An Attitude of Gratitude, A Table Full of Turkeytude

It's a sign of the nature and spirit of Thanksgiving that musicians are not generally well-employed on this day. It is a day of celebration, to be sure, but the celebratory instincts tend to turn inward today, as we scan our internal landscapes to ponder and acknowledge what is good in our lives. No one needs music to engage on this particular journey, just close companions and a few hours of mastication. Which is good, because musicians, too, need a day off to be with loved ones, have a little protein and complex carbs, and veg out on the couch for a minute (no, musicians do not routinely veg out on the couch, despite popular perception -- and with any luck, my wife will not read these words and laugh).

So, my list of gratitudes for this year, trying with all my might to focus on things musical, to stay within the spirit of this space:

• My wife of nearly two years -- a remarkable human being and much-beloved junior high school math teacher, who consistently inspires me to higher levels of functionality, kindness, compassion and overall humanity. She's also gorgeous and sings with the voice of an angel. On a road trip during our first out-of-town excursion, my iPod was on 'shuffle,' and it was playing my usual lineup of blues, r&b, reggae, etc. She wasn't paying much attention, as her tastes veer toward music made by people in this era. But on came "Sometime in the Morning," by the Monkees, and instead of turning it off, I let it play, and started to sing along. She joined right in, our faces lit up, and for the rest of the way, we sang the entire Monkees catalogue together. It was then and there I knew I had to marry this woman. And I did. And it's been a phenomenal journey ever since. I knew, as a child, that the Monkees would play a major role in my life. I had no idea how, but now I do.
• Danny White, harmonica player, local proprietor of the Good Stuff Guitar Shop, and a Very Bad Boy. Danny has a heart the size of Mt. Diablo. His store is constantly filled with people who are just hanging out, chatting and chewing the fat, tinkering with a guitar or other instrument, or waiting for their kid to emerge from lessons. All the while, he is the ringleader, answering musical questions, repairing and polishing someone's beloved guitar, or just watching with bemusement the parade of Martinez humanity traipsing through his humble and remarkable domain. On stage, he is poised and ready, though usually hiding behind whatever post or pole he can find (he's shy until it's time to play a solo, then he incinerates the room). And I don't know another adult male who has the courage to wear shorts the vast majority of the time.
• Scotty Riggs, bass player, human observer, and a Very Bad Boy. Scotty is, with Danny, the core of my band, the Very Bad Boys, and a fearless player of bass. Scotty will play a four-string, five-string, and even six-string bass, even though he can never quite explain to me why a bass needs more than four strings. Scotty and I have been playing together for years, and he is a monster at playing a song he's never heard before. I can call a tune he doesn't know, throw out the key (most of the time), and voila! He plays it as though he's been playing it his whole life. And lately, he's been doffing a sporty little hat, too. Style and talent. It doesn't get better. 
• Roy Jeans, Eloise Cotton, and the staff at Armando's deserve much gratitude from the people of Martinez, for creating something that no one else seems able to in this town: a viable business downtown that does not involve food or antiques. Of course Roy would know how to do that -- he's as much a part of this town as anything or anyone. Eloise does the booking, and brings her love of jazz and, um, quieter musical sensibilities to the lineup, while Roy runs the joint and provides the panache. Together they make an unbeatable force of local nature, and musicians throughout the Bay Area are thrilled to get a chance to take the stage at this miraculous venue. While I'm at it, a shout-out to Robert, Tom, and Joe, who take turns running the sound board at Armando's, and who took an inappropriate hit from me in this space earlier this year as I decided to publish a temper tantrum at the expense of the folks whose only mission is to make morons like me sound good. Sorry, guys, and thanks for your excellent efforts.
• The Martinez Arts Association, who each year put on a great show in the form of Art in the Park, and in the process present a great array of local music, something the folks at Martinez Main Street have never figured out how to do. It's great to have a venue for local performers of all ages, abilities and genres to play for their homies. There's a real resistance to this idea built into the DNA of this city, for some reason. I struggled with it years ago, and it remains a struggle to this day. But the talent is there, willing and waiting to be asked, so hopefully some day the powers that be will decide that local Martinez music is as good as anything else out there, and give them a chance to prove it. Until then, Art in the Park is a hot annual ticket, and it's free. 
• Gina Graziano, the music teacher at John Muir Elementary, for showing generations of kids year after year the joy of playing music just for the sheer fun of playing music. Gina takes even the shyest of children and urges them, cajoles them, sweetly on to the stage at her annual shows, where they become performers for the ages. This is a rare and remarkable talent, and one for which this city is extremely grateful. She has been recognized by her peers, parents and kids as a great musical amenity, lighting the spark of musicality in our kids that will burn long after they're out of school. Thanks, Ms. G, for that and your ongoing Hoot Nights at Armando's. 
• Hope Savage, my occasional musical partner in crime, who has a fearless talent, a great voice, and an unquenchable desire to write, sing and play. Hope embodies for me what makes making music so damned much fun -- she does it not for the money or the recognition, but because she just has to. And the results -- nights of friends gathering in darkened living rooms, singing and playing and laughing, with nary a television or other manufactured distraction in sight -- is exactly what the human experience was designed to be: participatory, a little awkward, harmonious, frivolous and fun. Within that template is an extremely serious communion; it's how we as people protect ourselves from a very scary world. 

There are countless other people who should be on this list, that space prohibits from being listed here, and for that I apologize. But let me close by saying this: I wish each and every one of you a fantastic, abundant and love-filled Thanksgiving. I hope your list of gratitudes is as endless as my own.

The Democracy of Digital

If you're 30 years old or younger, you don't remember what the entertainment business was like in the pre-digital years. It was vastly different, and in ways it was better, but in many more ways, it wasn't nearly as much fun. Let me try, for once, to be clear.

Digital technology has replaced analog technology. That means when you play music these days, it's not being played back using a spinning vinyl disk or a cassette (or 8-track) tape. Electronic pulses are not being translated by a needle or playback head and thrown out through the speakers. Now it's a collection of one's and zero's, a matrix, if you will, which is translated by a computer program and thrown out through the speakers. This has allowed all kinds of miraculous things to occur. 

When I was a young buck, back in the 1970s, the pinnacle of success was to enter some top-notch recording studio (like Wally Heider's in San Francisco, or the Record Factory in Marin, both long gone) and roll a reel of two-inch 24-track tape. An engineer would sit at a console and twirl dials while the artist(s) in the studio would perform, often in those days one track at a time. The sound that would then emerge from the very expensive studio monitors would make almost anyone sound good. It was paradise, the few times I was in studios like that. It was easy to see how bands would spend months putting an album together -- the studios were often set up so that when you weren't recording, you could hang out in the dimly-lit control room on overstuffed couches and chairs, doing things musicians did back then. I've forgotten what that was now, but it was probably fun and not very healthy.

The downside of that approach -- studio time even back then was $150 an hour for a major studio. You could, if you wanted, find lesser studios in people's garages, basements, or in-law units, but the results were not nearly as good, and the cost was still prohibitive, at $30 to $50 an hour. By the time you finished any kind of serious project, you and your band were out anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000, and then you had to transfer the music from master tape to vinyl or cassette, which was another major expense, and beyond the expertise of most musicians. And then you had to find a way to get the product into stores like Tower Records and the Warehouse (both long gone now).  And if you were not signed to a major record label, that just wasn't going to happen. The music industry kept itself zipped up pretty tight. Independent labels did manage now and then to break through the barriers, but it didn't take long for the majors to spot success and either buy those labels or shut them down. 

Getting yourself exposed on television took an act of God, or record sales of half a million or more. Again, making that happen required a major label deal. And let me be clear about major record label deals -- it sounded good then, but there are hundreds of tales of bands being signed and then shelved to prevent competition with other bands the labels were trying to promote. Or contracts that stipulated creative control by the label, which meant that some coked-up haircut got to decide what music your band could and could not record. Or contracts that said the label will front you money to record an album, but the money from sales of your record goes straight to the label until that upfront money is recouped. And it was unlikely that your band had the wherewithal to hire an accountant capable of watching that transaction in a way that put money in your pocket. Ask John Fogerty -- Credence Clearwater Revival Band's leader and songwriter had to call his mother from the Bahamas to ask for money to get home from a tour, because despite all those monster hits the band had, John came out with nothing thanks to a cunning little contract with Fantasy Records.

Fast forward to 2008. I'm on vacation this week. I'm spend my time in my little home studio, recording my next solo album. Oh, I'm doing all the tracks myself, thank you. I've got sampled drums at my fingertips, many different bass guitar sounds, strings and horns and what have you, plus I can record as many guitar and vocal tracks as I need to. No tape involved,  or expensive recording gear. Just the same computer I use to post this blog, send emails and check newspaper Web sites.

Oh, and I've also created three new music videos, which I've posted on YouTube. Same computer. No big deal.

This is nothing short of miraculous, if you grew up in a time when such creative control was impossible. When I finish with my recording project, I can post it on Myspace and Facebook, getting it into the hands of my friends, who may hopefully then spread the word to their friends, and on and on. It's called viral marketing (you may know it as word of mouth) and it's a very powerful way to market your stuff. And I don't need a single nod from a single record label to be in complete control of my music. And I'm an old guy. The amount of material out there today made by young enthusiastic artists who don't get their dreams squashed by morons in the music business is amazing. The sky is the limit, and the sky these days is digital. 

An Old Guy Celebrates A New Day

Tomorrow will mark, more or less, the 38th year of my professional music career. It's been quite a ride so far, but it just keeps getting better. I can't say I've made a lot of money (well, I could say that, but I'd be lying), and fame has eluded me as effectively as fortune, but I'm extremely grateful to have made some amazing friends, shared some extraordinary moments both musical and otherwise with phenomenal musicians, and grown up to be a Very Bad Boy.

First, I want to say this: no matter what happens from today forward, we all live in a different country than the one we occupied on November 3, 2008. From this day forward, America has lived up to her promise that anyone can be the President of the United States. The one waiting to take his place on January 20 is perhaps one of the most qualified to ever take office, but also, given his name and his skin color, one of the least likely in this crazy time of ours. Eight years ago, and then four years ago, a tiny fraction over half of America decided George W. Bush was the guy who should lead us, and boy, did he ever. Right over the edge. The guy to get us back to reality, America decided, was Barack Hussein Obama. And that amazing night in Grant Park, Chicago, where 40 years ago the whole world was watching while the Chicago police unleashed their fury on thousands of people Sarah Palin would call domestic terrorists (and I was there in spirit, though too young to be there in person), before President Obama gave his remarks, there was a recording played of "Sweet Home Chicago," a song first written and performed by Robert Johnson, one of the greatest blues men who ever lived. Johnson, who thought Chicago was in California, because they didn't school black folks in the south too well back then, would be utterly amazed to see where we have come in the 70 short years since he wrote that song. Well done, President Obama. May you and Michelle prosper and thrive, and help all Americans to do the same. 

Another blues man who changed the world of that music was John Lee Hooker, the man who schooled me in the blues and gave me my first chance at really being professional. He came to my high school in 1970, kind of washed up in those days, hanging on to the fringes of his former popularity, and he played us a few tunes. Afterwards, I approached him and explained that I played guitar as well, and loved the blues. He was amused, and invited me to come to his house any time (he lived in East Oakland in those days) and jam. Well, it wasn't many days before I was knocking on his front door. After some back and forth, his manager, the dear Tex Coleman, who also owned Blues Boys Records on East 14th Street, signed me up and put me in the band, where I stayed off and on for the next four years. I got to meet other legends -- Brownie McGhee, Lightnin' Hopkins, Freddie King, and a lot of others -- as they came through town and stayed at John's house. I got to take the stage with one of the giants of the blues, plug in my guitar and, when he nodded in my direction, take solos. At first, of course, I was young and hungry and full of the notion that I would be a star, so I would flail and wail and trounce and bounce and do all kinds of stupid things, playing way more notes than fit into the song, and make these really pained faces. John would just look over at me, stoic and puzzled, never saying a word, but eventually I got it. Never play more than is in your heart. Everything else is a waste of time and energy. And it's not true to the music. He said all that without one word to me, and it remains one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. John never mentioned race, and I don't think he really thought about it much. He was far more interested in the women hanging around backstage, and the songs swirling around in his head. 

After all the years of music, I am still floored by the fact that people let me get on stage and make noise. John is gone, Tex is gone, and some of my very best friends are gone. But many of them remain, and still play with me, and it is a distinct honor each and every time. And it is even more of an honor to play for the people who come to hear the music. That is the most amazing thing, and for that I am truly grateful and humbled. 

The Amazing Grace of Two Great American Songs

This week I cannot bring myself to write about anything small. History is standing over us all, well-dressed and important, demanding that we bring ourselves to the party and offer something more that the usual. So this week, I offer a tale you may not know, a tale of two American songs. Both are iconic, and both are infused with the passion and spirit of an age charged with destiny, with danger and undeniable import. Not unlike our own age. 

Of course we all know that Frankie Scott Keyes stood on a ship a couple of hundred years ago and jotted down a little poem about a battle he was watching, which became the lyrics to our own national anthem. But Frankie was no Bob Dylan, or even Neil Sedaka, and the words to our national anthem are almost as difficult and obscure as the British drinking song from which the anthem takes its unfortunate melody -- a roller coaster ride of a tune, which has given far too many singers far too many show-off opportunities to pound hard on that money note at the end, while the rest of us pretend to sing it, grateful no one is really listening. One can understand why the melody is a drinking song -- a few stiff ones are necessary tackle that tune with anything like confidence.

But we have other tunes in the "let's celebrate America" songbook. And two of my favorites are "God Bless America," and "This Land Is Your Land." The stories behind these songs are as remarkable and American as the very songs themselves. And they are also, always and forever, joined at the hip, though most people don't know it.

Here's the deal. In the year 1918, a young man named Israel Baline lifted a melodic line from the vaudeville tune "Mose With His Nose Leads the Band" and put together a tune called "God Bless America," for a revue called "Yip, Yip Yaphank." It included the lyrics "stand beside her, and guide her, to the right, with a light from above." But the tune didn't really fit the show, so it got filed away. When Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party began its rise to infamy in 1938, the young man, who by now was named Irving Berlin, rewrote the tune (including the line "to the right," changing it to the less political "through the night"), and a great American anthem was born. To seal the deal, a singer named Kate Smith recorded it, and it became a huge national hit. It was played everywhere -- on the radio, at ballgames, in the newsreels before movies -- you couldn't get away from the song, or Kate Smith's very powerful (and, to some ears, highly annoying) vocal fireworks. A movement was born to make this song the national anthem.

Meanwhile, by the year 1940, a young songwriter/singer/all-around-troublemaker named Woody Guthrie decided he had heard quite enough of this song. He was not moved by the lyrics, thought them too passive and too religious. America, Guthrie believed, was a muscular land of people doing things, making things happen, not sitting around singing songs of gratitude for rights and blessings they passively received. So Woody, being Woody, sat down and wrote his own song about America. And unlike Irving Berlin, Woody didn't need a Kate Smith to take it on. He just strummed that guitar of his (with the sticker on it that said "this machine kills fascists"), and drawled out those words himself. It, too, became a huge hit, and another movement was born to make this song the national anthem. 

That these two songs were candidates for the new national anthem says quite a bit about both tunes, but it says even more about how distinctly unpopular our current national anthem is, and was, and probably shall always be. Can we find a way, somehow, some way, to change our national anthem? Just a thought. But it would be nice to have a song in which people remember all the words, and can actually sing the melody together. I've always felt "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye would make a great national anthem. It's got great words, a great melody, and it's just funky enough to win crossover popularity. But I'm not holding my breath. 

Anyway, the point is this -- these two songs have come to symbolize a kind of divide in American culture. "God Bless America" is a great song -- it's got nice phrasing, and it's designed to inspire goosebumps in all the right places. It's kind of a march, and often you hear it with drums and horns and a kind of military feel to it. It's got the whole God thing in it, which carries a whole bunch of baggage in itself, depending on the listener. It's fun to sing, actually, and its sentiment is unhidden. 

"This Land Is Your Land," on the other hand, is a simple melody, borrowed from at least two other folk songs, and tells the tale of a country in which people are moving -- they're walking, they're on the ribbon of highway, they're looking around at the golden valleys, they're roaming and rambling. It is a song of rolling up the sleeves and taking stock of what's around, using the bounty before us for our own benefit. Oh, you bet there are political implications. Because Woody didn't write songs encouraging corporate CEOs to make use of the bounty before us. His song was for the folks on the lower ladder's rungs, the ones forced out of jobs and homes and anything like a decent life, because the banks and the bosses just couldn't use them anymore. It was 1940, pre-war, and a great deal of America was in bad trouble. Depression, droughts and gloom spread over the land like a blanket. One song offered hope in the night with a light from above, one song offered hope with feet walking on the ground. 

Both songs are treasures from two of the greatest American songwriters. And right now, in this moment in American history, they should both be shaken out and sung loudly by the great voices in this vast and amazing nation. Our voices. Yours and mine. We haven't been doing a lot of collective singing in this country over the past thirty years or so; we've let the pop stars do it for us. It's time we, as a nation, took the microphone away from the pop stars and chimed in ourselves, regardless of melodic ability. Singing isn't about being a good singer, it's about being sincere. To do that well, you need sincere material.

And these two songs are a great place to start.