"On the Streets, In Union Halls, On the Frontlines: Have Guitar, Will Travel" Paul Header
Saturday, November 28, 2020
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Danny Schmidt adding excellent songs
Danny Schmidt has produced some new songs during the coronavirus pandemic and each ranks among his best work. His next release will be filed with stop-you-in-your-tracks-and just-listen cuts.
Here you go:
"A Prayer For The Sane" April 7, 2020
"2020 Vision" April 30, 2020
"Black and Blue" July 4, 2020
Monday, November 23, 2020
Saturday, November 7, 2020
Remembering Terence Martin who died in 2011
Monday, November 2, 2020
Remembering Eva Cassidy who died in 1996
Claudia Levy, Washington Post, November 6, 1996
Eva Cassidy, 33, an award-winning jazz and blues singer and acoustic guitarist whose first solo recording, "Live at Blues Alley," was described by a newspaper critic as "an unqualified triumph" when it was released this year, died of cancer Nov. 2 at her home in Bowie.
Regarded as an up-and-coming young singer whose voice ranged from electrifyingly piercing to smokily intimate, Miss Cassidy performed at local clubs, toured nationally with the jazz group Pieces of a Dream and won five Washington Area Music Association awards (Wammies) for traditional jazz and rock singing. She recorded with Chuck Brown, the godfather of go-go music.
Joel Siegel, of the Washington City Paper, said her solo recording was one of the "most arresting vocal collections in years."
After Miss Cassidy's cancer was diagnosed this year, FM radio stations WPFW and WDCU devoted shows to her work, and benefits were staged to help her raise money for treatment. At a recent benefit and tribute held for her at the Bayou, at which a dozen musicians performed, she was given an honorary gold record from the Recording Industry Association of America.
Jazz saxophonist Ron Holloway described Miss Cassidy as having "an unusual amount of feeling and soulfulness in her voice, and that comes from inside her." Brown, her frequent musical partner, said that on first hearing her voice, he was impressed with its sweet, golden and mellow qualities.
Miss Cassidy, who was born in Washington and raised in Oxon Hill and Bowie, began singing and playing guitar as a child, appearing with family members at local functions. She began her professional career at the Black Pawn Recording Studio in Rockville, providing backup vocals for local and national artists.
Four years ago, she recorded her first CD, a collection of pop standards called "The Other Side," with Brown. Washington Post critic Mike Joyce said her appearance on a recording by Pieces of a Dream was welcome and heartfelt, providing the distinctive personality the band had lacked in the past.
Miss Cassidy was a graduate of Bowie High School and attended Prince George's Community College. She worked from 1981 until last year as a plant tender at the Behnke garden center in Beltsville. She also painted custom furniture as an artist for a company in Annapolis.
Survivors include her parents, Barbara Cassidy and Hugh Cassidy, both of Bowie; two sisters, Margret Cassidy of Bowie and Anette Kass of Charlottesville; and a brother, Daniel Cassidy of Iceland.
Remembering Al Grierson who died in 2000
(CNN.com) -- A poet died in Texas the other night, swept away in a flash flood after his pickup truck stalled in high water a couple miles from home in the rolling, dusty Hill Country.
Around central Texas, Al Grierson, 52, was known as the "Poet Laureate of Luckenbach," a reference to that afterthought of a hamlet made famous by singer-songwriter Waylon Jennings.
But the Canadian-born Grierson's reputation loomed much larger than a fanciful title in a town of 25. He was internationally lauded among folk singers and songwriters, and he was a regular at the world-renowned Kerrville Folk Festival in nearby Kerrville, Texas.
Singer-songwriter Anne Feeney of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is getting ready to record a couple of his songs next week. Feeney said Saturday the group Peter, Paul and Mary are currently performing a song she wrote. But she can think of five songs by her old friend Grierson that they should be playing today.
He was a man who could stare up at the ceiling and solve the mysteries of life, or write about 50-cent sneakers and $5 wine. He could play a thousand traditional songs, from work songs to British and Irish pub tunes, and compose a most romantic tribute to a woman he'd only just met.
While irked that Grierson chose Thursday to step out of his pickup and into the water -- "He knows better!" she fumed -- Feeney also sees poetic sense in the folk singer's death.
"I hope he had a moment to savor before it was over," she told CNN.com. "How many people get a chance to be swept away by the raw forces of nature? It's actually pretty astonishing."
Humble eloquence
Twice-divorced and a father of several children, Alan David Grierson was a lifelong wanderer who knew as much about philosophy, literature and history as many a college professor.
A former Buddhist monk, he lived in a red 1977 International Harvester school bus in a makeshift camp called Armadillo Farm outside Luckenbach, located about 80 miles west of Austin, Texas.
Except for his Guild guitar, possessions meant little to Grierson. But he was an inveterate e-mailer who ran his own Web site, Feeney said.
Clint Harding, who hosts the weekly "Blue Highways" radio and Web folk music program from St. Louis, Missouri, could see his old friend clearly Saturday as he described him for CNN.com. Grierson stood maybe 5 feet 8 inches, wore wire-rim glasses, sported a sweat-soaked hat on shoulder-length gray hair and had weather-worn skin that made him look older than his years.
"He looked like he'd just gotten off a train somewhere, but he was one of the most gentle people," Harding said. "As soon as you met him, you felt that he cared about you and he'd known you for a long time."
Among folk singers and writers, he inspired awe because he could write such perfect songs, Feeney said. He was a two-time finalist in the Napa Valley Music and Wine Festival's emerging songwriter showcase and a former guest on National Public Radio's "River City Folk" program.
In 1995, Grierson recorded his first album, "Things That Never Added Up to Me," followed last year by "A Candle for Durruti." Both frequent playlists on folk radio around the world.
Feeney said he referred to her as his "fairy godmother" because she often went around the nation touting his work. But Feeney said she was more than a friend. She admired his talent.
"He was such a truly humble man," she said. "He'd say, 'Oh, it's so great that you're singing my songs!' Can you imagine Cole Porter saying that? He really was just a deeply humble man with a tremendous vision."
He also was generous with his time. On the night the swirling waters carried him away, Grierson was headed home after performing at a school.
Rainy night, rushing water
The police reports from the Gillespie County, Texas, Sheriff's Department are quite simple.
About 5:45 p.m. Thursday, while on a rural road three miles from Luckenbach, Grierson's northbound pickup came to a section of high water. Heavy rains in central Texas have killed at least five people in recent days, and lingering showers are expected through Friday, said sheriff's Sgt. Jim Judd.
When Grierson tried to cross the water, the truck stalled. As Grierson stepped into the floods he was swept away.
Rescue teams searched without luck through the night, Judd said. Grierson's body was found at mid-morning Friday, about two miles from where he'd left the pickup.
A Gillespie County justice of the peace pronounced him dead at the scene.
Judd remembered seeing him around Gillespie County and knew he lived at the Armadillo Farm.
"We're small enough in population to where it doesn't take long for the deputies to know people," he said. "I recognized his vehicle and kinda knew who he was."
Judd also knew that Grierson was a singer. Matter of fact, he recalled that authorities found the man's guitar after Grierson disappeared. It was still in its case, sitting in the pickup.
Til the Circle is Complete
About that pickup -- Harding can't help but see the irony that Grierson died because of it. Friends helped him buy it after he very boldly sent out a computer message this year asking for their help when his old vehicle gave out in the spring.
It didn't cost much, but Grierson was proud of his wheels, Harding said.
"He was just starting to get some bookings, some opportunities where transportation would be necessary," he said.
Feeney last performed with Grierson a couple weeks ago in Austin. Even though he's gone, she said she takes comfort in knowing that he enjoyed every moment as if it were his last. Among friends and loved ones, he never left anything unsaid.
There's also the legacy of his music, Feeney said.
"Al will be around as long as people sing his songs," she said.
Grierson's memorial service will be put on by friends and fellow musicians this Wednesday at one of Al's favorite Austin hangouts, Artz Rib House, where mourners will be encouraged to sing songs, read poems, and tell stories.
Perhaps one of the songs sung at the service will be "Til the Circle is Complete," a favorite from Grierson's first album. Some like to play it at weddings, some like to play it at christenings and some like to play it at funerals.
To Harding and Feeney, it's as fitting a eulogy as any that could be written about the eclectic entertainer. In one section, Grierson sings of living and dying:
"May you set your shoes to dancing
in the hour of your death
and meet it with the courage it deserves.
May your shadow pass in pirouettes
of such amazing grace
that the tears of those who mourn you
disappear without a trace
In a smoke that shapes their sorrow
to the fading of your feet
In a ring around the rainbow
where the circle is complete."
"Old Coyote" is one of Grierson's best and fully displays his lyrical talent.
"I've been reading all about it in the annals of some ancient lore,
How you were smuggled through the garden by the angel at the basement door,
And while the serpent in the branches held the mother of the world beguiled,
You were pissin' on the Tree of Knowledge while the Good Lord smiled.
Old coyote
Little brother of necessity and the seeker of the sacred clown,
Old Coyote,
You're the fire in the water and the diamonds in the cold cold ground.
On the mountain top with Moses and with Daniel in the lions den,
In the bedroom with Delilah -- in the hollow in the hearts of men,
On the hill on Friday Evening when the soldiers rolled them bones,
In the garden Sunday mornin' when they rolled away the stone.
Old Coyote,
On the edges of eternity dancin' through the crack of dawn,
Old Coyote,
With a pearly white Madonna and the devil with the blue dress on.
In the bed between the Travellin' Salesman and the Farmer's Daughter,
At the elbow of the preacher when the wine turned back to water,
In the cabin of a smokin' locomotive on a high speed train,
Between the Tower of Babel and the cities of the plain.
Old Coyote,
You're a 30-carat Buddha in a barrel full of old tin cans,
Old Coyote,
Just a loose screw messin' with the engine of our best laid plans.
Now there's an ancient city hidden deep beneath the waves,
It was founded on the principles of justice -- and the sweat of slaves,
And I heard a lot about it in a New Age gospel hymn,
But I ain't never gonna wade in any water where the fish won't swim.
Old Coyote,
In a verticle position while the world walks upside down,
Old Coyote,
At the center of the circle while the wheel goes 'round and 'round.
Now there's a big wind blowin' down the cities from the outlaw trail
You can even hear it whistle in the belly of the great white whale,
Hear it howlin' through the desert where Ezekial saw the wheel,
From the breath upon the water to the breaking of the seventh seal.
Is this the end of history or just a wagon full of roses standin' at the gates of Rome
The devil's army on the deep blue sea,
Or just the legions of the lonely only lookin' for the long way home.
'Cause there's an angel with a trumpet in the graveyard where the night wind groans,
Hear it echo from the brothel on the bayou where the black snake moans,
From the Playboy mansion to the penthouse to the pool,
From the palace of the kingdom to the alley where the mad dogs rule.
Waitin' for the holocaust--
waitin' for the fire that was promised at the end of time,
Waitin' for the Pentacost
Hidin' like a phoenix in the ashes and the ice cold lime.
Old Coyote,
At the center of the chaos waitin' since the Lord knows when,
Old Coyote,
Gonna wait a little longer 'till it all comes 'round again.
Little brother of necessity -- the seeker and the sacred clown,
You're the fire in the water and the diamonds in the cold cold ground,
A 30-carat Buddha in a barrel full o' old tin cans,
Just a loose screw messin' with the engine of our best laid plans,
Old Coyote,
In a vertical position while the world walks upside down,
Old Coyote,
At the center of the circle while the wheel goes 'round and 'round.
Old Coyote,
At the center of the circle while the wheel goes 'round and 'round."
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Highlights from Jeff Emery's "Backroads" show, KZSC, Santa Cruz, CA
A few timely selections from Jeff Emery's Sunday, November 2 show:
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