Living in More Than One World » rock music

Chuck Leavell: From Sea Level to Tree Level

bruce — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:24:50 +0000

One of the best examples of a multidimensional person living in more than one world is Chuck Leavell. He is probably best known as a top-level pianist who has played with The Rolling Stones for nearly 30 years and was with the Allman Brothers Band before that. He has also led his own band, Sea Level, and his discography is jaw-dropping. But as his recent bylined piece, A Rock ‘n’ Roll Tour de Forest, in The Wall Street Journal shows, he also operates on many other important levels: operator (with his wife, Rose Lane) of a tree farm in Georgia, conservationist, environmental/sustainable development advocate, author and tech entrepreneur.
His recent TedXAtlanta video about balance in life and balance in development demonstrates the personal characteristics that have made him a success: he comes across as passionate, articulate, genial and informed. Although I never met him during my music world days, I’ve known about him since the beginning of his music career in the early 1970s. I’m sure he meets and interacts with a fascinating diversity of people in each of his roles, and that his involvement in so many worlds feeds an intense intellectual curiosity.
It’s encouraging that he has attracted so much attention. His most recent book, Growing a Better America, was published earlier this year. In recent weeks, besides the WSJ piece, there has been a New York Times college football-themed blog post interview with him, Postcard From Alabama: Playing for the Stones, Rooting for the Tide; and Chuck Leavell On Piano Jazz, a recent piece on NPR.org that includes his enjoyable and informative 2003 interview/music appearance on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. We should all be grateful that Leavell is truly living in more than one world.

300 Words With David Greenberger

bruce — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 02:37:27 +0000

300 Words With is a new, semi-regular feature on my blog, in which I interview people I admire, especially those who exemplify the spirit of living in more than one world. Their responses are (in the range of) 300 words. Today’s interviewee is the artist/writer/musician/NPR radio commentator David Greenberger, who also has done innovative work with the elderly. I knew David back in my music writing/selling days in the late seventies and early eighties, and then lost touch with him until becoming reconnected earlier this year on Facebook.

1. Can you briefly describe your life’s professional journey so far, including Duplex Planet and your art?

Duplex Planet is my art, or one aspect of it. I won’t take up the limited word space here to describe it, but will say that I started out as a painter – art school, showings, the whole thing – and after I created the earliest issues of the periodical in 1979, I purposefully set aside painting a year or so later so that I could truly allow this other medium to become my voice. That said, for the past half decade, I’ve returned to visual art as well (though there are also visual components in The Duplex Planet) and it picks up around where I left off thirty years ago. For the past 15 years I’ve been most interested in the creation of monologues with music, further abstracting the underlying source material to make for a more universal, less documentary-specific focus.

2. Has music been a running thread through your personal and professional life, and if so, in what ways?

Music has been a constant since I was ten or eleven years old. I’ve always been nourished by hearing something new, as well as finding new in the familiar. I played bass guitar in bands in my hometown of Erie, PA, through high school and into college. I returned to performing when I lived in Boston and formed a band called Men & Volts. We did five albums and numerous other releases over the course of the eighties. Putting together an issue of The Duplex Planet has always been like assembling an album: the rhythmic flow, the juxtapositions, the slow reveal. My recordings and performances now – monologues with music – I liken to a band with a guy (me) talking.

3. What non-work activities do you find particularly meaningful in your life?

As an artist, I find very little divide between my daily endeavors and the notion of work. They are the same; they are who I am and what I do. That said, stepping away from the various processes is necessary for the growth and integrity of the art. So there are friends, the aesthetic pleasures of food, film, literature and every other medium, to baffle, amuse, delight and enrich.

The Self-Management Secrets of Nick Lowe

bruce — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:52:09 +0000

Last year, I blogged about how in my rock writing days I had interviewed Nick Lowe several times. Last week, I saw Lowe at the Birchmere, in Alexandria, Va., with his wonderful new touring band. As always, he put on a musically strong, highly enjoyable show. I’ve seen him in pretty much every permutation: solo, with Brinsley Schwarz, Rockpile, Little Village and his various touring bands. Listening to his short, funny monologue at the beginning of the set made me think that Nick should write a self-management book and go out on the lecture circuit. He would be a natural, and I think lots of people would buy a book in which he told in his own words how he’s navigated a career, in a tough business, of more than 40 years. He certainly has managers and agents helping to guide him, but I believe that he has set the direction of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. The result has been a strong, steady career as a singer, musician, producer and songwriter. In the mid-‘70s, he was a mentor (although I doubt he would call it that) for Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. He gets lots of press, partly because he is so good, but also because he gives great, highly quotable interviews. Above all, he continues to develop his craft. Lowe builds quality into his professional life. When he is not working solo, he only collaborates with top-flight musicians, either the lesser-known ones in the current band to the likes of Dave Edmunds, Ry Cooder and John Hiatt. It has been years since I’ve had a chance to talk with Nick, but if I had a minute now, I’d make my suggestion: write a book that would have appeal beyond the music world, and apply your considerable speaking talents to the lecture and presentation circuit. I would pay for that, and I know many others would as well.

Management Secrets of Fairport Convention

bruce — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:28:00 +0000

Joshua Green’s article in The Atlantic, Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead, got considerable attention when it was published earlier this year. Last weekend’s Fairport Cropredy Convention, the long-running outdoor festival the British band produces each August, got me thinking that perhaps we should also consider the Management Secrets of Fairport Convention. Not that the latter has had anywhere near the business success of the Grateful Dead, but Fairport has many things in its favor. The band, which has been together in one form or another for more than 40 years, is as much a collection of concepts and ideas as a musical entity. It stands for a number of admirable things: quality, roots, continuity, inclusiveness, durability, relevancy and timelessness. One page on their site gives all the details for anyone wanting to do business with them. Somehow I doubt that they make a lot of money, though I imagine that financial wealth is relatively low on their list of aspirations. But they have admirably produced the festival, which draws 20,000 people yearly; and in recent years, released albums on their own label. (All of the early albums on major labels still sound great. They were definitely, to borrow a phrase from Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last.) Fairport Convention’s inclusiveness and sense of family is also demonstrated by a page on their site with links to sites of former members, with the best known being Richard Thompson. Although he often appears at Cropredy, as do other former members, this year he was on tour in the States. Another former member, Sandy Denny, died in 1978. Her stature and importance as an artist has grown considerably since her death. She will be the subject of a 19-CD box set next month, according to this recent feature in The Guardian. Any person or organization attempting to build a successful brand and develop a community can take notes on how Fairport connects with their community in such a sincere, good-humored, genuine way.

Declaration of Independents: 30 Years Of Indie Rock

bruce — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:41:15 +0000

I’ve decided to relaunch my blog by commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of Declaration of Independents, a compilation of independent label rock music that I co-executive produced with Steve Leeds, now of Sirius satellite radio. It was the only album on the label we co-owned, Ambition Records. Declaration was one of the first compilations of its type, fittingly released on July 4, 1980. We licensed 13 songs from small labels nationwide, by such artists as SVT (from San Francisco, with Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna), Bubba Lou and the Highballs (also from San Francisco), Robin Lane and the Chartbusters (Boston); Kevin Dunn (Atlanta; with a highly original electronic version of Chuck Berry’s “Nadine”); Pylon (Athens, Ga.; their cut “Cool” was co-produced by the band and Dunn); The News (Rock Springs, Wy.), Luxury (Des Moines) and Ragnar Kvaran (Ann Arbor). There were also several cuts from Washington, D.C., area artists: Razz (with Tommy Keene), Tex Rubinowitz and the late Root Boy Slim; and two from Springfield, Mo., Jim Wunderle and D. Clinton (Donnie) Thompson, one of the most phenomenal roots-rock guitarists, then and now. It was distributed in the UK by Stiff Records, then at or near the height of its fame. The amazing cover art (you can get a basic idea of it from a 2008 Wilfully Obscure blog post) was by Steve Byram and David Gambale. The musician associated with the LP who arguably became most successful, Ben Vaughn, didn’t even play on it. He designed Ambition Records’ logo, in his other capacity at the time as a graphic designer. Steve Leeds, Ben and I remain friends, but I’ve lost touch with most of the artists, and would love to hear from them, if any see this post. And if you enjoyed the album, it would be great to hear from you.

Rock and Read

bruce — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:48:38 +0000

I recently wrote a post about the intersection of two of my favorite subjects, music and literature. Now I have discovered a series of posts on the Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy blog about rock music books and related topics, capped by The 46 essential rock reads, on Sept. 1. Obviously a list of this sort is going to be not only incomplete but controversial, as shown by the comments. But it does provide interesting food for thought. Among the 46 books is Get in the Van, by Henry Rollins, an account of his early ‘80s days as lead singer of Black Flag. Right before he moved to California to join that band in 1981, he and I were neighbors in the same apartment building in Arlington, Va. I knew him even before that, having first met him around 1979 or 1980, when I was working a part time job at the late, lamented Olsson’s Books and Records. Henry has been highly successful for many years, and he’s an intriguing example of living in more than one world: as a singer, poet, actor, DJ, entrepreneur, public speaker, etc. I met him at the same time as his friend Ian MacKaye, who has also been a longtime, huge success both in music (with Minor Threat, Fugazi and The Evens) and in business (starting and leading Dischord Records). I know from experience how hard it is to start and run an independent record label – I didn’t last long — and his success over nearly 30 years is well-earned. Among the best LA Times posts is Robin Benway’s Favorite Storytelling Songs. I was unfamiliar with her before this, but Benway is an interesting writer, and has done well with her novel, Audrey, Wait! Let’s hope that Jacket Copy returns to rock themes before a year from now.

Paste Special: Music and Literature

bruce — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:14:17 +0000

Justin Jacobs, in Paste magazine, combines two of my favorite topics in the August 24th article Ten Fantastic Songs Brought To You by Books. Numbers one (“Song for Myla Goldberg”, inspired by the Bee Season author) and nine, “The Tain,” on Jacobs’ list are from a great band, The Decemberists. (I also remember the ‘70s album The Tain by the Irish band Horslips.) The only other female writer to be serenaded in a title is “Sylvia Plath,” #4 by Ryan Adams. Another writer name-checked in a title is “Saul Bellow,” #8 by Sufjan Stevens. The source for #3, Radiohead’s “2+2=5,” says Jacobs, is George Orwell’s 1984. #10 is several Led Zeppelin songs (“Misty Mountain Hop,” “Ramble On,” and “The Battle of Evermore”) which Jacobs says were inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. “Although his long, blonde locks,” Jacobs writes, “and groupie-baiting ways may have suggested otherwise, Robert Plant was a big nerd.” As a lead-in to his list, Jacobs references Catherine Prewitt’s August 13th Paste interview with Jay Farrar (of Son Volt) and Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie) about their upcoming Jack Kerouac-inspired album, One Fast Move or I’m Gone, and a related film of the same name. The Farrar-Gibbard project grew out of a documentary produced by Jim Sampas, Kerouac’s nephew, about the years when Kerouac wrote the autobiographically-based novel Big Sur, published in 1962. Gibbard portrays the book’s Kerouac-like character Jack Duluoz as a cautionary, anti-role model: “After all of the wild nights, he’s become just a fat drunk man at a bar who is now not drinking because he wants to, but drinking because he has to.” The Kerouac theme continues at #2 in the above list, The Hold Steady’s “Stuck Between Stations,” which has a line from On the Road.

Fairport Convention’s Festival Came Around Again

bruce — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:36:46 +0000

The past weekend was not only notable as the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. It was also the weekend that one of my favorite bands, Fairport Convention, held its annual Fairport’s Cropredy Convention festival, in Britain. The long-running event regularly draws around 20,000 people. Besides the band itself – which has had countless members over the years — it attracts an eclectic lineup of performers, including former members of Fairport, especially Richard Thompson. For more background, see this Reuters blog posting. I’ve never been to the festival, but I’d love to attend one day. Fairport traditionally does a three hour closing set on the final evening, and this year their special guest during the set was Yusuf [Islam], formerly Cat Stevens. He is an old friend, and former Island Records label-mate of the band’s. See the account of the final set, including his quotes, in the local paper, the Oxford Mail. Richard Thompson also did a solo set, and other performers included Steve Winwood, punk pioneers The Buzzcocks and a number of acts that are probably well-known to British audiences but not to most American fans. It sounds like a good-natured, sweet-spirited event. I have seen Fairport a number of times over the years, though not recently. I’ve written about them in my music days, though never interviewed them. Ditto for Thompson, whom I have seen perform in various incarnations (with Fairport, solo, with his own band, as part of Richard and Linda Thompson and even as a trio, with Andy Roberts, backing ex-Fairport singer Ian Matthews, in 1971). I interviewed Matthews a couple of times, in the ’70s. Thompson’s second four-CD career retrospective box set, Walking on a Wire, is released this week. Saul Austerlitz of the Boston Globe has an interesting August 16 Q&A with Thompson about it, A troubadour of timeless songs. And to learn more about Fairport’s festival, consult virtualfestivals.com.

Willy DeVille: Another Punk Icon Gone

bruce — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:49:36 +0000

I haven’t thought much in recent years about the rock singer Willy DeVille and his band Mink DeVille, names out of my music writing/selling days in the ‘70s and ‘80s. But I was still surprised and saddened to read of his death, at 58, of pancreatic cancer. As with so many rock passings, it came after years of living on the edge. But a little bit of your heart breaks when even a small part of your past goes away. DeVille was one of the pioneers of the New York ’70s punk rock scene, playing the legendary, now-defunct CBGB in the same era as bands that became considerably more popular, such as Blondie, Talking Heads and The Ramones. The latter became more popular in retrospect, but had a shocking mortality rate among its band members. And DeVille’s music was not straight punk rock, but in the words of the AP obit, a “blend of R&B, blues, Dixieland and traditional French Cajun ballads.” The official bio mentions his admiration for Edith Piaf. He worked with some stellar producers, such as the late Jack Nitzsche and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. DeVille’s song “Storybook Love” from the film The Princess Bride was nominated for an Academy award. He was also prolific, recording a number of band and solo albums between 1977 and 2005. For a personal, evocative appreciation of DeVille and his music, read Neil McCormick’s Willy DeVille: death of an icon, on Telegraph.co.uk. McCormick observes that DeVille drew on some of the same musical sources as Bruce Springsteen, who also began his recording career in the ‘70s. “Springsteen sounded like he was your friend in desperate times,” McCormick writes. “DeVille sounded like he couldn’t quite decide whether to serenade you or pull a knife on you.”

WOMAD for Those Who Couldn’t Be There

bruce — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:35:40 +0000

I’m back on the festival beat with last week’s WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival in the UK. This is yet another event that most of us can’t attend, but can learn a lot about online. It’s one of the premier world music festivals, and was the 27th time it has been held in the UK, where the WOMAD organization is based. They also produce festivals around the world, and I was fortunate to have attended two in the early ‘90s, in Toronto. Peter Gabriel is one of the co-founders of WOMAD, and though he doesn’t often play the festival, he was the headliner on July 25th. Check out the full lineup on the festival’s site to get an idea of the worldwide scope of the music on offer. Click on the artists’ names for brief bios and video clips from pre-festival performances. As with Glastonbury and Latitude, earlier festivals I wrote about, there were a number of stages and more on offer than you could have taken in at one time. Robin Denselow’s review on Guardian.co.uk notes the continued importance of African music to the event, especially this year with Youssou N’Dour and Rokia Traoré. On the BBC Radio 3 stage, one of the events I would have particularly liked to have seen and heard was Charlie Gillett with Special Guests, in which the BBC DJ and author was both playing some of his current favorite records and sharing the stage with various world musicians. I knew Charlie back in my music days in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and he is one of the most iconic figures in British music. Mark Hudson ends his review on Telegraph.co.uk with an interesting observation: “In an environment in which the bracingly unfamiliar quickly became the norm, the jangly guitar-rock of fresh-faced British indie band Black Swan Effect stood out as by far the most exotic fare of the day.”