Southern Bookman

John Sebastian and Lovin' Spoonful songs stand as rock classics

John Sebastian and Lovin' Spoonful produced a number of hits, yet the band has always been underrated.

Sebastian wrote sunny pop tunes expressing the joys and sorrows of teenage love, and the joys of life.

While Sebastian and Lovin' Spoonful songs are criticized as insubstantial compared with those of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and so on, they stand the test of time.

Sebastian's songs display a subtle lyrical and melodic sophistication, and the Spoonful's Zal Yanovsky, Joe Butler, and Steve Boone added inventive jazz stylings to rock rhythms.

Spoonful songs "The Younger Girl," "Do You Believe in Magic," "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice," "Summer in the City," "Nashville Cats," "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind," and "What a Day for a Daydream" hold a special place in the rock canon.

Farewell George Lois, creator of provocative Esquire magazine covers

George Lois' covers for Harold Hayes' Esquire magazine showed that the 1960s counterculture had become the nation's culture.

An innovative ad man who brought a hip insouciance to TV commercials and magazine ads, Lois' audacious covers trumpeted the magazine's New Journalism inside the magazine. The dazzling supernovas of Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, Norman Mailer, John Sack, Michael Herr, Susan Sontag, Rex Reed. Bruce Jay Friedman and Terry Southern revolutionized American literature.

Hayes' magazine under fiction editors Rust Hills and Gordon Lish also published ground-breaking short stories by Raymond Carver, Philip Roth, James Salter, Jim Harrison and Truman Capote. Hayes gave voice to columnists Timothy Crouse, Peter Bogdanovich and the young Mikc Lupica, and, from an older generation,Dwight MacDonald. and Dorothy Parker.

Lois, who died Friday at his Manhattan home at age 91, defined the magazine's provocative style, reflecting and influencing the consciousness of the baby boomer generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. While the conservative "silent majority" triumphed in politics, Lois' irreverent style remains prevalent in advertising and journalism.

The collaborative Esquire covers, eventually collected at New York's Museum of Modern Art, ranged from Sonny Liston as Santa Claus to Muhammad Ali as the arrow-riddled martyr St. Sebastian and Andy Warhol swirling into the maelstrom of one of his soup cans. One of my favorites was a beautiful model, her face covered with shaving cream.

Lois' concepts, expressing complex ideas in simple images, gave readers the sense they were part of a hip, insider community understanding a secret code.

Hayes produced a trumpet blast with each monthly issue. Lois covers' were a vibrant fanfare for the brilliant writing within.

 

 

Farewell, Peter Schjeldahl, New Yorker art critic

Peter Schjeldahl like other great critics brought an excitement to his writing, which stood on its own outside his critical judgments.

The New Yorker arts critic died Monday at age 80 at his home in upstate New York after a long battle with lung cancer.

A college dropout from Minnesota who came to New York City as a young poet enthralled with Frank O'Hara and other New York School writers and artists, Schjeldahl turned to arts criticism, captivated by New York City's electric arts scene. After several years with the Village Voice, he joined the New Yorker in 1998.

His astute, impressionistic essays displayed the poetic flair of his youth, exciting his readers whether the subject was an old master's exhibit at the Met or a young artist's show at a downtown gallery.

His daughter, Ada Calhoun, gave a memorable portrait of her father in her memoir, "Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father and Me." The book tells how she discovered tapes of interviews Schjeldahl conducted with New York School artists and writers for a never completed biography of O'Hara. Calhoun recalls Schjeldahl as a free-spirited father who let her wander without supervision in the dangerous New York City of the 1960s.

Schjeldahl never lost his sense of wonder at great art. He educated his readers in aesthetic appreciation, but his writing would have sparked fire with any subject.

 

 

Diane Arbus retrospective recalls viewing at New Orleans Museum of Art 50 years ago

A new Diane Arbus exhibit in New York City re-creates the Museum of Modern Art's posthumous showing of the photographer's work 50 yeas ago.

Reading about the Arbus retrospective at David Zwirner's West 20th Street Gallery in Chelsea, I recalled one of the most exhilarating art experiences I've had: seeing Arbus' photos at the New Orleans Museum of Art in the early 1970s. 

That was the same exhibit that shocked and thrilled crowds at MOMA in 1972. Arbus, who committed suicide in 1971, produced portraits of giants, dwarfs, sex workers, young couples, cross-dressers and twins.

Her brother, the poet Howard Nemerov, said her subjects were "freaks, professional travestites, strong men, tattooed men, the children of the very rich," according to a review of the Zwirner exhibit by the Washington Post's Sebastian Smee.

Arbus' photos of her "freaks" were shocking, yet revealed the humanity of those shunned by mainstream society. Shot in somber black and white, with dark gray tones, the photos captured her subjects' expressive eyes, illuminating their inner souls. 

On that sunny day 50 years ago, I staggered out of the New Orleans art museum, as if swept by a giant wave, a "Cataclysm," as the Zwirner exhibit is titled.                                                                                             

 

 

 

Farewell, Bobby Rydell, one of South Philly's golden voices

I heard Bobby Rydell's "Volare" recently on satellite radio, marveling at the song's wistful mood of late '50s romance and sophistication.

Rydell, a South Philadelphia crooner we Southern boys sought to emulate when watching him on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand," died Tuesday of pneumonia at age 79.

The TV show "American Dreams" revisited that era when South Philadelphia's Rydell, Fabian and Frankie Avalon ruled the pop music charts. The crooners grew up within blocks of each other. The city also boasted a flourishing a capella do-wop scene, and a rhythm and blues community as vital as Motown's.

Along with Lesley Gore, Chubby Checker, Dion, Neil Sedaka and girl groups like the Dixie Cups, Rydell, Fabian and Avalon flourished in the interregnum between Elvis joining the Army and the arrival of the Beatles.

American cultural energy soared as the cold war grew more ominous and the civil rights movement gained momentum. The John F. Kennedy assassination ended the sunny mood, before the British invasion derailed Rydell and the others' careers.

After the Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show," guys in my high school combed their hair forward. Rydell's pompadour was abandoned.

Rydell landed a substantial role in the movie "Bye Bye Birdie," starring Dick Van Dyke and the sizzling Ann Margret. But Rydell didn't care for Hollywood, returning to his beloved Philadelphia, buying a home in the area.

In later life, Rydell joined with Fabian and Avalon to perform their hits for nostalgic audiences seeking to relive those golden days hearing "Volare" and other hits on Top 40 radio. They also sang Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darren favorites.

Rydell never lost his South Philly soul. Yet "Volare" speaks to an international cool that emerged during the era, recalling French New Wave cinema, Kennedy style, the glamour of London and Paris.

That South Philly voice spoke to the world.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm Being Followed by a Cat Stevens shadow

Now I come to praise Cat Stevens.

The 1970s folksinger's "Where Can the Children Play" closed "This Is Us" Tuesday night, the song a nostalgia rush for aging boomers.

Stevens, who later changed his name to Yusuf Islam, wrote the memorable "Tea for The Tillerman" album, packed with hits like "Moon Shadow," “Morning Has Broken” and “Peace Train.”

"Where Can the Children Play" was one of the anthems of the then nascent enviromental movement, which tragically has failed to stop the fossil fuel companies from ravaging our beautiful planet.

Like John Sebastian's Lovin' Spoonful, Donovan, The Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds, Stevens was a significant artist who never quite reached the heights commanded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen.

Performers like Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Doors, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, the Byrds, the Moody Blues, The Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, The Band and Steely Dan also achieved major careers, falling just below the top tier.

But Stevens' songs have held up well over the years, defining one of the era's dominant philosophies: back to the land environmentalism, peace and love. That conflicted with his later support of Islamic militant groups, which he recanted in recent years, returning to secular recordings under the name Yusuf.

Once I heard Stevens perform at the LSU Union in a benefit for, believe it or not, LSU's SDS Chapter. SDS? Look it  up, kids.

Nothing brings back those ethereal days like Stevens' songs.

Discovering Antonio Carlos Jobim's "The Waters of March"

The red and white azaleas bloom as another March hastens away.

Those ancient colors of war and love arrive earlier now, waning in early April, once their triumphant moment.

This March, I discovered a new song that expresses the month's jumble of sunshine, wind, rain and flowers.

Melancholy at the end of the haunting, if flawed, Norwegian film "The Worst Person in the World," I was lifted out of my reverie by a Bossa Nova melody and lyrics charged with imagery. The song riveted me as the closing credits rolled across the screen.

Google research revealed the song was "Aguas de Marco,"  or "Waters of March," written by the Brazilian songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim, who wrote one of my all-time favorite songs, "The Girl From Ipanema."

Art Garfunkel performed "The Worst Person in the World" version, one of the songs on a solo album Garfunkel recorded after the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel. His lilting voice and bemused/bewildered air summed up the season's confused mellowness.

Later, I discovered a more introspective version by Susannah McCorkle, the jazz singer who ended her own life.

For years, I've listened each March to Ella Fitzgerald's definitive recording of "These Foolish Things Remind Me of You," with its lines "The winds of March that make my heart a dancer."

"Aquas de Marco" will enrich that tradition.

"The Waters of March"

 

A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road
It's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone
It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun
It is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun

The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush
A knot in the wood, the song of a thrush
The wood of the wind, a cliff, a fall
A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all

It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of the slope
It's a beam, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart

The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone
The beat of the road, a slingshot's stone
A fish, a flash, a silvery glow
A fight, a bet, the flange of a bow
The bed of the well, the end of the line
The dismay in the face, it's a loss, it's a find

A spear, a spike, a point, a nail
A drip, a drop, the end of the tale
A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light
The sound of a gun in the dead of the night

A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump,
It's a girl, it's a rhyme, it's a cold, it's the mumps
The plan of the house, the body in bed
And the car that got stuck, it's the mud, it's the mud

A float, a drift, a flight, a wing
A hank, a quail, the promise of spring
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart

A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe
It's a thorn on your hand and a cut in your toe
A point, a grain, a bee, a bite
A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night

A pin, a needle, a sting, a pain
A snail, a riddle, a wasp or a stain
A pass in the mountains, a horse and a mule
In the distance the shelves rode three shadows of blue
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the promise of life in your heart, in your heart

A stick, a stone, the end of the road
The rest of a stump, a lonesome road
A sliver of glass, a life, the sun
A knife, a death, the end of the run
And the river bank talks of the waters of March
It's the end of all strain, it's the joy in your heart

Bob Dylan unveils new chapter with "Rough and Rowdy Ways" concert at Fox Theater

The lights flashed on, and Bob Dylan was seated at an upright piano, the instrument's unfinished back facing the audience.

That was the first sign that Dylan's concert at Atlanta's Fox Theater would be different.

Longtime fans expecting the 80-year-old Dylan to perform his classics were disappointed. Throughout the show, he never rose from his piano to pick up a guitar and stand at the microphone. He did play the harmonica in one song.

With the exception of a sped up version of Nashville Skyline's "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," Dylan stayed with songs from his 2020 album "Rough and Rowdy Ways," his first release of new material in eight years.

Aging rockers like Dylan generally perform golden oldies for gray-haired hipsters reliving their youths. The Noble Prize winner keeps going in new directions.

As the night progressed, I was more and more willing to go along with him. Generally reciting rather than singing in a deep guttural voice reminiscent of Captain Beefheart, Dylan presented cinematic images of America's clashing histories.

Saluting a signature song of Jimmie Rodgers, the Mississippi "singing brakeman" and one of the progenitors of commercial country music, Dylan's new compositions evoked Tin Pan Alley show tunes, Dixieland, Texas swing, R&B, early rock and country, and horror movie soundtracks.

The lyrics recalled Old Testament prophesy, the Civil War, American West outlaws, New Orleans whorehouses, travel (Key West features in one song), and the American desire to "light out for the territory."

Dylan's "Rough and Rowdy Tour" band, including a steel guitar, stand-up bass and a driving drummer backing up Dylan's primitive rhythm piano, gave a tour of American music.

After Dylan and the band left the stage, the subdued audience waited for them to return, perhaps to play "Blowing in the Wind" or "The Times They Are a Changing." But the night was over. Dylan had given us a new chapter of music.

Farewell, Don Wilson, the Ventures' king of rhythm guitar

Waiting for the arctic blast, I play the Ventures' "Walk Don't Run" in honor of guitarist Don Wilson.

Wilson, who performed with the instrumental group until 2015, died Jan. 22 in Tacoma, Wash., at the age of 88. Along with "Walk Don't Run," the theme to "Hawaii 5-0: and other driving songs that evoked the American open road, they did one of my all-time favorites, "Wipeout," originally recorded by the Surfaris with its crazed opening jungle cry and pulsing drum solo.

I found a black and white You Tube clip of the Ventures performing "Walk Don't Run" on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, when it was still in Philadelphia

Growing up in Baton Rouge, I loved watching Clark's show every afternoon after school. The teen audience - boys in coats and ties, girls in pearls, up-swept hairdos and party dresses - sat in bleachers, clapping along with the songs. As the musicians played on a stage backed by a huge picture window, people rushed by on the other side as snow fell. Later, the show moved to LA, relegated to Saturday mornings, no longer live. But the kids danced.

On the Dick Clark clip, the Ventures wore snappy red blazers, black pants and white shoes. Their hair was short and slicked back. As they played, they carried out a choreographed dance number. Cool, daddy-o.

The faces in the audience were so fresh and young.

New Yorker shines with Paul McCartney interview, Thomas McGuane short story

The New Yorker's current issue proves again that we boomers refuse to go gently into that good night.

Longtime Editor David Remnick unshelves his writing skills in a long profile of Paul McCartney, who at 79 seeks to reframe the Beatles legacy and his subsequent career.

The issue also offers a vintage short story by 82-year-old Thomas McGuane. "Not Here You Don't" examines the environmental deterioration and declining ethos of freedom in Montana, McGuane's longtime home.

Those who experienced 1960s pop culture first-hand can also relish film critic Anthony Lane's typically insightful review of Daniel Craig's last James Bond film, "No Time to Die." Recent film-goers will mourn Craig's farewell as earlier Bond fans did the exit of Sean Connery.

Remnick's revealing piece on McCartney arrives at a big moment for the pop superstar. A remix of his latest album, "McCartney" III," is topping the charts, and he's publishing a collection of his lyrics dating back to his teen years. Poet Paul Muldoon wrote essays for "The Lyrics: 1956 Through the Present."

The biggest event is the long-delayed arrival of a re-edited version of the 1969 film "Get Back," which takes a lighter view of the Beatles' breakup than the original movie. Peter Jackson's film, taken from 56 hours of material, will be streamed on Disney Plus at Thanksgiving.

I saw the original Beatles film years ago, transported by the band giving an impromptu concert on a London rooftop as office workers and passers-by on the street watched in wonder.

In pushing the film, McCartney looks back on his tortured relationship with John Lennon. McCartney says Lennon caused the Beatles breakup, for which McCartney was blamed at the time. He also says he remained friends with Lennon despite Lennon's harsh public insults, and admired Yoko Ono, whose marriage to Lennon was seen as breaking the band apart.

McCartney in an amusing aside punctures the Rolling Stones, calling the Beatles' major rivals a blues cover band.

Younger generations will  likely wonder what all the fuss was about. Yet watching the Beatles perform their songs will make them understand why their moms and dads, and grand-moms and grand-dads, loved the band's music so intensely.

I'm always happy to see in the New Yorker stories by McGuane and a few other remaining writers of his generation. Contemporary short stories often don't engage me, as was the case in the current special issue of Oxford American showcasing new Southern writing.

The emerging generation of writers formed in college creative writing programs display a similarity of techniques and banality of characters and situations.

In contrast, McGuane makes the reader wonder how he achieves such power from his deceptively simple language. He ties his stories to broader social and environmental changes. As he discusses in a separate interview, McGuane uses the short story to illuminate the West's environmental and political crises.

Like McCartney, McGuane is a master storyteller who remains relevant for younger generations as well as we aging boomers.