had such a hard time. Just when I thought I had it I would remember another and couldn’t imagine it not being on the list. It is remarkable that they had so many songs that bound themselves so deeply into the fabric of ourselves.
Here’s what I came up with for my Top Ten, in no particular order:
A Day In the Life
Paperback Writer
Day Tripper
In My Life
Hello Goodbye
Norwegian Wood
Taxman
Tomorrow Never Knows
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
Baby You’re a Rich Man
Sitting here now, I can think of twenty ( or forty or fifty) other songs that would fit seamlessly into this list, all songs that are my favorites when I am listening to them. Oh, well, there are no hard and fast rules here and this is not a very terrible problem to consider so I’ll just put lists aside and enjoy. Here’s one of my faves from the Fab Four.
It’s a frigid winter morning with temperatures below zero and a fine gray mist of snow filling the view from my studio windows. It would be easy to mope around on a morning like this but I am in the mood for something light. Airy and alive. I flip around looking for something thta fits the bill and settle on a little Wes Montgomery, the late jazz guitarist who died way too early and was one of the most influential players ever, spurring on guitarists of many genres with his distinct playing.
You can easily see the unusual stance of his right hand as he plays, splayed out and set in one position against the body of the guitar while his ultra-flexible thumb does all the dancing on the strings. It was said that he had a corn-like callous on his thumb that acted as a pick, the hard parts of providing sharper tones and the softer parts the more mellow sounds. It’s the style of a self-taught artist, which I appreciate. That and the fact that he, much like BB King, could not read music. Amazing.
Wes Montgomery died in his home in Indianapolis from a heart attack in 1968. He was only 45 and at the peak of his career. Makes you want to take advantage of every moment, not knowing what you will leave undone when your time comes.
Here’s a track called Jingles from Wes Montgomery in 1965. Enjoy!
It’s been a busy year. Actually, it’s been a busy two or three years but the last few months have seemed even more hectic. There was the preparations for the Kada Gallery show and work being done around the studio by carpenters and masons. It seemed as though there was little time to really take stock of everything. But with the Kada show opening this past weekend and my delivering a group of work to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria on Tuesday, yesterday was my first chance to take some time to reflect, to see where I was on my artistic path.
After a short period of examination, it seems to me that I am at a plateau. Mind you, it’s a happy plateau but I’m not sure this is where I want to stop, not sure that this is my final destination as an artist. For the past several years, I have been working at what I consider my highest level: I am painting the paintings that I want to see. The work is distinctly mine and is consistent in its communicative effect and in the way it satisfies me internally. The work from my recent shows have been as personally satisfying as any I have ever showed. If I were a miner, I would say that I have been working a rich vein.
But I am increasingly having that nagging feeling that there is an even richer vein for me if I move from this plateau and climb a bit higher.
It’s a scary thought. This has been, as I said, a happy plateau. It’s where many artists, upon arriving , settle in for the remainder of their careers. And why not? They have worked hard to reach this plateau and are producing the work they set out to produce at the beginning of their journeys. It would be very easy to stay here and be content and safe, to not have to face the prospect of a new climb with all the perils that come with it: The uncertainty of what is up there and the possibility of failure.
Maybe I am being over dramatic in my description here. I don’t know. I do know that I have that clawing and gnawing feeling in my gut that now is the time to start moving onward and upward, to leave this happy plateau and take on the risk of failure. Whether I can actually muster enough bravery to make this move, whatever that may be, and where it might take me are only the beginning of the questions that arise, questions for which only time holds the answers.
We shall see…
Here’s an old song, Unsatisfied, from The Replacements that fits the bill for this subject. Look me in the eye and tell me that I’m satisfied…
As I have noted way too many times lately, I am in the midst of getting work ready for a solo show, Alchemy, at the Kada Gallery in Erie that opens in two weeks, on November 16th. With just a week to go before I deliver the work to the gallery there is still a lot to do. I am finishing up photography on the paintings, matting the pieces on paper, varnishing those on canvas and staining frames.
It’s tedious and takes me away from painting so it’s one part of my job that I don’t really enjoy too much, outside of that moment when I see a painting for the first time fully presented. Especially those pieces on paper. There’s something quite magical about the transformation from the image itself on a bare sheet of watercolor paper to seeing it in its mat and frame. It’s the difference between seeing a gem stone on a tray or in a beautiful setting. The gem is still lovely outside of the setting but the setting focuses it, holds it up for the world to see.
So, tedious as it may be, it has to be done and I am off to stain and varnish this morning. By the way, the painting at the top is The Song We Carryand is headed to this show as well.
I thought this would be a good day to hear from one of my favorites from back in the day, The Replacements from the early 80’s. This Minneapolis band was tremendously influential on the music of the 90’s, especially the sounds that came to be known as grunge or alternative rock. This song, I Will Dare, is from their 1984 album, Let It Be. Good sounds to start a working Sunday…
I spent this entire past week fighting a fatiguing flu that just doesn’t want to say good-bye yet somehow find myself at another Sunday morning, this one marking Mother’s Day for this year. I am reminded of the old school cures my mom would administer when we kids were sick. There was always a can of Cloverine Salve and a bottle of Save The Baby on hand. It was a small glass bottle filled cloudy, camphor-based product that she would heat then dole out in a tablespoon along with a little sugar. The grainy sweetness of the sugar couldn’t hide the pungent camphor taste but acted as enough of a distraction to make it bearable. Plus, there always seemed to be some sort of relief from the coughing afterwards. You can’t buy this product now as camphor has been banned for internal use by the FDA but it will always have a place in my heart as a symbol for the care Mom offered when we were feeling under the weather. Miss you, Mom.
Redtree Times 