Happy Birthday to WORT!

It's such a weird pleasure playing receptionist at WORT in Madison (Wisconsin).  This afternoon, during Jim Schwall's special jazz & pledge-rap show, ex-Madison musician Barbara Kooyman (co-founder of Timbuk3) called from Austin, Texas, and sang "Happy Birthday" (to WORT) into my ear.  WORT is celebrating its 35th anniversary today. 

Check out Barbara's new music-for-life project at www.sparrowswheel.com.  Many happy returns of the day, WORT-FM Back Porch Radio Broadcasting!  You hardly look a day over 30.  And Austin weather sounds good this time of year.

"Next Stop Is Vietnam" war & music symposium

I learned alot & heard many moving stories at last weekend's Wisconsin Veterans Museum symposium, celebrating the release of the archival CD set Next Stop is Vietnam:  The War on Record (1961-2008), curated by musicologist Hugo Keesing.  This event in Madison served as a valuable reminder that music has the power to help musicians tell personal stories as well as to help listeners endure traumatic experiences.  

Country music expert Bill Malone, PhD candidate Charles Hughes (who's writing a dissertation on soul music), African-American writer/vet Art Flowers and musician/vets Jim Walktendonk & Lem Genovese offered fascinating insights into how those who served in Vietnam were uplifted by popular music and how folks on the home front reacted - through country, rock & soul music - to the war's unfolding futility. 

Emotions were strong among Vietnam vets in the audience, but the abundance of laughter made attending the 5 sessions a pleasure.  Here's a list of the songs most mentioned by Vietnam vets - including nurses - as having a special resonance, according to researchers Doug Bradley (a USARV reporter in Vietnam) and Craig Warner (UW professor and a self-described "undrafted hippie" musician from Colorado):

1. "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by The Animals, written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weill (for the Righteous Brothers) - the title suffices to explain its popularity among US troops in Vietnam.

2. "Fixin' to Die Rag" by Country Joe MacDonald (a veteran who still supports fellow vets as well as an iconic anti-war activist) & the Fish. 

3. "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul & Mary (written by John Denver) - originally released in 1967, but not a hit till '69 - beloved by soldiers overseas for its theme of reluctant parting from a lover.

4. "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding (co-written by Steve Cropper) - sadly, a posthumous release & another melancholy lyric full of longing.

5. "Detroit City" by Bobby Bare, a crossover country hit popular among troops due mainly to its mournful refrain "I wanna go home."  Some 58,000 of our nearly 3 million Vietnam vets never did make it home.  Many more couldn't adjust to their post-Nam world.

6. "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, an ex-paratrooper & rebel hero to many fighting men, especially combat grunts in Vietnam, after the war turned sour in 1967.

7. "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra, who has made a living largely from entertaining Vietnam vets.  And, of course, she looked damn good in those boots circa 1966.

8. "The Letter" by The Box Tops, memorable mainly because of its urgent theme - i.e. missing my gal - and the late Alex Chilton's great growling vocal delivery.

9. "Chain of Fools" by Aretha Franklin - US troops in Vietnam apparently applied the lyrics to the military chain of command, among other sources of irritation.

10. "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye - title track of  that masterpiece album, which Marvin wrote after deep conversations with his brother Frankie upon Frankie Gaye's return from combat duty in Vietnam.  Art Flowers said that the cut "What's Happenin' Brother" just about blew his mind when he first heard it after his Nam tour.

Miss Meaghan Owens live on the radio

Dear Miss Meaghan:

What a treat to be sitting at the Oregon (Wis.) Public Library, my comfy Sony headphones plugged into their Dell computer, dialing up WORT-FM on the Internet and hearing your irresistibly distinctive voice and gorgeous guitar playing on Jim Schwall's For the Sake of the Song show. Talking about your work with Guitars for Vets and the new CD, Gun Shy of a Kiss. Then you perform that Nashville song ("Saturday Girl") and my heart melts. Brava, bellissima! Encore! And then Jim plays your recording of "Honey Bee."

Lay your gypsy head down and take a bow. Your chicken ring-tone is calling.  See you at Madison's Brink Lounge Thursday night.

Jay Farrar at the Majestic: Shared Dream

I shared a sort of waking dream with 204 other people Saturday, November 6th, at the Majestic Theater (capacity: 600) in downtown Madison, Wisconsin.  Although I arrived 15 minutes late, I found an empty seat in the front row.  Onstage Jay Farrar and sideman Gary Hunt played and sang mostly melancholy songs with a quiet urgency and mellow determination.  Farrar's acoustic guitar blended perfectly with Hunt's electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin and fiddle, yielding an entrancing contemporary Americana sound.  

Poised and serious in a black cowboy shirt, black boots and black jeans, Farrar proved that he is still a better singer than his old bandmate Jeff Tweedy (Uncle Tupelo, Wilco), but his songs are more meandering and vague than Tweedy's best stuff.  Farrar may not have had the success with Son Volt that Tweedy has had with Wilco, but he is clearly as talented.  I couldn't name the songs, aside from "Big Sur" - an homage to Jack Kerouac - but they all moved or intrigued me.  Sadly, not many local music fans seem to be in on the secret.

"I don't know about you," Farrar said in his mild Belleville drawl, introducing a song, "but when I hear the word 'God,' I think of Willie Nelson.  Locoweed grows because God says so."  Farrar also name-dropped Leadbelly in one tune and alluded to Highway 61 in another.  Jay Farrar appears to be travelling the same wild desolate road as Dylan, Willie, Cash, Kristofferson and other American mystic-rebel explorers of music, mood and truth.  In his shaggy moptop and freakfolk beard, Farrar ushered the small devoted crowd to a celebratory gathering under artificial blue stars - a weary guide, but a good one.

He deserves more ears.  Twenty years ago, while fronting punk-country pioneers Uncle Tupelo, Farrar wrote "Screen Door" and sang a bold cover of  "No Depression," A.P. Carter's classic hymn to heavenly hope.  He's now age 44, still creating smart lyrical songs, like Michael Stipe's younger country cousin.  The only important difference:  he now sips water onstage, not beer or whiskey.

Sen. Russ Feingold concedes with Bob Dylan quote

I was impressed by the class that Senator Russ Feingold displayed in his concession speech Tuesday night in Middleton, Wisconsin. This modest man of principle who voted against the so-called Patriot Act "because I read it," a progressive hero to millions, went down defiantly, saying that the fight continues.


Yet he closed on a grace note, quoting "who else - Bob Dylan: 'But my heart is not weary / It's light and it's free. / I've got nothing but affection for all those who sail with me.'" Thanks for serving our country so well since 1992, Russ. I'm proud to call you Captain, my Captain! (- from a poem by Walt Whitman re Abe Lincoln)

Hank III - Rebel "Hellbilly" Within

The crowd at Hank (Williams) III's show at the Barrymore Theater last night was as frisky and freaky as those Mexican masks atop the lobby of that cozy Madison venue.  Hank III plays with a variety of personae, an actor with a heavy family legacy to bear. 

At first, he's the acoustic honky-tonk hero in Stetson and boots playing original ballads - mostly about his blues and his related love of intoxication - with a crack 6-piece backing band that features an upright bass, old-timey fiddle, banjo and pedal-steel guitar.  "A Little Bit of Smoke and a Whole Lotta Wine" is a typical title.

Then he slips on the "hellbilly" rebel outlaw mask - singing "Tattooed and Branded," kicking the musical tempo up a notch, adding a screamer on backup vocals like some demented Freudian id or demonic alter ego, but still playing mostly pleasing melodies with sardonic wiseass lyrics.  Finally he straps on an electric guitar, plops on a Copenhagen tobacco cap and delivers loud repetitious hardcore with fellow metalheads in a group provocatively called Assjack.  That divides the diehards from the more casual listeners, who leave.

Apparently it ain't easy being Hank, who has forged his own intriguing style of punk, alt-country and speed metal.  The endearing 40ish musician gave his enthusiastic fans a treat for Halloween:  an entertaining preview of the Apocalypse perhaps.  Meanwhile, across town, Bob Dylan played the Overture Center.  Reportedly, Bob barely acknowledged the crowd.  The Times They Done Changed, eh?

Happy Birthday, Chuck Berry!

Johnny B. Goode's creator Chuck Berry turns 84 years old today.  John Lennon once said, “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’”

He may be an ex-federal-felon (Mann Act), but that brown-eyed handsome man could play his guitar just like a-ringin' a bell.  Check out the old rocker's weekly gig in his hometown (St. Louis) before he passes.   Roll Over, Beethoven - tell Tchaikovsky the news!