Frank Beacham's Journal

Chris Tedesco: A Rising Music Star

A few weeks ago, when reviewing a performance of the Harlem Parlour Music Club at the Village Underground in Greenwich Village, I was disappointed to learn that Chris Tedesco, a member of the group, would not be performing that night due to the death of a friend.

I had met Chris sometime ago through Ann Ruckert, a mutual friend. He’s a great guy with a wonderful wife, Janelle, and a very cute 13-month-old son. Janelle is a musical theatre performer who has been in the national road companies of The Best Little Whore House in Texas and The Producers.  

Chris is a fantastic singer-songwriter who plays acoustic guitar and fiddle. He’s music director of The Ranchhands, a fine group featuring the performing team of Chris and Mickey Kennedy. The group stays true to the roots of country music but has a fresh, modern sound. It has made its mark touring throughout the world. Chris is also bringing his talent to the the Harlem group, which will soon release a Christmas album which I'm told was his idea.

Chris Tedesco at the Red Lion.  Photo by Frank Beacham

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Already an in-demand musician, Chris has shared the stage with Willie Nelson, Randy Travis, Allan Jackson, Keith Urban, The Doobie Brothers and the Moody Blues. This week, he played the monthly Songwriters Guild circle at the Red Lion club in the Village. He was clearly the star of the night—singing and backing up most of the other performers.

There are some performers on a straight trajectory to the top of the music business. Chris is one of them. He’s a star in the making. Keep an eye on him.

 

"Multimedia" is the New Mantra

I went to PhotoPlus Expo in New York City last week in an attempt to get a handle on “what’s new” in photography. Oh man, did I get an earful! First of all, many photographers -- including Pulitzer Prize winners -- are now out of a job. This creative “depression” that we’re in has cut a wide swath, even the top talent at most newspapers.

Traditional photography businesses are drying up. Most of the best and brightest in photography -- like other fields -- are reinventing themselves and the way they operate. Photojournalism has been replaced by a new buzzword: “multimedia.” That’s a form of digital storytelling that combines photography with video, audio, graphics and the written word. 

Unfortunately, most “multimedia” looks a lot like well-produced television news, if you can find it anymore. As one who learned most of the elements of multimedia before the word was ever formed, I was somewhat amused (or was it depressed?) hearing a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer talk about the basics of audio. This photographer had taken four days (not including editing) to shoot a “multimedia” piece that a good television crew would have done in a day.

When I asked how the photographer would get paid for such work, the answer was businesses will pay for multimedia. Interesting answer, since in recent days it's my personal experience that most businesses will pay for virtually nothing. Especially high-priced video. Most want $50 YouTube videos!

That said, it was also interesting that the photographer did the entire piece with a high-end Canon DSLR still camera. Perhaps that’s why it took so long. Though both Canon and Nikon have added video capability to most of their DSLR cameras, none make the production process easier. 

Photography, and its equipment makers, are trying to become something else. But they are not exactly sure what it is yet. As they try to cram video capability into still cameras, one wonders exactly what they are thinking? At least, companies like RED Camera, are thinking of a process in the design of new cameras. One doesn’t get that impression from Canon or Nikon.  

A RED camera. This is a company designing hybrid still/video cameras with a future vision of process.  One doesn't get that feeling from Canon or Nikon

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All of this hodgepodge of activity made me realize more than ever what an interesting time creative people live in. Our livelihoods gone, we — even Pulitzer Prize winners -- are having to reinvent ourselves. We are all dabbling in new areas outside our expertise trying to piece something together.  

On one level it is very exciting, while on another it is downright frightening. But one thing is nice. The playing field has been leveled for everyone. There are few “experts” about media these days. A Pulitzer Prize at a newspaper won’t buy you a cup of coffee in this new era. Anyone can win, and anyone can lose. It’s the new lottery.

New Dylan-Produced "Barry Goldberg" CD is a Found Classic

Sometimes great records—for whatever reason—get lost over time. That happened with Barry Goldberg, a 1974 Atlantic Records release designed to spotlight the songwriting talent of the excellent blues keyboardist. The album is unique for several reasons. It was the only record produced by Bob Dylan for another artist. Once finished, its great Muscle Shoals sound—with Dylan himself on vocals—was stripped by Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler in a new mix—ruining the record and making it an almost invisible artifact for 35 years.

Then, this summer, a miracle happened. Micro Werks, a new reissue label owned by Rhino Records, brought out the original Muscle Shoals mix of Barry Goldberg, accompanied with the missing background vocals, the original vibe and some added new material. It was a longtime dream of Goldberg. It’s no wonder why. This is a wonderful, magical record that should be widely heard.

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Barry Goldberg in 2006 at B.B. Kings club in New York City. Photo by Frank Beacham

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For those who don't know, Goldberg—a 16-year-old friend of the guitarist Mike Bloomfield—was allowed to repeatedly sit in on the keyboard by the great pianist Otis Spann in the Muddy Waters' band. After several months, Goldberg earned a coveted smile from Waters—acknowledging that he had finally mastered the technique of becoming a solid blues player. He went on to play with Howlin' Wolf and others in Chicago's black clubs.

Later, Goldberg played keyboard (Bloomfield was on guitar; Al Kooper also played keyboard) in the band supporting Bob Dylan during his 1965 “electrified” appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1967, he formed The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield.

Goldberg’s songs (some co-written with Gerry Goffin) have been recorded by the likes of Rod Stewart, Gladys Knight, Percy Sledge, Joe Cocker, Steve Miller, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Gram Parsons and B. J. Thomas. He played on Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies’ Man, The Ramones’ End of the Century, Gram Parson’s The Gilded Palace of Sin, and Super Session, which featured Bloomfield, Stephen Stills and Al Kooper.

Goldberg also has produced albums by Percy Sledge including Blue Night (Grammy nominated and the W.C. Handy soul album of the year) as well as Shining Through the Rain; Charlie Musselwhite; James Cotton; The Textones; and Bob Dylan’s version of Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready.

In 2006, Goldberg toured with the Chicago Blues Reunion featuring Nick Gravenites, Harvey Mandel and Corky Siegel. Their debut CD reached #2 on the Billboard Blues Chart. I photographed Goldberg twice playing with the Chicago Blues Reunion at B.B. Kings’s club in New York City.

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Goldberg at B.B. Kings club in New York City in 2007

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Barry Goldberg includes I’ve Got to Use My Imagination, once a hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips. There are also wonderful performances of It’s Not His Spotlight, Minstrel Show and Shady Hotel. Bob Dylan’s fascination with American roots music is very apparent in the production of this record. There is even a flavor of old timey country—with fine performances by banjoist Rule Yarborough and fiddler Al Lester.  

This CD is a real missing gem for any Dylan collector, and a showcase that reveals the excellent songwriting skills of Barry Goldberg.

Bob Dylan at the console at Muscle Shoals producing "Barry Goldberg" in 1973

When Clarabell Introduced Me to Soupy Sales

As a kid growing up at the beginning of the television era, I began each day at sign-on watching the Howdy Doody Show. Little could I have imagined that I would grow up to know both Buffalo Bob Smith and Clarabell, a/k/a Lew Anderson, in real life. 

Ironically, I would meet Lew after he read an obituary I wrote about Buffalo Bob. He invited me to New York’s Birdland, where he conducted an orchestra every Friday evening. It was there that he introduced to me to Soupy Sales, the slapstick jokester of a million pies, who had been another TV star of the 1950s. 

Often I sat with Soupy, along with other veterans of 50s television, to hear their endless stories of working in the new, live medium when it was just starting. Soupy told me all about pies—especially how to make the ones that would splatter the face perfectly. 

He would gulp martinis in a huge glass—happy to listen to Lew’s band play his beloved jazz. After Lew died at age 84 in May, 2006, the old 50’s-era get together at Birdland ended. The last time I saw Soupy Sales was at Lew’s memorial service. But I’ll never forget him. This video on YouTube tells the whole story. RIP, Soupy!

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Peter Stone Brown: The Very Funny, Internet-Ready Bob Dylan

Peter Stone Brown, a Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter and writer, has followed Bob Dylan’s life and work for 46 years. He has frequently written about Dylan, and on Tuesday night was guest speaker at Nina Goss’s new Bob Dylan class at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

One of the fascinating things about Dylan is that nearly every serious student of the man’s life and work has something unique to say about him. Brown had many views, but two stood out. One is that Bob Dylan is one of the most Internet-ready musicians of our time; and second, many people misunderstand the outwardly dour Dylan’s incredible sense of humor.

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Peter Stone Brown at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Photo by Frank Beacham

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Brown said there are so many aspects to Dylan—his music, lyrics, poetry, religion, privacy and all the interconnections—that he’s “perfect” for the Internet. When it all started, Brown noted, there were no instant set lists or databases to compare Dylan’s works. All the Dylan websites are a rather recent phenomenon. Now there are dozens of communities of Dylan fans — from the “Slow Training Coming” site, to the “Tangled Up in Blue” site to the popular “Expecting Rain.” 

All things Dylan are now categorized, from the set lists to his sidemen to the newspaper stories written about him. “Every single aspect of Dylan is now on the web,” Brown noted.

Perhaps because of Dylan’s sullen public demeanor, many people overlook the man’s incredible sense of humor. “There is no artist in the history of the world who has messed with the minds of his audience like Bob Dylan,” Brown said. “And he does it on purpose. Dylan is incredibly funny.”

Take the new Christmas album, which Brown has just reviewed. “Just the whole notion of Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album. Just the songs that are on it. It's so totally bizarre on one level. As one of his musicians said, there’s no ‘why’ to Bob Dylan.”

As to understanding Dylan, Brown said no performer is more unpredictable. “Dylan is a street cat at heart. He's an old beat. That's where he's coming from. In any of the Dylan movies — Renaldo and Clara, Eat the Document, Masked and Anonymous, any of them — he shows a love for lunatics. He will always go to lunatics on the streets. That’s important to know.”

Madeleine Peyroux Earns Stripes at Jazz Foundation Event

Sometimes the measure of a performing artist can be taken under adversity. That moment came for Madeleine Peyroux Sunday as she performed live at the annual loft party for the Jazz Foundation of America. Not only did Peyroux sing before a noisy audience at Hudson Studios, but it was broadcast over New York City’s jazz station, WBGO Radio.

For a performer as sensitive as Peyroux—a woman who has been compared to the great Billie Holiday—she politely asked the loudly talking crowd to listen to her songs, but they mostly ignored her, preferring to talk among themselves. Peyroux plowed on, maintaining the grace and poise of a real pro. It was fascinating to watch, and made me appreciate her amazing level of professionalism.

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In addition to Holiday, Peyroux has cited Bessie Smith, Patsy Cline, Édith Piaf, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Mercer, Charlie Chaplin, Serge Gainsbourg and Bob Dylan as influences on her work. This eclectic blend has always attracted me to her music. I especially enjoyed her performance of Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love, from her Careless Love album.

I’ve never been to one of Peyroux’s concerts, but now I want to go more than ever. She’s a real trouper, surprising me with her fine artistry under the most trying conditions.

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A Different Side of Wallace Shawn at the New Yorker Festival

My taste in theatre is not mainstream. I love the experimental theatre that came out of the 1960s, when plays broke the “wall” between actors and audience and shocked us with bold ideas, rather than mindless entertainment.  

As a Southerner, I’ve grown up to appreciate the sophisticated works of Tennessee Williams. The plays of August Wilson and David Mamet have resonated deeply with me. Today, my favorite contemporary playwright is Wallace Shawn.

My Dinner with Andre was my first encounter with Shawn, who is the son of William Shawn, the late editor of the New Yorker. But it was Andre Gregory’s 2000 production of Shawn's The Designated Mourner in an abandoned men’s club in Lower Manhattan that made me see the true genius of Shawn’s theatrical productions. His production of The Fever a few years later and his recent book of Essays really sealed the deal for me.

Because both The Designated Mourner and The Fever were made into feature films means they are available to anyone. But their content insures these masterpieces will be seen only with those who want to take a deep bite of truly compelling theatre. They explore Shawn’s love of human creature comforts (coffee is a major thread) while examining the oppression and torture of others who supply him his lifestyle. Shawn calls his writing “a cat and mouse” game with him playing both sides.

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Last night, Shawn talked about the serious side of his life in an interview with critic John Lahr at the City Winery as part of the annual New Yorker Festival. Shawn talks about the bohemians and radicals who taught him at the Putney School, the private liberal arts high school where he got a dose of "high self-esteem."

His first play was written on a whelm, after seeing an ad for a playwriting content. In 1970, Shawn met Andre Gregory, who has directed several of his plays. This is where Shawn developed his radical approach to the presentation of theatrical works outside the normal confines of the traditional theatre. The Fever, for example, was presented in private homes for audiences of only 12 people in its early days. 

His Designated Mourner was heavily enhanced by its location in the crumbling old multi-story men’s club. In that production, the tiny audiences were led through the building as participants in the play. At one point, audience members actually ate a small meal with Shawn and Gregory. It was a theatrical experience I’ll never forget as long as I live.

Last night, Shawn told the story of two young actors who gave their limited impressions of winos on skid row. Gregory didn’t discourage them, but gave them an assignment. They had to actually live on skid row for a few days, drinking the cheapest wine available. Then they would return to the next class and do the scene again. This time, Shawn said, it was different because their performances were rooted in the life they had learned on the street. This, he said, is essential to good acting.

Many people in the New Yorker Festival audience knew Wallace Shawn only from the light comedic roles he plays on television. That’s so sad. Because this man offers far, far more to those with open, curious minds. I urge anyone who likes to think to dig into his work for a rich and rewarding experience.

Diane Schuur Impresses on Multiple Levels

Diane Schuur is a remarkable multi Grammy-winning jazz singer and pianist. This weekend, I was asked by Ann Ruckert, a client of mine in the music business, to photograph Schuur as she spoke to a group of Ann's students and performed in her Upper West Side apartment.

^{Hearing my clicking camera behind her, Diane jokingly interrupts the discussion to make sure I'm getting her best profile.} 

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Schuur, blind since childhood, is a very feisty lady. She told the students in an off-the-record discussion of the huge adversity she has overcome in her life. She shared every detail in a frank, highly personal talk. She took every problem and turned it around, blaming no one else. It was an inspiring, yet chilling, life story. 

Then Schuur moved to the living room, sat at a “perfectly tuned” Steinway piano, and began to sing. Being only four feet away from her, was a big thrill for me. Wow, can this lady sing! Wannabees, move over.

 

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The next night, in the last of a weeklong gig at the Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village, Schuur asked the students to join her on stage to sing. She made sure that each got her new CD -- Some Other Time. It was a generosity that one rarely sees anymore. Diane Schuur impressed me on many levels.

Great Teachers Resonate Through Life

It was April 1, 1987 when I first entered a classroom in Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA to begin a 10-week lecture class called "Home Communication and Entertainment in the 20th Century." I was excited about the class because of the inside knowledge of the teacher. He was no academic, but a media visionary who had practically invented network television programming as we know it.

In the coming weeks, I would find Sylvester "Pat" Weaver a charming, friendly, accessible man. He was also stunningly eloquent and firmly grounded in a set of beliefs about the public obligations of television that would be ridiculed today by industry executives as idealistic and economically unsound. 

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Yet, as the former chairman and president of NBC when television came of age in the 1950s, this network executive had -- from the TODAY Show to the TONIGHT Show -- almost single-handedly created the program genres that dominate network schedules to this day. 

Pat Weaver died at the age of 93 in 2002. Yet, as with all great teachers, his memory resonates through my life even today. His name equates with quality, and—sadly—the continuing loss of it in our modern society.

 

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A veteran of radio, Weaver guided NBC into the television era. If he'd done nothing else, his taste in talent and programming alone would have made his career. It was Pat Weaver who introduced American TV audiences to Bob Hope, Danny Thomas, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen and Jimmy Durante.

He also created the TODAY show, the TONIGHT Show and the still-running Meet the Press. To students of the history of television, Pat Weaver was one of the medium's pioneers. Yet, in his later years, Weaver viewed his television legacy with great disappointment. 

He believed that television had an obligation to expand the minds of its audience. Though a consummate showman and no highbrow, Weaver saw television's public service obligation as one to educate and entertain with a high level of artistry. For this, he was seen as a visionary who was sometimes too far ahead of his broadcasting colleagues. 

Weaver signs Dave Garroway in 1952 to host the TODAY show.

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Take, for example, the TODAY Show, the morning broadcast that Weaver created with host Dave Garroway in 1952 to lure listeners away from morning radio. The original idea was to introduce the audience to the best and brightest of American thinkers. Writers, artists, scientists and the country's intelligentsia would use the leisurely morning time slot to expose the emerging television audience to new, cutting-edge ideas.

Steve Allen was the first host of the TONIGHT Show.

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Originally, the TONIGHT Show (first titled Broadway Open House), he told our class, was created to expose Americans to the finest talent in the nation's artistic capital, New York City. Weaver wanted to take live cameras into Broadway theatres, opera houses, dance halls and nightclubs to introduce NBC's audiences to performers and creative works that were new and undiscovered.  

In essence, Pat Weaver wanted NBC's morning and late night programming to expose the common man to the best in American arts and culture. "It's very disappointing," he said. "There's occasional good things on, but there's no consistent arts programming." The TODAY show, he lamented, had become a series of quick segments to hawk books, movies and new products. TONIGHT was little more than a vehicle for topical comedy. Weaver's disdain for his grown-up program creations was palpable.

It should come as no surprise that a man, who in 1954, was described by New Yorker magazine as television's "most unrelenting thinker and most vocal theorist," would make enemies among the corporate bean counters. After eight years at NBC, Weaver was forced to relinquish control to Robert Sarnoff, the son of Gen. David Sarnoff (nicknamed "General Fangs" by Weaver), the head of RCA. Weaver left the network in 1956.

Weaver (center) with David Sarnoff (left) and Robert Sarnoff (right)

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Today, when I hear a young television executive thumb his nose at the idea of serving the public interest due to "the competitive realities of the marketplace," I think of Pat Weaver. The memorable ten weeks I spent in his classroom taught me that one can pioneer a profitable media business while at the same time serving the higher interests of the community. The trick, Weaver knew so well, is not becoming blinded by greed.

Oh, a footnote for the inquiring minds among you. Yes, Pat Weaver is the father of the actress Sigourney Weaver. And yes, she did show up to sit in on her father's class at UCLA. Nice lady…a trait that must run in the family.

Sigourney Weaver with her father in 1989.

Harlem Parlour Music Club Allows New York’s Finest Musicians to Visit Their Roots

Today, this Greenwich Village nightclub is called the Village Underground. But as I waited for a new band to take the stage last night, I knew I was on sacred ground. In the 1960s, the club was called Gerdes Folk City—a mecca for the booming folk music revival.  

On its stage played Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, John Lee Hooker, Richie Havens, Roger McGuinn, Peter, Paul and Mary, and about everyone else you know from that era.  If the walls only could talk.

On this night I was to hear the Harlem Parlour Music Club at the invitation of Sammy Merendino, the killer drummer for Cyndi Lauper’s band. Sammy has played with many of the world’s top artists including Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, Foreigner, Hall & Oates and many others. But this gig was more about loving music than making money.

Sammy, who lives in a townhouse built in 1892 in Harlem with built-in recording studio, conceived the Harlem Parlour group, which at times exceeds ten musicians—each of which has amazing credentials. They started in the spring of last year as a way to get together to informally play great songs and record them with minimal studio trickery.

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The Harlem Parlour Music Club at the Village Underground.  At the center is Darden Smith.  All concert photos by Frank Beacham

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Recently, they released their first CD, Salt of the Earth, produced by Merendino and Tim Hatfield. It’s a terrific album, self described as “an appalachian mountain band mixed with a New York City rhythm section.” A new Christmas CD is coming soon. Many of the songs from the current CD were performed at the Village Underground.

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 Allison Cornell (left) and David Mansfield on guitars

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Sammy Merendino, the band's leader, on drums

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The band has some amazing musicians.  David Mansfield, who plays violin, guitar and pedal steel, toured with Bob Dylan in the Rolling Thunder revue in 1975 and stayed with Dylan through his 1978 world tour. After leaving Dylan’s band, he formed a new band with two other Dylan band members—T-Bone Burnett and Steven Soles. Their Alpha Band released three records.

Also performing with the Harlem ensemble is Darden Smith, an accomplished singer-songwriter with 10 albums to his credit;  Mary Lee Kortez, of Mary Lee’s Corvette; and Allison Cornell, who also plays with Cyndi Lauper.

Especially outstanding on the round of solos most band members performed at the club was Amanda Homi, a singer-songwriter of Indian descent who has performed around the world. This year she toured as a backup singer and percussionist with Jackson Brown’s in Europe.  She has her own CD, called Drumgirls. In a great band of stars, she's one to watch. 

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Amanda Homi solos with the group.

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