Jim Rooney Productions

March 22, 2020

This afternoon my dear friend Happy Traum called to tell me that Eric Weissberg had passed away. Although I knew that Eric had been suffering from dementia for the past 3 or 4 years it still came as a shock. I have known Eric for nearly 60 years! He was barely 20 years old when Bill Keith and I met him back in 1961. He was already a professional musician working with the popular folk group The Tarriers. Eric was one of the first Scruggs style banjo players in New York and Bill Keith was in awe of him. Before long we all became good friends. No trip to New York was complete without Eric taking us to his favorite Chinese restaurant, Sam Wo’s, after a jam session in Washington Square or at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center. Then Eric and fellow Tarrier Marshall Brickman would come up to Cambridge to hang out with Bill and me at the Club 47,  jam ‘til all hours and adjourn to my favorite Chinese restaurant The Golden Gate in Boston.

Sometime in the Spring of 1969 I was living in New York, working for the Newport Folk and Jazz festivals, and Izzy Young asked me if Bill Keith and I would do a concert at the Washington Square Church. By this time Bill had taken up the pedal steel in addition to the banjo, and we thought it might be fun to do a split concert of bluegrass and country music. Both of us immediately thought of Eric, who by this time had become one of the top session musicians in New York. He could play banjo and mandolin on some things and electric guitar on others. Eric was up for it, and we quickly threw together a couple of sets. On the afternoon of the concert we were rehearsing in the church when Richard Greene poked his head in the door. Richard was fresh from playing fiddle with Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys and was in the process of putting together SeaTrain with Peter Rowan. We invited Richard to join us on the spot. We were so happy with the results that I got in touch with a couple of record labels and before we knew it Warner Bros. Records signed us to do an album. We called ourselves The Blue Velvet Band. Our album “Sweet Moments with The Blue Velvet Band” became one of those underground cult favorites, and Eric, who had played on literally thousands of recording sessions, always said that it was his absolute favorite of all the records he had played on.

Many years later I was playing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival on my own. Many musicians came up to me and were going on about our old album, so much so that I thought it might be time to resurrect the Blue Velvet Band. Richard Greene was not available so the great fiddler from New York, Kenny Kosek jumped in, and the New Blue Velvet Band came into being. Touring all of the major folk festivals in Canada, Europe, Britain, Ireland and the Northeast was when I really got to appreciate what a wonderful person Eric was. He was never down. He wouldn’t let you be down. In addition to that, his playing was never stale, his singing was always full of energy. Audiences loved him, and he loved them.

Travelling with Eric you also became aware that under this carefree exterior was a very talented, well-schooled, totally professional musician of the highest order. He had gone to the High School of Music and Arts in New York (where he met Happy Traum), had learned how to play the banjo from Pete Seeger, studied bass at Juilliard—all while a teenager. He could arrange on the spot, which made him much in demand for jingles. The great choral arranger Robert Decormier called on Eric to perform some of his most difficult pieces live. Artists like Judy Collins, John Denver and Art Garfunkel insisted that Eric play on their records and join them on tour. He loved to travel—a lot of it on motorcycle—across America, across Europe—the Rockies, the Alps—he loved it all.
Probably most people identify Eric with “Dueling Banjos” from the movie “Deliverance.” Of course, no one, least of all Eric, knew what a colossal hit that would become. For him it was just another session which he invited his friend Steve Mandel to play guitar on. Eric was always getting his friends in on sessions. He spread a lot of work around. When the record hit, he had to throw a band together fast, so he asked me to do it because he knew I knew a lot of songs that we could do pretty much on the spot. I’ll never forget the night when the record was #1 in the country, we were in Boston. The record company was paying for everything. We could have gone to the fanciest restaurant in town. We had a limo at our disposal. But where did Eric want to go? Jack & Marian’s Delicatessen in Brookline. Had to have some pastrami and matzoh ball soup!

In Woodstock for several years there was a weekly bluegrass session at the Harmony restaurant. Bill Keith did it until his health started to fail and then Eric stepped in. This was not about money or playing to a large audience, it was about playing and singing for the sheer joy of it and the camaraderie. Eric never lost that. Even after he was unable to play, Brian Hollander and the guys from the Harmony would come to Eric and Juliette’s house to have a session. When we could, Happy Traum and I would join them. I would sing many of the songs from the “Sweet Moments” album, and Eric would mouth the words under his breath, always keeping time with his hand or his foot. Sometimes at the end of a song he would let out a big YEAHHH! When I would sing “Hitchiker” a song he had written, he would sometimes ask, “Whose song?” I would say, “Your song. You wrote it.” and he would smile his big smile, “ME?” “Yes, Eric, You.” Every time when I was leaving I would give Eric a big hug and sing in his ear, “I Love You So Much It Hurts Me,” and he’d flash me a big smile. Tonight it really hurts, but Eric’s smile won’t let me stay down. Thanks for that, my friend.

March 30, 2020

[Note: Hal passed on November 23, 2020 . Here is an obituary from ROLLING STONE ]

Friends, Some of the best recordings I was ever involved with producing were with Hal Ketchum (co-produced with Allen Reynolds). Songs like “Small Town Saturday Night,” “Past The Point of Rescue,” “Mama Knows The Highway,””Five O’Clock World,” Hal’s own “I Know Where Love Lives” and “Someplace Far Away” sound as fresh today as when they were recorded nearly 30 years ago. All of those vocals were cut live. Hal gave every song everything he had. Today Hal is battling illness on several fronts and has finally had to stop performing.

Note: To help Hal with his mounting medical bills, there was a sold-out tribute concert this weekend for Hal at the famous Gruene Hall.was also a successful Go-Fund-Me campaign.

To listen/download the Rooney Royalton Radio show dedicated to Hal click here.

Past the Point of Rescue – Hal Ketchum

1944-2019

Dear Friends, It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that Arty McGlynn, my dear friend and musical collaborator over the past twenty years has passed away. I started working with Arty when I was producing an album with Sean Keane in 1998. I was new to Ireland and it was Arty who introduced me to some of the top musicians like Rod McVey and James Blennerhasset. Sean’s album “No Stranger” was very successful and Arty and I collaborated on two more albums with Sean as well as one with Charley Landsborough. For many years Arty, Mick Daly and I played gigs in Ireland, often with his wife the brilliant fiddler Nollaig Casey joining us. Arty had complete command of his instrument. He started out at the age of 14 in Irish show bands. After 18 years (!!) he moved on to become Van Morrison’s band leader for 7 years. It was after that that he made an acoustic traditional solo record called “McGlynn’s Fancy,” which changed the way everyone thought about the guitar in traditional Irish music. What moved me most about Arty’s playing was his approach to slow airs, so settled, so melodic, so deeply internal. He had no equal. In company Arty could be devastatingly funny in a very understated way. I could go on, but suffice it to say that I was blessed to have Arty as a friend and will always treasure the music we made together and the time we had together. God bless Arty McGlynn

Listen/Download to Rooney Royalton Radio show dedicated to Arty McGlynn here

Friends, If you’d like to get a taste of what Arty McGlynn was like go to YouTube where you can find a clip from one of our nights at Coughlan’s in Cork

and a classic clip from the Fiddler’s fest in Baltimore where Arty introduces some tunes (which he never plays!)

Impeccable playing on the former, unequaled hilarious Irish story telling in the latter.

Obituary from IRISH TIMES

January 25, 2020

When I was first in Nashville in 1974, David Olney, along with Townes Van Zandt, Richard Dobson and the crew that hung out at Bishop’s, was obviously a kindred spirit. Like myself, David was originally from the Northeast–Rhode Island–and I suppose we shared some of that somewhat harsher, slightly cynical outlook on life that set us apart from most southerners. David liked his music raw. He reminded me a lot of Eric Von Schmidt that way. When he had his rock and roll band The X-Rays, it was an all-out, no holds barred affair. Over the years, Olney, along with Pat McLaughlin, Sam Bush and others had been part of The Nashville Jug Band, fronted by an absolutely manic, fabulous character named Ed Dye. One of my crowning moments as a recording engineer had come when I recorded the Jug Band’s album for Rounder. If there ever was one, this was a “live” recording, with people all over the studio singing and playing as if they were on fire. In charge of this menagerie was a lovely, quiet, soft-spoken journalist/guitar player named Tommy Goldsmith. I guess I had gained Tommy’s confidence as a result of that experience, because he called me up one day and asked if I’d be interested in working with him as a co-producer on an album with Dave. Without being aware of it, this was something I had hoped would happen for a long time.

Our approach on this album was sort of a combination of jug band music and country blues. The players included Stephanie Davis, who played the unlikely combination of fiddle and trumpet; the ever funky Mike Henderson on National steel body guitar and mandolin; Pat McLaughlin, also very funky, on his own style of jug band mandolin; Tommy Goldsmith and Dave on acoustic guitars.; and the rock solid combination of Roy Huskey and Kenny Malone on upright bass and drums. Right from the start, David took no prisoners with a southern epic combining General Robert E. Lee and a bad, bad girl named Bama Lou. Maybe southern rock was what they were all fighting for. There were ample helpings of Dave’s sarcastic wit in songs like “Luckiest Man” (“Your life stinks, but my life’s just like a dream”), “Love’s Been Linked To The Blues” (“In case you haven’t heard, I’ll give you the bad news/ Love’s been linked to the blues”). As I had learned years earlier in my own life, a steady stream of sarcasm, no matter how witty, can pall after a while, but underneath that hard shell of David’s was an insistence on the truth and endurance of love as expressed in the lyrics of the title song “Roses.”

The old oak tree began to shudder
But he held his ground like some old soldier
His ancient pride was burnt and shaken
But something deep inside did waken
He raised his limbs just like Moses
And blossomed roses
He blossomed roses

That image still stays with me. That was David Olney.
In the liner notes to that album Townes Van Zandt wrote:
A songwriter myself, I have considered David a benchmark of sorts. Lyrically, contextually. If I can proudly play a new song for him, I can play it for anyone. He has unknowingly helped to keep my standards high.

Thank you, David, and God bless you.

November 29, 2019

Jim Rooney, Don Everly, Phillip Donnelly

A great spirit left this earth yesterday. Our dear friend Phillip Donnelly passed on. Phillip had a deep belief and a boundless capacity for wonder, so I am happy for him to be where he finds himself now. I met Phillip back in 1978 at Jack Clement’s house on Belmont Boulevard in Nashville—The Cowboy Arms Hotel & Recording Spa. On that very first day we recorded “I Recall A Gypsy Woman” and “No Expectations” with Rachel Peer on bass and Tony Newman on drums. It was my first time to experience the energy that flowed through Phillip into his guitar. From that time on we spent many hours together playing and recording with Don Everly & The Dead Cowboys, Richard Dobson, Nanci Griffith, and John Prine. Recordings like “The Ballad of Robin Wintersmith,” “The Wing and the Wheel,” “More Than A Whisper,” “Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness” (by both John Prine and Nanci Griffith) “Linda’s Gone To Mars,” “Aimless Love,” and countless others bear the unmistakable sound of Phillip’s guitar, and in that way he will always be with us. I won’t attempt to describe the effect Phillip had on those around him except to say that it was similar to being near a super charged electric field. He could wear you out with it, but it was something we all wanted and needed in our lives. Thank God for bringing Phillip to us. Farewell, my friend. 

from Facebook 17 October 2018

with Bob at The Station Inn

Sometimes surprises can happen right under your nose. Since my early days of engineering at Jack Clement’s I had occasionally been forced to work with a character named Bob White. Every scene has someone like Bob. A person with no visible means of support, who is always ready to party, who has some mysterious attraction for women.

Sometimes Bob would disappear and in his place was a suave, debonair Continental named Roberto Bianco, “The Romantic Voice Of Our Time.” Roberto had a voice like Julio Iglesias, only slightly more unctuous. Jack “Stack-A-Track” Grochmal had started a recording project with Roberto and his lifelong friend, the saxophonist Jay Patten, and they had recorded a couple of incredible tracks–“My Soon To Be Former Wife (Wants 50% Of My Life)” and “Quando Condo.” Barry Manilow eat your heart out! It fell to me to record some of Roberto’s more standard fare, including a synth-laden “Cara Mia,” which positively dripped olive oil. Sadly, Roberto’s management absconded with the tickets for his world tour, and he became a rather pathetic figure haunting places like Brown’s Diner and The Gold Rush cadging drinks and hors d’oeuvres, surrounded by adoring women!

One night Roberto did a set with Michael Johnson as part of one of my birthday parties at the Station Inn. Michael had had a pop hit with “Bluer Than Blue” in the ’70’s and some wonderful Country Hits like “Give Me Wings” and “The Moon Is Still Over Her Shoulder” in the ’80’s. I loved those records and his voice and liked him as a person. Almost unnoticed by me was the fact that he was an extraordinary guitarist. He
played a Spanish style, gut string guitar and actually studied guitar in Spain for a period.

On this night at my birthday party Michael played beautiful accompaniment to Roberto’s “Moonlight In Vermont,” which he did for my wife Carol (married women were especially susceptible to Roberto’s “charms”). Afterwards I suggested that Roberto and Michael should work up some standards and record them–just the two of them. They took me up on my suggestion and started seriously working on some songs. Mark Miller offered to record them at Jack’s Tracks any time they wanted, so they eventually got to the point where they were ready.

By then I was in Ireland, but they went ahead without me. I had learned the art of producing from afar from Jack Clement. They would send me a CD with the day’s results and I would either say, “Yes.” Or “Do it again.” I wanted everything to be “live.” I didn’t want any fixes or splices, so it wasn’t easy, but, by God, they kept at it until they had a flawless collection of great songs, with beautifully subtle, intricate, and elegant guitar accompaniment surrounding Roberto’s velvety rich and true vocals. I was so proud of him for doing this. This was no joke. He and Michael had surprised me and lots of other people with a rare and wonderful work, appropriately titled: “Always.”

Comment by Jay Patten (saxophonist, longtime band leader for Crystal Gayle)
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I got you to engineer and record “Cara Mia “ ,” Love Me With All Your Heart” and “Speak Softly Love” . The band was Charles Cochran, Chris Leuzinger, Toni Sehulster, and Tommy Wells. Pebble Daniel, Marsha Wood, and Vickie Carrico put some great vocals on the tracks.

Before then Bob and I had Thanksgiving Dinner with my parents in Clearwater ,Florida .
My family loved Bob Biles [ed. – Roberto’s legal name] since our high school days. I said to my beautiful Italian mother
“You know mom, Bob has changed his name to Bob White .”
She said “ you know in Italian, that’s Roberto Bianco .”
Bob and I looked at each other …and I thought a TV album! Bob had a glorious voice and thought Cowboy would love the idea and would let us use his studio.

There was an ad for some movie with a quote like “the most important film of our time.” On the car ride from Florida to Nashville, Bob became Roberto Bianco “The Romantic Voice Of Our Time and he couldn’t wait to tell everybody in town.
Within days he had all of his many many friends calling him Roberto.
I booked some studio time and I went back on the road with Crystal . While I was away a wonderful thing happened. Jack Stack a Track, David Ferguson, Toni , Lanny Boles , Ralph Vitello recorded an amazingly huge funny track on “Soon To Be Former Wife.” The project turned into a really creative comedy musical projectwith some great ballad tracks included.

Bob Biles, Bob White and Roberto Bianco was the most naturally funny and delightful person I’ve ever known. I will miss him.

TENNESSEAN obit

Friends, last week I had the great pleasure of being invited out to the 35th Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV, and having an onstage “conversation” with my old friend Marty Stuart.

Singing “Let’s All Help The Cowboy Sing The Blues” at the 35th Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV

We covered a lot of the highlights of Marty’s career starting when he went to work for Lester Flatt at age 14, and after Lester died moving on to be part of Johnny Cash’s band and finally going out on his own to become Marty Stuart. We talked about all he had learned from Lester and Johnny, about how to treat people, how to respect tradition without being bound up by it, about music as a force for change in the world, and about his collaboration with his band The Fabulous Superlatives–who are, indeed, fabulous and superlative, as was made very clear when they performed for the cowboys and girls that night.
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They were the living embodiment of a group immersed in tradition who are carrying that tradition forward into the future. They brought the house down and gave everybody something to remember. I’m so happy that Marty took me up on my suggestion that he would really appreciate the Gathering. He is still following his heart wherever it takes him.

Double CD of the 2004 Gathering:

I have just heard of the passing of my dear friend, Mickey Clark. Mickey and I worked on two albums together which are among the best I have produced and albums that I listen to again and again.

Here is what I wrote in 2008 in a note for the first album “Winding Highways.”

            Sometime last winter I got a message from my old friend Sam Bush asking if it was alright if he gave my phone number to his friend Mickey Clark, who was wanting to get in touch with me about making a record. About the same time I got a call from another old friend, Jerry Jeff Walker, also asking me if I’d get in touch with Mickey Clark. Who was this Mickey Clark? The name rang a bell, but I wasn’t quite placing him until Jerry mentioned that Mickey had lived in Nashville back in the late ’70’s and early ’80’s when he was writing songs at the Glaser Brothers (as had John Hartford) and Combine Music (as had my friends Chris Gantry, Lee Clayton and Guy & Susanna Clark). Back then I was part of “Cowboy” Jack Clement’s musical family and was also circulating nightly around the bars where all of us were hanging out–Bishop’s Pub, Friday’s, The Exit/In, The Gold Rush. Mickey and I passed like ships in the night back then, but the time was not yet right for us to get together.  Sam and Jerry Jeff were basically telling me that the time was now. How right they were.

            I hadn’t talked to Mickey for five minutes when I knew we were kindred spirits. He was very sincere and open when he told me that he had been wanting to make the kind of album that I had made with people like Jerry Jeff, Nanci Griffith, Iris Dement and John Prine. Would I be willing to give him a chance? I didn’t hesitate. His faith in himself and his honesty compelled me to say, “Yes.”

            As we worked together over the next months, it continually amazed me how it was that we had both traveled such similar paths in life without ever really connecting until now. Like me, Mickey was part of the folk music scene in the ’60’s. We both played some in Greenwich Village, in Toronto, and the small coffeehouses of the time. Like me, Mickey was picking up songs from the other troubadours he encountered along the way. Songs like “Louise,” “Night Rider’s Lament,” “Goodnight-Loving Trail” and “Windigo” come out of this period. Like me, Mickey began to write his own songs and followed his heart to Nashville to work on his craft and see if he could have some luck. “Bound To Lovin’ You,” “In The Blink of an Eye” and “Don’t Piss On My Boots and Tell Me It’s Rainin'” (written with good friend Jim Zerface) all stand up to the Nashville test.
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            However, luck in the form of a hit song eluded Mickey, as it had me. I went into engineering and producing and music publishing while continuing to write and play because I loved it. Mickey and his wife Sandy returned to his hometown of Louisville where his other passion in life, basketball, led him to work with the University of Louisville Cardinals. But Mickey could never give up on music. He had to write. He had to sing and play because he loved it. A film project gave him the opportunity to write about his home area and gave us “Red Velvet Cake,” “Shanty Boat Bill,” and “Where The Green River Flows.” Mickey became an important part of Louisville’s music scene, playing regularly around town and occasionally at old haunts in Texas and out west. “Rodeo Fool,” “Wyoming Child,” and “Tijuana Tequila” would serve Mickey well in many a honkytonk.

            All those years add up. Some people get worn down, but not Mickey. If anything, he’s more focused than ever. The songs he sings and writes tell stories about real people, their ups, their downs. They are full of compassion, love of life and laughter. Joining Mickey to help him tell these stories was a wonderful group of well-travelled friends–Turley Richards, Sam Bush, Tim Krekel, Robin & Linda Williams, Jerry Jeff Walker, Kinky Friedman and John Prine. Some say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. Mickey has kept company with some of the best. When he called, they did not hesitate. They were ready to join their friend in this celebration of a life lived in song. I was proud to join them. They probably realize more than most what it means to live such a life without losing faith. Mickey Clark has kept the faith.

                                                                        –Jim Rooney

                                                                            September, 2008

Mickey guesting with The Irregulars Shawn Camp, Jim Rooney

As I got to know Mickey better over the years my description of him as a man of faith seemed truer and truer. My last visit with Mickey and his wife Sandy was in Nashville in late May. Cancer had definitely taken its toll on Mickey’s body. Just walking across the street to a restaurant was a major effort requiring him to stop frequently to gather his strength, but once seated in a booth, the smile came back and Mickey’s indomitable optimism shone through. We talked about the work we had done together and how my little grandson Nason wanted to hear Mickey Clark every time he got into the car. When Nason went with his parents Sonya and Jason to one of Mickey’s gigs in Louisville Mickey would let Nason get up and do his “sound check” –“check, check 1, 2, 1, 2.” Just that simple act of paying attention to a 3-year old was pure Mickey Clark. Shortly before Mickey passed I wrote him that though he would be leaving us physically,  he will live on in little Nason’s heart. What a legacy! He will live on in my heart as well, and the hearts of so many he has touched with his music and his faith in life. God bless Mickey Clark!

Joe Val

I was delighted to get the news that the IBMA will be inducting Joe Val into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame on October 18, 2018 as part of the opening ceremonies for the new Bluegrass Museum in Owensboro, KY.

Fritz Richmond, Jim Rooney , Joe Val, Herb Applin, Bill Keith @ Club 47, 1962

I first saw Joe when he was in a band called the Radio Rangers on the WCOP Hayloft Jamboree in Boston in the early ‘50’s. However it wasn’t until early 1962 that Bill Keith and I met Joe. He and his musical partner Herb Applin came in to hear Bill and me play a concert at a small church in Boston. At the time we were playing one night a week with Fritz Richmond backing us up on washtub bass at the Club 47 coffeehouse in Cambridge. After chatting with Joe and Herb I suggested that they come by our apartment in Cambridge to jam. They took us up on my suggestion and it took us no time at all to realize that we suddenly had the makings of a full bluegrass band. In the Radio Rangers Joe had been playing electric guitar and singing country songs, but now he was playing mandolin and really into Bill Monroe’s style of singing. Herb played fiddle and guitar and also sang tenor. We immediately asked Joe and Herb to play with us at the Club 47, and we were off and running. Bill Keith was working on developing his chromatic approach to the banjo; we now were able to work up trios and gospel quartets; Joe’s high vocals stopped the show every time we played. All of us were on fire with the music we were making. By October we were ready to record under the direction of budding producer Paul Rothchild. The result, “Living On The Mountain” (Prestige/Folklore) was the first time the world got to hear Joe Val.
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Joe had been playing in the honkytonks of Boston for years, and it was a totally different experience for him to play for young people who were really listening. It really recharged his batteries. We all appreciated that Joe had really paid his dues and still stayed totally dedicated to his music.

But there was more than music to Joe. His modesty and quiet sense of humor made it a pleasure to be around him. Slowly but surely he worked his way into our hearts and at Christmas time in 1962 a group of us all got together and gave Joe a Gibson F model mandolin, a big step up with his Gibson A “Tater Bug”. We all understood that a good instrument would make a world of difference to Joe, and it did. When Bill Keith went off to join Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys and I went to Greece on a Fulbright Fellowship,  Joe joined the Charles River Valley Boys and recorded the legendary album “Beatle Country.” Joe’s high tenor vocals on the Beatles songs were electrifying. In the course of time Joe’s confidence steadily grew and he finally got to the  place where he wanted to start his own band which he called “The New England Bluegrass Boys.” Joe had the blessing of Bill Monroe to use the “Bluegrass Boys” name. He was very proud of who he was and where he came from. He wanted people to know that Bluegrass now knew no geographical bounds.

In his wildest dreams Joe Val, modest and unassuming as he was, would never have imagined that more than 30 years after his death there would be one of the most successful Bluegrass Festivals held in his honor and that he would be joining his hero Bill Monroe and former musical bandmate Bill Keith in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. It’s hard for me to believe that our little band that played at the Club 47 back in 1962 would produce two members of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. As Joe might have observed, “Jamie, who would have thunk it!!!!

Album (and memoir cover shot)

Another era in Nashville comes to close later this July when Jim McGuire closes up his shop, “Nashville Portraits” photography studio on 8th Ave. South. Coming to Nashville in the early ‘70’s, McGuire (or Señor McGuire) befriended and photographed the amazing array of talented individuals who made Nashville such a creative hotbed for the next 45 years.

John Prine (1982)

Jim with Tom Paxton

My own history with McGuire goes back to some time in 1968. He was living down on the Lower East Side. I was working for the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals and also living in New York. When Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles” came out we invited him and David Bromberg to play at the Newport Folk Festival and it’s possible that I met him at a party at McGuire’s apartment at that time. In addition to starting to work as a photographer McGuire played a bit of dobro and lap steel. He loved to have people over to pick. Sometime in early 1969 Izzy Young, famed proprietor of the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village, asked Bill Keith and me to put together a concert at the Methodist Church in Washington Square. In addition to the banjo, Bill by this time was working at mastering the pedal steel guitar, so we decided to do a concert of half bluegrass and half country and asked Eric Weissberg and Richard Greene to join us We called ourselves the Blue Velvet Band. McGuire came to the concert and took a rare photograph of all four of us playing together.

Blue Velvet Band (1969)

In late 1973 I came through Nashville and decided to stay for a few months. McGuire was already there, and we started hanging out together. He was immersing himself in the new music that was bubbling up in Nashville in the wake of Kris Kristofferson, John Hartford, and Mickey Newbury. Through McGuire I met Tracy Nelson (“Mother Earth”) and John Hiatt. We both got to be friends with the gang of Houston songwriters camping out at Bishop’s Pub on West End Avenue—Guy & Susanna Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, Richard Dobson.

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Guy and Susanna Clark

McGuire got himself a small place on Wyoming Avenue in Sylvan Park and set up a studio with the first of his signature canvas backdrops and started photographing everyone. None of us knew at the time that we were making history—we were living hand to mouth, day by day—but it has turned out to be history, and McGuire’s portraits are truly revealing of the characters who were making that history. He was one of us and had the ability to put us at ease as he set about to do his work. He was an artist; he was professional; he cared. He stayed with it for half a century. How lucky we were to have him there with us.

Keith and Rooney (1974)

Keith and Rooney (1980)

McGuire’s archive has been acquired by Opryland, who will be making it available in various ways into the future. After one final party at the studio, McGuire will be heading out to who knows where—probably somewhere with a horsetrack and some music. We wish him well and offer a heartfelt thanks for his friendship and commitment to our music and his help in telling our story.

Jim and Carol

(Note: this web site exhibits other examples of McGuire’s work see the Home page and the Bandmates page)