Accurate Sounds – Robert Hilburn's Paul Simon: The Life

Paul Simon in a promotional photo for his 2018 farewell tour. (Photo: KeyArena)

With his farewell tour ending September 22 in Queens, NY and a new album coming out this Friday, Paul Simon remains current. To coincide with the tour, Simon granted L.A. Times music writer Robert Hilburn more than 100 hours of interviews for a new biography released last May, according to the press release from Simon & Schuster. But rather than hook a new album and a farewell tour to a book for commercial purposes, Hilburn goes much deeper by writing a balanced study of his subject. His focus, and it’s a good one, is to identify and explain the driving impulses behind Simon’s creativity. Naturally that’s an easier task with the co-operation of the person you’re writing about.

Larger Than Life: The Big Note by Charles Ulrich

Frank Zappa, whose legacy is catalogued in Charles Ulrich's The Big Note. (Photo: IMDB)

This coming December 4th marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Frank Zappa. Just before he died of cancer at the age of 52, he was interviewed by NBC Today Show correspondent Jaime Gangel, who asked him how he wanted to be remembered. “It’s not important to be remembered” was his direct reply. Nevertheless, when you’re dead, you have no more say in the matter. The Big Note (New Star) by Charles Ulrich could be described as the final say in the matter of Frank Zappa’s music, a scholarly 800-page encyclopedia of all things Zappa.

Chamber Folks: All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn't Do

The Milk Carton Kids. (Photo: Joshua Black Wilkins)

In the prologue of Robert Hilburn’s new biography of Paul Simon, he tells the story of Simon’s early working method as a composer, relaying how “Simon took his acoustic guitar into the family bathroom, where the tile made the sound all the more alluring, and he turned off the lights so that he could relax and feel totally at one with the music . . . as he sat alone, these words eventually burst forward: ‘Hello darkness, my old friend.’” I’m going to review Hilburn’s book in a few weeks but I couldn’t help but think of this description in appreciation for the alluring and introspective music of The Milk Carton Kids, an American duo featuring Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan. Their new album on ANTI, produced by Joe Henry, has a long, explanatory title, All The Things That I Did and All The Things That I Didn’t Do  which brought to mind William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience,” and it consists of twelve carefully written and arranged songs about adulthood. Ironically, the California duo has only been together for seven years, yet seem like old souls addressing the perils of aging.

Carefully Crafted: Benedict & Keteyian's Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods. (Photo: Getty)

I love the game of golf. When I play, which isn’t often enough, it’s my time to focus and to stay present with every shot. Golf is the only sport where the player hits a stationary object. Every other popular sport features a moving target such as a baseball or hockey puck. But golf is more than “a good walk spoiled,” as Mark Twain characterized it, at least for me. For Tiger Woods, the single most popular player in the world, it’s not just a game, it’s a mission – and winning, according to authors Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian in their new biography of Woods published by Simon & Schuster, is what makes Woods tick. It’s not the money or the fame; it’s the “hardware” or trophies that really matter to him, and his love of the game.

Missing Link: Both Directions At Once by John Coltrane

Cover art for John Coltrane's Both Directions At Once. (Photo: Impulse! Records)

After a long hiatus, John Coltrane is back on the jazz charts with a new album called Both Directions At Once (Impulse!). This exciting and previously unheard set of recordings will go down in jazz history as what I characterize as the missing link. It’s like discovering J.R.R. Tolkien wrote another book in the Lord of the Rings series that's meant to fit between The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. It’s the musical link of what had come before in Coltrane’s growth and where he and his band mates were going. The tracks on this album were done a couple of years before Crescent and A Love Supreme, two of the group’s seminal discs.

Music Memory: Steven Hyden's Twilight of the Gods

Author and classic rock aficionado Steven Hyden. (Photo: Uproxx)

Steven Hyden’s Twilight of The Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock (Dey St./Harper Collins) is one of the best books about a life in music from a non-musician that I’ve ever read. His short volume is a blend of memoir, music history and criticism that is so full of wit that it’s hard to resist laughing to oneself on every other page. Here’s the first line: “For as long as I can remember, classic rock has been there for me.” Classic rock? Really? By revealing his love for classic rock albums and its famous performers, Hyden’s book is really a long-winded yet fascinating story about his relationship with music from his early years until the present.

Band of Brothers – Michael Barclay’s The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip

Gord Downie performing with The Tragically Hip in Vancouver in 2016. (Photo: Andrew Chin)

Michael Barclay’s biography of The Tragically Hip, published by ECW, is a comprehensive tome about one of Canada’s favourite rock groups and Gord Downie, the band’s popular front man and lyricist, whose final years battling cancer made front-page news. Barclay takes a holistic approach to the tale and invites his reader to think about his book with a smaller narrative arc. He states from the top that “half of this book is a chronological history . . . the other half extrapolates on various themes throughout the band’s 32-year career . . . All chapters are written in a way that they can be read in isolation . . . in whatever order you like.” I’m sure the author had good intentions in setting up his history in this fashion, but it’s bad advice. By creating a split focus, right down non-sequential chapters, he lessens the impact of the book overall.

Barclay’s opening salvo is a successful dissertation on “what makes a band, and especially The Hip, ‘Canadian’.” This particular notion of a so-called Canadian sound continues to be fodder for Canadian critics who need to discuss such things and Barclay is no exception. For him the band’s “Canadianness” is based not only on their subject matter, but on their lifestyle as well; the group relishes its privacy and is friendly to the point of doing the dishes at house parties. In a way, this reduces what being Canadian is to a stereotype and the members of the Hip are polite to a fault.

Past Master: Richard Crouse's Elvis is King. Costello's My Aim Is True

Elvis Costello, in a publicity still for his debut album in 1977. (Photo: Getty Images)

I turned 19 years of age the day My Aim Is True (Stiff) by Elvis Costello was released on July 22, 1977. It was one month before another Elvis, by the name of Presley, died. And while the two events seemed to be unrelated, for Richard Crouse, movie critic and music lover, it was the end of one era and the beginning of the next in the history of rock n’ roll. In his short but concise study of Costello’s debut album, he writes that My Aim Is True was the perfect antidote for the Pink Floyd-Led Zeppelin “bombast . . . free from any prog rock pretension.” Crouse’s book, titled (intentionally in lower case), elvis is king. costello’s my aim is true (ECW Pop Classics), dives into one of the most important stories in music history in detail without sentimentality. It’s a refreshing look at Costello’s bold entry into the music scene whose timing, according to Crouse, was spot on. He writes that My Aim Is True is “a perfect blend of artist, music and zeitgeist.”

World Mash-Ups: Valeria Matzner and Molly Tigre

South American songwriter Valeria Matzner. (Photo: valeriamatzner.com)

Two new releases have brought me great joy over the past couple of weeks for their excellent production values and spirited performances. Valeria Matzner’s album called Anima (Triplet) offers up some enthusiastic tracks with an eclectic music mix. New York’s Molly Tigre is an instrumental band with a difference: no guitar player. The band’s self-titled record on the VSR label is inspired by the desert blues entrails of Mali mixed with the street rhythms of New York City. While these two new releases won’t shatter the earth upon their release, they do inspire hope for the continual fusion of world music mashed-up with regional sounds.

Context Matters: David Byrne's American Utopia

David Byrne, photographed by Ian Gavan, prior to the announcement of American Utopia.

To fully appreciate the music of David Byrne one has to consider all the elements he delivers that are adjacent to his music. Byrne’s holistic approach asks his audience to participate in his constituent parts, be they music, lyrics, liner notes, cover art, design or concerts (which usually include choreography). For his new American Utopia (Nonesuch), Byrne’s first album of solo compositions since 2008, he brings all of these aforementioned elements to bear akin to Frank Zappa’s MOFO Project/Object. In other words, Byrne provides his own context to each element while elaborating on the larger concept or point that he’s trying to make. It was the case for his last record, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Todo Mundo) and it’s definitely the case for American Utopia. Taken separately, Byrne’s thesis adds up to some very thoughtful art.

Gypsy at Heart: Peggy Seeger's First Time Ever

Peggy Seeger performing in Long Acre, London in the late 1950s. (Photo: Getty Images)

The best part of any story is in the telling, and so it is for Peggy Seeger’s memoir, First Time Ever (Faber & Faber) which was published last December. Seeger, the half-sister of legendary folk artist Pete Seeger, has written about her life with wit and sentimentality. Her story features a large cast of characters including family members, friends and musicians. Though she has amassed many accomplishments as a folk musician, most people may only know of Seeger as the partner of Ewan MacColl, the songwriter, historian and composer of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,”, written for her in the first year of their liaison. But her achievements as an artist go much further and now, in her 82nd year, we get to enjoy the stories of her life from the front row.

Check Out Time – The Watergate: Inside America’s Most Infamous Address by Joseph Rodota

The Watergate complex was designed by architect Luigi Moretti in 1963 and consists of six buildings and 10 acres of land.

For me the singular political event of the 20th century was the Watergate break-in of 1972. Everything we believed about the trustworthiness of the office of the American President was crushed single-handedly when six hired henchmen broke into the Democratic National Committee offices. On that day, June 17th, the story that became “Watergate,” and its fallout, marked the end of the sixties and tarnished the highest office of the land. I believe it was the end of American idealism and, considering where we are today in 2018 under POTUS 45, it hasn’t been the same since that fateful day that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation two years later.

I’m quietly infatuated with all things about Watergate. I was 14 years of age when it all unfolded so dramatically in 1972, having just completed my first year of high school. I watched the hearings on television and I read the newspaper -- which I usually skipped, except for the comics -- daily. I saw the movie All The President’s Men in the theatre upon its 1976 release and I never missed an opportunity to watch it again on TV. I had the VHS tape and bought it again on DVD. I’ve read the original book and the follow-ups by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (1976). I’ve devoured Woodward’s book on his famous source, Deep Throat, called The Secret Man (2005), and his excellent book on Alexander Butterfield, called The Last Of The President’s Men (2015). I have paperback versions of the complete hearings and the Nixon transcripts. I also watched the original broadcast of the David Frost–Richard Nixon interviews on television in 1977; saw Peter Morgan’s play, Frost/Nixon, in Toronto with Len Cariou as Nixon and  Ron Howard’s motion picture version in 2008. I took a pass on Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995) since it looked so heavy-handed. Nevertheless, I’m always interested in learning more about the Watergate saga and now I have a great new book to relish, The Watergate: Inside America’s Most Infamous Address (Harper Collins) by Joseph Rodota. It’s a history of the Watergate complex and the people who lived and worked there. I would consider it the Grand Hotel of its genre, an intriguing story of the tenants, visitors and businesses that found themselves in Washington, D.C., at one of the most interesting and engaging locations in the U.S. Capitol. But Rodota’s tome best suits the serious history buff rather than the casual reader, since one needs to know something about American politics since 1965 to fully appreciate the author’s tale.

Time for Another Round – The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern: A Complete History by David McPherson

 

As a life-long Torontonian and former clubgoer in my youth, I was enthused to learn that a book about one of my favourite venues, the Horseshoe Tavern, was finally being published. The Horseshoe is one of Toronto’s most important musical treasures, having graced the city’s culture since 1947. But while I share David McPherson’s excitement around the famous club and its revolutionary music programming, I cannot say the same about his book, The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern: A Complete History (Dundurn Press). His writing is inconsistent, graced with too many clichés, section breaks using (* * *), and wiseguy remarks that undermine his extensive research so much that his book has little impact.

McPherson’s conversational style is well-intended. He’s a fan and his respect for the place is sincere, but his niceness often undermines his storytelling. I’ve never understood why self-conscious writers feel they have to endear themselves to the reader in order to place their argument into context: “Come with me now dear reader, on this journey . . . ” Considering all the research and first-person interviews McPherson has done, it makes no sense for him to pare down the 80-year history of the Horseshoe into fewer than 200 pages. Why not savour the experience rather than race through it as quickly as possible? One should be proud of one’s efforts, not embarrassed by them; after all, until another book is written about the Horseshoe, this is the authoritative one.

Lingering Darkness – Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

Hank Williams performing on The Perry Como Show (November 14, 1951).

The worst part about reading a biography of country-music legend Hank Williams is that if you know anything about the history of music, you know how his story ends. Mark Ribowsky’s new biography, Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams (Liveright), was published last year. It’s thoroughly researched and thoroughly engaging because the author is deeply connected to his subject. In fact, Ribowsky’s tome is constantly looming on the dark side of Williams’s life, yet he succeeds in telling the tale of the beloved son of Alabama, who, in spite of his alcoholism and ramblin’ lifestyle, was “fresh, taut, [and] vibrant” on his recordings. To him Williams was a man who had “an instinct for turning pain into commercial gain” and expressing that pain with a degree of authenticity few of his peers, such as Ernest Tubb and Eddie Arnold, possessed. For Ribowsky, Williams changed the sound of country music, bringing “hillbilly” to the mainstream of American culture by wearing his heart on his sleeve. Yet his talent couldn’t save him from his inner struggles often expressed by his destructive, mood-swinging behaviour.

Critical Drinking – Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars

 

Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, Lili Fini Zanuck’s documentary, is a well-intentioned film seeking to understand the complicated life of the British guitarist. But when Zanuck tries to make connections between Clapton’s addictions and his failed relationships while he pursued a career in music, she gets too bogged down in the details and misses the bigger, redemptive picture. Zanuck is best known as a film producer and the wife of the late Richard Zanuck, who died in 2012. She won an Academy Award for producing Driving Miss Daisy in 1989 and she’s directed a few music videos including Clapton’s “Tears In Heaven” and “Pilgrim.” But this is her first full-length documentary, produced for Showtime, which recently made its debut on television. The movie premiered in 2017 at TIFF. 

Well-worn Experience: Dance Hall by Jerry Granelli

Drummer Jerry Granelli in the studio. (Photo courtesy of DL Media)

I don’t know if it’s been properly proven but the adage that some things get better with age can often apply to a musician. In the case of Dance Hall (Justin Time), the new album from drummer Jerry Granelli, experience makes for great music. On this session, the producer is Lee Townsend, whose know-how makes him one of the best sound designers in the business. Dance Hall features guitarists Bill Frisell and Robben Ford, two of the most interesting and, I will say, distinguished musicians of the past 30 years. On electric bass is J. Anthony Granelli, Jerry’s son and long-time music director. To bring all this musical experience into one studio to record cover songs, no less, speaks to the essence of Granelli’s respect for and personal appreciation of popular song. As he says in the liner notes, “the key for me was not doing covers, but finding songs that were personal to my journey” and what a journey it has been for the famous drummer, who turned 77 on December 30th.

Hometowner: Tom Wilson’s Beautiful Scars

Tom Wilson on stage in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in 2017, performing as part of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. (Photo: Donna Harper)

Tom Wilson is one of my favourite musicians and songwriters. His edgy tunes, full of wit and street-wise wisdom, grace the discographies of Wilson’s bands – Junkhouse, Lee Harvey Osmond and Blackie & the Rodeo Kings, the latter one of Canada’s finest alt-country groups. His autobiography Beautiful Scars (Doubleday Canada), released last fall, uses, like his songs, a mix of sharpness and charm in every chapter. In his economical style he offers great memories about his life in music. But the most revealing part of his story is when he discovers that he’s from the Mohawk Nation, specifically the Kahnawake community in the province of Quebec, which was kept secret from him until 2016.

Here’s Johnny: The Man Who Carried Cash by Julie Chadwick

Johnny Cash and manager Saul Holiff at Saul's Hollywood apartment, circa 1968. (Photo: Ron Joy)

How rare it is to read a biography whose prologue begins with the description of a man’s suicide, but so it goes for Julie Chadwick’s candid and well-researched biography of Saul Holiff, who, for a short and significant time, was the manager of Johnny Cash. It’s an auspicious opening to The Man Who Carried Cash: Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash, and the Making of an American Icon (Dundurn). While the prologue reveals nothing about the relationship between Holiff and Cash, nor fully explains why Holiff took his own life, it does try to set the stage for the story of a struggling country music artist and his Canadian fixer.

Some Dark Holler: The Oxford American Annual Southern Music Issue, Winter 2017

This year’s 19th annual music issue of The Oxford American features alt-country musician Sturgill Simpson on the cover with a defiant, rebel-like smirk suggesting the music from his home state, Kentucky, is back with an in-your-face attitude. But the cover portrait is nothing but a gentle ruse because this 99th issue is an ambitious collection of essays about finding “the middle ground,” that is, where artists remove themselves from their physical environment to find their voice while acknowledging the pull of home. The Kentucky music scene, like most of the southern United States, is shaped by the rural geography and its urban centers, which is why this particular issue is so passionate about discussing the contrasts between the socioeconomic backgrounds of the musicians who call the state home.

Chaos to the Core: The Zapple Diaries by Barry Miles

Beatles's manager Allen Klein, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969

The title is long but The Zapple Diaries: The Rise and Fall of the Last Beatles Label, the story of The Beatles’s failed business endeavor by Barry Miles, is a fascinating first-hand account. Miles was a personal friend of Paul McCartney when he opened the Indica Bookshop in London that featured art installations and poetry books by the leading avant-garde artists of the day. (One of those artists was Yoko Ono.) He started the bookstore in 1965 with Peter Asher, brother of Jane Asher, McCartney’s girlfriend at the time. Miles reflects on those early days with a kind of pragmatic fondness, “There is no question that without Paul McCartney’s support Indica Books would have gone under several years before it did . . . in 1970.” He says that the Beatle’s involvement was “kept quiet.” But the seeds for starting a new business to record new poets were planted and McCartney was particularly enthusiastic about supporting the Miles/Asher partnership in this manner. While Asher kept the store going, The Beatles hired Miles when they formed Zapple, an imprint of Apple, in 1968. Zapple was created to release “more experimental material” such as spoken word recordings and his job was to approach and record American poets for the new label. His book is about that gig, the artists he recorded and the office politics of The Beatles’ risky new business.