Jim Rooney Productions

April 29, 2015

I first laid eyes on Tex in 1953. It was in the studios of WCOP in Boson. My buddy Dick Curley and I had found our way in to the radio station after hearing the Confederate Mountaineers (Everett & Bea Lilly, Don Stover & Tex) on their daily  radio broadcasts and deciding that we wanted to see them in person. Tex cut quite a figure, tall & handsome in a Clark Gable sort of way, and very physical as he moved in on the mike with his fiddle.  When he played, he put everything he had into it. I’d never heard anything like it before–or since. I wouldn’t have known it then, but I was witnessing a totally original musician. The one and only Tex Logan.

In the weeks following I saw Tex several times on the Hayloft Jamboree shows at Symphony Hall or, most memorably, on the night of my brother John’s graduation from Harvard, at a joint called the Mohawk Ranch on the corner of Dartmouth Street & Columbus Avenue in Boston. Even in a place like this, Tex would give you something to remember him by. It was a sound that would get in your head and stay there.
In subsequent years I saw Tex when he sat in with Bill Monroe in New York in late 1962 and later in 1964 in Boston. At a party after Monroe’s concert in Boston Tex jammed all night with Joe Val, Peter Rowan and myself. Tex wouldn’t stop. He kept going. He wouldn’t let his fiddle go. It possessed him.

Over the years we became friends. Tex and his daughter Jody came to Bill Monroe’s festival at Beanblossom, Indiana, every year. Whenever Bill Monroe was in the New York area, Tex would have a big party for Bill at his house in Madison, NJ. Tex would take a couple of days off from work (from the Bell Labs where he was dreaming up communications gadgets which would change our lives). He would put on a white lab coat and spend two days cooking up Texas barbecue. A couple of hundred people would come–musicians from all over the Northeast, co-workers at Bell–and after we all ate, the music would start. Tex had a big Tudor-style house with a big room in the middle just right for music. He’d have a sound system set up, and off we’d go. The whole point of the night was to stay up until dawn with Tex and Bill Monroe. It was a “take no prisoners” situation. I think that those times were what Tex lived for. He had to go to the limit.
For about 10 years I had my 50th birthday party at the Station Inn. One year Tex and Jody were in town and I invited them to come on. To my great surprise they did come down, bringing Bill Monroe with them. Needless to say, that might have been my best birthday present ever! But Tex did something I’ll never forget. He asked if he could use the telephone and called his wife Peggy up and held the telephone up the entire time so she could hear our set with Bill Monroe! Only Tex Logan would have done that.
In the early ’80’s Bill Keith, Peter Rowan and I did some tours in Italy. We especially loved playing in Naples where the people are very warm and demonstrative. One night we were talking and it occurred to us that the Neapolitans would really take to Tex and his playing. The more we thought about it, the more we liked it, so we called Tex up and invited him to come with us for our next visit to Naples. We played in a big tent which held about 1500 people. From the moment Tex started to play they were on their feet, whistling, yelling. Tex’s music was their music–from the heart, from deep down inside.

The last time that I saw Tex was at his 85th birthday party organized by Jody. It was a wonderful night of music, but the highlight for me was when Tex got up and played  “Sally Goodin” for about twenty minutes. He took his time getting up. As always, he was dressed impeccably–hat on at just the right angle, pants with a crease you could cut butter with, boots shined. He fussed with his fiddle, fussed with his amp, started playing, making faces because it didn’t sound right, then he leaned into it, he bore down, and never let it go. There it was. That sound. That Tex Logan sound. Cross tunings like nobody else had. He pushed it. He pulled it. He finally let it go. That was it for me. Nearly 60 years earlier I had first heard that sound. It pulled me into the path I have followed ever since. Thanks, Tex
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P.S. I’m supposed to say, “Rest in Peace.” but that wasn’t Tex’s style. He was full of energy and restlessness. Always reaching. But he’s got lots of time and space to move around in now–to keep reaching for that sound he always heard in his head.

Much love to Jody–a better daughter no father ever had.
Jim Rooney

A 1978 local New Jersey profile and interview

Another link in the chain is broken. Jean Ritchie has left this world. Jean was a dear friend, surrogate mother and teacher to my wife Carol Langstaff. Carol’s mother Diane Hamilton and Jean were good friends. Jean was a role model for Diane as a collector and recorder of the songs she carried with her from her home and family in Viper, Kentucky. She brought those songs to the world when she came to New York and joined up with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Almanac Singers, and Oscar Brand, among others. If you want to get an idea of where Jean came from, read her account of her early days in Kentucky, “Singing Family of the Cumberlands.” She paints a vivid picture of a life that was short of material goods, but rich in its culture, which is what Jean took away with her. An audio account of this life is beautifully captured in a Folkways recording that Jean made in 1958 and which is still available, “The Ritchie Family of Kentucky.”

However, Jean was more than a carrier of her culture, she was a messenger who had to tell the world of the forces which were destroying that culture. She wrote songs which told the sad story–songs which have been taken up by artists from Pete Seeger to Hazel Dickens to Kathy Mattea: “Black Waters,” “Blue Diamond Mines,” “West Virginia Mine Disaster,” “Last Old Train’s A Leaving.” Jean was a red-head and had a temper. She had no time for those who put profit ahead of people. Here is what Jean had to say in the liner notes to her album “Clear Waters Remembered.”

            “For this is the day of the giant bulldozer, the hideous grinding auger, machinery of the strip-miner, and the smoke and the dust of them hang like a pall of sorrow over the ridges and hollers of Eastern Kentucky. This is the time when the sins of past generations have caught up with us.

            For my mother’s father, Grandpa Hall, it was an unwitting sin. He, along with almost all his neighbors, sold the mineral rights to his land to the friendly, likeable man who said he represented a company who thought there might be a little coal on our land worth getting out. The company, he said, was willing to take a big chance and pay Grandpa fifty cents an acre, and, since Grandpa had better than a thousand acres, this amounted to around five hundred dollars, a handsome sum in those days. For a man with a dozen children, it was also impossible to refuse.

            Mom says that her father signed an agreement to give up coal rights only, but I looked up the old longform deed in the Hazard courthouse, and it now reads to include all minerals, even salt water, and has a guarantee from the farmer to grant access to the mines. Grandpa and his neighbors had no way of foreseeing that mining would not always take place underground, leaving the surface unspoiled.

            To my mind, then, the sins are upon the heads of the strip miners and their collaborators, whose consciences let them maul the land and haul out, severance-tax-free, untold millions of dollars worth of Appalachia’s great natural resources (in addition to the strip mine which has gashed up one of my own beautiful ridges and left erosion, ruined timber and a dead stream; our property also has two natural-gas wells, and we have to pay for the privilege of having gas in our home). We pay tax on the land, what’s left of it, and the people who still live on their land are faced with poor schools, a scarcity of decent jobs, and an increasingly scarred and mutilated landscape.

……Today’s children will call me old fashioned. They are right, but I’m hip enough to know it, and I make no apology for what I feel, say, or sing. Indeed it is my hope that these few poor songs, small voices in the wilderness, may help in the long road we have ahead of us to right those evils we have let happen to people and to nature.”

Jean never gave up that fight until the day she died. She wanted no money spent on flowers to remember her by; she asked that contributions in her name be made to: Appalachian Voices, 125 Grand Blvd., Boone, NC 28607, or visit their website: www.appalachianvoices.org.

Over the years my wife Carol often closed her Flock Dance Troupe performances with Jean’s song “Now Is The Cool of the Day.” It calls on us to look after and care for the beautiful garden of creation, which we all have inherited and share. Pay attention to the words and remember Jean Ritchie.

 
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And my Lord, He said unto me, Do you like my garden so fair?

You may live in this garden, if you keep the grasses green, and I’ll return in the cool of the day

And my Lord, He said unto me, Do you like my garden so pure?

You may live in this garden, if you keep the waters clean, and I’ll return in the cool of the day

Now is the cool of the day, Now is the cool of the day, Oh, this earth it is a garden, the garden of my Lord, and he walks in His garden in the cool of the day

And my Lord, He said unto me, Do you like my pastures so green?

You may live in this garden, if you will feed my lambs, and I’ll return in the cool of the day

And my Lord, He said unto me, Do you like my garden so free?

You may live in this garden, if you keep the people free, and I’ll return in the cool of the day

Now is the cool of the day, Now is the cool of the day. Oh, this earth is a garden, the garden of my Lord, and he walks in His garden In the cool of the day; yes, he walks in His garden

In the cool of the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua0QuXO4wgE

May 8, 2015

Yesterday morning I got the news that my dear friend Herb McCullough had passed away at his home in Florida. Herb (or Herbal as my girl friend Judy liked to call him) and I went back a long way to our early days in Nashville in the mid-’70’s. We were living the honkytonk life at the time, hanging out in a beer joint called the Kountry Korner on Music Row. I think both of us eventually figured out that we didn’t want to wind up as miserable as a lot of the guys at the bar who never tired of telling you how much they loved their kids while they ordered another beer. We left that life behind and started spending our time with more positive, creative people.

Herb 1976

In the course of time our paths crossed in a serious way after I had started a publishing company called Forerunner Music with Allen Reynolds, Terrell Tye and Mark Miller. Herb came by one day and said that he wanted to join us as a writer just because he liked us and trusted us. He also introduced us to a young writer he had befriended named Shawn Camp. Shawn had been going through a tough time as a result of a record deal with a major label that wasn’t what he hoped it would be. Shawn was all about music. The label people were all about marketing. Herb helped Shawn recover his confidence and his belief in himself just by being a friend–a friend who would listen, a friend who would quietly encourage, a friend who wanted nothing more than to help. In time that friendship would manifest itself in songs like “Travellin’ Teardrop Blues”

Herb McCullough with Shawn Camp

One day Herb turned his attention to me. I was totally immersed in our publishing company, listening to songs, demoing songs, producing records. Herb decided I needed help. It was January and he stuck his head in my little office in the basement of Jack’s Tracks and announced to me that he’d made a New Year’s resolution to write a song that year with every writer in the house, and then–looking me in the eye–“including you!” Right away I started backing up, telling Herb how busy I was, how I hadn’t written a song in years–blah, blah, blah. “Does that mean you won’t do it?” For a quiet guy Herb had some steel in him. “No, of course not, Herb. I’ll do it when I get the time.” He made me get out a calendar and we made a time. The day came, but I was busy mixing an album. Herb came in to my office. “I see you blew our writing appointment off.” So he made me pick a new time. He wasn’t going to let me go.

Herb’s Forerunner showcase at Douglas Corner Cafe 1994: Dennis Crouch-bass, David Schnaufer-dulcimer, Herb, Kenny Malone-drums, Shawn Camp-mandolin, Joy Lynn White-vocals

Finally, we got in the writing room together and Herb and I started talking about things like the true friends we were. I had been spending time in Ireland and he was curious about the situation there where Catholics and Protestants were still blowing each other up. Before long, we had our guitars in our hands and a song called “Point of View” came out. This is part of it:

If your future’s in the past

There’s no need for you to ask

Which road you’re on or where you’re going.

Is that the best that you can do

When your child looks up at you

Herb and drummer Pat McInerney

With hopeful eyes, such hopeful eyes Maybe in the back of our minds we were recalling those losers at the bar. When we were done, we were both happy with the results, but Herb still had to drag me back in there to write another. This time we definitely focused on our early time together. This is what came out

If misery loves company

You’ll never be alone

He’s always out there calling you

You never stay at home

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Trying to play it smart

You never see the sunshine

‘Cause you’re too busy stabbing in the dark

When you’re living on the devil’s level

You’re living on the devil’s time

When you’re living on the devil’s level

He’s gonna make you walk that line

Yes, he will make you walk that line

He will make you walk that line We didn’t leave it there, though:

Someday you’ll meet an angel

She’ll teach you how to fly

You’ll walk out on that party

Never even say goodbye

Was that glass half empty

Or is that glass half full

It’s hard work, but it’s worth it

The choice is up to you

The choice is up to you, boy

The choice is up to you Herb made that choice. In his case that angel was his wife Joann. Every single day he thanked her for her love and support. Herb had plenty to give to others, but sometimes he didn’t have a lot to give to himself. He didn’t take life easy. It pained him to see people in need, and he felt obliged to help. In his last years he spent a lot of his time and energy bringing music and friendship to those who were in hospice care. Faced with his own health problems in the end Herb had nothing left to give, so he passed on. I know I will not be the only one to say, when asked about Herb, “He was a help to me.” I will never forget him.

Herb and Joann

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One of the things I don’t like about getting old is that more and more of my friends are leaving this world.

While in Nashville recently I was driving home in my car one night listening to Eddie Stubbs on WSM and was shocked to hear him say that George Hamilton IV had had a heart attack and had passed away. I had a special place in my heart for George. In early 1978 Allen Reynolds called me up. He was making an album with George. They had recorded my song “Only The Best,” and he was inviting me over to Jack’s Tracks to listen to it. What a thrill it was to be in that control room listening to that mix! I’d been in Nashville less than a year. I’d known George since the time we invited him to come to the Newport Folk Festival in the late ’60’s. George had been one of the country artists who had made the connection with the folk revival with hits like “Abilene,” “Early Morning Rain,” and “Last Thing On My Mind.” When I had sent him a letter inviting him to the festival and explaining how we paid $50/day, I received a very nice, hand written letter back from him saying how honored he was to be asked and here was his $50! I set him straight on that, but he was a genuinely humble, self-effacing man. There was not a false bone in his body. So my song brought us back together. I was doubly honored that Allen, who was such an accomplished songwriter himself and a serious judge of songs, had thought enough of “Only The Best” to record it. After we had listened, he then told me that they were going to recommend to the label that it be released as a single. Two or three months later I was up in the Northeast driving somewhere. It was a Saturday night, so I made a stab at tuning in WSM. Almost immediately through the static I heard George singing, “She was only the best, No need to sit here and cry” I couldn’t help it. My eyes filled up and I had to pull over. A dream had come true.

FEELS LIKE A MILLION (Anchor Records UK 1978) with “Only the Best”

During the time Carol and I were in Ireland, George would always call when he was touring and have me get up and sing with him if he was close by. The last time I saw him was when we had a book party at the Station Inn for “In It For The Long Run.” George wouldn’t let me give him a copy. He insisted on buying two! Then he got up and sang “Abilene” and “Only The Best”–as it turned out, for the last time. A truer man would be hard to find.

George Hamilton IV at Grand Ole Opry 1950s (photo by Les Leverett)

When I first met Paul Craft he was playing banjo with Jimmy Martin. An odder couple would be hard to imagine! It mattered not at all to Jimmy that Paul had a seriously high IQ (he was a member of Mensa). He was a straight ahead banjo player. That’s all that mattered. Our paths crossed seriously when I first lived in Nashville in 1974. By this time Paul was beginning to establish himself as a songwriter and had become involved with banjo player Ben Eldredge and John Starling who had a new Bluegrass group called the Seldom Scene. They recorded Paul’s song “Keep Me From Blowing Away” and introduced the song to Linda Ronstadt, who also recorded it.

One night I ran into Paul and he invited me to come along with him down to The Pickin’ Parlor on 2nd Avenue. On the way we stopped at a hotel and picked up Linda Ronstadt! I had met Linda when the Stone Poneys played at the Club 47. Before the night was over we were all on the stage at the Pickin’ Parlor singing “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” and “Keep Me From Blowing Away.” When I came back to Nashville in 1976 and hooked up with Don Everly, Paul often joined us for Sunday afternoons at Don’s apartment where we enjoyed some great food and conversation. Paul had one of the liveliest minds of anyone I know. He loved wordplay. When Don recorded a solo album on Hickory Records Paul’s song “Brother Jukebox” was the title song of the album. Paul summed up the sad story of a man with a broken heart. All the family he had left was “Brother Jukebox, Sister Wine, Mother Freedom and Father Time.” Brilliant.

STRICTLY COUNTRY RECORDS (Holland 1998 – photo Sherry Oates)

In recent years Paul’s health deteriorated, but his spirit didn’t. I last talked to him two days before his long awaited induction into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.” I called to tell him that I had just returned from the IBMA Convention in Raleigh where the Seldom Scene had been inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. John Starling that night singled Paul out for contributing to the band’s success with the quality of his songs. I thought Paul would like to hear that, and he did. I congratulated him and told him I’d see him Sunday at the Hall of Fame induction dinner. Paul did make it to the ceremony and had his picture taken with the award but was stricken during the meal and had to be rushed to the hospital.
He wasn’t there to hear Britt Ronstadt [daughter of Linda’s cousin] sing,
“Lord, if you hear me, touch me and hold me
And keep me from blowing away.”

(photo: Bev Moser)

Paul also wasn’t there to smile as Bobby Bare sang, as only he could,
“Dropkick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life
End over end, neither left nor to right
Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
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Paul Craft would probably not refer to himself as a religious man, but it did strike me on this night that his last words to us were the prayers of a mere mortal who was smart enough to know what he did not know.

[On February 4, 2015, there will be a tribute concert celebrating Paul’s  life and work at the Station Inn, Nashville, organized by Shawn Camp)

2.4.15 Poster by Mike Armisted from an painting by Ginny Canfield

For further reference (about Paul Craft):
PETER COOPER

BANJO HANGOUT

MUSIC ROW MAGAZINE

For further reference (George Hamilton IV):

COUNTRY MUSIC MAGAZINE – retrospective via Facebook

GEORGE IV TALKS ABOUT MUSIC, Family Heritage, Baby Ruth Candy Bars, Patsy Cline – Nashville Legend & MORE on Canada’s 100 Huntley Street TV Show. (Solo Acoustic Versions of: “A Rose & A Baby Ruth” & “Abilene”)  [YouTube]

VIDEO COLLECTION (COMMUNITY PAGES)

AMERICANA MUSIC ASSN CONFERENCE

I’ve been busy recently. I was in Nashville for the Americana Music Association’s annual convention where I participated in a showing of “For The Love of the Music” (Todd Kwait and Rob Stegman’s documentary about the Club 47) along with Betsy Siggins and Taj Mahal. I had recently gone to see Taj at a concert in Lebanon, NH, and was blown away by his continuing creativity and energy. I also did a reading and book signing at Howlin’ Books from “In It For The Long Run” and “Bossmen: Bill Monroe and Muddy Waters.” It was a nice surprise to see my friend Greg Trooper there. It’s interesting store specializing in books about music run by Will Kimbrough’s wife Jessica. Later the same day I was a guest on the Thacker Mountain Radio Hour, a wonderful radio show which normally originates from the On The Square Bookstore in Oxford, MS, and is broadcast over Mississippi Public Radio, I read some of Muddy Waters words describing how he brought the Delta Blues sound to Chicago, then I sang “Sitting On Top Of The World” (originally recorded by The Mississippi Sheiks and which I learned from Bill Monroe) with the great house band. I had a great time and would love to do it again.

A NEW TOM PAXTON ALBUM

Following that, my dear friend Tom Paxton came to town and we recorded a new album (our fourth studio album together). Cathy Fink served as executive producer on this project and helped organize a very successful Kickstarter campaign to support the recording. Cathy played banjo on several tracks and also sang harmonies on a couple of songs with her longtime partner Marcy Marxer. Tom had a great collection of 14 songs, most of which were written in the past 5 years. On the title song, “Redemption Road” (co-written with Geoff Bartley, who played National steel body guitar on the track) Tom was joined by none other than Janis Ian. It is a beautiful, moving recording. John Prine joined Tom on a very sensitive song called “Skeeters’ll Gitcha (If Your Screens Ain’t Tight)!” Many of my favorite musicians joined Tom on the sessions, including Mark Howard, Al Perkins, Pete Wasner, Kirk “Jellyroll” Johnson, Tim Crouch, John Mock, Dave Pomeroy, Pat McInerney, and long time accompanist for Tom, Robin Bullock. Suzi Ragsdale and John Wesley Ryles sang harmonies. We recorded with the one and only David Ferguson, assisted by Sean Sullivan, at The Butcher Shoppe. I think this will prove to be one of Tom’s best albums in his long and illustrious career. On Thursday night Tom joined me and Rooney’s Irregulars at the Station Inn. He sang “Ramblin’ Boy, “Bottle of Wine,” “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound,” and “A Lesson Too Late For The Learning.” Everyone in the place sang every song. It was one of those unforgettable moments. You had to be there.
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IBMA CONVENTION

After that I headed over to Raleigh, NC, to the IBMA convention. There I had a chance to meet Laurie Matheson, the editor-in-chief of the University of Illinois Press, publishers of “In It For The Long Run.” They had many of their books about music on display, including Neil Rosenberg’s definitive “History of Bluegrass Music.” I first met Neil at Bill Monroe’s park at Beanblossom, Indiana. Neil was elected to the Bluegrass Hall of Fame this year in recognition of his lifetime spent writing about Bluegrass. The recognition was well deserved. A personal highlight came for me when the IBMA gave my long time partner (55 years!!) Bill Keith a Distinguished Achievement Award. Banjo player Alan Munde recounted all of Bill’s singular achievements, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that Bill was one of the most significant innovators in the history of the banjo. Bill has never been one to blow his own horn. This recognition, if a bit overdue, was very gratifying.

Now it’s back to Vermont to finish getting my wood in for the winter, watching the leaves change colors and playing for a dance during my stepson, Matthew’s annual Ciderfest on Columbus Day Weekend. The fun never ends!

with Bill Keith circa 1974
(photo by McGuire)

With Pete and Toshi: giving Pete the first Folk Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award

Like countless others, my first introduction to Pete Seeger came from listening to “The Weavers at Carnegie Hall” album. “Good Night Irene,” “Rock Island Line,” “Darlin’ Corey,” all found their way into me as did the sound of the 5-string banjo. About the same time, I’d say in 1957 or so, I bought the “Talking Union” album with Pete and the Almanac Singers, my first taste of political songs.

I saw Pete in person for the first time with Bill Keith when the Weavers played a concert at M.I.T. A friend of Bill’s, Charlie Close, was their tour manager, so we got to go backstage and I got to feel Pete’s shy, nervous energy up close. Not too long after that I went with the Lilly Brothers to New York where they were part of Pete’s annual Hootenanny at Carnegie Hall. I saw then how generous he was at sharing the stage with others. He included everyone in his embrace, especially the audience. There was no way that anyone would be left out. Music was for everyone.

In June of 1965 I went down to Nashville to visit Bill Keith, who had joined Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys. Bill had a few days off so we drove over to North Carolina to visit Doc Watson. Doc had been up to play at the Club 47 a few times. Being the musician that he was, Doc appreciated what Bill Keith was doing on the banjo. In the course of his visits to Cambridge, we had become friends, and he had extended an open invitation to visit him at his home in Deep Gap, so we took him up on it. The hospitality and warmth of welcome were genuine. Songs and tunes flowed well into the night.

The next day, we went with Doc over to Asheville, where he was to play a concert at the Municipal Auditorium with Pete. The front page of the local paper featured a lead story about the local American Legion protesting the appearance of the “Communist” Pete Seeger. We could see that there was still some life left in the “red scare,” but it didn’t seem to scare off the audience. Doc had already become a totally relaxed concert performer. He was the same on stage as on his front porch. His warmth and casual demeanor just served to further highlight his virtuosity on the guitar. He would take your breath away. Needless to say, he got a huge ovation at the end of his set. Then it was Pete’s turn. He came out with his long necked banjo, sleeves rolled up, red socks. His reception was on the cool side, especially in contrast to Doc’s. Pete was in no hurry. He played a couple of mountain tunes on the banjo, did a couple of Woody Guthrie songs, got the audience to join him singing “Rock Island Line.” Gradually he drew them in until, at the close of his set, he introduced a song he had just been singing with a singer named Guy Carawan at a place called The Highlander School in East Tennessee. The song was “We Shall Overcome.” Pete started quietly, inviting the audience to join him. Gradually people joined in. He kept encouraging them, finally urging them to get on their feet and join hands. Before long everyone was up, singing, swaying, singing “We Shall Overcome.” Indeed, Pete had overcome. With music. I never forgot that performance.

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From 1965 until 1971 I served on the Board of the Newport Folk Foundation, which put on the Newport Folk Festival. Pete was the head of it. There were a lot of strong personalities in the group–Alan Lomax, Frank Warner, Mike Seeger, Ralph Rinzler, Judy Collins, Peter Yarrow, Theo Bikel, Oscar Brand, Bernice Reagon, Bruce Jackson, Ethel Raim–but with Pete guiding us (firmly backed by his wife Toshi) we had no choice but to work together. Which we did, with amazing results.

Much has been made of Pete’s reaction to Bob Dylan’s performance in 1965. I can’t say, because I wasn’t backstage. He might well have been upset at the sound; he might not have been happy with Bob’s approach, but I never, ever heard him say that Bob didn’t have the right to express himself any way he wanted to. He didn’t have to like it. But that was beside the point.

It was during this time that Pete came up with the idea of building a replica of a Hudson River sloop called The Clearwater to serve as a teaching tool to educate the people living along the river about the necessity to repair it, revive it and respect it. I am proud to say that I have had my Clearwater membership for nearly 50 years. Pete often said that he felt that this was his most significant achievement, because there is little doubt that the Clearwater played a major role in cleaning up the river. The beauty of it was that it was so simple. Pete believed that if you brought people together at the river’s edge to combine work with play–cleaning up the river while singing songs and eating together–it would inevitably lead people to support the political and economic reforms needed to bring about the reversal of the years of pollution and neglect which had so harmed the river. Pete looked out on that river from his house every day until the day he died. One of his mantras was, “think globally, act locally.” Every day he could see his local vision coming true. But every day he knew there was more to be done. He was tireless.

Tonder Denmark 1990: Pete Seeger, Bill Keith, Eric Weissberg w/ Rooney in back

There is no telling how many people were lifted by Pete’s simple vision around the world. I can give one example. Bill Keith, Eric Weissberg, Kenny Kosek and I were flying to Denmark to play the wonderful Tonder Folk Festival. As it happened, Pete and Toshi were on the same flight. In the airport lounge Pete was excitedly showing us sketches of a Viking ship he was working on. He’d been asked to talk to a group who wanted to do a similar project to The Clearwater on the Baltic using a Viking ship. Pete and Toshi were with us in the back of the plane sleeping under a blanket–no business class for them. When we got there, we happily headed for a hotel bed, but not Pete. He hit the ground running and went off to share his vision with the Danish group. Eventually he joined us at the festival. Arlo Guthrie was sharing the closing concert with Pete and then we all went out to join in on the final song. As we were leaving the stage, I was sort of pulling up the rear next to Pete. I heard some singing coming from somewhere and at first thought it was coming from the performer’s tent backstage. However, it suddenly dawned on me that it was the audience singing. I grabbed Pete’s arm and shouted at him (he was a bit deaf), “Pete! Pete! Go back! They’re singing to you!” and I whirled him around and sent him back out. He stood at the center of the stage, his arms out to the audience, as they sang “We Shall Overcome” to him. They were thanking him. He affected people everywhere this way. He worked tirelessly to help us find our hearts, our common humanity through music. We were blessed to have him with us.

May 1921. Washington, D.C. Professor Charles Seeger, a composer, his wife is a distinguished violinist, Little Pete Seeger, 2 years old, and family along with their camping rig, While Living Outdoors LIKE WANDERING MINSTRELS.

When Bob Dylan’s first album came out I remember how different it was and how unusual it was. I couldn’t put my finger on why I found it so exciting, except that his voice was different; his approach to the songs was his own. Just as I liked what he was doing because it was “different”, there were others who didn’t like it for the same reason. There was a conservative streak in some people involved in folk music which said that “this is the way it’s supposed to be.” In the end that is what caught up with Bob, because he kept going down his own road. At first there was the “new Woody Guthrie” image, which he helped to create himself with the little dungaree jacket, the living on the street attitude, the social protest songs. That was very popular with the elders of the folk movement. I saw him early on performing on Pete Seeger’s annual “hootenanny” show at Carnegie Hall. Bob sang the “Bear Mountain Massacre”– a total homage to Woody Guthrie.

However, in early 1965 Bob went over to England where The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were in full flight. He came back wearing polka dot shirts, high heeled rock and roll boots, and shades. He had some new songs as well. He had made a big shift. At the Newport Folk Festival he connected with Mike Bloomfield and some of Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band and asked them to back him up on four of these new songs. The plan was to do those four songs first with the band before he played the rest of his set solo, and that’s just what he did. But in the audience there was a total uproar–a combination of people cheering and people booing. I was cheering myself. I thought the band suited the songs–especially “Like A Rolling Stone.” After Bob finished the four songs, he left the stage. His acoustic guitar hadn’t been put on the stage for him, so he had to go get it. So when Peter Yarrow, who was the emcee, said. “He’s gone to get his acoustic guitar,” a great cheer went up as if he’d given in to the crowd. It was wild.

Every night at Newport after the show there was a party, and these parties were usually great musical events and gatherings of all sort of wonderful musicians jamming away. At this particular party the Chambers Brothers started playing. They had started out in Mississippi as a gospel quartet and had branched out into secular music. They were electric, but it wasn’t loud rock and roll by any stretch of the imagination, but in the aftermath of Dylan’s performance, any electric music seemed to be too much for some to take. Jean Ritchie put her hands over her ears. Everyone was in a state. It was one of those defining nights.

I had been asked by Ralph Rinzler if I would be interested in coming on the Newport Board of Directors. At the time people on the Board included Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Ralph Rinzler, Mike Seeger, Theo Bikel, Oscar Brand, and Judy Collins. They picked the talent and programmed the festival. George Wein’s staff produced the festival. I told Ralph that I would be interested, so he said, “Why don’t you come to the festival and write a critique for the board?” So I did, and there was plenty to talk about:

Mertz sums up his feelings: “It is not unusual to be enjoying dinner out and notice couples or groups with a cool, india cheap cialis bluish glow on their faces. This is especially made for the young generation who wants results quickly. viagra for sale mastercard devensec.com These herbal ingredients are Ashwagandha, Shilajit, Kesar, Pipal, Kankaj, Shatavari, Kavach Beej, Safed Musli, Haritaki, Long, Purushratan, Atimukyak, Dridranga, Behdani, Brahmdandi and Lauh Bhasma are the key ingredients of this herbal oil are Ashwagandha, Tulsi, Jaiphal, Samudra Phal, Jaipatri, Kapur, Dalchini, Sona Patha, cialis generic 10mg Jawadi Kasturi, Kapur, Jaiphal, Tulsi, Buleylu oil, Dalchini, and Nirgundi. Studies were conducted in which 500 couples from five different countries and cheap cialis http://www.devensec.com/news/Infill_and_Brownfield_Brochure.pdf regions participated.            “Nothing else in the festival caused such controversy. Dylan’s appearance was the only one that was genuinely disturbing. It was disturbing to the old guard, I think, for several reasons. Bob is no longer a neo-Woody Guthrie with whom they could identify. He has thrown away his dungarees and shaggy jacket. He has stopped singing talking blues and songs about ‘causes’–peace or civil rights. The highway he travels now is unfamiliar to those who bummed around in the thirties during the Depression. He travels by plane. He wears high-heel shoes and high-style clothes from Europe. The mountains and valleys he knows are those of the mind–a mind extremely aware of the violence of the inner and outer world. ‘The people’ so loved by Pete Seeger are ‘the mob’ so hated by Dylan. In the face of violence he has chosen to preserve himself alone. No one else. And he defies everyone else to have the courage to be as alone, as unconnected as he. He screams through organ and drums and electric guitar, “How does it feel to be on your own?” And there is no mistaking the hostility, the defiance, the contempt for all those thousands sitting before him who aren’t on their own. Who can’t make it. And they seemed to understand that night for the first time what Dylan had been trying to say for over a year–that he was not theirs or anyone else’s–and they didn’t like what they heard and booed. They wanted to throw him out. He had fooled them before when they thought he was theirs.

           Pete Seeger had begun the night with the sound of a newborn baby crying and asked that everyone sing to that baby and tell it what kind of a world it would be growing up into. But Pete already knew what he wanted others to sing. They were going to sing that it was a world of pollution, bombs, hunger and injustice, but that PEOPLE would OVERCOME. But can there be no songs as violent as the age? Must a folk song be of mountains, valleys and love between my brother and my sister all over this land? Do we allow for despair only in the blues? That’s all very comfortable and safe. But is that what we should be saying to that baby? Maybe, maybe not. But we should ask the question. And the only one in the entire festival who questioned our position was Bob Dylan. Maybe he didn’t put it in the best way. Maybe he was rude. But he shook us. And that is why we have poets and artists.”

There was a group of us who had been performing folk music rooted in tradition. Now there were young people coming in and writing their own songs and taking things beyond the tradition. Dylan was leading that group, which by now included Tom Paxton, Tim Hardin, Peter LaFarge, Phil Ochs and others. I had never thought of myself as a songwriter, yet over the years I had taken lyrics from Carl Sandburg’s “American Songbag” that my mother had given me for my sixteenth birthday and made up melodies that sounded “folky” and seemed to suit the lyrics. “One Morning in May,” “Kentucky Moonshiner,” and “Pretty Polly” were all the result of this process, but it wasn’t until Dylan came along that the thought entered my head that I was at least partly a songwriter. He was the person who made people aware that you could write new material. When he started, he wrote in the talking blues tradition or the ballad tradition. However, like me, he hadn’t come into music through folk music. He came in through rock and roll. I came in through hillbilly music. We hadn’t taken any vows of purity regarding folk music. We had all grown up listening to whatever we found on the radio. Purity is my idea of a myth in any walk of life. Nothing is pure. Talk to any musician and they’ll tell of songs and styles that came from all sorts of places–a music hall song, a dance band song, a blues, a western song. They hear something they like and just start playing it. I find musicians to be quite open to different influences. It’s critics or other gate keepers who want to put someone or some music in a box and keep it there.

As I came onto the Newport Board, I was finding myself right at the center of these issues. I was definitely coming at things from a different perspective from Alan Lomax, Pete Seeger, and some of the older members. I had enormous respect for what they had achieved, but had some difficulty with some of their attitudes. One time the great guitarist Merle Travis came to play at the Club 47 when I was running it. He very sheepishly asked, “Would it be alright if I played my electric guitar?” I said, “Sure, you’re Merle Travis, you can play anything you want!” It turned out that he’d been told by Alan Lomax at some concert or other that he should play acoustic rather than electric, presumably because the electric guitar wasn’t really “folk.” Once Doc Watson was staying with Bill Keith and myself in Cambridge when he was playing at the Club 47. He was sitting on the couch playing a great tune. I asked him what it was. He said it was “You Can’t Keep Me From Dreaming,” an old Ozzie Nelson song. (Ozzie of “Ozzie & Harriet” who had been a big band singer) I asked him if he’d play it that night. He laughed and said, “Son, that’s not folk music.” I guess Doc had gotten the message too. Happily, he eventually got to the place where he could play whatever he wanted. When Elvis Presley had his first hit with a revved up version of Bill Monroe’s Blue Moon of Kentucky, someone asked Monroe what he thought of it, thinking that Monroe might be upset at Elvis’s treatment. His comment was, “Them was some powerful checks!” So much for purity!