Ghosts of War: Saving Vietnam Vets' Lives through Songs

Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC

Reviewing:
We Gotta Get Out of This Place:  The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War 
by Doug Bradley & Craig Werner (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015)

The best hit songs of the post-JFK 1960s make Baby Boomers, including me, nostalgic.  But for American veterans of the Vietnam War, some pop, rock, soul & country music of that era has the emotional power to save lives marked by severe trauma.

In this gut-wrenching yet inspiring narrative, punctuated by "solos" (first-person stories told by candid veterans), vet/journalist Doug Bradley & co-author/professor Craig Werner take readers inside the absurdist nightmare of hot jungle duty during the height of the Cold War.

Bradley & Werner focus on accounts of vets' & musicians' experiences as they processed - through popular songs - the horrors of a futile, genocidal war in southeast Asia during the 1960s & early '70s.   Whether militant African-Americans, culturally proud Latinos or white Southern officers, these servicemen & -women (i.e. military nurses & Red Cross "donut Dollies") found solace in songs played over Armed Forces radio and, above all, via personal tape decks & record players in Vietnam.

It was a communal shared music experience, the authors emphasized at a recent book-signing event at Mystery To Me bookstore in Madison (Wisconsin/USA).  In contrast to the post-1990 period of Gulf Wars I & II, plus the ongoing war in Afghanistan, when personalized digital music is being played mainly through earbuds & laptops among combat troops abroad, in Vietnam fights even broke out over jukebox choices.

A labor of love laced with humor & anger, this cultural history packs a punch that many books about marines & soldiers in & after the 'Nam lack.   It was born, appropriately enough, during a 2003 Christmas party conversation at the Madison Vet Center, home base of the Deadly Writers Patrol group of veteran-writers.

The book also addresses the vital contribution to healing made by more obscure Vietnam vet singer-songerwriters, such as the dog-handler MP Jim Wachtendonk.  Plagued by disorders caused by exposure to Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant widely used during the war, Wachtendonk channeled his distress into art.  For example, he wrote & recorded the satirical "Claymore Polka," a song about an Army grunt's wish to rig a bomb in the officers' latrine.

Performing Pete Seeger's anti-war anthem "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" at a 1989 Veterans' Day celebration in the state capitol rotunda in Madison, Wachtendonk moved a somber procession of hundreds as they dropped roses on an altar bearing a US flag, a shroud & a body bag symbolic of their losses.  Similarly emotional events have taken place countless times at the stark polished black marble Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The title is a nod to the song mentioned most by vets discussing their time in South Vietnam.  The authors call "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" an "unlikely anthem."  Written by Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann about wanting to escape a stifling working-class existence, it was most famously recorded in 1965 by the Animals, a British rock band.  Animals singer Eric Burdon recalled meeting a Vietnam vet who told him that the song literally saved his life once during combat duty at a firebase.

"They had a cassette of our second album, and they wanted to hear it.  So he said to me, 'I left to go back to get a copy of that album, and when I came back all my buddies were dead."

That mid-Sixties hit's choral refrain, "We gotta get out of this place / if it's the last thing we ever do," struck a chord with many who served in Vietnam, Bradley & Werner discovered.  It inspired a young Bruce Springsteen as well.  During his 2012 keynote speech at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin (Texas/USA), Springsteen said the song put him on an artistic path that he still follows today.

"To me, the Animals were a revelation.  The first records with full-blown class consciousness that I had ever heard," the Boss noted.  "'We Gotta Get Out of This Place' had that great bass riff.  [He plays the riff & sings the first verse.] That's every song I've ever written . . .  That's 'Born to Run,' 'Born in the USA,' everything I've done for the past forty years."

Several songs by ex-Army reservist John Fogerty, of the late-60s California-based rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, also had special meaning to many Vietnam vets.  "Fortunate Son" & "Who'll Stop the Rain?" were composed out of Fogerty's anger at the government.  He rejoiced upon receiving his final discharge papers in July 1968 & immediately started writing the oft-covered "Proud Mary."

The United States, especially under the leadership of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-69), sent millions of predominantly working-class and minority men to fight & die in a pointless war, one largely driven by ideology (see the so-called Domino Theory) & a desire to protect corporate assets (mainly rubber plantations) in Indochina.

The book features many anecdotes of pathetic gallows humor among troops.  It also offers the ribald insider story of Lee Hazelwood, writer & producer of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'."  This monster hit carries special meaning among GIs whose lives depended on good combat boots.  It became the signature number for Nancy Sinatra, the go-go-booted pin-up daughter of Frank, upon its release in 1966.  She later performed it during USO tours of Vietnam & still sings it at veterans' gatherings.   Hazelwood reputedly encouraged Sinatra to sing it "'as if she were a sixteen-year-old girl who fucks truck drivers.'"

In the final chapter, "'What's Going On':  Music and the Long Road Home," the authors describe movingly how Marvin Gaye's classic Motown concept album, based in part on Gaye's brother & 'Nam vet Frankie's experiences, helped returning veterans.  Syracuse University professor Art Flowers, for example, discusses in a solo how it allowed him to overcome addiction & cope effectively with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) back in the suddenly weird civilian world.

Aretha Franklin & James Brown were particular favorites among the vets.  Brown even made a dangerous tour of US bases with his soul-funk band in 1968, demanding that he be allowed to carry a handgun in the helicopter that shuttled him from base to base.

Soulful songs like Aretha's "Respect," Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" &  Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" as well as Simon & Garfunkel's folk-rock "Sounds of Silence," "Homeward Bound" & their orchestral pop masterpiece "Bridge Over Troubled Water" helped homesick men & women deal with the daily stresses of life in a guerrilla war zone a vast ocean away from the States.  Then they helped them come home.

Here is the Vietnam Vets' Top Twenty, as compiled by Bradley & Werner during their extensive research for the book, and as presented in familiar reverse countdown fashion.  The titles alone are evocative of the physical & emotional struggles that most 'Nam vets have faced:

(20) "For What It's Worth" by the Buffalo Springfield (1967);
(19) "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen (1984);
(18) "Ballad of the Green Berets" by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler (1966);
(17) "Reflections of My Life" by Marmalade (1969);
(16) "My Girl" by The Temptations (1965);
(15) "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969);
(14) "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash (1963);
(13) "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye (1970);
(12) "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra (1966);
(11) "Say It Loud -- I'm Black & I'm Proud" by James Brown (1968);
(10) "Green, Green Grass of Home" by Porter Wagoner (1965);
(9) "Chain of Fools" by Aretha Franklin (1967);
(8) "The Letter" by the Box Tops (1967);
(7) "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding (1968);
(6) "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969);
(5) "Purple Haze" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967);
(4) "Detroit City" by Bobby Bare (1963);
(3) "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul & Mary (1969);
(2) "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" by Country Joe & the Fish (1967);
(1) "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by the Animals (1965).

[For Bobby Dickert, Greg's brother who served in 'Nam.  He came home, but couldn't stay long.]

© 2015 by J. C. Mrazek

Links:
http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/we-gotta-get-out-place

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/11/we-gotta-get-out-of-this-place-the-soundtrack-of-t.html

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dATyZBEeDJ4 (Country Joe & the Fish)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys_R3VIpxNY (Nancy Sinatra)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxNEiZhpinY (The Animals)

Practicing mindfulness: a scientifically tested, easy way to improve your mental and emotional health

The 14th Dalai Lama relaxes

Like most Americans, you probably have to cope with several daily mental and emotional stressors.  Whether it's a commuter's crowded trip to the office or a busy mother's hectic schedule, it's difficult to avoid stressful situations.  

An effective way of managing stress, psychology researchers are discovering, is by practicing such "mindfulness" techniques as meditation or yoga.  Simply focusing on conscious breathing and being calmly aware of your surroundings can bring mental health benefits, experts say.  Over the past decade, in fact, there's been a clinical trend toward applying the lessons of "positive psychology."  This includes the study of what makes people happy. 

"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of happiness," says Harvard University psychologist Matthew A. Killingsworth [see http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/wandering-mind-not-a-happy-mind/].  The more focus a person has on the specific task at hand, be it washing dishes or making love, the happier they reported feeling.  This Harvard study used an iPhone app specially designed for the subjects, ranging in age from 18 to 88.

One notable center of happiness research is located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (CIHM) is part of the UW's brain-research institute, the Waisman Center.  The CIHM was founded in 2008 by Dr. Richard Davidson, in response to a challenge from his friend the 14th Dalai Lama.  Davidson has studied the brains of Tibetan Buddhist monks engaged in the calming practice of meditation.  

Dedicated to learning how well-being can be nurtured through insights from neuroscience, the CIHM balances research with practical training in mindfulness.  Davidson is also the director of the Brain Imaging Core at the UW's Waisman Center, which uses technology such as fMRI and PET to discover interventions for such common mental-health challenges as depression and anxiety. 

I recently visited the facility and met Marianne Spoon, CIHM's Communications & Marketing Director, outside the meditation room.  She offered a scientifically tested suggestion for improving your mental & emotional health:  simply paying close attention.

"There are studies showing a relationship between attention and happiness," Spoon said. "One study found that on average, people weren't paying attention to the task at hand 47 percent of the time. This was associated with their happiness.  We know that certain forms of meditation can improve attention, and we suspect, a person's well-being, based on this line of research."

Mindfulness can and should even be practiced in such frequently stressful places as schools and workplaces, Spoon told me.

"Our Center is just beginning to understand how mindfulness-based practices can work in schools and workplaces," she said. "We're conducting more research to learn about what's effective and, as with all our research, we plan to make it publicly available as we find out. There's plenty of research - not our Center's, necessarily - focusing on teacher burnout and other challenges in the classroom. We are focusing on our piece of the puzzle to learn what interventions may be helpful for teachers, students, families and people in the workplace."

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds is motivated by what it considers a moral mission to maximize human happiness.  But can clinical psychologists really achieve meaningful, measurable results among mindfulness practitioners - despite the distracting temptations of such omnipresent digital devices as smartphones?

"We're very optimistic our Center can make a difference," Spoon asserted. "We regularly receive encouraging and collaborative messages, social media posts and comments regarding our work. We were thrilled to see a recent video [see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzd444JvjCs] on our research reach more than one million people on the UW-Madison Facebook page."

Spoon noted that her Center has many allies in its campaign to promote the personal and social advantages of adopting the habit of mindfulness.

"We're driven to make the world a kinder, more compassionate place and we owe our success as a research organization to people - scientists, staff, community members, schools, donors, as well as journalists - who also want to see this vision become a reality."

She spoke with the conviction of a true believer, backed by verifiable scientific data.  

"CIHM focuses on cultivating well-being and relieving suffering through a scientific understanding of the mind across the lifespan, which fits into the Waisman Center's focus on human development throughout the lifespan," Spoon explained.  "Both organizations are focused on discovering how the human mind and body work to help people of all ages thrive."  

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds offers an example of another growing trend:  public-private partnerships, with a shared goal of promoting well-being.  Much of CIHM's funding comes from private donors, with some federal grants as well as contributions from the University of Wisconsin (amounting to about three percent of its annual budget).

Perhaps the best part of a mindfulness practice is its low cost.  Neither prescription drugs nor expensive medical interventions are required.  Just a quiet mind and a focused attention to the present moment are all it takes.  And, with a little training, anyone can do it.  Tom B., a busy corporate executive and father in the Milwaukee area, learned Transcendental Meditation (TM) at age 14.

"My older brother had become a TM instructor and reported amazing results from meditating," Tom told me at Christmastime.  And he learned the basics of TM practice in just three or four one-hour classes.

"These days I do qigong meditation," Tom said.  "Most of it's done in my living room.  I also practice yoga at home, and I try to get to the [yoga] studio once a week because it tends to be more challenging, more rewarding."

Tom reported that his combined yoga and qigong meditation practice has done wonders for his fitness and overall health.

"I'm 57 and have no chronic health issues.  I just got the highest rating possible for life insurance.  I catch a cold maybe once a year.  I sleep seven hours a night and have good energy all day long.  I can't party like I used to, but overall I'm doing pretty well."  Tom smiled, then added a closing thought.

"A mindfulness practice that I've committed myself to this year is to give my full attention to anyone I may be talking to," he said.  "This means no looking at the computer while talking on the phone, and fighting off the distractions of 'gee I'm getting hungry, restless or bored' while talking face-to-face.  I try to make eye contact and be fully present.  It's not easy, and I'm not one hundred percent yet.  That's why they call it 'practice.'  But the people I interact with really seem to appreciate it, and that for me is fulfilling."

[© 2015 by J. C. Mrazek]

Links: 

Center for Investigating Healthy Minds 

https://www.facebook.com/investigatinghealthyminds/

http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/about.htm 

A Doll's House Revisited - Natasha Nicholson: The Artist in Her Museum at MMoCA

When you enter the first gallery, the "Thinking Room" as it's called, of the Natasha Nicholson:  The Artist in Her Museum exhibit, you see an inviting cream-colored divan.  It sits amidst lovingly arranged pieces of artwork by Nicholson's friends.  On expansive display at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) until November 8th, this is an exhibit that keeps drawing me back.

This astounding show lures you to take meditative rest.  It acts as a kind of comfortable chair in a quiet space after a tiring day.  My most fruitful visit took place on September 22nd, when I attended a tour led by the petite yet formidable Ms. Nicholson herself.  She shared her thoughts & feelings about this major exhibit of her art, more or less as she displays it at home.

Silent Buddha (2014), Nicholson's somber assemblage, is situated at an appropriate entry point.  It harkens you mysteriously to her work:  a 6-inch black wooden statuette stands inside a frame against a white wall, its right hand severed, its head bound with red thread.  It's an attractive, enigmatic, vaguely ominous presence.

Nicholson admitted to our group of twenty visitors that she finds it hard to leave these things after spending hours at MMoCA, as she is wont to do.  Born in wartime (1945), Nicholson says that she arranged her personal "treasures" with secretive devotion as a girl growing up in St. Louis.  This self-described autodidact seems to have had a precocious artist's eye as well as a keen collector's enthusiasm at a tender age.

Surprisingly for someone so clearly cultivated, so fond of foreign objects, Nicholson said that she didn't visit Europe until she was 30 years old.  "How you live with objects is important," Nicholson told us.  She said that she prefers to gather "precise and consistent" things.  She gets them everywhere:  from the sidewalks around her Schenk's Corners studios, at estate sales & thrift stores, even via the Internet.

The objects that Nicholson has curated & arranged in the four MMoCA gallery spaces struck this appreciative viewer as charming, eccentric, even eerie.  Surrounded by a rusty iron rocking-horse frame, an age-faded Chinese lamp, a"spirit painting" of a dead child (circa 1840), glass-tipped titanium electrical thread & a thousand other odd items, the wondering mind is encouraged to delight in the rich, diversity of human products. 

In the "Studiolo" (Italian term for cabinet of curiosities), for example, a tall shelf of books, mostly about art & culture, rises high beside an armchair upholstered with West African beadwork.  The walls of Nicholson's replica parlor ("always in flux," she explained) are painted dark green.  She displays items ranging from Bavarian hunting amulets to a "dumb piano," a one-third-scale piano keyboard that folds into a black wooden box, used for practice while traveling.

The "Bead Room" gently guides you to the exit, which doubles as the entrance to MMoCA's fine museum store.  As you pass the silent parade of objects - beaded jewelry, embroidery, photos & drawings - you get a sense of what Nicholson means when she says that she was influenced more by painting than sculpture.

In the final ramped wall-space, you can enjoy images of models & masterpiece paintings from fashion magazines which, Nicholson explains, are a "source of ideas and connections" for her.  The artist embodies the spirit of sharing that art & culture strives to achieve.  She is generous with her creative output, allowing us to observe her personal possessions in this large, yet intimate MMoCA exhibit.

Nicholson offers a kind of post-modern silent Doll's House for adult art-lovers.  Henrik Ibsen would've appreciated it:  "Hedda Gabler & A Doll's House center on female protagonists whose almost demonic energy proves both attractive & destructive for those around them.  While Hedda has few similarities with Nora in A Doll's House, many of today's audiences & theatre critics find Hedda's intensity & drive to be more complex, less comfortably explained than Nora's rather routine feminism." [- Wikipedia, Henrik Ibsen, edited]

Please see this inspiring MMoCA show before it's dismantled next month.  You'll feel right at home, meaning occasionally discomfited with the world & its artifacts.

Links:
http://www.mmoca.org/exhibitions-collection/exhibits/natasha-nicholson-artist-her-museum
http://natashanicholson.blogspot.com/p/cabinet-of-curiosities.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Ibsen

Metaphysical California: Jenny Lewis, The Voyager

Jenny Lewis in 2006

A friend who knows more about rock music, including the unglamorous business of music, than I do admitted that she didn't know The Voyager album.  Released in 2014, this laid-back yet challenging indie-pop album by Jenny Lewis suggests a 21st-century film noir.  It's a satisfying meta-movie set to a groovy soundtrack by a self-deprecating hipster.  Lewis is an artist who's unafraid to get personal, even confessional, in her candor.  The Voyager is her long-awaited masterpiece.

At times this ten-track record suggests the disciplined soul of Beach Boys wunderkind Brian Wilson.  It follows in the footsteps of Fleetwood Mac in its 1977 heyday.  Jenny Lewis is the aesthetic heir of the Laurel Canyon '70s scene.   Singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell & Neil Young thrived in that environment.  The Voyager is a shimmering collection of introspective songs, a brilliant collaboration with producers Ryan Adams & Mike Viola.

As the similarly gifted Neko Case, Cat Power & Aimee Mann do on their best records, Lewis takes the listener on a trip to aural Nirvana, traveling through a landscape populated by lonely people.  There's "a john gettin' a hand-job on the balcony below."  She rests at a cosmic motel where "you'd better hide the weed 'cause the maid is at the door."  Lewis moves gracefully from acid-tongued resentment ("Just One of the Guys") to a restless dream-reverie ("The Voyager").

Indeed, on the title track Lewis offers a world-weary, yet stoical, deadpan mantra for aspiring fellow escape-artists in search of Paradise Lost:

Jenny Lewis, The Voyager (2014) - cover artwork

The voyager's in every boy and girl

if you wanna get to heaven get out of this world . . .

You're the voyager! I'm the voyager!

Whether it's performed live, broadcast or commercially recorded, good music is angelic & generous.  As novelist Rick Moody puts it in his masterful book of essays, Celestial Music & Other Adventures in Listening (2012):  "Music has soul."  Moody goes on to expand his thesis with an intriguing argument, albeit rather awkwardly phrased:

"Why music, then?  Because when we sing it and play it, we are not only imitating the things that are, but we are [also] praising the things that are, and praising is good, and you find it, too, in almost any account of heaven.  The angels sing their praises, and when we sing, according to, among other, the Levites, we are imitating the angels." [- p. 280, italics mine]

Moody laments the loss of vulnerability in contemporary popular music, as exemplified in Otis Redding's riveting live performance of the Memphis soul hit "Try a Little Tenderness" at the Monterey Pop Festival (June 1967).  "Longing, and compassion, and tenderness are heavenly, and they make you better than you otherwise were."

Jenny Lewis's songs are rife with melancholy longing & melodic tenderness.  Her recordings have always felt intimate.  She's a clever, compassionate & bemused artist.  Other musicians respect her skills, as evidenced by the notable guest artists who appear on her albums.  Benjamin Gibbard (Death cab for Cutie) performs on Rabbit Fur Coat.  Benmont Tench (of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) & the Watson Twins play on The Voyager.  Beck & Ryan Adams also perform on The Voyager.

Lewis is keen to project an attractive media image in her CD artwork.  The Voyager, for example, features a booklet of photos of Lewis posing in sunny weather wearing a pastel rainbow jumpsuit.  Even when issuing work with other musicians, she's a self-confident artist who wears her heart on her sleeve.

Jenny Lewis, in fact, reveals a genius for collaboration.  Her first major group, alt-county indie-rockers Rilo Kiley (1998-2011) issued several good records & toured regularly.  Signed as a solo artist by Conor Oberst to the Team Love label in 2004, Lewis put out the poignant Rabbit Fur Coat album (2006), featuring the gorgeously harmonizing Watson Twins, Chandra & Leigh.  More recently, she made the intriguing Jenny & Johnny album I'm Having Fun Now (2010), a project shared with her romantic & artistic partner Johnathan Rice.

Ironically, this California-based angel arrived via Sin City.  Born Jennifer Diane Lewis in Las Vegas to show-biz parents in January 1976, Lewis was a child actress.  Her film work ranges from a comic pre-teen role in Troop Beverly Hills (1989) to a dramatic role at age 21 in Pleasantville (1998).   Lewis has a family legacy to build on:  her singing mother Linda & a Harmonica Gang member father Eddie Gordon instilled ambition in Jenny.  Fortunately for Lewis's fans, her Ma & Pa apparently encouraged their precocious redheaded girl's considerable talents early on.

Jenny Lewis continues to take advantage of visual platforms.  In 2014, for example, she contributed an exclusive track, "Completely Not Me" (a collaboration with Rostam Batmanglji of Vampire Weekend), to that semi-feminist HBO show Girls.  Indeed, Jenny Lewis plays well with others.  She covered the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle with Care" in collaboration with M. Ward, circa 2006.  She appeared as a guest artist on Brandon Flowers's album Flamingo (2010).  And she sang a lovely duet with Elvis Costello on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman in 2011, when her Acid Tongue CD came out.

Throughout her nearly 20-year music career, she has demonstrated how to make sound-art that's catchy & yet gets deep.  Put simply, The Voyager rings true.  It's a fascinating document, one artist's take on loss & yearning.  A memorable portrait of our era, a time after "the Twin Towers fell / and it all went to hell."

Steve Earle & the Dukes take Mad City by storm

Steve Earle plays harmonica & guitar simultaneously 

No sane, pop-musically aware person denies that Steve Earle is a great songwriter.  Several superb Americana artists have recognized Earle's genius by covering his tunes.  They make for a diverse Who's Who, from the sublime to the ridiculous:  Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Travis Tritt & that achy-breaky Miley maker, Billy Ray Cyrus.

 Steve also plays his own songs brilliantly in concert.  I've now witnessed him do it twice & I can attest to the Hardcore Troubadour's enduring performance chops.  But on Saturday night (August 8th) at the Barrymore Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin (USA), Steve Earle & the Dukes blew the roof off the joint with a pair of groovy covers, both rock 'n' roll radio hits released in 1966:  Jimi Hendrix's menacing "Hey Joe" & The Trogg's riff-rich "Wild Thing."

The latter was itself a cover of a Chip Taylor song first recorded by an obscure US group, the Wild Ones, in 1965.  And it was later covered, of course, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience during their incendiary set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

cover art by Tony Fitzpatrick, a Chicago-based painter 

Steve Earle & the Dukes played a half dozen numbers from their bluesy February release, Terraplane (New West Records; produced by Ray Kennedy).  One of the finest cuts is "You're the Best Lover I Ever Had," a touching duet between Steve Earle & Eleanor Whitmore.  In his liner notes, Steve explains why he turned to the blues for inspiration on his 16th studio album:

"Hell, everybody's sick of all my f***ing happy songs anyway."

Part of what made Saturday's concert feel special was Steve Earle's charming affection for the people of Madison - or "Mad City," as he called it in one of his many brief but entertaining monologues.  Ever the gentleman, Steve said he understood long ago that we Madisonians "know what's going on."

Introducing "My Old Friend the Blues" (from his masterful 1986 album Guitar Town, which also delivered such gems as "Someday" & "Fearless Heart," which the audience also got to hear live on Saturday), Earle quipped:

"There are many remedies for the blues," Steve said.  He paused dramatically, then delivered the punchline:  "But there is no cure."

There's also no cure for idiocy.  I'm talking about that inebriated concertgoer intent on ruining the experience of others through his obliviousness.  For example, at this show I had to deal with a pair of drugged-out, talkative, gesticulating morons in the row of folding chairs ahead of mine.  I could finally take no more, so I leaned in to serve a reality check to one of those young buttheads (he was sporting a red bandana headband, no less).

"Less talk and more listening, otherwise I'll have all of you f***ers ejected.  Got it?"

Apparently he did.  After recovering from the shock of my threat, he moved up to the front row.  Even so, he was warned by ushers several times to stay in his seat instead of dancing in the aisle.  He finally left the show early & went outside to bother a pedicab driver.  By then, I'd already relocated to the back of the 1000-seat theater, where the volume of the music didn't quite require earplugs.

The Dukes are a tight backing unit.  On drums is Will Rigby, a co-founder of power pop pioneers the dB's.  Will has been a member of Steve Earle's crew since the turn of the century.  The giant acoustic & manly electric bass was handled by Kelly Looney, a collaborator since 1988 who now resides in France.  Opening duo The Mastersons, comprised of husband Chris Masterson (lead guitars, vocals & celebratory pick-tossing) & wife Eleanor Whitmore (fiddle, keyboards & vocals), fill out the band.

In addition to his growling baritone vocals, Steve Earle chimed in on rhythm guitar (acoustic & electric), mandolin ("Galway Girl"!) & harmonica (when possible, using a retro hand-held microphone).  He has a forthcoming memoir in 2015, the year ol' reliable Steve turned 60 (in January).  Onstage the ex-con & former crack addict mentioned that he's celebrating 20 years of sobriety this year as well.

The Terraplane was an affordable automobile, manufactured by the Hudson Motor Company from 1932 to 1938.  I advise you to take a ride with Steve Earle & the Dukes on this tour.  Their late model Terraplane blues album, featuring all original Steve Earle songs, will take you to some beautiful sonic places.  Precious few records manage to accomplish that much nowadays.

Links:
http://steveearle.com/
"Go Go Boots Are Back" (audio stream)
Twangnation 's Terraplane review & update on Steve Earle
http://www.americansongwriter.com/2015/09/steve-earle-tackles-confederate-flag-controversy-with-mississippi-its-time/

La Fête de Marquette 2015 highlights

photo by Katie Jean

Cher Anne (Director of Alliance Francaise de Milwaukee):

As promised, here's my report on La Fête de Marquette, held in Madison (Wisconsin/USA) from July 10th through 13th.  It's a fundraiser for the WilMar Neighborhood Association, by the way.  This music & food festival is set in a park carved out of the railroad corridor & post-industrial wasteland of the near east side.  There was a Ferris wheel & a prize-filled roulette wheel ($10 a spin) for additional entertainment.  The people-watching was fantastic.

A French flag hung above the stage, alongside the Texas state flag, the Wisconsin state flag & a fourth one that I didn't recognize.  Maybe Quebec's provincial flag?  I didn't attend the opening Thursday night.  Two bands played on the Main Stage:  The Lost Bayou Ramblers (folk-sounding) & The Revivalists.  Meanwhile, a Willy Street Co-op members meeting was held in the tent.

On Friday night New Orleans native Ivan Neville played with his funk band Dumpstaphunk.  When I lived in the Crescent City (1980s), I met Ivan's cool uncles Aaron & Charlie Neville & his sweet cousin Charmaine Neville - all of whom are also musicians (The Neville Brothers, etc.).  Johnny Chimes (cool name,non?) played La Bistro Tent Stage.  Again I didn't attend, but I heard Dumpstaphunk from my backyard a few blocks away.  We grilled out with a visiting friend, a Swiss native who now lives in Hawaii.

Saturday's line-up was appealing, but I only attended briefly at night, when it was cooler.  Robin Pluer, Mrs. Fun and The Cajun Strangers played the tent stage - I heard the latter & they played good dance music with Cajun-French lyrics.  Jeffrey Broussard & the Creole Cowboys played on the main stage, followed by Feufollet, Jon Cleary & the Absolute Gentlemen and the great Louisiana bluesman Sonny Landreth.  I ate some pasta Bolognese & pad thai & drank good local beer, as good beer fans are wont to do.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon I worked the WORT-FM (community radio) booth, selling t-shirts & CDs, taking inventory & handing out listener questionnaires from noon till 2:00.  Performers included the Ótimo Madison Brazilian Dance troupe,BelO, LoJo, Paris Combo & the headliner:  the irrepressible zydeco bandleader CJ Chenier & the Redhot Louisiana Band.

How was the Bastille Days festival in Milwaukee?  I've loved watching Robin Pluer sing Edith Piaf songs there in the past.  Not to mention eating those delicious apple tarts!

Truly,

Joe Crawford Mrazek

a/k/a Muse of the Weird

Toe-tappin' tunes & swingin' lessons in jazz history: 2015 Isthmus Jazz Fest highlights

Esperanza Spalding with her instrument 

Madison (Wisconsin/USA) music fans were treated to several groovy events during last weekend's Isthmus Jazz Fest on the Terrace.  Here are my quick takes on the four most memorable events & gigs that I attended.

ONE

The Girls in the Band:  finally, a documentary film about some key women in jazz history

Ever heard of saxophonist Roz Cron?  Trumpeter Clora Bryant?  Jazz pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi?  Regretfully, neither had I.  This 2011 documentary film, produced & directed by Judy Chaikin, schooled me in a long neglected subject, namely women players (as opposed to singers) who made a mark in the history of jazz.  It covers the topic comprehensively, from the big band-based Swing era to today. 

The audience at the Friday evening (June 19th) screening in the UW Memorial Union's Frederic March Play Circle was - to put it kindly - select.  Serious fans of American music must see this engaging blend of interviews & live performances. Moving from the grainy, black & white 1930s into the digital-color 21st century, these ladies could swing hard.  And many of those profiled, including Diana Krall & Esperanza Spalding, still do.

With the new Nina Simone documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? by filmmaker Liz Garbus, hitting theaters this weekend, the subject (female innovators & civil-rights heroines in jazz & soul music) remains timely.

TWO

Pop & Jazz - When Worlds Collide, a performance talk by Dave Stoler & friends

Yet another substantial treat for a non-musician music-writer like me, this lecture by professorial pianist Dave Stoler was both enlightening & fun.  Joined by sax-playing singer Al Falaschi, bassist Jon Christensen & drummer Jamie Ryan, Stoler offered six songs as exemplars of the happy collision of the usually divergent pop & jazz genres:

1. "I Got Rhythm" - this 1930 show tune by George Gershwin soon transcended Broadway with its lurching rhythms & catchy chord changes.

2. "Caldonia" - a jump blues (proto-rock 'n' roll) sensation for Louis Jordan & the Tympany Five in 1945.

3. "Nature Boy" - a breakthrough hit for Nat King Cole in 1948 (written by Eden Ahbez).

4. "Yesterday": The Beatles' 1965 smash hit that Stoler said shows Paul McCartney's jazz influence.

5. "Moondance" - Van Morrison's 1970 album chestnut, with a modal sound derived from Miles Davis's "So What?" 

6. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" - Stevie Wonder's 1973 chart-topper features jazz-based harmonies by one of the coolest cats on record.

Stoler holds a Masters degree in jazz-piano performance & he plays with several jazz outfits, including his own trio as well as the Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Band & Madison's Donald Fagen tribute band Steely Dane.

THREE

Meet Freddy Cole, Gentleman Jazzman - Stories & Jokes in the Play Circle

Nat King Cole's younger brother isn't too hip to admit that he digs "toe-tappin' tunes."  In other words, he prefers dance music, as jazz primarily used to be.  Cole became an international star by virtue of the baritone singing & piano playing on display in his funky Freddy Cole Sings orchestral album (UK, 1976).  The 80-something gentle, elegant Grammy nominee entertained a small audience in the Play Circle with his stories & jokes for nearly an hour. 

Looking sharp in a dark blue pinstriped suit, Cole chided musicians who disrespect their audiences by not dressing well for the occasion. Cole was interviewed by the musically gifted & genuinely curious host Chris Wagoner, president of the Madison Music Collective. A jazzman who understands the value of measured pleasures, Cole released his first album in 1952 (a 78-rpm record). 

"My first big break was being born," Cole said.  "I made it because I earned the respect of my peers."  A resident of Atlanta since 1972, Cole was raised in Chicago, where his mother sang gospel & his father preached.  After the talk I thanked him & shook his hand.  It was an intimate conclusion to a heartwarming event.  I only wish I could've attended his Saturday evening concert.

FOUR

Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Band: a perfect finale on the UW's Memorial Union Terrace

Tony Castañeda is a serious conga-player & bandleader, but he loves to joke around with his audiences. He was in fine fun-loving form on Saturday evening (June 20th) at the Terrace.

"Were ya gettin' tired?" he asks a couple who'd just enjoyed a long salsa dance number.  "Sorry," Castañeda explains, "but all our songs are nine minutes long.  That's because it's jazz, man." 

The rotating lineup that evening featured guest trombone player & former TCLJB regular Darren Sterud (The Jimmys), longtime saxophonist Anders Svanoe, Roberto Rengel (also in Grupo Candela) on timbales, Henry Boehm on bass & the inimitable Dave Stoler on keyboards.

On a Saturday when storms threatened to put a damper on the outdoor gigs, the skies cleared & the sunset cast a magic glow over Picnic Point & the Lake Mendota horizon.  An appreciative crowd of several hundred listeners joined Tony in embracing that line by gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson:  "Good people drink good beer."

Meanwhile, pianist/singer Freddy Cole was playing Shannon Hall (formerly the Memorial Union Theater) with the UW Jazz Orchestra.  Generous as ever, Castañeda plugged Cole's competing gig, noting that tickets were still available.  

Maybe next year the organizers will let Tony Castañeda's band close the Isthmus Jazz Fest.  This year that honor went instead to the impressive Stan Kenton-inspired Sixties-style Neophonic Jazz Orchestra, a tightly arranged outfit of local jazz veterans.

[© 2015 by J.C. Mrázek]

LINKS:

http://freddycolemusic.com/

http://thegirlsintheband.com/

www.madisonmusiccollective.org

www.madisonjazz.com

Tony Castaneda Latin Jazz Band (May 2014 performance - Cardinal Bar, Madison):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rIeFcBd1k4

A tale of two museums: 1915 centenaries inspire a pair of cool cultural events in southeastern Wisconsin this spring

I attended a pair of noteworthy museum events just north & south of Racine last month. Here is my report, along with some commentary. This blog-post should appeal to (1) military history buffs, (2) large-format lithograph poster aficionados, (3) old-time radio devotees, (4) classic movie buffs & (4) fans of the illustrious Orson Welles (1915-1985), a Kenosha native.

Orson Welles, 1937 (photo by Carl Van Vechten)

Part One:

Wednesday afternoon at the Charles Allis Art Museum: Marquette professor explains how French propaganda posters arose from the hope & horrors of World War I.

The Alliance Francaise de Milwaukee (AFM) sponsored another fine cultural event on May 6th. This one took place at the Charles Allis Art Museum, housed in a grand stone mansion on Milwaukee's eastside. Along with a generous buffet of bread, paté, cheese, veggies, sweets & a variety of French as well as Italian wines, AFM served its five dozen guests an informative cautionary lecture on European history & art. [Thanks to AFM executive director Anne Leplae for her exceptional hospitality & charm.]

The 15 propaganda posters on display are sepia-toned artifacts of a proud nation at war. They include two works by Théophile Steinlen (1859-1923), better known for his art nouveau cat images. For example, Steinlen's spare Journée de Regions Liberées (1919) depicts a crow resting on a crucifix overlooking a graveyard covered with spring greenery.

These 45-inch by 31.5-inch lithographs were gathered during the war by Milwaukee philanthropist Harriet Earling Fitch, whose work focused on the care & support of millions of fatherless children. They were donated by the family of Thomas Van Alyea Jr. The art is on display in the museum's Margaret Fish Rahill Great Hall.

Intended to raise both morale and money (i.e. bond-based loans) for the French war effort, these images are especially poignant in retrospect. An untitled 1917 color portrait by August Leroux (1871-1954), depicts an idealized intimate family moment: a bearded, helmeted soldier hoists & embraces a pale young girl whose almond eyes implore the viewer, while a woman nurses an infant in the monochrome background.

This year marks the centenary of several brutal battles of the so-called Great War (1914-1918). Marquette University history professor Julius R. Ruff offered a harrowing glimpse into an earlier one that afternoon at the Allis. The First Battle of the Marne lasted from September 5th until the 12th of 1914. Although it halted the alarming German advance towards Paris, an estimated 250,000 French soldiers were either killed or physically wounded in that bloody week alone. Countless others, including unlucky civilians, were psychologically damaged for life by having witnessed the loud furious gas-bomb slaughter.

Charles Peguy, French writer & combat casualty in 1915

Among the casualties was a noted poet, essayist & editor named Charles Péguy (1873-1915), who caught a bullet to the forehead. Over two million soldiers of various armies participated in the Battle of the Marne. It dampened hopes for a short & glorious war. Perhaps more ominously, the Battle of the Marne saw the first decisive use of reconnaissance aircraft in warfare. Small squadrons of those flimsy, vulnerable early bi-planes helped the Allies by discovering weak spots in the German lines.

If art can instruct as well as inspire us, we would be wise to heed the anti-war imagery of such humanistic artists as Käthe Kollwitz. Here is her simple post-war indictment in the form of of a lithograph, Mothers (1919):  http://www.kaethe-kollwitz.de/werkschau-en_14.htm.

Part Two:

Saturday afternoon at the Kenosha Public Museum: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds 1938 CBS radio broadcast discussed by Michigan author, then re-enacted by a local amateur troupe.

To commemorate the centenary of George Orson Welles' birth in Kenosha (May 6, 1915), the Citizen Welles Society of Kenosha organized several events in honor of the multi-talented artistic genius.

Mercury Theatre on the Air, a CBS version of director/actor Orson Welles & producer John Houseman's stage company, broadcast the legendary War of the Worlds radio drama on October 30, 1938. The Sunday evening (8:00 pm EST) show, an adaptation of the 1898 British sci-fi novel by H.G. Wells (1866-1946), had a vast national audience. It was such a credible fake, structured as a live-music show interrupted by increasingly scary news flashes, that it sparked a panic among listeners who missed the introductory disclaimer.

Thinking the Earth was being destroyed by creepy reptilian invaders crawling out of futuristic Martian spacecraft, people fled the cities or called flummoxed authorities for help. Michigan-based scholar A. Brad Schwartz, author of Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY: 2015), completed the picture. 

In response to my question, Schwartz said it's a myth that the radio show caused several deaths. He said that no credible evidence has yet been presented to prove a causal connection between the War of the Worlds broadcast & any listener deaths.  There followed, however, the deadly case of the February 1949 War of the Worlds broadcast in Quito, Ecuador. Enraged upon discovering that the show was merely an artistic deception, an angry mob attacked & burned the radio station, killing at least six people.

Welles painted spellbinding word-pictures. His compelling baritone voice even convinced many in his 1938 North American audience that the world was under Martian attack. On Saturday May 9th, RG Productions presented their re-enactment of that historic broadcast, starring Ed Godula as actor-director Orson Welles. It was fun to watch the sound-effects crew make auditory magic.

Enhancing the Orson Welles celebration for adults, Public Craft Brewing Co. released Public Hysteria, their refreshingly bold American Pale Ale (6.5% ABV), on May 8th. Surely Welles, a notorious imbiber & gourmand, would have approved of that tribute.

Movie Tip: Check out Me and Orson Welles (2009), directed by Richard Linklater & featuring an eerily spot-on performance by Christian McKay as the 22-year-old Welles directing & starring in his modern-dress, fascism-themed production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Based on the novel of the same name by Robert Kaplow, this comedic drama exquisitely captures Manhattan in autumn 1937. I found it more entertaining & artistic than Linklater's Oscar-winning film Boyhood (2014). I watched it at a special screening at the Kenosha Public Library on May 13th, followed by a live telephonic discussion with Kaplow.

Links:

http://www.charlesallis.org/exhibitions.html

http://www.afmilwaukee.org/

http://citizenwelles.org/

http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm