52.35... music

I like to think of myself as something of a feminist. Not a "women are fairer and more interesting than men" sorta feminist, but in an "I'm capable of forming my own opinions and don't try to tell me what I can and can't do" kinda way. So why is it that my musical tastes have almost always been led and shaped by men?

 

Started with my dad, on those long car trips from Connecticut to see the family in Indiana. My mom loved pop music- well she was only in her early 20s- and my dad loved country western and Frank Sinatra. Frank my mom could deal with, but the only time he was allowed to listen to the twang and the dobro was when we were on those long drives. She said it made him drive better. ??? In any event... maybe because it was sort of forbidden in the house, I came to love those long drives with Gene Autry and Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn standin' by her man. Those songs were like audio soap operas and as an impressionable drama queen-in-the-making, I ate 'em up. Didn't hurt either that they had singable choruses that we all joined in on, even my disapproving mom with her beautiful and strong alto-bass drowning out my dad's off-key barritone.

 

Maybe it was the love of singing choruses that led me to join the Folk Club in high school, but I have a vague remembrance it had to do with a tall dark-haired boy a couple of years ahead of me. Can't recall his name now, but I still know the words to "If I Had A Hammer", and can pick some harmony out of the air when I need to. All of my peers at the time were, of course jumping up and down and squealing over John, Paul, George & Ringo, but I wouldn't really come to appreciate their writing and pop genius until I was well into my 30s and a then beau took it upon himself to educate me about them.

 

My folk club morphed into being on the Coffeehouse Committee in early college, lured by a couple of wacko guy friends who ran it, and who had memorable after-parties in the dorm room they shared with a 5 foot boa constrictor. To this day, I think the most sensuous experience I've ever had was the time Bongo slithered up one sleeve, across my back, and out the other sleeve on his way back into his cage. Because of those boys I got to see Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Ravi Shankar, and dozens of great musicians I still listen to today.

 

Wish I could remember the name of my first boyfriend freshman year. I was still uninitiated in the ways of sex- and at the time hell-bent on staying that way 'till marriage (that attitude didn't last all that much later), but spent weekends in his room sleeping in the same bed, deflecting his advances. Ikes! Knowing what I know now I don't see why he put up with that more than once, but we lasted a semester, and before it was through he's introduced me to The Who! ... Janis Joplin! ... Jimi Hendrix! ... Led Zeppelin! ... and a slew of rock bands I still love.

 

I didn't become a student senator freshman year because of tall red-headed funny Alan Emerthal, but he's a lot of the reason I stayed with it for years. We were friends, then inseparable buddies, and then just on the verge of being sweethearts. We'd decided the night before a big UConn basketball game being played in NYC at Madison Square Garden that it was time to morph into couplehood, but since he had to be up at dawn to drive down to the game with a buddy, we would wait to officially celebrate until the night after the game. I can still remember the kiss as he said goodnight to me at the door of my dorm. The next night he was killed by a drunk driver as he was changing a tire on the side of I-91 near New Haven on their way back from the game. I was inconsolable.

 

Recovery from that experience took an odd form. All our fellow student senators were buddies, and knowing how things had been between Alan and me, they decided the best way to pull me out of my depression was to take me out- a LOT- to the bars off campus where the blues were played loud, and sweet, and sultry. Hard to feel sorry for yourself too long when you're listening to the blues.

 

The music at those places was a real draw, but truth be told it was the places themselves that captivated me. The Shaboo Inn in Willimantic, Connecticut was the closest to a college hang-out that they took me to, but there were far more older folks than contemporaries there, and that was a big part of its allure for me. I loved college, but there was something surreal and wrong-feeling to me about being in a place where everyone is your own age. Still feels wrong to me today on the occasions when it occurs. But I digress.

 

At "Shaboo" I got to see the likes of Leon Russell, Vassar Clements, the James Montgomery Blues Band, and dozens more groups who turned me onto how much a "nice" girl could love a down-low and sultry sound. And how much fun it could be to dance in that free and uninhibeted way you really only do when you're young.

 

The other taste those kind and wild friends cultivated in me was then one I still have for dives. All the bars near the campus were the kind of place you wouldn't mind bringing mom and dad, if they were just a teeny bit tolerant of grunge (still then an adjective instead of a movement). And they were boring. The places we went instead were the ones on the back roads and in towns farther away which were frequented by workers of the other major local employer besides the university, the American Thread factory. These places had cheap beer, colorful characters, fabulous jukeboxes, and on weekends local blues or honky tonk rock 'n' roll bands. Some of whom were amazing good, and others of which made up for talent with enthusiasm, and were none the less entertaining for that. The bartenders were gruff but kindly, and the waitresses were like that classic movie character... world-weary, slightly tarty, and with a heart of gold. Or maybe I just imagined that. Whatever... I loved those places and still do.

 

But it was the early 70s, so that's not at all the end of the musical journey. I may have been late to the pop/rock party, but I did arrive eventually, and all because I was "the good girl".

 

For all my love of dives, I was the daughter of an alcoholic- a lovable one, but an alcoholic nonetheless. Thnkfully I was one of the lucky ones who was afraid of it rather than following dad's footsteps. And for the same reason I wasn't much into drugs like most of my buddies, so whenever we headed out for a night it was likely I'd be the driver. So when the student government sponsored a huge outdoor concert on campus my junior year, as the only "mostly straight person" and the responsible type in the group, it was just a given that- clueless as I was about who we'd hired to play- I'd be the one to pick them up at the airport, and take care of hospitality for them while they were on campus.

 

Which is how I ended up in a car one fine spring weekend with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, and Fairport Convention, with the then young Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson. They just seemed like nice people to me. Interesting conversationalists who seemed genuinely interested in the landscape we were driving through, asking questions about the school we were approaching, and conversing with me about the musicians I DID know something about (I remember I got brownie points fro having seen Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell live). They seemed inordinately appreciative I'd made them homemade food and healthy salads instead of ordering in pizza like a lot of other college sponsors. To be honest, they seemed a lot like all the B and C level musicians we hung out with in the dives.

 

Then they got up on stage and I was completely blown away. Folk music I'd loved for a decade. Rock was newer to me, and I liked it, though it seemed remote and too complex for me to understand. But here was a blending of folk and rock that kept the emphasis on words and ideas that drew me to the former, and adding in the energy that I was coming to love in the latter. And it opened up a whole new genre of FolkRock musicians to me. The Bothy Band. Pentangle. The Battlefield Band. Crosby Stills Nash & Young. The Byrds. Folks who could really rock out, but whose lyrics were as prominent as the guitar pyrotechnics. It's still the form I love best.

 

Of course college brought a lot of disparate musical experiences. An old classmate George who'd graduated hired me part time as an in-house roadie- for lack of a better title for someone who works tech for shows touring in- at the Bushnell Memorial Hall in Hartford where I got to run follow spot on the likes of Ike & Tina Turner (she was mesmerizing, he was rude, the music was breathtaking) and Barry Manilow (nice guy but not my musical cup of tea). I went out dancing with my gay guy friends a lot of Friday nights, and to this day my feet will start moving if I hear "I Will Survive" or "Lady Marmalade". And the musical theatre work I did while in grad school gave me a real appreciation for the likes of Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim, and the way they could move a story along.

 

There were musical disadvantages to my grad school years- and the insanely busy years right afterward when I was working in theatre- in that I seldom had time to listen to the radio or go out clubs... so I was clueless about popular musical in the late 70s and early 80's. Hmmmmm... those were also the years when I wasn't dating so much. Coincidence? I think perhaps not. :-)

 

In 1984 I met John, who would eventually be my sweetheart for almost 15 years, and with whom I still share a house. Before I met John I was under the false impression that I was knowledgeable about folk music. Hah! I knew a bit about a tiny segment of popular folk music, but John, who had been intimately involved with the venerable Folk Song Society of Greater Boston for years at that point, is pretty encyclopedic about the history and roots of folk music, and had heard more folk musicians perform in the year before we met than I knew even existed. I could write a book on the amount I've learned and the concerts I've enjoyed because of John, so I won't go into detail, but I will say that a huge number of my closest friends are people I've met through that community. The folk world- both traditional and contemporary- is a small one, and Boston is one of the most folk-rich areas of my country, so our close friends include folklore professors, public radio folk djs (like my photography and cooking buddy Dave), folk journalists, record producers, a number of people who book clubs, and a huge number of amazing musicians. Stellar performers like Martin Wyndham Reed have sung in our living room, I've fed folk like Jean Ritchie, and so many young singer-songwriters have crashed at our place while gigging in town that we joke about running an inn.

 

John and I let go of the romantic part of our friendship early in 2000, and by summer I found myself entangled with Eli, the psychedelic rock dj. Met him at a Holy Modal Rounders gig I accidentally found myself at when I stopped in Johnny D's Uptown Lounge to say a quick hello to my buddy Dana who does the booking there. It would be pretty hard to find two people more utterly mismatched from the start than Eli and me. I wasn't that we fought or anything- far from it- but our tastes and backgrounds were completely at odds, and about a year and a half later we finally bowed to the inevitable.

 

Before that, though, Eli helped me recapture a huge missing chunk of my missed musical life by submerging me in the entire ouvre of The Grateful Dead and psychedelic rock in general. I already, of course, knew the classic Dead hits, but knew little about the breadth of their catalogue, or anything about the enduring culture of "deadheads". Since he was as encyclopedic about the era of Jerry Garcia and the boys, and everything psychedelic and related that had come since then, as John was about folk, and since as a dj he got us free tickets to everything even vaguely related in New England, I saw and learned about a LOT of music during that year and a half. And I got to do my hippie-chick imitation camping at weekend long jam band festivals with thousands and thousands of his nearest and dearest. Some of whom were astoundingly interesting people. And many of whom were still mourning the end of the world which they thought had occurred when Jerry died. That latter bunch really creeped me out.

 

Probably my favorite musical benefit from hanging out with Eli- and there really were many- was getting to see Bob Dylan perform live several times. Like anyone who came of age in the 70s I knew and loved the classic songs, and I was aware enough of his career to have heard the rumors of dreadful shows and lackluster recordings in the 90's. But with the exception of his famous "return" to the Newport Folk Festival a few years ago which baffled me in its lack of energy, I found his concerts to be extraordinary, enlightening, thrilling experiences. If I was forced to name one songwriter as THE most important and influential one of my times, I think it would have to be Mr. Dylan.

 

Now Eli may have been knowledgeable about Dylan, but the guy who's my latest and- in some ways most profound- musical influence, is more passionate about him. And about music in general too. My sweetheart Matt, who many of you have read about before, has been a musician pretty much all his life. And he's a few years younger than I, so the music he "grew up with" is just a bit later than what I did.

 

From what I glean, Matt's earliest musical influence was his grandpa who sang what we'd consider "old timey" music when Matt was a kid. Matt obviously loved it because he included at least one of his grandpas songs on his first major CD, but like most kids, when he was a bit older he was interested in more "progressive" music. He was just about the perfect age to catch the beginnings of punk, and that music really appealed to the smart, observant, political, rebellious teenager that he was.

 

Not content to just listen, it wasn't long before he left behind trombone in the high school band (or was it clarinet... I forget) for the bass in a punk band. And then in a few more. And then the rock 'n' roll cover band. Then the rock band. Or was that before the punk bands? The chronology is a little fuzzy for me because there were so many different bands he belonged to... a few lasting only a gig or two in the way of bands made up of young people with big egos who are playing at clubs owned by older people with even bigger egos. I do know that one of the bands he belonged to was called The Marshmallow Overcoat because I met one of the other bandmates- Tim- in Tucson when we travelled through the southwest a couple of years ago, but the names of the rest elude me at the moment.

 

Sometime in the late 80's when Matt moved from the southwest to Boston, it was a new girlfriend of his that drew him at least partially into the world of folk music. There was something about the straight-forward honesty of it that recalled for him the essential purity of the songs his grandfather had sung, and the thoughtful and poetic, yet often raw lyrics he was writing lent themselves to the form. So for most of the last decade and a half he's been a "songer-singwriter" on the scene hereabouts.

 

One of the things I love best about my man, though, is that he doesn't fit easily into any one small box. In any part of his life. Listen carefully to the music he plays in clubs and you might hear a bit of country, a little punk sensibility, more than a bit of political saavy, end some catchy pop hooks. Listen to some of his experimental compositions and you'll catch glimmers of electronica, krautrock, the Byrds, psychedelic, some old Carter Family, ... maybe a little Jandek thrown in. Ever heard punk autoharp? I'm not even coming close to giving a sense of how many influences touch his music. That's because since he was a kid, he's paid attention to everything. He's not just interested in music of all sorts, he listens really really carefully, is extremely observant, studies it, reads about it, remembers it, and understands it in a way that very few do.

 

So it's no wonder that, because of him, I hear a lot of music that's new to me... a good deal of it being all the great music I missed out on during my "popular music black hole" from the late 70's through the late 90s. The Ramones and Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart and The Replacements and ZZ Top and Tom Petty and The Meat Puppets. The more obscure tracks and albums by Mr. Dylan. Then there are the county influenced, like Lucinda Williams, James McMurtry, Slaid Cleves, Steve Earl, The Dixie Chicks, Gillian Welch. And newer, less categorizable artists like Four Tet, Barbara Morgensterm, Lemon Jelly, Bjork. When I head over to his house I have no idea whatsoever what the soundtrack of our weekend will be. I just leave it in his hands and know it'll be interesting. In fact, one of my favorite evenings is a Saturday night when musician friends come over for dinner and I listen to them "talk music" in the kitchen while I make supper. And going out to a club or music festival with him is a real treat, whether it's arena rock, camping at a bluegrass festival, or electronica in a tiny club.

 

The only downside to all the music he exposes me to is that there are way way too many artists for me to buy cds- or even mp3s- from all of them. So my pathetic little cd collection- a portion of which is depicted here- hasn't grown much over the past few years. Ironically, the influences of all those previous guys are in album covers and jewel cases all over my studio, but there's very little by the extraordinary number of artists Matt's exposed me to.

 

Ah well. Small price to pay for the huge musical world he's opened for me. And besides... now I have all HIS recordings. Seems like a good trade-off to me.

 

 

Done