Chasing the Blues

Farewell, Doc Watson

Like many others, I discovered Doc Watson through the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," which brought together musicians like Watson, Maybelle Carter and Jimmy Martin to record traditional songs with slick, rock-era arrangements. Watson's recordings of Jimmy Driftwood's "Tennessee Stud" and other songs were the centerpiece of the album, making the unassuming Watson a big star.

From there, I hunted down Watson's solo recordings, and saw him perform. I particularly remember him at a legendary place called Kingfish in South Baton Rouge, where I also saw Mose Allison and Randy Newman.

I also tried to match Watson's vituouso guitar playing, eventually buying a lower-end Martin guitar and videotapes in which Watson showed his technique on songs like "Deep River Blues," originally recorded by the Delmore Brothers in the 1930s. I got where I could do a passable rendition of the song's riffs, moving down the frets with an E-chord position and picking the strings in a pale imitation of Doc. Watching him on the tape explain his techniques added to my admiration for his talent, as I realized that I could never match him, even if I practiced for 10,000 hours.

The Times obituary calls attention to Watson's innovations in flat picking, and traditional finger picking, making the guitar a lead instrument in playing traditional fiddle tunes, rather than primarily a rhythm instrument. Other guitarists, such as Clarence White, also were pioneers in the field. Along with his guitar work, Watson was a fine singer and a gifted showman.

To give an informal flavor, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" included recordings of the musicians talking and joking with each other between takes. Many of us remember Watson admonishing his colleagues "Let's watch our timing." He was a true professional.

Now Steve Earle Won't Sing Anymore on "Treme?"

I was half-shocked at the end of "Treme" last week at the apparent murder of Harley, the genial, wise street musician played by Steve Earle. Guess I won't ever call a kid who's packing "son."  Too bad the sweet Annie had to witness the punk shooting her pal. ... I always wondered if Wendell Pierce's Antoine Batiste would be the one killed. ....Kermit Ruffins looked ready to do the trick last week, when Batiste pied-piper fashion stole his crowd to an adjoining Frenchman Street bar, an implausible scene. Would jazz musicians really do so things to each other? ...I was thrown off by the endless "True Blood" promos and the lack of previews into thinking that last week's "Treme" was the final one of the season. Turns out it runs a few more weeks, with "True Blood as its lead-in. Looks like the badly limping "Entourage," mercifully in its last season, will take "Treme's" slot. ... No, I'm still not tempted to try to catch up with "True Blood." Any attraction vampires had for me died with Bela Lugosi. ..

...Now Congressional Country Club leaders are turning defensive at how easy their course played at U.S. Open. Not only did Rory McIlroy take the place apart, a bunch of guys shot under par, including the second place 8 under score. ...When the graphic showed all-time great scores, Ben Hogan's 8 under at Riviera in 1948 still made the list. I think Rory's legitimately good, but think of the inferior clubs and deader ball Hogan played with, along with the fact he was still recovering from his horrific auto accident and had to play 36 holes in one day. ...I'd love for the U.S.G.A. to bring back the 36-hole final, last played at Congressional the day of Ken Venturi's near death march to the title....Call me golf lesson geek, but I've noticed Rory has something in common with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus: the interlocking grip, instead of the conventional Vardon overlapping like most players, including Hogan. Golf lesson fanatic that I am, I looked at Rory's hands on the club, intrigued at observing his pinkies intertwined, not one overlapping the other in the missionary position, as it were. The interlocking is usually for players with small hands, as I've heard Nicklaus has. If Rory goes on to win enough majors to enter the Nicklaus/Woods realm, that'll be quite a testimony for the interlocking...Rory''s embrace of his Irish "Da" was touching enough, but his  adolescent behavior strikingly contrasted with that of Nicklaus when he beat Arnold Palmer in a 1962 playoff to win the Open at Oakmont. Nicklaus was the same age, 22, but his dad, Charlie, while still alive, was nowhere to be seen on TV. Jack, who appeared more middle aged as a young man than later, when he grew his blond locks fashionably long, was already married at age 22, and might already have been a father.  While Rory certainly showed steely maturity on the course, his behavior when finished shows how long adolescence now lasts in young men. 

"Treme" Explores Relationships

"Treme" gets stronger, with the backbone of the show our relationships: Father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife. It's also getting a surer handle on New Orleans, especially the Indian culture. The shows last year on the subject were strained, but this year the Indian tradition is explored naturally, without forced insistence on how "vital" and "interesting" and "authentic" it all is.

...When I was in Baton Rouge recently, I bought "Earl Long in Purgatory," a play by Jason Berry. It's a one-man show about Huey Long's younger brother and just as much a political legend. "Uncle Earl" stories are part of the education of Louisiana political junkies. The play's language is stilted and artificial on the page; not all like Uncle Earl's,, but his truly unique verbal genius would be difficult to match. Perhaps it plays better on stage; the plot is also difficult to accept. Berry's introductory essay, "The Madness of Earl Long," is well-done though, and the cover painting by George Rodrique is wonderful.

...Watching the U.S. Open at Congressional on HD TV, with its vivid colors and every slope finely delineated, leads me to compare the first tournament I remember watching; Ken Venturi's victory at Congressional in 1964. I recall seeing Vernturi's win in black-and-white, he wearing gray pants, white shirt and Ben Hogan cap, staggering home across a gray landscape. And, back then, they probably only showed about four holes. Actually, I remember watching an earlier Open, when Jack Nicklaus won his first tournament, beating my hero Arnold Palmer in a playoff at Oakmont. The then beefy Jack was probably about the same age as Rory Mcllroy is today. I hope the Irish lad can hang on, but I still will be pulling for an unlikely charge from Phil Michelson. 

...I still love the New Yorker under David Remnick, but I miss the old in-depth golf pieces by Herbert Warren Wind. We still have the baseball pieces by Roger Angell from time to time, but the New Yorker has never tried to replace Wind, or even cover golf, or many other sports for that matter. Yet the magazine pays homage to its sports tradition by putting out an anthology of its classic sports pieces. Perhaps there's too much sports coverage elsewhere for the New Yorker to bother with it, but well-considered, well-written sports pieces would stand out against the ESPN and sports-talk radio bombast.

 

"Treme" Finds Its Voice

I had doubts about whether a second season of "Treme" could be sustained, but after a slow start, the series is reaching the same levels of artistic understanding of New Orleans culture as series creator David Simon and colleagues did with their "The Wire" about Baltimore.

With the shocking beating and rape of LaDonna, the rich depictions of music lore, the corruption of police and politicians and deep family and neighborhood connections, the series goes deep into the wounded city's heart. Musician Lucia Micarelli grows with each episode as an actress, and Wendell Pierce's trombonist shows himself the noble essence of the city. The father-son relationship between the Indian chief and his jazz musician son is beautifully wrought. Clarke Peters, a mainstay of "The Wire," appeared limited in his performance last year as Antoine Baptiste, but this season he's showing depth and subtlety. Khandi Alexander, as the brutalized LaDonna, reveals the devastating effects of crime on a person and her loved ones. Steve Earle as the street musician and mentor of Lucia's Annie shows the same depth he did playing a similar role in "The Wire." 

After a few bumpy patches the first season and the first couple of shows of the second, "Treme" is taking its place among HBO's best shows.

Keith Richards, the Pirate at Rest

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is the man of the season, with his autobiography drawing raves, especially among the rarefied chattering classes. Richards, the Stones' notorious wildman, turns out to be a cultured romantic at heart. 

So far, Richards has received a Valentine from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, a gushing interview with "Fresh Air's" Terry Gross and a laudatory review in the New Yorker. Long past his heroin and hotel-trashing days, Richards turns out to be a chivalrous, sensitive poet who treats women with grace and sensitivity.

In Gross' interview of Richards, he spoke about his craftsmanship and satisfaction (He at last has gotten some) writing songs for Mick Jagger, who comes off quite the brute in the book. Richards told Gross about his "vowel movement," how he strives to write lines with open vowel sounds. It sounds like a small thing, but such attention to detail is the sign of an artist. He's also a genius at inventing catchy guitar riffs.

Nearing 70, Richards has survived several life-threatening challenges. He's come through alive, a kind, compassionate and humorous man, a surprising gentleman, as Dowd put it.

 

Call Me a Shakespeare Traditionalist

After watching a recent Shakespeare performance with tradtional Elizabethan-era costumes, I've decided I like my Shakespeare straight, without the often misguided attempts to make his plays "relevant" by cloaking characters in contemporary clothes, etc. I've seen good productions along these lines, but often the contemporary costumes detract from the play's language and action. Whatever "statement" is being made by the director is often muddled and difficult to discern.

I attended the Shakespeare play on Sunday night, forgetting all about "Mad Men" when I came home. That marks me as officially off the "Mad Men" bandwagon, although I'm sure I'll catch up with the latest episode on "on demand." Speaking of "Mad Men," has a show ever received so much hype for such low ratings?

My daughter sent me a link to a 1970 video clip of The Band doing "King Harvest Has Surely Come" in their "Big Pink" home in Woodstock, N.Y. That was one of their best songs from a period when Robbie Robertson especially was at a writing high point. Haunting to see the young Levon Helm and Robertson, along with Richard Manuel and Rick Danko, two members of the tragically hip dead. Along with Helm and Robertson, Garth Hudson is still going strong. Not to mix bands, or metaphors, but clips like this remind me of the Paul Simon lyric, from "Bookends":

Time it was and what a time it was it was,
A time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you
 

 

Remembering Huey P. Long, Louisiana's Kingfish

Wednesday marks the 75th anniversary of Huey P. Long's assassination, of which I was unaware until discovering an interesting article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune uncovering the controversies still surrounding the shooting of the Kingfish at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge on Sept. 8, 1935.

Robert Travis Scott's piece goes into how incomplete and inconclusive the evidence is; as he says, there was no CSI at the time in small-town Baton Rouge, and Long's circle covered up much. In fact, the investigation was limited to a belated coroner's inquest, and the police work was poorly done.

The big question is whether reputed assassin Dr. Carl Weiss actually shot the Louisiana senator, who tightly controlled Louisiana politics, or whether Long was shot by a bodyguard. Weiss was slaughtered by a barrage of bullets fired by Huey's bodyguards in the hallway between the Capitol's House and Senate chambers, but Scott looks at the question of whether Weiss actually possessed the small pistol allegedly used to fire a bullet into Huey's stomach. Some reports say Weiss approached Long to talk with him, and punched the senator in his ample mouth, and then the bodyguards opened fire, with one of their bullets striking Long. Scott goes into details that were new to me; that Weiss, a young Baton Rouge doctor with a small child, had left his pistol in his Buick when he parked it in the Capitol parking lot, and that Huey's goons had searched the car and found the handgun in the glover compartment and planted the weapon at the scene.

The case has fascinated me since childhood, when I repeatedly read my father's copy of old States-Item reporter Hermann P. Deutsch's "The Huey P. Long Murder Case." The book contained photos from the scene, including one of Weiss' bullet-riddled, wide-eyed body. The shooting was vivid to Baton Rouge children who visited the State Capitol, where tour guides dutifully pointed out bullet holes in the stone walls of the hallway.

Later, when I worked at the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, I was often fascinated by a framed State-Times front page from Sept. 9, 1935, with glaring headlines about Huey's shooting. One curious story on the page was that a man in downtown Baton Rouge had been arrested for marijuana possession on the same day as Huey's shooting.

As Scott says, the shooting of Long will remain inconclusive. He discounts the old theory that Weiss was acting as the agent of an organized conspiracy to kill Long. Not mentioned is an old story that I first heard in childhood at the barbershop where I loved to spend an hour or two reading comics while waiting to have my hair cut, that Franklin Roosevelt had Huey killed. That came from the lips of Bob the Barber, a cracker barrel philosopher who carried out his trade with his scissors and combs despite having only three fingers on one hand.

Those of us growing up in Baton Rouge in the '50s and '60s had vivid memories of Huey's brother, Earl K. Long, and the bizarre climax of his last term as governor, when he was transported to and escaped from a series of mental institutions. Later, we read in A.J. Liebling's "The Earl of Louisiana" about Uncle Earl's courageous battle for civil rights and listened to Baton Rouge reporter Brooks Reed's recordings of Long from the Texas instiutiton he escaped with the aid of political allies like Sheriff Cat Doucet of Opelousas. Then, there was a movie about Earl's relationship with Blaze Starr, starring Paul Newman.

Earl was real to us; Huey a distant, godlike legend. We devoured T. Harry Williams' definitive biography of Huey when it came out, growing closer to the Kingfish and his legend. Through the years, more books came out on both Huey and Earl. Huey's spirit haunted Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men," and Randy Newman's record "Good Ole Boys" gave the saga a vivid musical rendering.

Huey built LSU and made it one of the finest universities in the South. Now, with the grinning huckster Bobby Jindal slashing the university budget, Huey's legacy of support for the university grows even brought. Long's dictatorial regime undoubtedly had evil consequences, but I'll raise a glass to the Kingfish on Sept. 8, and remember Uncle Earl as well.     

New Orleans on Upswing, Five Years After Katrina

Five years after Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, the images remain unbelievable of the city's flooding and people abandoned on rooftops, crying for help. The most heart-wrenching piece I've seen was Larry King's interview with Harry Connick Jr., in which those horrible days after Katrina were revisited and optimism for the future eloquently expressed.

Many things look on the upswing for the old city. President Obama in his speech at Loyola gave a strong vision for New Orleans' future. Public education is reportedly being revitalized, new businesses are moving in and the health-care system is under reconstruction. The Saints' Super Bowl championship gave the city a strong model of hard work, community dedication and success.

Even before Katrina struck, New Orleans, like most of the lower Mississippi River towns, was a failed city. Some see Katrina as a blessing in disguise, giving the "shock" needed for a true resurgence. Once New Orleans had real industries like shipbuilding and a vibrant local economy with a host of breweries, bottling companies, banks and financial companies and food manufacturers. The music and entertainment industries were always strong, but too small and insular to support a major city. Slowly, with the decline of the city's ports, manufacturing and trade, the economy turned to a narrow dependence on tourism, along with the continued if declining presence of the oil industry.

 Reports about memorial cermonies in the devasted lower Ninth Ward said that the neighborhood is being rebuit as a "green" community. From that base, New Orleans can perhaps turn itself into a center of the green industries that Obama touts, supplanting its oil economy.

Another posititve sign is the strengthening of the city's levee system, to prevent future tragedies like Katrinia, although the city will always be geographically vulnerable  to hurricanes. Another huge threat is the continued destruction of the Gulf fo Mexico wetlands south of the city, a problem given attention during the oil spill. Again, Obama promises action to stop wetlands loss.

After five years, many New Orleanians remain displaced and lost. Violent crime is stills high and poverty ingrained. Yet New Orleans shows a vibrancy and productive spirit that had eroded long before Katrina.

Drifting through the '40s, '50s and '60s on XM/Sirius Radio

The '40s music channel on XM/Sirius Radio brings back a bygone era of American sacrifice and heroism in World War II and afterwards. The channel plays the music of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern and others, including exciting work by black composers that I enjoy discovering.

The music is full of lyrical wit and passion, melodic complexity and historical significance. The songs throb with longing for soldiers off to war, and sparkle with a shared sense of sacrifice, at times groaned about with humor and satire. The romantic power, and erotic electricity, is strong. Has there ever been a more sexy song than "kiss me once, kiss me twice, and kiss me once again, it's been a long, long time?"

Some of the songs are too sentimental, their declarations of grand love too goey. When these arise, I  switch from the 40s channel, to the '50s and '60s channel. This gives an interesting education in American popular music. While I'll always love the songs with which I grew up in the '60s and much of the rock and r & b of the 50s, I those eras represent a falling off from the '40s. Of course, most of the material on the '60s channel is the often inspid pop songs of bubble gum and teen angst, not the album-oriented material of Dylan, the Beatles, Tim Buckley, the Jefferson Airplane, Frank Zappa and others.

I rarely if ever stray to the '70s, '80s and '90s channels. When I do, the feeling of decline is even more pronounced.

Ann-Margaret's Star Turn in "Bye-Bye Birdie"

 Recalling "Man Men" scene in which Sal inadvertently outs himself to his wife by excitedly riffing on Ann-Margret's closing scene from "Bye-Bye Birdie," I stayed up to watch the 1963 musical on Turner Classic Movies.

The young A-M's loveliness didn't quite save the movie from its cornball Middle-America take on "teen culture."  Many of the songs were lame, although "Put on a Happy Face" and "Kids Today" were strong numbers. A-M, a bit broad in the beam, sizzled in the dance number of "A Lot of Living to Do."

My favorite part was Paul Lynde, a prototype for Sal, as A-M's dad. Like many others, I during childhood thrilled to Lynde's snarky performances on "Hollywood Squares" and "Bewitched," seeing him as a blast of anarchy in brain-numbing TV land.

Also interesting in "Bye-Bye Birdie" is a brunette Janet Leigh, dancing and singing so soon after her terrifying turn in "Psycho." Dick Van Dyke, who also starred in the Broadway musical and had just begun his hit TV show "The Dick Van Dyke Show," is curiously understated, especially in comparison with Lynde's typically hammy, over-the-top performance.

Other performers of note are Bobby Rydell, and the guy who played Gilbert in "Leave It to Beaver," glimpsed as part of the kids dancing. Jesse Pearson is OK as the swaggering lout Conrad Birdie, apparently a takeoff on Conway Twitty. For some reason, Pearson's career died after the movie.

 Also playing a bit role is the kid who played the young bluecoat Rusty in "Rin-Tin-Tin." Ed Sullivan, the king of Sunday night TV, has a long cameo role. In short, the movie, with all of its cloying parts, is a baby-boomer feast.

An eerie moment comes when a Russian ballet boss salutes "Jack Kennedy," the movie came out just months before JFK's assassination brought an end to an era. In many ways, "Bye-Bye Birdie" is a relic of that era, seeking to evoke an American "innocence" that it probably never had.

"Bye-Bye Birdie," part of Robert Osborne's night of '50s and '60s teen music flicks, followed "Rock Around the Clock," featuring performances by the groundbreaking Bill Haley and the Comets. The Comets' numbers sizzle with energy and passion, compared with the pallid would-be rock numbers in "Bye-Bye Birdie."

Although "Bye-Bye Birdie" was made seven years after "Rock Around the Clock," the Comets' performances still feel revolutionary. "Birdie" is more accomplished, stylized and polished, its music pleasant and unthreatening, archetypes of the fading popular Broadway musical. The Comets' wails are the true sound of youth rebellion.

Representing the R&B tradition are numbers by the Platters, with their spin-tingling tenor Tony Williams and the intriguing female backup singer Zola Taylor, who appeared with four male voices. The Platters' vocals on songs like "The Great Pretender" provided the lead for backup music which was essentially rhythm guitar and rhythm piano, both playing a simple three-chord progression.

Too bad it was too late for me to stay up to catch Elvis in "Jail House Rock." That scene when he and the prisoners do "Jailhouse Rock," with the screen cut into several recangular cellblocks through which Elvis moves with jungle-cat grace, is one of the best in movie history.