rockin' in the usa...

In about six weeks, a small cadre of musician and poet friends will present a live music/poetry event at the historic First Church of Pittsfield. It will be the first live music I've played since November 2019. It feels good.

 
A few discrete but somehow interrelated thoughts are swimming around inside of me about this gathering:

+ First, after such a long hiatus, making music in an ensemble of friends feels like embodied prayer. I played my last gig in a pub as bass player in Famous Before We're Dead. That whole experience fed my soul. I was reunited with a dear friend I've known since 8th grade, we had a shared musical history emcompassing the past five decades of beauty, we experienced a sense of adventure in the creation of original music and getting it out before the wider public, and it was just a gas to play live with people I loved and for people who resonated with what we were exploring. It was a privelege to play with my "Famous Brothers" and I would do it again in a heart beat should the opportunity arise. At about the same time, however, I realized I needed to step back for a spell as I found myself artistically stuck. It takes me a LONG time to write original song and poetically satisfying lyrics. I have a few that work, but I'm no McCartney, Hiatt, or Mitchell. Additionally, as as old dude making music, I found memorizing lyrics was no longer my forte. At the time I didn't have the cash for an IPad that could be mounted to my mic stand so it was just an old school music stand for me - and in some places there was barely room for the three of us to stand let alone store our gear. Other tensions existed, I'm sure, but I simply sensed the need for a break about the start of the New Year. So when we all got slammed by the plague, it created a natural albeit forced musical sabbatical.

Some 28 months later it felt like time to get back to my roots. The Beatles' "Get Back" documentary was an unintended parable: they realized it was time to let go of their esoteric psychedlia and get back to where the once belonged. The influence of Bob Dylan's old musical comrades-in-arm, newly named The Band, was everywhere in 1968. Artists like Clapton gave up their bizarro hipster costumes and hair in favor of simple jeans and cowboy boots. Jimi Hendrix covered "All Along the Watchtower" with verve and originality. And roots rock players in The Byrds, Buffalo Springsfield, The Flying Burrito Brothers and CSN&Y were flying high. Artists all over creation were returning to the grit of the genre's founders. Elvis had a revival. Nostalgia became profitable as bands like Sha Na Na Na captured some of the Doo Wop groove. And that's what playing with my new/old local musical friends feels like: these are artists I've worked with closely over the past 15 years. We know how to watch, listen, and support one another. Our vocalists intuitively know how to create stunning close harmonies. It is just a stone, cold gas when it sounds so sweet and comes together with so little effort - which is more often than not. We've enough time to take the rough edges off our emerging set list that includes Mellancamp and the Foo Fighters, Springsteen and Marvin Gaye, Dylan and Motown plus a few originals by well-seasoned local performers.

+ Second, the reason for gathering has been a work in progress and has finally taken shape and form. Last summer, in the halcyon glow of vaccinations, we thought we might be able to do an end of summer show. Hopes were quickly dashed by late August and the whole idea was put on ice. After boosters, however, we started pondering the possibilities. I was approached by a local pastor to consider helping raise fund for the interfaith effort to resettle 31 Afghani refugees in Berkshire County. It felt like a karmic debut so I reached out to my old mates and we started simply sitting around our living and playing tunes that made us smile. I put out feelers to other artists to see if they might join us if it was safe. And after the New Year, we began slowly working on a few songs. Who knows if freakin' Omicron is going to jinx us again, but as we all learn to live with a new variant we're going forward with joy. The show is becoming an encounter with Americana - part of the invisible hand of synchronicity and grace - that owes a ton of debt to T Bone Burnett. Not only his resurrected Robert Plant/Allison Krause CD, "Raising the Roof," but his life-long commitment to sharing and re-inventing American roots music is alive and well among us. It is also a blessing to do this fundraiser for Jewish Family Services, the agency in-charge of resettlement, at the historic First Church in town. In a time when anti-semitism is all too alive and well, this gig became a way of expressing solidarity on a number of fronts - and that makes my heart sing.

+ Third, while most of our tunes will be "covers" rather than original compositions, each fits into the whole to evoke an audible mosaic. Some performers are artists who make music to share their original compositions. I cherish the work of Joni Mitchell, Carrie Newcomer, Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Lou Reed and others who have songs and poetry bubbling up that can't be contained. Others - Joe Cocker, Joan Baez, and Eva Cassidy come to mind quickly - have a different gift - interpretation - and that is a sacred charism, too. There is NO better rendition of either "With a Little Help from My Friends" or "Feelin' Alright" than what Cocker brings to the table. Same goes for Cassidy's take on "Woodstock." What I have discovered in putting together this show is that it is steeped in the various sounds of Americana. It's was as if the Spirit was guiding us towards music that expressed the ups and downs of our country at a time when we are struggling for its soul.