All these recent music deaths – Charlie Watts, Don Everly, Tom T. Hall, Lee Perry, and especially Nanci Griffith – have gotten me down lately.

Not as down as the debacle in Afganistan makes me.

Not as down as the persistence of Covid and death and stupidity makes me.

Not as down as the parole of Sirhan Sirhan makes me.

And certainly not as down as the slide towards fascism by the GOP makes me.

It’s hard to concentrate on anything in the middle of the slow-rolling Cold Civil War that’s ripping the country apart, with much more trouble to come.  January 6th was just the new Fort Sumpter.  I don’t understand the slap-on-the-wrist sentences to the Insurrectionists and the impunity with which their co-conspirators walk around Congress, but don’t get me started.  It’s only an existential threat to our democracy.

Every day I could write an angry blog about what’s happening – take your choice of outrages – but instead I try to let the anger drain painlessly out of me.  Yoga helps.

But music is important to me, and something I can wrap my grieving mind around.  I spend so much time listening to music while writing, doing chores, cooking -- I even listen to music on outdoor speakers when I’m gardening! – that I have to write something here.

SO MUCH MUSIC

I love and grew up on the Everly Brothers and the Stones.  I’ve listened to Tom T. Hall and Lee “Scratch” Perry since the 1970s. 

But Nanci Griffith was something special to me. I even used the name “Nanci’ for a major character in WHAT IT WAS LIKE.  It seemed right – Nancy with an ‘i” – for a person who wanted to be different.  (And Nanci Jerome was very different.)   

This is what I wrote several years ago about Nanci in my BLOG #50 – FIVE ARTISTS WHO “SHOULDA BEEN BIGGER”

NANCI GRIFFITH

I spent a lot of time in the 90s listening to Nanci Griffith.  Some people can’t get past her sugar-sweet voice.  (Maybe that’s why she never really broke through commercially despite a huge push in Nashville.)  But I think she’s one of the best, smartest, and most accomplished performers I know.   Nanci is not only a wonderful songwriter, but she’s a great “song finder.”  She was the first person to record “From A Distance,” the song that Bette Midler later made a hit, and owns the publishing on it.

Her career is waning now; she has arthritis in both hands (ironic, considering the lyric in one of her most famous songs, “Love at the Five and Dime”), so I’m glad that “From A Distance” can take care of her as she stops touring and recording.  Her official website lists no new shows planned, and the last posting was from April 26, 2013.

But her early albums are superb, filled with intelligent, perceptive, sensitive songs, played by some of the best musicians around.  A look at the credits on her albums is like a Who’s-Who of great pickers from Austin and Nashville, and she’s been produced by masters like Tony Brown and Jim Rooney.

The TG and I saw her several times in concert, and she was always excellent on stage.   I think her music just might be too smart for the average audience.  No matter: she made her mark and left behind some excellent music.

She shouldn’t be forgotten.

“Love At the Five and Dime” – from Austin City Limits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GK462XnRjQ

“From A Distance” – from Irish TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF4BralTQW8

“Speed of the Sound of Loneliness” – a John Prine song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNBeP8dzYdg

“Trouble In the Fields” – with full orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7IVI4AvGG0

Nanci Griffith and the Blue Moon Orchestra at Austin City Limits from 1989 – an outstanding set with some of her best songs like “Gulf Coast Highway,” “Love at the 5 & 10,” and her original and still-best “From A Distance”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reZpbkE8o_M

Nanci Griffith at the Strawberry Festival from 1986 – with just Danny Flowers on guitar – but still choice early Nanci

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WDPs0x4K-M

What would I add now?

Now that she’s gone, we can look back on Nanci’s career from a “final” perspective.  I was right that she “shoulda been bigger” and I suspect that her reputation will grow as people listen to and appreciate her best work.  There will be tribute albums, memorial concerts, etc.

Nanci made twenty albums, and the last nine aren’t very good.  Her recorded output falls into neat sections. She released four folk abums of increasing mastery on Philo/Rounder.  Then came three superb country albums on MCA where Tony Brown surrounded her with the best players and production.  (In 1986, Tony Brown gambled that the next big thing in Nashville was “singer-songwriters,” and he signed Nanci, Steve Earle, and Lyle Lovett.  Tony Brown lost, but he launched three wonderful careers.)  One of Nanci’s Tony Brown albums got five stars in Rolling Stone, and it still didn’t sell.  Nanci tried the pop route, working with producers like Glyn Johns and Rod Argent.  She masterminded two folk anthologies, one of which won her a Grammy.  She made pop albums, live albums, an album of torch songs, one of covers.  But she had lost her momentum and her way.

She made some controversy for herself, writing to Texas newspapers, complaining about how she was treated.  And finally, after two bouts with cancer, an arthritis-type affliction took her off the road for good.

Looking back on her career, I can understand why some critics would see her worst work as affected and “icky” and “twee” and generally fake.  Not everything is for everybody.  But I think they are wrong: I think that, at her best, she was a great artist.  An enchanting, mesmerizing, meticulous performer, expressive singer, wonderful guitarist.  She always performed with superb musicians, adding to the excellence of her shows.  I’ve been listening to her music a lot since her death.  The best of her work is brilliant and unique.  I’ll listen to her forever.

MORE MUSIC

As far as Tom T. Hall, I blogged about him several years ago in BLOG #123 – COUNTRY MUSIC PLAYLIST FOR MY DAUGHTER

TOM T. HALL

I know that one of the reasons the Flower loves country music because of all the stories within the songs.  So I’d definitely play her Tom T. Hall.  Tom T. Hall’s nickname is “The Storyteller.”  ‘Nuff said?

Known primarily as a songwriter, Tom still had seven #1 country singles on his own.  The four other songs he wrote that went to #1 by other artists include the massive crossover hit “Harper Valley PTA” by Jeannie C. Reilly.  His songs truly are three-minute, expertly crafted short stories.  Like all good writers, his eye for detail is super-sharp.  In “A Week in a County Jail,” one of Tom’s #1 songs, the jailer’s wife brings the prisoners, “Hot baloney, eggs, and gravy.”  It’s such a perfect touch that he uses it twice.

My other favorite songs of his include his first big hit, “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died,” “That’s How I Got to Memphis” (which has now become a quasi-standard),  “Margie’s At the Lincoln Park Inn,” “Salute to a Switchblade,” and many others.  A true craftsman, he wrote several books on the art and practice of songwriting. He has also written novels, short stories, and his memoirs.

No one can tell a story in a song like Tom T.  He could even tell a story in just one couplet: “She gave her heart to Jethro / But she gave her body to the whole damn world.”

“The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” – the original – with Pete Drake on slide guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NSVOyhWnXM

“The Ballad of Forty Dollars” – a great country yarn about a funeral

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx5te3VkTtQ

“Pay No Attention to Alice (She’s Drunk All the Time)” – Tom’s stories could cut pretty deeply sometime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Vp5ejFbxM

“An Ode to Half a Pound of Ground Round” – just for the title

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgwNJZw8qAs

 “She Gave Her Heart to Jethro (And She Gave Her Body to the Whole Damn World”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYbqPdtwuHI

“Margie’s At the Lincoln Park Inn” – a great anti-cheating song with a killer ending

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWpVo2nR5pQ

 “That’s How I Got to Memphis” – sung by Kelly Willis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHCxqON0IWU

I stand by everything I wrote then about Tom T.  I’ve gone even deeper into his catalog.  He has so many songs I don’t know!  A great – and important – songwriter.

AND THE STONES?

I’ve always agreed with the consensus that the Rolling Stones are the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World.  (I think the Who reach greater heights – i.e., Who’s Next – but the Stones play the music better than anybody.)

The Stones were inescapable for my generation.  In WHAT IT WAS LIKE, the “prime, primal Stones” that comes out of the jukebox at Bailey’s is an important memory for my hero/narrator.

Since Charlie’s death, I’ve been listening to a lot of Stones, and, damn, they are great.  I’m glad I saw them (twice).  I wish I had seen them more, but I have a good stock of CDs and choice bootlegs to fill my need.

And YouTube.  Take a look at this “Charlie only” shot from Martin Scorcese’s documentary of the Stones’ show from the Beacon Theatre in New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL614PU-EQE

Charlie’s left hand is the bedrock of rock and roll.

OTHER REFLECTIONS

As far as the parole of Sirhan Sirhan … some things are unforgiveable.  Robert Kennedy wasn’t perfect, but he was great.  On June 8, 1968, I stood in line for six hours on Fifth Avenue with thousands of other New Yorkers in order to walk by his coffin in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. 

As we passed by the coffin, my friend Rodd Lewis reached out and touched it, just as Jacqueline Kennedy did.  I wish I had done the same.

I say: Let Sirhan Sirhan stay in jail until he dies.  Then let him out.

But I’m doing OK, laying low, writing a little.  So much anger has yielded very little product.

I didn’t expect to spend my “golden years” worrying about the future of my country. 

Ecological decline and political ruin – that’s what we’re leaving our children and grandchildren.  And it’s our damn fault.

I’d hate to see this once-beautiful country go down, but that may be our legacy, their destiny.

But my new motto is – “NO WHINING ON THE YACHT!!!”

There is so much Wrong out there.  Hunger, floods, evictions, voter suppression, unpunished treason, uncertainty, disease. I have it good, and I know it. 

I need to take a deep breath and get back into the fight.

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