There Was A Secret Chord
“Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.” ― John Updike
We had a special guest over for dinner this week, the great rock journalist and uke player Sylvie Simmons. Sylvie literally wrote the book on Leonard Cohen, or as his fans call it, the bible. She recently had an updated version of the biography published, since the first came out before Cohen had passed away. I am going to be interviewing her about it at the Battery in April (drop me a line if you would like to attend) and since she was in the neighborhood anyway, she stopped by to hang out and dig into what we might be conversing about.
Cohen is having a second coming post-passing, as many legendary characters have. Without his physical presence, there are books, documentaries, articles, dissertations, and museum exhibitions being produced about his life and art, many attempting to shine lights into his darker, unknown characteristics, attempting to discover a part of him that will help unlock his mystery and in some cases to give arguments for ownership. It is such an interesting aspect of mortality, the desire to connect with the deceased by telling and retelling his stories, by reinterpreting the stories to bring to life anew someone who is no longer actively creating for the modern world. With fame comes immortality, and with immortality comes the reality of being reconsidered, redefined, with an ever evolving, ever living legacy.
Sylvie played the ukulele at our wedding…an extended version of The Turtles’ Happy Together which included all of our guests singing the “ba-ba-bas” at the end. She knows that our son Asher plays the uke. After we finished some delicious pizza from Good Earth (seriously the best around) she took out her ukulele, made for her by the same person who made The Grateful Dead’s instruments (and it is a true beauty, carved of redwood with inlayed mother of pearl and a wooden mosaic image of a compass), had Asher get his…and taught him how to play Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Yes, I have heard that song done too many times by too many people, but the moment Sylvie and Asher started playing together brought the essence of the song into the room. While Leonard Cohen’s life story is ever interpreted, ever changing….the music he composed brings you right back to the source, the same notes, the same lyrics…that feeling of awe and wonder that the song has always unlocked. The Truth that art represents. As Keats writes:
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Shabbes!
Doug Paterson, East African music aficionado and studio engineer, dies at 72
DJ/producer/musicologist Doug Paterson died a few weeks ago, leaving behind an incredible life work that included bringing the music of East Africa to the west…finding it, recording it, promoting it. He wrote the Rough Guide article on music from Kenya, and created a website that allows any searcher a deep dive into the artists behind the music he loved. My friend Jon Kurtzer started an African music radio show with Doug in the 80s, and still had it going when Doug was diagnosed with cancer (Kurtzer is still producing it weekly on Thursday nights). Paterson added such a vibrant thread to the fabric of music of the world.
“The focus of The Thief Collector is one of art history’s stranger heists: the theft of a Willem de Kooning painting from the University of Arizona’s art museum in Tucson in 1985. On a sleepy day after Thanksgiving that year, a man and a woman cut the de Kooning out of its frame, rolled up the canvas, and hurriedly left the museum with it…No one chased after the thieves as they exited the museum with the painting in hand, nor as they drove away with it in their red Toyota Supra.”
It’s so sweet to hear new recordings from Andy Cabic and Vetiver, including a great Bert Jansh cover. Nice way to start the weekend….
Dick Cavett Set As Recipient Of WGA East’s Evelyn F. Burkey Award
Some of Cavett’s late-night interviews were just genius, like his ones with: Jimi Hendrix, Orson Welles, Groucho Marx, Jane Fonda, and George Harrison to name just a few. His interview with racist governor Lester Maddox, leading to Maddox walking off the set when Cavett refused to take back his characterization of his admirers as bigots showcased Cavett as a hero on the right side of history, and solidified the talk show host as a powerful mainstream televised voice. He deserves this award big time.
Al Pacino: ‘The Godfather gave me a new identity that was hard to cope with’
There is a lot being written about The Godfather right now given its 50-year-old status. This interview with Pacino is my favorite.
Will musician Bongo Joe, who entertained downtown San Antonio for 2 decades, be lost to obscurity?
Of course Chris Strachwitz had the smarts and the taste to put out an incredible Bongo Joe Coleman record in the late 60s, so at least record collectors like myself could discover him. Anyone who hears that record understands the power and uniqueness of Bongo Joe.
How North Carolina's experimental folk scene creates a new American sound
Listening to Vetiver and then taking in this story feels like a nice complete circle, with Vetiver being such a vital part of the new Weird America folk movement in the late nineties and this great article by Harris Wheless exploring a new wave.
The Face
by Franz Wright
Is there a single thing in nature
that can approach in mystery
the absolute uniqueness of any human face, first, then
its transformation from childhood to old age—
We are surrounded at every instant
by sights that ought to strike the sane
unbenumbed person tongue-tied, mute
with gratitude and terror. However,
there may be three sane people on earth
at any given time: and if
you got the chance to ask them how they do it,
they would not understand.
I think they might just stare at you
with the embarrassment of pity. Maybe smile
the way you do when children suddenly reveal a secret
preoccupation with their origins, careful not to cause them shame,
on the contrary, to evince the great congratulating pleasure
one feels in the presence of a superior talent and intelligence;
or simply as one smiles to greet a friend who’s waking up,
to prove no harm awaits him, you’ve dealt with and banished all harm.
**THIS NEWSLETTER IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN FOOSE, who passed away today. John introduced me to the way people from Austin truly celebrate music, as well as the real Mississippi via Pluto via Yazoo County (and Jane Rule Burdine). A true original.