Living in More Than One World

In an earlier post, I wrote about Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe’s upcoming European tour, and about the standard of musical excellence maintained over many years by both musicians, as well as their ability to work outside of their comfort zones. I had interviewed and written extensively about Lowe in my music writing days, though I never interviewed or met Cooder. Now comes word from Cooder’s record label, Nonesuch, that he has a collection of fiction, Los Angeles Stories, that will be made available only on the tour. This follows a novella that came with his recent album I, Flathead. Cooder is an embodiment of living in more than one world; as a musician working in many genres, record producer (including the eight million-selling Cuban music album Buena Vista Social Club and the subsequent documentary), soundtrack composer, musicologist and now author. The Nonesuch page links to Ry, Flathead; an extensive, unabridged interview of Cooder by Tony Scherman, in stopsmilingonline.com, the wide-ranging website of Stop Smiling magazine. It’s a fascinating conversation about Cooder’s life and work; especially how Buena Vista Social Club changed his life. One area I found particularly interesting was the crucial role of research in his work as a writer and musician. And be sure to read his comments at the end of the interview about the importance of learning and continually advancing your abilities.

There can be fascinating results when two seemingly disparate worlds combine in the same person. A case in point is Kate Linthicum’s feature story in the Los Angeles Times, In the stillness, space for a rebellious spirit, about Noah Levine, who teaches Buddhist meditation infused with punk rock values. He’s the leader of the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, and author of the 2003 book Dharma Punx. The latter is the name of the Society’s members, and there are meditation groups across the USA and Canada. Levine appears to be an intriguing embodiment of living in more than one world, as a psychologist (which, according to the article, is how he earns his living), teacher, organization leader, author and family man. But it took him a long time of  suffering and searching to get to his current place in life, all detailed well by Linthicum.  Levine’s father is the poet and author Stephen Levine.

Everything is connected. But one connection that took me a long time to make was between the lovely city of Claremont, California (Peter Drucker’s home and site of the Drucker School), and rock music. I have traveled to Claremont – which also contains a stretch of Route 66, not far from the Drucker School — a number of times since 2002 for research on my book. But it wasn’t until last year that I discovered how many great musicians come from Claremont.

Two members of one of my favorite ‘60s bands, Kaleidoscope, David Lindley and Chris Darrow, live there. I had a couple of nice phone conversations with Chris when I was in town last June, after being introduced by a mutual friend from Claremont Graduate University. Check out Jud Cost’s interview with Chris on the Sundazed Records site.

Besides Lindley, the best-known Claremont rock artist is Ben Harper. I visited the Folk Music Center Museum & Store in the “village” part of Claremont, which was started by his grandparents in 1958, and which Ben now owns. I met his mother, Ellen Chase-Verdries, also a musician, and now the store’s manager. Last year, Ben was one of the headliners of the Claremont Folk Festival, with Jackson Browne and Taj Mahal.

I’m always interested in how people maintain doing excellent work over a period of many years, regardless of the type of work they do. As Peter Drucker has said, “Workmanship counts.” Two examples from the world of music are Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe, who will be touring together in Europe this summer. In my rock writing days — a long time ago — I interviewed Lowe several times and wrote a lot about him and his earlier band, Brinsley Schwarz. Both Cooder and Lowe are admirable for regularly leaving their comfort zones as musicians and songwriters. Among other things, Cooder has written a novella to accompany his latest album, I Flathead, and has worked in many musical worlds, including rock, world music and soundtracks.

Part of the secret of Cooder’s success has been his strong sense of ongoing learning. Although I have only seen this in hard copy and not online, Cooder gave an intriguing interview to Charles Shaar Murray in the August 2008 issue of the excellent British magazine The Word. Murray asked if there was a thread through his highly varied career. Cooder started his extended response with this reply: “The truth is… the only thing I can tell you is that I was always trying to learn to do something I can’t.”

On a sadder note, the innovative singer-songwriter John Martyn (known to many as the writer of Eric Clapton’s “May You Never,”) whom I interviewed in Washington, D.C. when he was doing a gig at the legendary Cellar Door in the late ’70s, died on January 29th.