Frank Beacham's Journal

Kristen Bussandri: An Exciting Young Americana Artist Worth Your Attention

   
                                                                                         Photo by Laurence Labat

---

It is very rare these days that I discover a new recording artist that I really like. I’m handed dozens of demo CDs, but must admit the listening experience is usually deeply depressing. Then, suddenly, magic happens!

I knew Kristen Bussandri as the music student of a friend before I had heard her music. When she e-mailed me about her new collection of five songs, called Diamonds to Dust, I listened and was floored by the high quality of her compositions and music. It was a complete and total surprise that came out of the blue. Yes, Virginia, great work survives!

Kristen, who now lives in Montreal, has worked hard over the years on her music and it shows. She studied with Ann Ruckert in New York, before returning home to begin a well thought out career. 

Her style is “country soul,” a term that describes “a lot of mixing of 60s influences including R&B, blues and gentle country.” She likes the description because it brings together diverse parts of her music. “It’s important to have a description of your music. Everything I do and love is in the scope of Americana music — soul, blues and country,” Kristen told me.

The first thing about Kristen that jumps out is her beautiful voice. She really has the vocal chops. She is also an excellent songwriter. The country flavor of her songs lend themselves well to her tales of break-ups and heartbreak, along with the journey to finding her way into young adulthood. Her themes are universal in appeal.

Kristen was influenced by Dusty Springfield, Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt and one of Canada’s greatest poets, Leonard Cohen. “Cohen’s writing is so profound and literate. That's had an impact on me. I always put the words first. That's a big goal. While my music is structured like pop and is very catchy, there has to be a tremendous depth and soul there.”

Diamonds to Dust

My favorite of Kristin’s songs is Diamonds to Dust, a beautiful showcase for her voice that apparently was a rewrite of another song. It just goes to show you how recycling lyrics can become gold. If You Don’t Love Me, You’re Wrong came out of a break-up and a defiant phrase used by Ann Ruckert in one of her classes. Like any good songwriter, Kristin took it and ran. Each of these songs is strong and the total comprises an exceptional package.

In her early 20’s, Kristen has an amazingly mature take on the music business. “Music isn’t a choice, it’s a calling,” she said, perhaps explaining her singular tenacity in a very difficult profession.

“In general you have to have a mixture of extreme determination and detachment,” she continued. “It’s the most competitive industry in the world. You are always fighting against your own demons. You are always pushing yourself to practice longer and harder to write a better song.

“You also need a sense of detachment, because if your entire self is wrapped up in getting somewhere in the music business your self esteem is going to go up and down like a yo-yo. So I have resolved to get joy out of the striving.”

Check out Kristen’s collection on all the usual download sites. Visit her website. And watch her new video below. It was part of Tiger of Sweden - Dressing Room Sessions, a promotion by Tiger of Sweden Jeans featuring eight of Montreal’s best bands and shot in a dressing room.

                      

            KRISTEN BUSSANDRI / DRESSING ROOM SESSIONS from Tiger of Sweden on Vimeo.

Jimmy Norman Performs Again!

   

Sometimes miracles happen. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than the man who co-wrote Time is On My Side. Maybe there are more to these lyrics than meets the eye.

Six months ago, Jimmy was near death. We all paid our last respects to this great musician. But Jimmy hung on—not ready to leave us yet. Last night, at a Loft Party for the Jazz Foundation of America, Jimmy sang again before a public audience. It was an event that no one expected.

Jimmy, a member of the Coasters for 30 years, collaborated with some of the greats, including Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix. He combines the best of gospel, blues, jazz, country and rock & roll.                                                                                                                                                    

Jimmy was backed by an all-star band led by Jonny Rosch and featuring Lou Reed, Jeff Golub and Andy Hess. Jimmy did two songs, Collector of Keys, from his latest album, and the classic he co-wrote, Time is On My Side  

         

Melvin Van Peebles' 41-Year-Old Protest Song

   
A recent New York Times article about the lack of protest songs at Occupy Wall Street has prompted a fierce response from friends, most of whom have written such songs in the past. One came today from my friend, the great Melvin Van Peebles—actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist and music composer. Yes, Melvin has done it all!

Though Melvin is most famous for creating the indie film hit, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, he directed the motion picture comedy Watermelon Man in 1970, which starred Godfrey Cambridge as a bigoted white insurance insurance salesman who wakes up one morning to find that he has become a black man.

Melvin sent me a song from that movie called Love, That’s America, which he recorded 41 years ago. He said he’s thinking of recording a new version of it since “it’s still fresh today.” In the meantime, BW Moving Images has done a video to the song. We live in a time of raging video production that mirrors protests in the streets.

Words & Music Melvin Van Peebles © Copyright 1970

EXCUSE ME BUDDY BUT

EXCUSE ME LADY BUT 

YOU FOOLIN AINT YOU

WHERE CAN I BE

THIS AINT AMERICA IS IT 

NAW THIS AINT AMERICA

YOU CANT FOOL ME

THIS HERES THE HOME OF THE SHERIFF

NOT THE LAND OF THE FREE

IN AMERICA FOLKS DONT RUN THROUGH THE STREETS

BLOOD STREAMING FROM WHERE THEY BEEN BEAT

AND THE PARKS ARE FOR THE PEOPLE

AND THE COPS IN THE GOOD OLD U S A

DONT THINK THEYRE SOME KINDA GODS EITHER

NAW THIS AINT AMERICA

YOU CANT FOOL ME

IF YOU DONT SPIT THE RIGHT IMAGE

THEY JUST PULL OUT THEIR D.D.T.

IF THEY DONT LIKE THE WAY YOU LOOK

THEY JUST LAW AND ORDER AND TRICK AND TRIP

NAME AND FRAME AND BLAME

JUST LEGISLATE AND CLUB AWAY 

AND JUST LAUGH LOUDER AND LOUDER

NAW THIS AINT AMERICA

YOU CANT FOOL ME

LOVE THATS AMERICA

  OPEN ARMS FOR EVERY CREATURE

LOVE THATS AMERICA 

  OPEN ARMS TO EVERY MAN

LOVE THATS AMERICA

  JOY AND PEACE AND HARMONY

LOVE THATS AMERICA 

  CHILDREN WITH LAUGHING EYES

LOVE THATS AMERICA 

  YES LOVE THATS AMERICA

LOVE THATS AMERICA

  THE OLD EAGLE WEARING A GRIN

LOVE THATS AMERICA

  OUR OLD EAGLE SOARING

THIS HERES THE LAND OF THE SNIPER

NOT THE HOME OF THE BRAVE

OH SAY CANT YOU SMELL ARE YOU TOO SMUG TO SEE

GREED DONE PULLED THE PLUG

YOUR DEMOCRACYS DEFROSTING

SOMETHINGS GONE ROTTEN

SMELLS LIKE JUSTICE AND LIBERTY

NAW THIS AINT AMERICA

YOU CANT FOLL ME

EXCUSE ME BUT SERIOUSLY 

WHICH WAY TO THE GOLD OLE U S A

THIS AINT NOTHING LIKE THE PLACE I WANT TO BE 

NOT AS FAR AS I CAN SEE

I DONT CARE WHAT YOU SAY

HEY WHY YOU POINTING THAT THIS WAY

THIS SURE AINT AMERICA IS IT

NAW THIS AINT AMERICA

Judy Collins on Greenwich Village in the 60s and the People Who Made the Music that Changed a Generation

  

Before heading to the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York City, folk singer Judy Collins stopped by a meeting of audio engineers to talk about the music of the 60s and her 50 years in the business of recording records.

“It was 50 years ago that Jac Holzman walked up to me at the Village Gate where I was making a television show,” she recalled. “He said you're now ready to make an album. So I started recording in 1961.”

Jac Holzman in 1956

Now, at 71, she has published a new memoir on the era of the 60s and recorded a new CD, titled Bohemian. “I wanted to call this book "Sex, Drugs, Rock ’n Roll and the Music that Changed a Generation,” she said, but her publisher liked the title of a song written for her in 1968 by Stephen Stills—Sweet Judy Blue Eyes.

                      

“In 1968, we were having this riotous love affair and the song was written by Stephen to get me back. Well, the song didn't get me back. But he is one of the most exciting musicians I have ever met or worked with. We've remained friends through the years. He has always been an important influence on my music. I think there's a resonance of his ideas about songs in many that I've written. 

“In like ‘Born to the Breed,’ I hear his ideas about harmonics in that song. In my writing, there's a reflection there. I have great respect for him and his durability,” Collins said.

“Getting the right sound on a record has been a lifetime concern for me. It has produced heartache, heartbreak and anxiety. I was awake at three o'clock in the morning with my eyes wide open asking what I'm going to do? How I'm I going to get through this? It was a struggle for years. In the beginning, I was recording with great engineers. But there was always that kind of difficult argument. I want my records to sound a certain way.”

In 1984, Collins said she finally found her perfect engineer and co-producer, Alan Silverman. “Finally, I have met someone who is brilliant, sensitive and has the same aesthetic ideas that I had. My anxiety level dropped. The artistic level has increased because we have been able to do quite incredible work.”

During much of the 1970s, Collins said, it was not fashionable to emphasize the human voice in recordings—something that caused her deep distress. “You have to hang on to it like it was life and death,” she said. “It is life and death to me. That was the struggle I wrote about in the book. I wanted to kill people for that problem not being solved. But I didn't ever do that. It was good for me and good for them.” 

As for her early days in folk music, she has written about the people and times they lived. “It's about the stress, the strain and the love affairs—what the 60s were all about,” she said. “We were living in kind of a dream. There was no AIDS or restrictions on any kind of behavior then. We were also changing the world and breaking the rules. We eventually stopped the war.” 

                                 

She recalled meeting Janis Joplin for a drink at the Troubadour club in LA in 1968. Both Collins and Joplin were drinking heavily at the time, but Joplin was already well known for her alcohol and drug abuse. “She turned to me and said ‘You know, one of us is going to make it, and it's not going to be me.’ I've thought about that quite often. We all knew even then about Janis's problems…that she was a heavy drinker and really out there. She had a kind of in-your-face bravado that came through every place that she went.” 

After playing in Michael’s Pub in Boulder and The Exodus in Denver, and the Gilded Garter in Central City, Colorado in 1960, where she first met Robert Zimmerman in his pre-Bob Dylan days, she headed to New York in 1961. The whole folk music scene arrived at once, which she described in this audio clip:

Judy Collins Describes Greenwich Village in 1961

It was a combination of the night club owners; newspaper writers like Robert Shelton; and record companies like Electra headed by Jac Holzman that created the folk music movement, she said.

That music, though now absent from the radio and mass media, is not gone, Collins said. It lives on as the music of protest and it keeps coming back.

“I think Occupy Wall street is a wonderful sign. Look, we see a lot of things that are extremely noisy and divisive. But that's not what's going on at a deeper level. People are saying I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore. I like that feeling of energized points of view and things coming together. They are saying let's take care of people. Let's not say if you don't have health care you should die. Let's stop clapping because Texas has more executions than any other place in the country. These are not things to celebrate. And I like it that they’re bringing music into it too.”

She was questioned about the power of music to cause change today. “When you say music can change the world, taking piano lessons can change a person's life. Learning to play the flute can change a person's life. Painting can change a life,” she said. “We've taken the arts out of the schools and taken the hearts out of peoples' lives. It's important for education to understand it's a multifaceted package. It not only takes the arts, but having a decent diet available for lunches that doesn't include a whole bunch of junk. It's all part of a package. Nothing really exists separately from this.”

  

When asked about her interpretation of lyrics, she cited her late teacher of 32 years, Max Margulis. “It's all very automatic. I don't analyze it. Max had two ideas: clarity and phrasing. Period. End of story. Pay attention to the lyrics. If you understand the lyrics, you are singing well. If you don’t, you aren't.  I'm attracted to things that I will sing and I'm not attracted to things I won't sing. That's a kind of emotional default position.”

When asked about the freedom to record what she liked in her career, she said she always had complete freedom. But one regret, she said, was recorded early in her career.  It was a song Bob Dylan wrote for her.

Collins Regrets Recording a Bob Dylan Song

   

Norman Corwin, a Legend in Radio, Dies at 101

                 
Somehow—out of blind luck—I have worked with two of the great legends of radio. First there was Orson Welles, and later, Norman Corwin, who died this week at age 101.

During an amazing career that spanned more than 70 years, Norman Corwin wrote, produced and directed for radio, television, film and the stage. His writing won Emmy and Golden Globe awards, and received an Academy Award nomination for his script for the 1956 film, Lust for Life, the biography of Vincent van Gogh starring Kirk Douglas.

Corwin was a creative giant of the Golden Age of Radio. Actor William Shatner, who narrated several of Corwin's later radio programs, called him a legend. “He is the poetic soul of discretion and a monument to artistry in America," Shatner said.

During the Golden Age of Radio, Corwin did it all—from variety shows to dramas, comedies to documentaries. He was a contemporary of Orson Welles, who also ruled in the audio medium. He kept writing and producing programs for most of his long life.

I met Corwin through Peggy Webber, who had also worked as an actor for Welles. She still runs the California Artists Radio Theatre in Los Angeles, where I directed a radio adaptation of The Orangeburg Massacre in the late 1980s. Also part of that company was the late Cliff Thorsness, sound effects director for Orson’s Mercury Theatre company.

At the time, he was using the sound effects gear he had used for Orson on live radio more than 50 years earlier. It was 1989, when Mr. Corwin did a segment of what is now a CD titled “A Biography of Abraham Lincoln.”

With Peggy’s help, I signed on as Mr. Corwin's personal assistant—which essentially meant I got sandwiches and ran errands for him. But I also got to sit next to him at the mixing board in the studio and attend all of the rehearsals. He was a charming, friendly man and I knew I was around greatness the first minute I met him.

The production we did starred some great legends from old time radio: Pat Buttram as Abraham Lincoln; Jeanette Nolan as Ann Rutlidge; Kathleen Freeman as Mrs. Rutlidge; and Parley Baer as Mr. Rutlidge. Dan O’Herlihy was the announcer and Sean McClory, Peggy Webber, William Woodson, Lou Krugman and Richard Erdman also were in the cast.

Working only a few days with Norman Corwin and a cast and crew like this was one of the highlights of my life. These were people who could do “instant characters” and write eloquent prose in minutes. Cliff’s sound effects were perfect and came quickly and effortlessly. Each was trained in the best radio tradition, something that is lost today except in tiny companies that seek to preserve it.

Times have changed in our cheap, quick and dirty multimedia world. Thank God for men like Norman Corwin who showed us a quality of work that will be remembered. RIP, Mr. Corwin.

                                       

                                                   Norman Corwin and Peggy Webber

Edgar Villchur Built the First Women-Friendly High Fidelity Home Speakers

   
I have a woman friend in New York City with the most exquisite sounding music system. The wall-hanging speakers are old and have been painted over many times—but the audio is sweet and clear. When I asked one day about it, she told me the speakers are original Acoustic Research AR-1s, first built in 1954.

The man who designed those speakers, Edgar M. Villchur, has died at age 94. He was considered one of the great names in American audio and those speakers on my friend’s wall are very special. 

They are small—yet produce deep, rich sounds like no others their size. In the days when they were built, good speakers came in huge cabinets. By reducing the size in his acoustic suspension design, Villchur revolutionized home audio. Many women would allow speakers into their home for the first time due to their tolerable size.

Villchur and a student, Henry Kloss, who died in 2002, formed Acoustic Research to market the speakers. By 1966, the company sold more speakers than any other manufacturer in the world—with a 32 percent share of the market. Villchur’s speaker design is on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

Villchur went on to design other Hi-Fi breakthroughs, including building the much-improved dome tweeter and technologies that reduced rumble in turntables.

He and Kloss were an amazing team with long, productive careers. In the early 1960s, while at KLH, Kloss built the first high selectivity FM radio, the Model 8, and the first successful audio product to use transistors, the Model 11 portable phonograph. Later, at Advent and Kloss Video, he became a pioneer in home theater with a successful line of two-piece video projection systems.

While at Advent, Kloss also transformed the compact audio cassette from a dictation to a music medium by introducing the Model 200, the very first cassette tape deck to employ Dolby B noise reduction.

In 1994, at a party celebrating the invention of the AR-1 at Grand Central Terminal in New York City, I was privileged to meet both Villchur and Kloss. It was at this very same location in the early 1960s that Villchur sponsored “live versus recorded” concerts around the country, including one in the great terminal. 

At the concerts, a string quartet would play a piece of music, then mime it as parts of a recording by the same quartet played through a pair of AR-3 speakers. The listeners were rarely able to detect the switchovers.

Inventors like Villchur and Kloss are rare these days in an era of cheap corporate manufacturing. Their well-designed products have stood the test of time. Whenever I hear my friend’s AR-1 speakers, I’m reminded of real quality rather than the latest thing.

Revisiting Bob Dylan’s Masterpiece — “Masked and Anonymous”

It was in March, 2006—while taking Robert Levinson’s Bob Dylan class at the New School in New York City—that several class members met the guest speaker that night for dinner at a coffee shop before the session began. He was Richard Thomas, director of graduate studies and professor of classics, at Harvard.

Dr. Thomas is quite an expert on Dylan, having written a book and lectured on his performance artistry and such esoteric subjects as “the Aesthetics of Pastoral Melancholy from Virgil to Dylan.”

But that night, what I mainly remember, was our discussion of Dylan’s 2003 feature film, Masked and Anonymous. On the surface, most critics said the film was about how a singer, whose career had gone on a downward spiral, was forced to make a comeback to the performance stage for a benefit concert.  

Those critics totally missed what the film was really about. It was immediately panned as another clueless Dylan effort, which if they didn’t understand, no one else possibly could either. Thomas, of course, wasn’t one of those critics. He got the film immediately.

“In three hundred years, when people look back at the entire Sony motion picture catalog of that era, only one film will be remembered as truly important and will have stood the test of time,” Thomas said. “That will be Masked and Anonymous.”

Over the years, I have watched Masked and Anonymous many times and each time I glean new information from what I consider a Dylan classic. This was a film that was never intended to be commercial, but a multi-layered puzzle with the viewer as one of the pieces.

 

Larry Charles, the film’s director, put it this way in an interview with Trev Gibb: Bob Dylan is “somebody who’s seen more than you have and knows more than you know and if you're wise and you listen, he will tell you everything you need to know. But you're gonna have to do the work of interpreting it and that’s how the movie is also, it's like Bob is telling you everything. This is Bob telling you everything about himself also, but it’s not laid out clearly. You have to do the work of putting the pieces together.”

That, in a nutshell, is why I think Masked and Anonymous is so intriguing and continues to live on in the minds of the viewers who have embraced it. It’s also important that the film was conceived outside the system. “There was no commercial consideration in making this movie,” said Charles. “This was a purely instinctive process which is really an anathema to the making of movies today.”

 

Much of Dylan’s other work is also met with disdain when it first comes out, Charles noted. “And then later on people go, ‘Wow! You know Slow Train Coming is a brilliant album,’ or whatever... it’s out there and people will find it and it will always be there for them.”

Masked and Anonymous is a movie that’s intended to be savored and revisited like something you’d see in a museum or a poem you’d read in a book, rather than mass-market entertainment, Charles said.

  

Dylan told Charles that critics would never get the movie, but the audience would if they had a chance to see it. “I think the critics are now, for the most part, part of a larger system—a more corporate system,” he said. “And this (the movie) just doesn’t fit into any niche that they can really relate to. They don’t have time anymore, there’s not that kind of serious film criticism that there was 20 or 30 years ago.” 

Part of the initial hype surrounding the film was a sensationalistic aspect of media today. “People thought, we’ve caught Bob Dylan somehow. But instead what they did was—and this is why the story fell apart—because it was so much more complex and so much more enigmatic and ambiguous then the way it was presented, that the media couldn’t handle it after a while,” Charles said. “It’s like, if you really want to enter this world, the world of Bob’s head, you better put on your shoes and get ready for a long journey.”

   

The beauty of time is that movies are now far easier to access. If you’re a Bob Dylan fan and haven’t seen Masked and Anonymous, rent it from Netflix today or buy the DVD. It’s a genuine cinematic adventure packed with deep meaning and great actors. Perhaps the definitive Dylan film of all time. Watch it again and again—it's not for one viewing.

        

From Dylan & the Dead to “Blackie” the Dog, Minnesota Singer-Songwriter Paul Metsa’s New Memoir is a Compelling Rock 'n Roll Journey

For the past month, I have been slowly absorbing a great new book that has turned into an old friend. It’s called Blue Guitar Highway by Paul Metsa, a Minnesota musician I met online through my blog and who now I feel like I’ve known all my life.

I’m not a musician, but I love music and the people who make it. I especially like the little dive bar clubs—those tiny rock ’n roll dungeons where the genuine, real-life jams happen late at night after the paying crowd has left the building. Paul Metsa takes you into these clubs and navigates through the ups and downs of a working musician’s life. It is a mesmerizing journey in a real page-turner.

What’s unique is Paul Metsa, at least here in New York City, is not a household name. He’s not a “famous” musician living a privileged “rock star” life. Yet, as you learn as the story unfolds, he has played with and for a virtual who’s who of musicians at some of the top venues in the nation.

This is a guy who loves music and often lives gig to gig on minuscule paychecks, yet has a life that is rich with friendships, music, travel and remarkably colorful stories. His encounters with Minnesota’s more famous song-writing wizard—Bob Dylan—are scattered throughout the book and many are hilarious. He’s also a musician with balls, something that is illustrated clearly when he calls and goes to the hotel room of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia after a gig to hand him a demo tape. 

One of the things that kept me glued to Metsa’s masterfully written narrative were the names of musicians he has played or worked with. So many—from Hubert Sumlin, Eric Weissberg and Scarlet Rivera to Louisiana Red, Honeyboy Edwards and Nappy Brown—I have known or had personal encounters with myself. As I read on, I was amazed by the constant connections Metsa makes with these familiar characters.

Paul Metsa nails the music scene with crisp, knowing prose. “American rock and roll started around a campfire in a dark and howling wind,” he wrote. “It was blues, country and hillbilly music then. Once it was moved into four walls—juke joint or gin joint, rent party apartment, greased alley garage, or some full-moon Ozark barn dance—it became rock and roll.

“First, gut-bucket whiskey passed around in coffee cans, then ordered over the bar, smoke from hand-rolled cigarettes misting blue windows, both inviting the night and keeping it at bay, beautiful women writhing with imaginary lovers on sawdust dance floors, young men on a weekend pass from some hell-forbidden job doing the Hucklebuck and the Chicken Strut, these sons and daughters then joining in this Church of Saturday night together, while the band in the corner jacks it up, like drill hammers toward heaven, until the sweaty crowd tumbles out sanctified and satisfied.”

As much as I like Metsa’s writing about his life in music, his colorful family—and his super dog, Blackie—are also important elements to this story. Blackie, one of those instant attractions who senses his future owner at an animal shelter, started as a “problem dog” and managed to max out Metsa’s new $5,000 credit limit card when he was hit by a car. From there, the story of Blackie is beautifully told as Metsa nurses him through surgery while tending to his own father, who was also healing from a serious illness.

When Blackie finally stood on all fours, unbowed by his trauma “like a canine Phoenix,” Metsa wrote “a water pail couldn’t have held my tears.”

Then he continues: “Blackie’s first paw-penned Christmas card described the whole story: price of adoption: $65. Price of emergency vet in Golden Valley: $1,400. Price of intensive care and surgery at the U of M vet hospital: $3,600. Price of having Minnesota’s second best folksinger take me out at 6 a.m. and hold me up while I poop: priceless.”

Metsa taps into one of the key reasons I like and respect musicians. These are people who—against all odds—create music out of thin air in a cruel world where “success” is normally measured by how much money a person makes. Anyone can learn to juggle financial deals in banks and on Wall Street, but it takes a special breed to survive and constantly make works of art in an environment where their talent is not celebrated or even recognized.

“The older I get, the more I am drawn to these kinds of men and women, tried-and-true American musicians, artists each and every one,” Metsa wrote. “From the heartbeat in their mother’s wombs, into a world that bounces us all around like pinballs, they became musicians because it was in their blood. They survived and prospered, not necessarily in terms of money but as beacons to guide the rest of us in troubled waters to that shore that we all call home.” 

Amen, brother!

(For more information on this book, visit the Blue Guitar Highway web site.) 

Paul Metsa's song:

Christmas At Molly's

The Death of Steve Jobs Ends a Spectacular Era of American Creativity

It was in the early 1980s, at the Day in the Life of Hawaii photographic project in Honolulu, that I first used an Apple Lisa computer. The Lisa, named after the daughter of Steve Jobs, was the first computer that I could actually work with without having to pay a computer programmer a recurring fee to make the damn machine useable.

In January, 1984, when the Apple Macintosh was introduced during a commercial in the Super Bowl, I vowed to buy one. I purchased the first 128K Macintosh and never looked back. I have remained a loyal Mac user ever since, buying new models every couple of years. The Macintosh has been responsible for allowing me to work for myself on my own terms.

That was 27 years ago. It is a testament to the genius of Steve Jobs that I, as well as millions of others, learned of his death last night on a machine that he invented. 

There is no question in my mind that he was the singular force in developing the best technology in my lifetime. No one else was in his league. I’ve seen Apple with and without him— and there’s no question which was better.

I’ve attended his Apple keynotes as a writer and was honored to even interview him once. He was a remarkable (and often difficult) figure that I suspect will be remembered as the Thomas Edison of our time. Sadly though, Apple—as a company—will never be the same again. Now it’s just another big corporation. 

When the products that Steve designed have dried up, I’m afraid that we are resigned to return to a world of technical mediocrity for a period. Great genius like his is a real rarity. It can’t be bought. It just happens—out of the blue.

I feel very lucky today to have lived during the same era as Steve Jobs. He made my life better. What more can be said of anyone. RIP, Steve.

Harlem Street Singer, the Rev. Gary Davis Film, Gets a Rough-Cut Screening in New York

The new documentary film—Harlem Street Singer: The Reverend Gary Davis Story—previewed before two audiences in rough-cut form Monday night. Some of the participants, including bluesman John Hammond Jr. and guitarist Barry Kornfeld, were in the audience.

The film tells the little-known story of Davis, a great ragtime and gospel musician who impacted a generation of major musical performers. Though not finished yet, the project is nearing completion with a release date expected to be early next year. 

Still to be shot is an interview with Peter Yarrow, but already in the film are Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead (with the Dead performing the music of Rev. Davis), Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, Stefan Grossman, Happy Traum, John Cohen and others.

The film is being produced by Woody Mann and Trevor Laurence. Mann is a guitarist who studied with Rev. Davis in Harlem as a teenager. The film features tapes of Mann’s sessions with Davis. Mann is also an expert on American blues and folk music and has been a faculty member at the New School in New York City. He performs in the film.

Laurence is also well schooled in the Rev. Davis’s music and has been a teacher of Davis’s style himself.  He is also a directer and producer of videos and DVDs for the music industry.

Rev. Davis, from near my hometown in rural South Carolina, came to Harlem with a bag of guitar tricks that influenced some of the most prominent musicians of the 1950s and 60s. He gave guitar lessons to many of the performers who are well known today. He was close friends with a young Bob Dylan and his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo.

As Weir quipped in the film, because Davis was blind he couldn’t see that it was essentially impossible to play a guitar the way he did.  But he did play in ways that other guitarists could only imagine. He was able to conjure the sound of a piano from a guitar as well as emulate orchestras and choral groups. Kornfeld, who used to "lead" Davis, said no decent guitarist of his generation escaped Davis’s unique style of music.

Davis, being a preacher from the deep South, was always conflicted between the devil’s music and the songs of the church. He liked whiskey and cigars, loved women, carried guns and was arrested several times for his antics. He was a tough street player with amazing wit and charm. Audiences loved him.

The filmmakers still need money to finish the project and have a website for fundraising. Or you can e-mail them at: harlemstreetsinger@gmail.com. It’s a very worthy project, seeking to tell the story of one of America’s greatest musicians.