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The Best of Tom Paxton

2009-07-21T04:54:03Z

Tom Paxton is one of just a handful of folksingers who got their start in the early sixties who is still working the same way and still producing intelligent and inventive work. This collection is taken from his work on Elektra from the years 1964-1971. Despite the fact that many of these songs are still performed and recorded by contemporary artists most people probably are not aware of the writer behind the music. His best known songs range from pop hits like Bottle of Wine to genuine folk standards like Ramblin’ Boy to some of the best known children’s songs of all time like The Marvelous Toy and Goin’ to the Zoo. When I first bought this album, I had only heard a couple of his songs on The Midnight Special (one of the best radio programs out there) and was surprised to discover how familiar I was with his work. He’s been covered by everybody who is anybody, from Judy Collins to Nancy Griffith to Peter, Paul and Mary. If there is a poster boy for late sixties folk music it’s Tom Paxton.

Tom Paxton’s style is a charming blend of collegiate earnestness, road weary soulfulness, and a leavening touch of cynicism in the face of mass media and big government propaganda. Most of the cynical songs on here deal with the Vietnam War. A number of them have recently been rewritten (occasionally even by Tom himself) to make them relevant to the war in Iraq. Despite their continued usefulness, it’s nice to hear them in their original form.

One song that’s not on this album that you might have heard since it has been so topical lately is I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler. Although it was written in the early eighties, it has been rerecorded in a new version and covered by several artists in response to the ongoing financial crisis. If you have heard the song and liked it at all, I can just about guarantee that you will love The Best of Tom Paxton.

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John Prine Live

2009-07-13T03:09:20Z

Most of this record was recorded at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, California. It showcases what’s best about John Prine. It’s not just the no-frills arrangements or the semi-raucous crowd that give the recordings their warmth. It’s also the easy charisma Prine has as he’s telling a story about how a song came to be written. In some cases the stories are better than the songs. He is certainly not an unknown artist, but considering his accomplishments as a songwriter you’d think he would have had a least a couple of hit singles here or there, but except for hearing Dear Abby on the Doctor Demento Show and occasionally hearing Illegal Smile or Sam Stone on Beaker Street I don’t think I’ve ever heard John Prine on the radio.

He has always been highly regarded as a songwriter’s songwriter. He’s a fine technician who has the knack for making songs seem so inevitable that occasionally you think you already know a song the first time that you hear it. It’s a rare talent to write a song people can sing along to the very first time you perform it live, but he’s been doing it for years. Prine is one of the few artists who can record an entire album of songs that are regarded as classics but here he includes a handful of lesser known songs rather than make this simply a greatest hits album. Actually, he is one of the very few artists who could do a complete album of requests from the audience and still have enough material left over for a second album of greatest hits. There are several times you can hear the audience shout out a favorite song and you wonder how he could leave a song like One Red Rose off an album like this, but considering the results I guess he knows best.

Like Kristofferson or Dylan, Prine’s voice is something of an acquired taste. I’ve come to really enjoy his delivery in the same way you enjoy hearing the unvarnished voices on those field recordings John Lomax made way back in the day. There’s something kind of refreshing about a guy who plays and sings and while I wouldn’t say he doesn’t care what he sounds like, I certainly don’t think he cares if anybody else likes the way he sounds or not.

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Essays of E. B. White

2009-07-13T02:09:19Z

Along with Harold Ross and James Thurber, E. B. White created the tone and voice of the New Yorker in its heyday. A rare combination of sophisticated humor, down to earth humanism, and an architect’s eye for the placement of a period, E. B. White’s essays are still quite readable despite many of their subjects being now a matter of history rather than conjecture. When he wrote of the threat of thermonuclear war it was typical that he began the essay not with a remark on the Soviet Union or President Eisenhower, but with a comment about the moving vans in front of a new neighbor’s house. It is also completely typical that in an essay on the 1960 presidential election he can’t make it past the first paragraph without invoking the ghost of his dachshund Fred who by that time had been dead many years but still turned up in his writing about as often as anyone living.

I never did care for E. B. White’s children’s books; I thought they were gloomy and contrived to make depressed little people out of perfectly happy children. I find his essays have the opposite effect. Even when he was still a relatively young man he wrote with a tone that was more valedictory than nostalgic, but was the more notable for actually being able to articulate what was worthwhile in the subject of his remembrances. Most writers are only capable of casting an eye to childhood and saying, “I was happy then.” E. B. White is able to burnish the touchstones of specific memories in such a way we all understand their value. I was, like many others, taken by his paean to the Model T ford, Farewell, My Lovely. Despite the fact that it was first published in 1936 it leaves you with the feeling that you had almost the same experience with your first clunker. Anybody that has ever made silent pacts of allegiance with a faltering and fickle automobile will feel right at home in those pages.

A lot of people expend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what is wrong with the New Yorker. It’s really very simple. E. B. White has been dead since 1985 and they still haven’t found an adequate replacement.

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Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

2009-07-13T01:27:39Z

Jorge Luis Borges is one of the all time super secret middle of the nighttime sacred writers. If you ever read your self to sleep by the light of a flash light under the covers you understand what I mean. Reading Borges even as an adult you’re likely to be transported to the space that exists only in your mind where eternal mysteries can suspend time and space at least until the flashlight’s batteries run dead. His style is a strange mixture of dry scholastic diction, numerous scholarly references (some imaginary, some surprisingly real), fabulist plots, and gothic touches that would do Edgar Allan Poe proud. For the average American reader the kinship with Poe is probably the most obvious comparison, but there are also touches that remind one of Kurt Vonnegut.

Like Vonnegut many of his stories are stories of idea rather than stories of character or plot so it is difficult to describe precisely what is so special about them without at once ruining them. The process of discovery is important in the act of writing, but so too is it important in the act of reading stories like these. The stories that make the most impact are precisely the ones that are the briefest and most ephemeral, The Lottery in Babylon which opens with the lines:

Like All men in Babylon, I have been Proconsul; Like all, a slave. I have also known omnipotence, opprobrium, imprisonment. Look: the index finger of my right hand is missing. Look: through the rip in my cape you can see a vermillion tattoo on my stomach. It is the second symbol, Beth. This letter, on nights when the moon is full, gives me power over men whose mark is Gimmel, but it subordinates me to the men of Aleph, who on moonless nights owe obedience to those marked with Gimmel….

Part of the power of this type of writing is in its matter-of-fact acceptance of absurd or bizarre situations. Borges is the bridge between Modernism and Post-modernism. His natural inclination is to deconstruct not only the subjects of his stories, but entire mythologies are deconstructed in his works, often in a few sentences where most authors would not be content to stop at a hundred thousand words. It’s rare that a writer whose major works are such brief stories is accepted as being on a par with the great novelists and playwrights, but Borges has earned an almost universal acceptance not only of his importance, but his primacy.

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Levon Helm Electric Dirt

2009-07-14T02:19:41Z

Electric Dirt is a fantastic follow up to Dirt Farmer. Following along in the same territory but with arrangements that hearken back to the early success of The Band, Electric Dirt is as good as it gets. Larry Campbell has once again shown himself to be an outstanding producer as well as being a fantastic musician. To my mind the best song on the album and also the one that most clearly bridges the gap between Helm’s work with the Band and his recent musical rebirth is Growin’ Trade. Co-written with Campbell it is a song that has a fell that is a combination of a hymnal and an outlaw song. A lot of the Band’s early work combined sinner characters with sacred sounding lyrics so the form is at once familiar but contemporary.

Without going all high tech and frilly on us, Campbell has given the album a very clean crisp sound that maintains a sense of space that is missing on a lot of contemporary albums. Too many producers give every instrument the same weight in the balance and lose a sense of foreground and background, but Campbell understands the importance of space in creating mood and idiom. So far this is my favorite new album of the year. If you liked Dirt Farmer at all you should pick this up.

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Baez sings Dylan

2009-07-06T00:47:50Z

Joan Baez was really the first star to promote Bob Dylan’s work to a wider audience. In the days before he became a huge star in his own right she shared her stage with him on numerous occasions so its no surprise that she recorded many of his songs during the sixties. Vanguard collected them together on one album for reissue in the late nineties. For years Joan’s recordings of Dylan’s songs were where people went to hear the words and learn the chords. Her approach to the songs is at times almost too respectful of their importance and can seem almost saccharine in places, but considering how perversely Dylan himself deconstructs his most popular songs it’s kind of cool to hear someone sing them straight. It’s especially nice on some of the songs that haven’t been covered to death like You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere or Farewell Angelina. You may still not make much sense of the words to Farwell Angelina, but at least you’ll hear all of them enunciated and in pitch perfect tune.

This is by no means Joan Baez’s best or most important album, and it certainly isn’t a necessary addition to her catalog since these tracks were all on her original Vanguard albums, but for the casual fan or the young hipster who doesn’t know who either of these people are it’s a pretty good introduction.

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The Outer Limits

2009-07-06T00:10:12Z

I love old science fiction programs. I don’t want to take anything away from all of the modern computer generated effects, but I will always prefer the black and white and slightly out of focus so as to hide the wires products of the late fifties and early sixties. The Outer Limits was one of the best anthology programs that ever aired on network television. Originally airing from September 16, 1963 through January 16, 1965 the Outer Limits was similar in some respects to the Twilight Zone, but the differences are the reason for it remained influential for decades despite hardly being seen since it originally left the air. Until the advent of science fiction cable networks in the late 80’s the show was hardly ever seen in reruns due to the fact that its 49 episodes were well short of the normal minimum one hundred required for syndication.

Despite its lack of exposure it was always spoken of in terms of reverence by science fiction fans and maintained a reputation as a show that had been ahead of its time. The episodes from the first season range from the relatively straightforward science fiction thriller to stories of much greater subtlety like the Architects of Fear whose plot of scientists creating a hoax designed to frighten and thereby unite all of mankind is a major influence on Alan Moore’s graphic novel the Watchmen. Nightmare is a story of earth soldiers captured and tortured by powerful alien captors whose relatively simple special effects and makeup still have the power to create a subtle but deep rooted sense of unease. Or take my favorite episode which is completely atypical of the series, Controlled Experiment, in which two Martians conduct an investigation into a murder. Despite the subject matter the episode is a gently comic piece that comes across more like a Christmas teleplay from the BBC.

There are more genuine moments of drama on the original run of the Outer Limits than in most series that attempted to cover the same territory. Aside from intelligent treatment of science fiction themes it’s fun to watch for guest appearances by favorite actors. There are a number of famous actors who appear in early roles, but for me catching a glimpse of James Doohan or Leonard Nimoy before Star Trek is worth the price of admission. A number of the production people who worked on the make up and props later worked on Star Trek so one other thing to keep an eye out for is a number of props which were later reused on Star Trek.

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Jerry Jeff Walker Driftin’ Way of Life

2009-07-05T22:12:36Z

Jerry Jeff Walker never quite made it as a mainstream success, but he has held on to his place as one of the godfathers of Alt-Country. He has outlived his association with the outlaw country movement of the seventies to go on and record many fine albums on his own record label. But my favorite Jerry Jeff Walker album is Driftin’ Way of Life which came out at the beginning of the outlaw movement and helped define it. Released in 1969 Driftin’ Way of Life is one of Walker’s best albums, a mix of up-tempo comedic pieces, songs in the blues tradition and a couple of love songs that would do Jacques Brel proud (or perhaps make him blush).

Driftin’ Way of Life was the follow up to his Mr. Bojangles album, but the song had not yet been recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band so it isn’t surprising that there was no push for something more commercial with this album. Instead it starts out with a romping celebration of life on the road and immediately follows this with Morning Song to Sally which is one of the tenderest love songs he ever wrote. The rest of the album continues to alternate between disparate styles and tempos and finally ends up with Dust on my Boots, which is the other side of the Driftin’ Way of Life.

At the time he recorded Driftin’ Way of Life his voice still had all of its original flexibility and sweetness. Living on the edge was always a part of the image he cultivated, but this album reflects his vocal talents before they were altered by years of singing over the lost Gonzo Band in endless smoke filled bars.

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Alec how to be an artist by Eddie Campbell

2009-07-05T20:43:19Z

As an artist Eddie Campbell can be kind of an acquired taste. His line is a little too sketchy for some folks, and especially in his autobiographical works his drawings have an incomplete feeling that can look amateurish at first. Upon further attention though the sketchy just barely complete style seems to be the graphic language of memory, kind of the equivalent of a sepia toned photograph. The sophistication of the storytelling and graphic design kind of sneak up on you here, and in quite a good way.

It helps if you know a little bit about the state of the comic book industry in England in the late seventies, but even if you don’t the book gives you more than enough information to participate in the narrative. Alec How to be an Artist is the story of Eddie Campbell’s career, but the narrative is in the second person and really it is a highly informative book for aspiring creative types of many kinds. His formative experiences are those of a budding cartoonist, but in many respects they aren’t that different from those of a musician or actor.

Eddie Campbell is best known for his collaboration with Alan Moore on From Hell a graphic novel about the Jack the Ripper murders, but I’ve always preferred his autobiographical works. His reputation is that he is a kind of prickly intellectual type, but what comes through in books like this is a kind of exasperated generosity and a point of view that is more stoic than anything else. It’s hard to imagine stoicism in the face of disappointed ambitions, but somehow he manages it, and also a kind of a sense of joy when it’s all said and done. All in all one of my favorite books of its type.

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A Deeper Blue The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt by Robert Earl Hardy

2009-07-05T20:17:33Z

A Deeper Blue is the best biography of Townes Van Zandt that I have found so far. It is not a perfect book by any means, but Robert Earl Hardy has gathered information from many original sources and has documented Townes’ life in such a detailed way that it is hard to imagine any future biographer that doesn’t begin his research with A Deeper Blue. Townes Van Zandt is widely recognized as a songwriter’s songwriter and a lot of people romanticize him as one of the last of the real travelling troubadours in the mold of Woody Guthrie, but the truth is a lot less romantic than that. To his credit Hardy does not shy away from showing the darker side of Townes’ personality, largely through the direct quotation of his family members, ex-wives, and travelling companions, but there is still a feeling at times that the author is giving him a free pass because his work was so good.

Where Hardy has done his best work is in discovering the genesis and evolution of Towne’s most important works. Townes’ always had a gift for patter in between songs and some of the stories he told audiences about the creation of a song turn out not to have been quite true. There are several mutually exclusive instances where different people recollect being with Townes’ when certain songs were written. It makes you wonder if Townes wanted to impress people around him by pretending he had just written a song that he had actually finalized months before or if perhaps his memory was really that damaged by his alcoholism that sometimes he didn’t really remember himself when a song was first written. By no means is A Deeper Blue a hagiography, but there is a tendency to take a lot of Townes’ quotations at face value, and with a heroin addicted alcoholic there is a danger of deception in even the simplest statements.

Keeping in mind that Townes Van Zandt was a highly self-destructive person and you know how the story ends before you begin reading, A Deeper Blue still paints a basically sympathetic portrait of a highly unsympathetic character. Most of us feel a certain simpatico with our favorite singers, but judging from A Deeper Blue, I’d have to say Townes Van Zandt is one hero of mine I’m glad I never met. Despite possessing an addict’s narcissism, Townes was still capable of great personal generosity, frequently giving away every dime he had. He was also of course one of the few contemporary songwriters that had the knack for tapping into the idiom of traditional Irish and Scottish ballads without sounding a false note. The unfortunate thing is that it seems he was only capable of giving his friends and lovers their full due in his songs. Thinking especially of his first son J.T. Van Zandt who hardly saw his father, would you rather have a song written about you, or would you rather have a father?

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