Southern Bookman

Farewell, Roy Clark

Roy Clark at first gained recognition as a crossover TV personality whose citified country humor and instrumental talent appealed to TV variety show audiences.

Like Glen Campbell, Clark rose to stardom in Los Angeles with an urbanized country sound that reflected the migration from the farm to the city. Clark, who gained widespread fame as the host of the long-running country-fried hit "Hee-Haw," died this week of pneumonia in Tulsa, Okla.

While Clark's musical performances brought him appearances on 1960s TV variety shows, he also developed a comic personna of the canny Southern bumpkin, similar to those  of Andy Griffith or Jim Nabors. Clark's rubbery facial expressions guaranteed laughs.

Later, Clark reverted more and more to cornpone hillbilly humor as the host of the long-running "Hee Haw," along with the dynamic Bakersfield singer Buck Owens. Clark and Owens' "picking' and grinnin'" routine always made me cringe, as if I were watching the black actor Stephen Fetchit act out black stereotypes in 1930s movies.

While the "Hee-Haw"  act's broad humor was funny enough, it depended on demeaning Southern stereotypes. I was chagrined that such wonderful musical talents as Clark and Owens stooped to such condescending work. Owens apparently hated the bit.

While Clark was funny, his self-deprecating comic act overshadowed his immense talent as a singer and guitar/banjo player. Clark's musical talent compared to Campbell's, and he could have had a similar singing/playing career without the clowning.

Well, people loved "Hee Haw," as white audiences once loved "Amos and Andy."  Such broad, corn-shucking humor was long a staple of country acts. Even Hank Williams had such a comic in his band. Minnie Pearl built a durable career out of country humor. 

Clark had stage presence, and his comedy touched millions. Yet, his delivery of songs like "Yesterday When I Was Young" and his virtuoso instrumental performances made me wish that he'd concentrated on his music.

 

 

Lenny Bruce resurgence in force, New York Times article finds

The late comedian/social commentator Lenny Bruce "is having a pop culture resurgence," according to a New York Times article.

During Bruce's career when he was oppressed by governmental authorities, the Times did little to support his battle for First Amendment freedom. It did report on his arrests. The article is one of the newspaper's several attempts during the years after Bruce's death to make amends.

The strongest bit of evidence offered for a Bruce revival is the popularity of a play based on Bruce's performances. Ronnie Marmo's "I'm Not a Comedian, I'm Lenny Bruce" has gained a following in Los Angeles, the article reports. It also mentions Brandeis University canceling another play based on Bruce's work. Efforts by Bruce's daughter, Kitty, to keep his legacy alive are also mentioned.

While a widespread rediscovery of Bruce is unlikely, his work remains fresh and relevant. Even as comedians inspired by Bruce enjoy unprecedented freedom, the forces of repression that Bruce battled keep a death-grip on power. In today's political and cultural cacophony, Bruce would stand out.

Frequently arrested on obscenity charges, the First Amendment martyr died of a morphine overdose. His popularity spiked in the early 1970s with Frank Zappa's release of Bruce's Berkeley concert on Bizarre Records and a hit movie starring Dustin Hoffman that followed a best-selling biography.

The recording of Bruce's Berkeley concert is a cultural touchstone of the late 1960s, with sharp insights on subjects ranging from the Kennedy assassination and Lyndon Johnson's presidency to the social hypocrisy of race and sexual relations. While Bruce is most remembered for his live performances, his autobiography is one of the essential books of the era.

Black-and-white photographs of Bruce and 1960s Times headlines about his arrests accompany the article. Bruce seems of another time and place, but his voice still rings true.

Pianist Jed Distler, guitarist Miles Okazaki take Thelonious Monk solo

Thelonious Monk's posthumous rise into the pantheon of great American composers continues with two solo recordings of his complete works.

Albums by pianist Jed Distler and guitarist Miles Okazaki are the first solo renditions of Monk's oeuvre, the latest homage to the troubled jazz genius, as reported by New York Times jazz critic Giovanni Russonello.

Rivaling Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, Monk is known even by those who are not jazz fans. His compositions are frequently performed by a new generation of musicians, as his own albums keep getting rediscovered. While setting standards for jazz, his music transcends the genre. 

Distler told Russonello that Monk might have disliked Distler's reinterpretations of his pieces. Russonello finds that Distler succeeds in his changes, and surmises that the master would have been pleased.

While Distler might have pushed the boundaries, Okazaki's "Work: The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Monk" excite me more. The piano was Monk's instrument, so Distler with all his fresh interpretations stays on Monk's territory. Guitar arrangements of Monk's work are truly ground-breaking.

Russonello singles out one of Okazaki's numbers, in which he plays single notes without chords. That's the kind of creative inventiveness that Monk also would have appreciated.

I'll look forward to comparing Distler and Okazaki's recordings, anticipating that  the Village Vanguard or some other venue will bring Distler and Okazaki together for a shared live  performance.

A fitting tribute to Roger Miller

Roger Miller's songs and recordings gain luster as the years roll by.

His easy-listening compositions, several of them "novelty" numbers, were underestimated when he arrived in the era of Bob Dylan, Lennon and McCartney and others. 

In retrospect, songs like "Dang Me," "Chug-A-Lug," and "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd" stand as American classics. His witty lyrics and winsome singing give them the depth and texture of the best story-telling. Serious works like "England Swings" register with movie-like imagery. "King of the Road" is one of the great songs.

Texas Monthly writer Christian Wallace in a warm review of a new tribute album to Miller reflects on how his songs have touched his life and their enduring appeal in American culture.

With performances of Miller's hits by Alison Kraus, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Lyle Lovette and Asleep at the Wheel, the album reflects Miller's brilliance.

The album would be memorable for just one number: a performance of "Old Friends" by Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard, in one of his last recordings.

Wallace rightly singles out Kacey Musgraves' performance of "Kansas City Star."  Preserving the drollness of Miller's original, Musgraves gives the song her signature flair.

The album displays anew why Miller's songs remain with us.

 

 

The Band's "Music From Big Pink" a true American classic

During the turmoil and confusion of the summer of 1968, a musical album appeared that quietly upheld American pioneer and frontier traditions.

The Band's "Music From Big Pink" arrived with songs that sounded as if recorded by a 19th century group in which Herman Melville, John Brown, Stephen Foster and Stephen Crane played.

In opposition to rock pretentions, the group with its minimalist name had retreated to upstate New York to bond and create music with Bob Dylan, whom they had backed before Dylan suffered a serious motorcycle accident. Dylan painted the primitive artwork on the album's cover. 

As Rolling Stone writer Jordan Runtagh outlines, the retreat from the spotlight led to an album that stood apart from the rock mainstream.

With classics like "The Weight," "Chest Fever," Tears of Rage," and Dylan's "I Shall Be Released," the album's virtuosity shone with echoes of country, Tin Pan Alley,  gospel, vaudeville tunes, jazz, the blues, bluegrass, classical music, and old-time rock and roll.

The voices of Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Rich Danko sounded like American pioneer prophets and story tellers. They were also consummate musicians.

Manuel's piano evoked frontier bars, roadhouses and New Orleans whorehouses, and Helm's drumming merged Memphis, New Orleans and New York City.

Robbie Robertson's brilliant songwriting and guitar work was another signature. Classically trained Garth Hudson was the group's musical master, with technical innovations and arrangements drawing on sources from Mozart to Chuck Berry.

They would go on to put out another history-soaked classic, "The Band," before entering their own wilderness of rock excessiveness. Then they would say goodbye with the San Francisco concert captured in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz."

As the country fell to pieces in the summer of 1968, "Music From Big Pink" lit a lamp of hope.

Jeremy Irons, Eileen Atkins do all the voices in T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"

British actor Jeremy Irons' readings bring new dimensions to T.S. Eliot's poems.

I recently ordered the four-CD set of Irons' performance of Eliot's poems. Knowing the poems, I felt a strong sense of recognition from Irons' reading, like encountering a dear friend after a long absence.

Irons also made the poems seem new and strange.

The recordings were originally made for BBC's Channel 4, which indicates the cultural gap between public broadcasting in Britain and here. 

Irons' interpretation of my favorite poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock," was disappointing. The poem on the page has a distinctive voice, but Irons makes the poem abstract and impersonal.

It's a difficult poem to render orally; the character seems quite passive. Irons' flat voice finds little drama, or the mordant humor, in the lines.

Still, Irons' reading invites spiritual scrutiny. I anticipated the arrival of the well-known phrases, and felt a deep emotional connection.

It's hard to determine how one would interpret the narrator. I always assumed Prufock was middle-aged or older, his emotional despair is strangely world-weary for a poet as young as Eliot when he wrote it. 

But Irons makes me consider that the narrator is really a young man, perhaps 30. The poem's reference to "Prince Hamlet" indicates that the narrator is at a similar age as Shakespeare's character. Prufock's moral choices are smaller and less heroic than the Danish prince's. Not only does the narrator judge himself. He sees himself as living in a mediocre age.

The high point of the recording is "The Waste Land." I always found the poem as much of an artistic failure as Eliot found "Hamlet." Its juxtapositions seemed contrived; its images overwrought. Irons' reading, along with Dame Eileen Atkins doing the female voices, reveals the imaginative cohesiveness of the poem's vision. 

The "Waste Land" recording has a cinematic excitement, and the language soars and surprises. Eliot would probably shudder, but Irons and Atkins give it a hip-hop urgency. I wish Irons had found a similar dramatic power in "Prufock."

"Geronition," "The Preludes," "Rhapsody on Windy Night" and "The Journey of the Magi" come off well. Several of Eliot's poems haven't held up well over the years, defeating Irons' virtuosity.

I want to listen again to "Ash Wednesday" and "Four Quartets." My first impression is that Irons delves deeply into their complexity and beauty.

So far, I've avoided "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." Andrew Lloyd Webber ruined them for me.

 

 

 

Floyd Domino channels piano masters, puts the swing in Texas swing

America has a great tradition of home-grown piano players, ranging from jazz to country, boogie-woogie and Western swing.

Ace Texas pianist Floyd Domino gives encyclopedic tutorials of the instrument's traditions and playing techniques in several You Tube videos. The Internet abounds with piano lessons, but Domino's are the most useful and entertaining I've found.

Domino, whose real name is Jim Haber, made the videos with Lawrence Wright, author of the recent book "God Save Texas," an autobiographical portrait of the Lone Star state, reviewed in Southern Bookman earlier this week.Wright, who plays in a band, takes piano lessons from Domino.

As Wright relates in "God Save Texas," Domino received his nickname while playing for Ray Benson's Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel, when a bandmate observed that his playing combined the styles of Floyd Cramer and Fats Domino. The nickname stuck, despite Domino's efforts to move beyond it.

In the videos, Domino sits in his home at his electric piano and plays songs from piano masters in their respective styles. He covers such masters as Al Stricklin, Moon Mullican, Professor Longhair, Jerry Lee Lewis and Count Basie. Here is a link to Domino's discussion of how Mullican, a country roundhouse player who recorded several hits in the early 1950s, influenced Lewis, and his recollection of meeting "the Killer."

He traces other connections. Earl "Fatha" Hines is cited as a a major influence on Stricklin, a Country Hall of Fame member who played with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Stricklin, who along with guitarist Eldon Shamblin gave the Playboys their iron-tight rhythm, also sparkled on solos in classics like "Take Me Back to Tulsa."

In showing how he plays Count Basie's "Lady Be Good," Domino adds Professor Longhair riffs to Basie's chords and melody.

Domino gives a wealth of techniques for playing swing/boogie woogie/blues/jazz styles. He takes an easy-going approach to piano, showing how simple chord progressions and note patterns lead to complex music. 

Since leaving "Asleep at the Wheel," the Austin-based pianist has recorded several albums and has played with a number of artists such as Willie Nelson. He also performs at schools and special events, spreading his piano gospel.

Now when I sit at the piano and find myself at an impasse I ask "What would Floyd do?"

 

Farewell, D.J. Fontana

D.J. Fontana was the drummer for the Louisiana Hayride's house band when a young Tennessee sensation named Elvis Presley appeared on the Saturday night radio show broadcast from Shreveport, La.

When Presley performed at the Hayride in 1954, he had made his first ground-breaking recordings for Sam Phillips' Sun Records, backed by guitarist Scotty Moore and bass player Bill Black.

Presley liked Fontana's backbeat, and after the Hayride performance, asked Fontana to join the band. As with drummer Ringo Starr and the Beatles nearly a decade later, Fontana's drums were a shot of rocket fuel. Backed by Fontana's beat and Moore and Black's elemental sound, Presley shot to international fame.

Fontana, who played with Presley on several of his movies along with guitarist James Burton and appeared with Presley on his 1968 comeback TV special, died this week at age 87. He was the last surviving member of Presley's pioneering original band.

After splitting with Presley following the 1968 TV special, Fontana enjoyed a long career as a Nashville session drummer. 

Few music fans knew his name, but millions recognized his signature beat, one of the primary sounds of rock n' roll.

Zadie Smith's personal essays stand out in nonfiction collection, "Feel Free"

Zadie Smith's personal essays are like having a conversation with her.

Smith's latest collection, "Feel Free," gives warm-hearted glimpses into her life as an international literary star.

From cafes in Rome to a flat in Greenwich Village to the working-class immigrant neighborhood in London in which she grew up, Smith handles her fame and wealth with grace and humor.

She seems a generous companion, enjoying life's pleasures and handling challenges with smiles and easy laughter.

Rising to sudden fame at at a young age with her best-selling novel "White Teeth," Smith overcame an immediate bout of writer's block with a still-flourishing career as a novelist. Following Faulkner, Smith finds literary richness in her small childhood community.

She's also published short stories and a profusion of essays, reviews and reporting, while enjoying motherhood and marriage to the poet Nick Laird. The mixed-race writer's career illustrates the folly of Brexit. 

Smith's personal essays glow among book reviews, speeches, and observations on music and popular culture gathered in "Feel Free." The pieces appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, Harpers and other publications still fighting for existence in the hothouse of literary journalism.

The reviews include her time as the regular book columnist for Harper's, a distinguished chair once held by the late John Leonard. The Harper's reviewer looks at several books in each column, and Smith held the post briefly, showing an unease with the heavy reading required.

As with her other reviews, Smith's Harper's columns reflect a reluctance to cause offense. Her leaving brought a change in direction at the magazine; Smith includes her welcome to her successor, Larry McMurtry, whose novels have done for Texas what Smith's seek to do for her corner of London.

Standing out among her literary essays in other publications is an insightful appreciation of Edward St. Aubyn's autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels. Although Smith rose from a vastly different experience, she has a kinship with St. Aubyn. She lauds St. Aubyn's restoration of a mandarin English prose style to describe disreputable activities. A Cambridge graduate, Smith also displays a traditional stylistic elegance in describing lives on the margins of British culture. 

An affinity for Philip Roth is noted with a speech she gave in his honor at the Newark library. While weakened by obligatory laudatory boilerplate, the piece gives fruitful observations on how fictional characters differ from pure autobiography. 

Delving into issues of black-white cultural authenticity, Smith delves into the complexities of music appreciation in a piece on how she came to enjoy the music of Joni Mitchell after a childhood listening mainly to black artists.

Her essay on her indolent days in Rome after first achieving fame is worthy of classic status. Her account in the piece of how she caused a fire that destroyed her apartment and the lackluster response of Roman firefighters shines with comic brilliance.

Also standing out is a piece on New York City, "Find Your Beach,"  that captures how gentrification is taking a tragic toll on the city's artistic soul.

The most endearing piece recalls a trip back to her London neighborhood, and her joining an attempt to preserve a neighborhood library that gave her her first introduction to literature's wonders. As with the New York City article, this international citizen mourns how the impersonal forces of international capitalism are devastating indigenous local life.

Even her sadness at wrenching community changes comes with prevailing light. At her best, Smith is like a friend telling stories over coffee. If you're looking for a vacation book, she's the perfect beach companion.

 

 

Looking back at Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller

I watched the HBO documentary about Arthur Miller soon after seeing the Tennessee Williams exhibit at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City.

Miller and Williams, two titans of American theater whose Broadway success as playwrights seems unimaginable today, had much in common. Both men's most famous plays were directed by Elia Kazan, notorious for disclosing names of communist sympathizers to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. 

After early critical acclaim, Miller and Williams later in their careers were disparaged by critics, although both kept writing plays. Their most famous works retain their box-office power when revived. 

The esteemed playwrights can also be seen as polar opposites. The gay Williams, a drug and alcohol addict, is a prominent example of the tragic artist who wasted his talent, despite all of his success. Miller stands as a model of of the macho male artist, famous for marrying Marilyn Monroe. (Photo above)

Although Miller sought Hollywood success, writing and producing the flawed film "Misfits" for the troubled Monroe, his plays never translated well to the screen, unlike Williams'. Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Night of the Iguana" are considered film classics.

Williams' plays glow with magical poetic dialogue. With all of his theatrical power, Miller can produce turgid, stilted lines. Both men created characters that will endure in the world's culture. 

Created by Miller's daughter, the filmmaker and artist Rebecca Miller, "Arthur Miller: Writer" delivers an engaging portrait of the author of "Death of a Salesman," "The View From the Bridge," "All My Sons" and "The Crucible."

Filmed over 20 years at Miller's home in Roxbury, Conn., the documentary shows Miller as a likable, conscientious man who, unlike Williams, achieved tranquillity. After his tumultuous marriage to Monroe, Miller enjoyed a long and happy marriage to the Austrian photographer Inge Morath, Rebecca's mother.

In an early segment, Miller acknowledges Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" as laying the groundwork for "Death of a Salesman." Miller says that Williams' unsparing dealing with sexual themes freed him to honestly handle social issues in his play.

"Death of a Salesman" is closer in spirit to another Williams Broadway smash, "The Glass Menagerie." Both are "memory plays" that blend impressionistic and realistic elements. Williams' domineering mother Amanda Wingfield is a female version of Miller's Willie Loman. Amanda and Willie hold the same grandiose delusions about their families and doomed aspirations for their children.

The film briefly looks at the McCarthyism of the 1950s, which led to blacklists of movie and theater artists who held communist sympathies. Unlike his onetime friend Kazan, Miller refused to reveal names to the congressional committee, receiving a fine and a suspended jail sentence. Miller says in the film that the committee called him to testify after his marriage to Monroe because it needed a shot of publicity after its investigation had waned. 

The Miller documentary examines the decline of the theater as a centerpiece of American culture. Williams' "Glass Menagerie" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Miller's "Death of a Salesman" continued for an astounding number of Broadway performances. In postwar America, a serious play, like a serious novel, could enjoy immense popularity. 

While he never came close to the success of "Death of a Salesman," Miller kept writing, although he admits he felt he was now "shouting into a barrel." His later  theatrical work likely will remain obscure, but his late memoir "Time Bends" is a classic. 

Miller's daughter shows her father as a complex, conflicted man. His courage, kindness, empathy, humor, equanimity and relentless creative drive overcame his setbacks. He was an American artist-wise man whose example still shines brightly.