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"Xtreme"
Chapter seven of a novel
by Claude Hall
If anyone had wanted to shoot her, that would have
been the perfect time. She was a still target. Her
knees trembled, but her legs refused the order, given
instinctively, to move in any direction. Her lips
quivered. She kept waiting for another shot. Would
she never hear the bullet, like all of the stories?
After a moment, she realized the psychological
ramifications behind the shots and started laughing at
herself. By now, the two men in deep conversation had
drawn closer on the sidewalk. They looked up,
startled briefly because she had dared interrupt them.
Then they brushed by and walked across the
intersection. This caused her to notice that the
light was green. The walk sign was blinking. She
jumped off the curb and walked quickly to the other
side and down the street, walking rapidly, toward her
office. But instead of going inside the office
building, she walked into the garage and up some steps
to the second floor where she always parked. She
flung the Mexican blanket behind the seat of her MG
and opened the door. In a moment, she was out of the
garage heading to La Cienega Boulevard.
She parked on the street, thumbed some coins into the
parking meter, and stormed into Mind's Eye.
"Where is that goddamned son of yours?" she demanded.
Maud eyes widened, her mouth opened slightly in
astonishment.
"What happened?"
"He got up suddenly at lunch and a few minutes later
someone took a couple of shots at me as I'm walking
back to my office! He set me up!"
Maud was astonished. She stood with her hands on her
hips and took her time replying.
"And you think my son was involved?"
"Hell, yes!
"Then you don't know my son," Maud said.
"You damned right I don't, but I'm going to. There's
only one person who knew where I was at that
particular moment. Unless he also told you about
having lunch with me today."
"He didn't," Maud said.
"No goddamned bastard is going to get me shot and get
away with it," Susan said.
"Did it ever dawn on you, Ms. James, that someone
might have been following you?"
Slowly, Susan began to calm down. She had climbed in
her car, intensely angry, back at her office and had
grown more aggitated with every block en route to the
Mind's Eye. But now, common sense was taking over.
She continued to glare at Maud, who continued to stare
back blankly, uncommitted. Slowly, the tension left
Susan's arms. Her breathing came back to almost
normal. She could feel the excitement raging in her,
the demand for action. No action, however, presented
itself.
"I could phone Bill," suggested Maud. "Let him speak
to you."
"Don't you dare!" Susan said, her voice almost a
scream. "Anyway, I have his number now. Or a number.
Some kind of damned number. I'll phone him if I want
to, but right not I don't want to."
"Then let me phone the police."
"Rain on the police," said Susan. "I can handle my
own troubles."
"Against someone who shoots without warning?"
"Damned right!" said Susan. "Because I'm going to
find out who did it and shoot back."
Maud looked at Susan as if really seeing her for the
first time.
"I swear to you that my son doesn't do this sort of
thing," said Maud. "Shoot at innocent people."
"He'd better not," said Susan. "He'd just better not.
He doesn't know who he's dealing with. Or what.
He'd just better not, that's all!"
Maud continued to stare at her.
"Well, what are you going to do then?" she asked,
trying to keep her voice calm.
"I think that I'll read some more Camus," said Susan.
That wasn't the answer that Maud expected.
"Camus?" she asked, her voice not at all calm.
"What did you do with that copy of 'The Plague'?"
That's how Susan spend the next two hours. This time,
Camus didn't quite work as well as before, but by the
time she left Mind's Eye and headed back to the office
of Songdust she thought she was fairly close to being
her old self. At least, the fever had left her body
althrough she feverish thoughts still raced around her
mind. Who was trying to kill her? Why? Was it Zeus
because she knew his dirty little secret? Or maybe
the Twins were involved. Perhaps they actually were
mafia. Could that creep the Mojo still be in town; he
was probably just crazy enough to attempt something
like this!
She didn't go back to the office directly. Instead,
she drove west on Sunset to Benedict Canyon Drive and
took this winding road up to Mulholland and down into
the valley.
Her apartment had not cleaned itself; it hadn't even
bothered to straighten up. Yesterday's blouse and
dress were still sprawled across the back of the couch
in the living room, her bed was a flurry of sheets and
a crumpled blanket, dishes from two or three days ago
still soaked in murky water in the kitchen sink.
The apartment was called a three-room apartment; it
was actually two rooms with a kitchenette. A fairly
large so-called "picture" window overlooked the
courtyard one floor below, but she kept the drapes
closed most of the time for the sake of privacy.
There was a large-screen TV set in the corner of the
living room with a rather expensive sound system on
the bookcase surrounded by a scattering of paperbacks
and a decent set of Erich Maria Remarque's books,
including "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "The
Three Comrades" which she loved. There was also a
copy of "Some Came Running" by James Jones which she
considered one of the best American novels even if no
one else thought so. She also had a copy of "The
Pistol" by Jones; it was not a very good book and she
planned to donate it to some charity, but hadn't yet.
Jones didn't really understand guns. Yes, he'd been
exposed to weapons, but guns were a different thing.
As best as she could recall, she had never played with
dolls. Maybe her mother had given her a doll when she
was two or three, but she didn't remember that at all.
When boys reach the age of 12 in Texas, they are
presented a .22 caliber rifle. She was an only child
and her father, then a marshal in the small town of
Brady right on the edge of the fabled Hill Country,
couldn't stand the idea of not being man enough to
have a son. So, at age 12, she was presented a
single-shot Remington .22 rifle. Not by her father,
but actually by an uncle. Her father, however, took
her down by the Brady Creek behind the power plant and
taught her how to use it. Together, they cleaned out
some of the small snapping turtles in the turgid water
down below the levee. At first, she hated shooting
them. They were so cute. However, there were so many
turtles, they clogged the suction pipe for the plant's
cooling system and had to be thinned out. She turned
the shooting of the turtles into a game and then it
wasn't so bad.
She no longer had that little rifle and she wished she
did because it was easy to use and shot straight.
However, when she had headed for New York City a few
years ago, she stopped by Brady to see her grand
parents and her uncle Charles C. Smith was there and
he handed her a going-away present, a small handmade
.22 pistol. Not the kind you wore in a holster, a
"hogleg," but a fancy work of art which you carried in
an ornate beautifully carved box, hand-engraved and
varnished dark, "because those people up there aren't
like us people down here," her grand mother said.
Susan took the case out of the bottom drawer of her
dresser where it had remained under blouses for more
than a year and carried it out to her MG and slid the
case under the driver's seat.
Then she drove back to her office. It was late in the
afternoon and this was a Friday, but she felt that she
must make an appearance.
Zeus had not returned, according to Tammy, who didn't
know if Zeus had a gun or not when Susan asked. His
toady was still there, Lee Brown. Tammy said he'd
left orders not to be disturbed, but she thought he'd
actually left. Tammy handed Susan her telephone
messages.
"Maybe he's just thinking again in secret," said
Susan.
Chase Dudley, the copyeditor, seemed surprised to see
her. "This late on a Friday afternoon?"
"How about you? You're here."
"I get paid by the hour," Chase said.
"You're kidding."
"Happens when you get old and this is the only place
that'll offer you a place to sit down."
"God, Chase! You're a legend. You shouldn't be
treated this way!"
"Thank you, my dear. I needed that. But the truth is
that it's about my quitting time and I guess I was
just about to head home anyway, so you caught the last
glimpse of an old usetabe."
"Why don't you just retire, Chase?"
"Retire?" He seemed to be thinking. "No. I guess
not. In a way if I retire my past might catch up with
me."
"Your past, Chase? Let it catch up and write a book
about it."
"Ah, Susan, the past is something you can never
outrun. I'm just trying to outlive it."
"Whatever it is, Chase, it's a secret with me. But,
to tell the truth, I haven't the foggiest idea of what
you're talking about and, quite frankly, it wouldn't
mean a thing to me anyway."
"That's because you're a fairly decent kid," Chase
said. "I was raised in the Bronx. The Bronx is worse
now than it was then but it wasn't so great even then.
To some extent, we are the environment in which we're
raised and there's not a lot we can do about it. I've
tried. But the old ways come back to haunt me now and
again."
"Chase," she said. "Go home. That's an order."
Susan went into her office and placed the phone
messages on her desk and sat down and stared at the
phone. Among those who phoned were Bruce Johnson, one
of the top radio station chain executives in the
business; Mike Joseph, a long-time radio programming
consultant; and Murray the K Kaufman, a legendary disc
jockey. But she didn't feel like talking with anyone;
she didn't even know if she could make conversational
sense on the phone at the moment.
Eventually, she phoned Nails and told her about the
shots that were fired at her.
"Could it have been one of the Twins?"
"No, darling," said Maud. "They might have hired
someone in the old days, but they're big business now
and big business in a lot of businesses, including
television. They have other ways of handling
problems. And I don't think they would have
considered you even to be a problem. Not that I mean
to insult you."
"Then Zeus?"
"That's my number one choice," Nails said.
"I want to see one of the Twins," Susan said.
"Darling, that's just not the way it's done."
"In other words, you can't do it."
"In plain words, Susan, I'm not going to even try.
The Twins ain't no game, honey."
After she hung up, Susan looked up the phone number of
the Twins. However, her crazy idea about confronting
one of the Twins in person came to naught; the
secretary said none of the brothers were in the office
at the moment. She tried each of them in turn over
the next few days and they were always gone. At
least, that's what the secretary said. Even when she
mentioned the magic word of Songdust News, they were
not in their offices.
An hour later, frustrated, confused, daunted, she left
her office and headed up state. At a gun club an hour
away from Los Angeles, she practiced shooting for
perhaps an hour...long after dark, in fact, when it
was difficult to see the target in the gloom. But
shooting well is much like riding a bicycle well and
once you learn you don't forget and all of the
practice was merely to keep from thinking about other
things; she was not going to learn to shoot better or
faster. Anyway, one thing her father and her uncle
Charles had instilled in her: A gun was not a toy and
it didn't do tricks nor love you back like a puppy;
you used a gun only for business, i.e., killing game
for food or helping rid the earth of vermin.
Somewhere back in distant history, the family included
a cousin named Jesse James, she was told, but no one
ever told her whether Jesse James was a hero or a
villain and she never bothered to do too much research
on this tidbit of information and what little she did
read about him was about as confused as she was at the
moment.
But the secret of gun work, and that's what it was,
had been inflicted on her over and over. Her uncle
had laughed at the movies and television shows where
you saw a "hero" hold his gun out at arm's length with
two hands and pointed at the target. "In real life,
that would be a dead man," her uncle told her. "Gun
work has to be instinctive. You don't aim. You have
to aim, you're dead. It's that simple."
When she got home, her apartment had been ransacked.
Not that many people would have noticed, because a
blouse that had been thrown on the couch earlier was
still thrown on the couch, just in a different place.
A drawer on the dresser remained open about an inch
and she was fastidious about that sort of thing;
drawers and cabinet doors were there to be closed.
She was messy about a lot of things. But not that.
The water had been drained in the kitchen sink. That
puzzled her. Then she figured that maybe they thought
she was hiding something in the water. There had been
a few quarters scattered on top of the dresser. They
were missing. Whoever the crook was, he was a cheap
crook.
Nothing else was missing in the apartment. Her
Smith-Corona electric portable typewriter was still on
the closet shelf. Only the TV set, though, was worth
much money in the apartment and it was so large that
two men would have had trouble carrying it out. The
sound system was the kind you found in many hi-fi
shops these days and only a kid would have stolen it.
This crook was not a kid, she guessed.
She had carried in her wooden gun case. She sat down
at the small table in the kitchenette and began to
clean her gun. Apartments could remain cluttered.
Guns, never.
The phone rang a few times, but she didn't feel like
talking with anyone except Camus and he'd disappeared
from the face of this earth a long time ago in a car
accident in France. She wondered how he would have
solved this particular problem. Did he really have an
answer in mind other than all-out war for the plague?
And what about the stranger? Alienated. Alone.
Different.
For a brief moment, with a smile on her face, she
thought about driving by Bob's house in Beverly Hills
and pumping it full of bullets. Not to hit anyone,
surely, but to throw a scare into him. She knew where
Bob Belser lived; she'd attended a party there one
night. The invitation had come, strangely, a few days
after she pulled Bob off of Lew Witz, general manager
of a Chicago radio station, in the hallway of the
Century Plaza Hotel here in Los Angeles during a
conference about radio. Bob had pinned the much
smaller man against the wall, irritated with him about
something, and Bob was drunk. Susan had been afraid
Bob might hurt the man. Sober, never. Drunk, maybe.
So, she quickly interrupted the heated discussion,
which, of course, was all one-sided, with a question
about football. Bob had played professional football
for Philadelphia at one point. Once a football
player, that is a high-caliber player like Bob, always
a football player. First, foremost, and last. Almost
like magic, he forgot Lew and Lew, with a grateful
glance at her, quickly walked down the hall and away.
The incident quickly became part of radio lore;
everyone knew about it. That was the same conference
where a promotion man named Bond had flown into Los
Angeles for sole purpose of slugging a leading radio
program director in the nose. And during one of the
sessions, someone had walked up to one of the
speakers, a disc jockey named Joey Reynolds, and hit
him in the face with a pie, a Soupy Sales stunt which
was like a honor or tribute to his greatness in radio.
Her invitation to Bob's party, too, was like a
tribute...an indication that he had accepted her into
the brotherhood, so to speak. The brotherhood of
music and radio.
Whoever said that radio people weren't nuts? Not her.
But, no, she could not shoot at Bob's house. Anyway,
while he might be a suspect, she had no proof that it
was Bob or his twin brother who'd shot at her earlier
at Sunset and Doheny.
Ah, Susan! Here you are, a pretty girl, alone at home
on a Friday night, thinking about shooting someone?
She flung herself out of the chair and went to look in
her dresser mirror. Yes, she was pretty enough. Blue
eyes that were big enough to stare into a man's eyes
with overwhelming admiration that would charm his
pants off! Short-cropped dishpan blonde hair that was
attractive enough. A chin that could have been less
pointed, but was okay. Only a couple of small
freckles over the bridge of her nose. Yet, she was
definitely sitting alone at home on a Friday night
when everyone else her age in the entire city was out
partying or, conversely, if in Texas was probably
spanking one or two kids.
She finished cleaning her gun and wiping everything
with an oily cloth and then wiping off any sign of
oil.
Then she took down the typewriter and opened up the
carrying case and set it on the kitchen table. It
needed dusting. She dusted it, then touched it up
with the same oil she'd used on her gun. When she
plugged the typewriter into the outlet by the kitchen
sink, it still worked. She had to hunt for some
typing paper and finally found some in a kitchen
drawer beside the drawer where she kept the forks,
knives, and spoons.
In a while, she'd written a couple of pages about a
disc jockey trying to get a better job where he'd be
more appreciated. But the words did not sing to her
and she ripped the last sheet of paper from the
typewriter and threw both sheets into the trash can at
the end of the sink.
Was she really a writer? Whatever else Bill Ferguson
might be, he was right about one thing: Writers
write.
Finally, after staring at her typewriter for what must
have been an hour, seeing that blank page looking
back, she began a short story about an editor of a
magazine that had turned to payola trying to come to
grips with his own guilt. The story was more truth
than fiction although she doubted that Zeus felt any
guilt. But the words just seemed to flow and she
liked what she was writing, the prose was good, if not
as good as Camus, certainly better than Henry Miller,
for god's sake!
The first thing she knew, it was long after midnight
and the story was done. She was pleased with it, but
from long experience knew that writers generally
experience a "glory" state after something like this
and that the story would need a good solid rewrite
job. She paperclipped the pages together and placed
them in the kitchen drawer with her blank paper and
went to bed.
(continued next week)
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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April 19, 2004
Commentary
by
Claude Hall
Kris Kristofferson, Larry Gatlin, Johnny Cash,
Billy
Swan, Lee Clayton, Gordon Lightfoot, Jimmy Webb,
Willie Nelson, Tom T. Hall, Everly Brothers, Waylon
Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker...
Who Is the Greatest Storyteller
in Country Music Today?
(written circa 1982-85 with grateful appreciation to
Jonathan Fricke)
In the days of yore when knights strode around the
merrie ole countryside of jolly ole England rescuing
fair damsels in distress--especially those who were
about to get suddenly eaten by a dragon or not too
kindly accosted by a neer'do-well sort of
ungentleman--there was no such thing as television or
radio. In fact, there wasn't even a copy of USA Today
to be had anywhere. Any "news" that might be had came
from strolling troubadours who, upon spying any stray
soul who would, perchance, listen, would unsling their
lute (an early form of the guitar) from behind their
back and whack you out a tune. These tunes, as a
rule, were about the "goings on" in the neighborhood,
gossip, and anything else that would make an
interesting ditty.
Usually, these songs were about the only "news" one
could get. And, as you might expect, one generally
was required to toss a coin or two into the
troubadour's cap for even this privilege.
Some of the better "stories" became popular and made
the local form of the hit parade--that is they were
learned by many troubadours and repeated hither and
yond in glen and glade and over a period of several
years.
There is no question but that these "tunes" were part
of the early heritage of our founding fathers when
they set sail from England and Ireland and France and
China and everywhere else in the known world. In one
of those huge, beautiful books produced more for the
coffee tables of America's living rooms than the dusty
libraries of the world--"Nashville's Grand Old Opry"
written by Jack Hurst and published by the Harry N.
Abrams Co., New York--there's the statement: "Country
songs started out as Elizabethan ballads and
Protestant fire-and-brimstone hymns that were sung on
the hearths and porches of farmhouses, mountain
cabins, and tarpaper sharecropper shacks. As rural
American came more and more into contact--and, often,
into conflict--with onrushing urban bigness, the
traditional songs began to be changed and modernized
to satisfy current trends and moods."
In an album titled "Songs Our Daddy Taught Us" by the
Everly Brothers on Cadence Records, you'll find
"Barbara Allen" and "Roving Gambler." Pepys, a
historic figure in medieval London, mentioned "Barbara
Allen" in his famous diary. "Roving Gambler" was a
jolly beer-drinking tune back in the honky-tonks of
Henry the Eighth's England. I point these facts out
just to prove a point to you: The country music that
exists today has historic roots in the traditional
songs of faraway lands, times, and attitudes.
If those early settlers to the "colonies" hadn't
fetched along their Irish jigs and Scottish reels and
their songs born of ancient troubadours, country music
might not have developed....or at least would not have
experienced the "character" that it does today.
The ballads that have come down to us are unique for
two primary reasons--first, they were almost
immediately popular and quickly became permanent (in
today's music business jargon, we would say that these
songs were "instant evergreens"); second, their origin
was among the common folk rather than the king's court
(only someone wealthy as a king could afford to hire
the so-called "artists" of the day).
The "ancient story-poems," according to Louis
Untermeyer in "A Treasury of Great Poems" published by
Simon and Schuster in 1942, "were sung for the delight
of the populace in market places and fairs, in taverns
and on street corners, rather than for the delectation
of lords and ladies in great mansions and the courts
of kings. It might even be said that the people made
their own songs."
Truly enough, this tradition still exists today in
country music. And Untermeyer spoke of Francis James
Child toward the end of the last century collecting
more than 300 English and Scottish ballads, many of
which had been brought to America and were leading
lives of their own in the New World..."from the
mountain songs of Maine to the 'lonesome tunes' of
Kentucky."
Speaking of "Lord Randal," one of the songs that made
the crossing either on the Mayflower or shortly
thereafter, Untermeyer points out that the language is
the "language of the people."
One of the songs that perhaps most Americans would
recognize instantly is "Barbara Allen." While these
songs are unquestionably in the realm of the folk song
today, so are many other "country" songs. Country
artists traditionally have leaned on folk material.
There is without question a "commonlaw marriage"
extant between today's country music and
yestercentury's hit song.
The Father of Country Music, Jimmie Rodgers, was a
great storyteller. You can not possibly listen to
"Waitin' for a Train" or "California Blues" or "No
More Hard Times" and come to any other conclusion.
Others followed--all great storytellers in songs: Roy
Acuff, Tex Ritter, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, Ira and
Charlie Louvin, the Delmore Brothers, the Wilburn
Brothers, Johnny and Jack, Bill Monroe, Cowboy Copas,
Carl Smith, and Hank Williams, just to name a few.
Roy Acuff, in "Nashville's Grand Ole Opry," stated:
"In a way, nobody really writes our music, you know.
If we write a song, we're only writing what we've felt
and heard, the way we've been raised and the way our
people have lived. Those things are not created,
they're inherited. and we sing them with a feeling of
sincerity, because they are part of ourselves."
Acuff later stated: "They used to call me a
tear-jerker, and it is true that I would tear-jerk an
audience. It is true that many times I would cry when
I sang songs like 'Sweeter Than the Flowers' or 'Don't
Make Me Go to Bed and I'll Be Good'." The former song
is about a boy attending the funeral of his mother,
the latter song is about a child who lies dying and
pleads with his parents not to make him go to bed.
If I were to select a top 10 on the hit parade of
great country music storytellers, it would have to
include Bob Nolan, Tex Ritter, Marry Robbins, and
Harry Chapin. All are dead now. Chapin, unlike pop
artists such as Bob Dylan, never really was accepted
by the country music field, but only because of his
untimely death on the Long Island Expressway. I
assure you that his songs such as "Sniper" and "And
the Baby Never Cries" and "Better Place to Be" are in
the full tradition of the country song. Jac Holzman,
who signed Chapin to Elektra Records, called me to
come over and hear the early mix of what was to be
Chapin's first album. It was great. Chapin then
picked up his guitar and sang me a couple of other
songs as we sat around the recording studio on La
Cienega in Los Angeles. He was right in the same
idiom as Kris Kristofferson and John D. Loudermilk.
His "Sniper," incidentally, was about the guy who went
up on the top of the tower at the University of Texas
in Austin and, with a rifle, killed more than a dozen
people down on the streets; this song harks back with
chilling truth to the songs of troubadour times.
Another non-country performer, still alive but the
Good Lord knows where, not I, is Fred Neil. I haven't
seen him perform lately--nor even heard about him
performing. I only have an album or two and some
personal memories of his greatness.
I first heard Fred Neil sing in a small nightclub in
Greenwich Village of Manhattan that only served ice
cream and some of the greatest music in the world. It
was called the Cafe Au Go Go and it was here that
legendary rock groups such as the Blood, Sweat & Tears
guided by Al Kooper, the Cream, and Jefferson Airplane
performed, along with Ian & Sylvia, Richie Havens,
Paul Butterfield and his Blues Band, and countless
others among the greatest names in music.
One night, Fred Neil was on the small stage with his
12-string guitar; he was backed only by a couple of
musicians--one on an acoustic bass and the other on
lead guitar. God, but he was good: That rich, deep,
vibrant voice blew your mind and he sang his own
songs--"Just a Little Bit of Rain," "Candyman," "Look
Over Yonder." I went backstage after his performance
to tell him how much I liked his work; he invited me
out for a beer and, alas, I said no and that was the
last time I saw him.
"Candyman," incidentally, was a million seller for Roy
Orbison early in Orbison's career. Later, Neil was to
write "Everybody's Talkin'" for the movie "Midnight
Cowboy." But largely Neil was and still is, I
suppose, a loner. He didn't seem to give much of a
hoot about being a star and an album titled "Sessions"
produced by Nick Venet features songs that he cut
mostly on first take; one song required a second take
and another five takes. Neil just didn't really care;
compare this album with those of most artists who
spend weeks and even months in the studio!
Phil Everly, half of the Everly Brothers, has come up
with at least three very excellent albums on RCA
Records that I also like for their "stories."
But, when one talks about storytellers in country
music today, one immediately has to mention Kris
Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Larry Gatlin, Tom T. Hall,
Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. There are a few
others that I enjoy--Billy Swan, Shel Silverstein, and
John D. Loundermilk, for example.
Now if you don't precisely consider Silverstein in the
country genre, you're mistaken; remember "A Boy Named
Sue" performed by Johnny Cash which was named Best
Album of the Year in the annual Country Music
Association awards ceremony in 1969? And one would
have to look a long time and very far to find a better
song than "No Playing in the Snow Today" written and
recorded by John D. Loudermilk on an RCA Records album
titled "John D. Loudermilk Sings a Bizarre Collection
of the Most Unusual Songs"; this should be the
marching tune or even the national anthem for those
advocating a nuclear freeze.
But what storyteller in any kind of music could
compare with the legendary Johnny Cash?
The career of Johnny Cash has been so richly endowed
with such a vast rainbow of musical genres that even
explanation of his discography would warrant
book-length treatment. He has gone through several
phases; two have been uniquely notable--his songs
about trains and his songs about prison...or, rather,
his visits to prisons to sing for the inmates, though,
of course, his "Folsom Prison Blues" song is
significant as was his album "Johnny Cash at Folsom
Prison" on Columbia Records.
Johnny Cash is a gifted performer; I've been aware of
his phenomenal talents since the day he first appeared
on the "Louisiana Hayride" live country music show in
Shreveport, LA, and sang the two tunes on his first
record--"Hey, Porter" and "Cry, Cry, Cry." It is not
difficult to find the storyteller in his work from the
very beginning: "Hey, Porter" was virtually the story
of every soldier returning home from overseas and
"Ballad of a Teen-age Queen," both on Sun Records, was
the story of many of the girls of that particular era.
I doubt that either song will be remembered, but, on
the other hand, it will be difficult to ever forget
such great songs as "I Walk the Line" and "Folsom
Prison Blues." The perennial troubadour is evident
also in such Cash-written tunes as "Sold Out of
Flagpoles," "Committed to Parkview," and "Daughter of
a Railroad Man" on his Columbia album "One Piece at a
Time." "Apache Tears" on his album "Bitter Tears"
harks back to Indian days, paying tribute to his own
heritage and, perhaps, "Don't Take Your Guns to Town"
is the moral view of Cash coming to the fore; he
usually wears the mystique these days of a backwoods
preacher decked out in somber frock coat and friendly,
helpful smile.
He has, of course, also worked extremely well with the
storied songs of others; for example, "The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down," "Clean Your Own Tables," and
"Jesus Was Our Savior (Cotton Was Our King)."
Contemporary times is definitively pictured in the
Cash-written tune "Billy & Rex & Oral & Bob." And the
problems of a small town under flood are nowhere
better captured than in "Five Feet High and Rising."
It is absolutely astonishing: The number of songs
that Johnny Cash has written and/or recorded that have
to do with trains. Trains, of course, are part of the
American heritage and many singers, especially those
in country music, have relied on train songs,
including Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, Tex Ritter. But
when Johnny Cash sings "I've got a thing about
trains," it seems to mean so much more. The train, to
Johnny Cash, certainly represents escape, but also
perhaps a driving ambition for a better way of life.
One of Cash's most-enduring and endearing songs is
"Give My Love to Rose." Copyrighted in 1957 by Knox
Music (the publishing company of record producer Sam
Phillips named for one of his sons), the song might be
considered part of the train mythology that Cash later
was to turn into an artform. The opening line: "I
found him by the railroad tracks this mornin', I could
see that he was nearly dead," ties in psychologically
strong with Cash's other early works that have the
train symbolism. In one of his very first songs,
"Hey, Porter," the train has brought him home. In
"Folsom Prison Blues," the train is a symbol of escape
from oppression, in this case prison but, perhaps
symbolically, his own lifestyle at the time; "Give My
Love to Rose" is about a man who has taken the train,
but it does not provide him the "escape" that he
sought and he dies en route back to his wife Rose and
his son after 10 years in prison. These songs were
written and recorded while he was still recording for
Sun Records owned by Sam Phillips, though they were
also released later on Columbia Records in different
versions.
Larry Gatlin is a phenomenal songwriter and a great
singer, who, along with his brothers, is mentioned in
this article more because of his potential as a
storyteller than what he has already accomplished.
You merely have to examine the titles of songs such as
"Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall," "Statues Without
Hearts," and "My Mind's Gone to Memphis" to realize
that he has the potential to equal the greatest
storytellers such as Tom T. Hall and Kris
Kristofferson.
Few songwriters in country music today can match the
often bitter, often whimsical, but always acutely
perceptive visual images of Tom T. Hall. I've been a
fan of his almost from his first record and today
treasure several of his albums in my collection.
"Don't Forget the Coffee Billy Joe," "Ravishing Ruby"
who works as a waitress while waiting for her father
to come back, "I Wanta See the Parade"--these songs
are clear examples of the power that Hall has in
capturing both a feeling and a visual impression. He
literally paints a picture of our time and our place
in most of his songs and though Kris Kristofferson has
without question written more songs that were greater
commercial hits, Tom T. Hall beats him to the punch in
dramatic impact. Larry Jon Wilson with "Things Ain't
What They Used to Be (And Probably Never Was)" on
Monument Records and Lee Clayton with three
poor-selling, but phenomenal albums on MCA Records
("Red Dancing Dress," "Ladies Love Outlaws," and
"Mama, Spend the Night With Me") pack tremendous
visual power in this songs, though neither have had
the success of Tom T. Hall nor his impact on the
public.
When Kristofferson first appeared in Nashville and
began to make some noise as a songwriter, everyone
wondered what in hell he was doing there! First, his
IQ was much higher than the norm and he had an
education; both were very untypical for the general
run-of-country music singer you found in Nashville.
This comment is not intended as a put-down to most
country music singers; some are relatively
uneducated, but only because they've literally been
performing almost since they day they learned to talk.
And usually even the ones lacking a college education
have acquired a considerable amount of knowledge and
culture. Then, guys like Bill Anderson are college
educated, but have never bothered to publicize the
fact much. Bill Anderson, incidentally, I heard
present a speech on country music radio once at an
industry meeting in Chicago; he's very well informed
and quite erudite; it was an excellent speech.
But Kristofferson was a rarity--he is probably a
genius, he certainly is a gifted songwriter who could
have made his mark in New York or Los Angeles in pop
music, and there he was: In Nashville? You have to be
kidding!
If Kristofferson has any handicap as a storyteller, it
has been his success as a movie star. He has been in
movies that were box-office hits and some that were
box-office failures, but he's constantly in movies.
Several years ago, Monument Records owner (at the
time) Fred Foster, who also produced Kristofferson,
told me that the biggest problem Kristofferson had was
in finding time to get into the recording studio.
I have several albums by Kristofferson in my
collection; I even have a couple of albums that I
would have thrown away (actually, I used to give the
unwanted albums to a babysitter) had they not featured
Kris Kristofferson. For, undoubtedly, some of those
times when he did manage to find time to get into the
studio he should have stayed out. But, on the other
hand, I shall always treasure an album such as "Songs
of Kristofferson" on Monument Records (distributed by
Columbia Records). This album features "Sunday
Mornin' Comin' Down" and "Me and Bobby McGee," both
classic songs of our time that will survive through
many years to come. "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" is,
of course, the story of a lost soul and no doubt
reflects upon the early struggles of Kristofferson in
Nashville. Its visual images--"the smell of someone
frying chicken"--are strong. It tells a story, as
does "Me and Bobby McGee." On another album, there's
a song by Kristofferson that wasn't a hit--in fact, it
probably wasn't even played much on radio--but depicts
the strong story lines that he is capable of mustering
on occasion. The song is about a singer who takes
life and being "on the road" with a grain of salt--"if
you ain't bombed in Birmingham, you ain't one of us."
I think the storied songs of Kristofferson picture
fairly accurately a person on a quest...a person
seeking something they can't even describe well,
although they know it's there, and it may be in a
woman's arms, i.e., "Help Me Make It Through the
Night," "For the Good Times," "Loving Her Was Easier
(Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)," and then our
hero, perhaps, finds that the "search" is a greater
reward than the finding itself, i.e., "Please Don't
Tell Me How the Story Ends."
Of late, it appears to me, Kristofferson's songwriting
has suffered because of his success as an actor. He
falls into the same realm as Dolly Parton--he has very
little to complain about any more and often it takes a
certain dissatisfaction with the status quo (and a
desire to change or improve things) that sparks a good
song. Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins somehow
maintained a good creative spark over a long, extended
period of their career. Dolly Parton, as I reflected
in a previous article for Tune-In, and Kristofferson
have not.
Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings are two artists
whose careers have been irreversibly linked together
since their million-selling "Outlaws" album (but how
many of you remember the other artist featured on that
album...for $24.99, cash only, I'm willing to tell you
and will throw in the title of their best cut for only
a penny more).
There's no question in my mind but that Willie Nelson
is a far, far better songwriter than Waylon Jennings.
Yet, now and then Waylon Jennings does write a fairly
good song. This is evident in "Are You Sure That Hank
Done It This Way," referring to Hank Williams, and
"Bob Wills Is Still the King," which has served as a
playful nudge at Willie Nelson upon occasion. Both of
these songs are featured in the "Dreaming My Dreams"
album on RCA Records released in 1975. Waylon
Jennings, a former disc jockey and a former member of
Buddy Holly's Crickets, is a songwriter, of course,
and qualifies as a respectable storyteller in the
classic troubadour sense. He cannot, however, be
compared to the stature of Willie Nelson.
I've had the great luck to hear both Willie Nelson and
Waylon Jennings many times live. I recall one night
when Waylon Jennings and his band performed for the
annual banquet of the Country Music Association
convention in Nashville and about half of the music
industry people attending the event got up and left
Municipal Auditorium because they didn't like the way
Waylon Jennings played country music; it, of course,
had a rock flavor to it). Naturally, it might be
argued that the people who got up and walked out
merely didn't like the food; it had been catered and
Nashville has always been the place to "brownbag it"
if you want anything decent to eat. I loved the music
and didn't care who left because that gave me a chance
to move closer to the stage. Later, after his
commercial success, the same people remained glued to
their seats when Waylon played regardless of how or
what he performed; money has always usually been the
stamp of approval respected by the music industry of
Nashville.
Another time, I was invited to a Columbia Records
convention show at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los
Angeles when Willie Nelson went on one night and
performed for more than three hours! Nobody
left...for at least two reasons I can think of:
First, Willie had come up with some best-selling
albums and almost everyone in the audience had made
money from those album sales; second, it was one of
those magical nights and an electrical kind of love
was flowing over the stage from Willie and back from
the audience onto the stage. Every song was just
absolutely magnificent.
One of the most impressive facets of the talent of
Willie Nelson has been his fidelity to the classic
troubadour tradition. When the King's Court, i.e.,
Nashville, was reluctant to completely accept him, he
took his guitar and headed back into Sherwood
Forest--in this case, Austin, TX. Now it should be
noted that he was not the first to forsake
Nashville--Johnny Cash had done so in order to try a
movie career in Hollywood (though I think he actually
made his home up around Ventura north of Los Angeles).
And some like Bob Luman and Bob Wills went west
without the benefits of Nashville at all (Luman later
left Hollywood for Nashville, of course, as did Tex
Ritter).
In the case of Willie Nelson, he made the jaunt
stick...he created his own world in the fabled Hill
Country of Texas and a segment of country music
emerged and had an existence for a while called
Redneck Rock. It was not his music, per se. But
Austin came to the fore as a music place and I think
it was the spirit of Willie Nelson that brought this
about.
I have, without any doubt in my mind, enjoyed this
storyteller aspect of country music far more than any
of its other facets. The "trysts" and "back street
affairs" and "slippings around" of country music
records have been okay. I do not dispute that. But
the songs that I like to listen to again and again are
usually the songs that have something to say. "San
Francisco Mabel Joy" as sung by Waylon Jennings
(written by Mickey Newbury) is the kind of song that
will never grow old; it has all of the characteristics
of those songs that charmed and delighted, entertained
and informed the folk of jolly ole England when
knights were knights and proud of it.
- 30 -
OTHER MATTERS
Neal Barton Jr.,
bigtex76@cox-internet.com: "Subject:
loved the MSNBC stuff...and the barbs at CNN."
Ah, but did you notice that G.W. Bush in his news
conference at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, was
answering prepared questions to which someone had
written the answers and that he had rehearsed?
Everything was prepared. He was using first names of
people he didn't even know! Hell, he's only had 12
news conferences in three years. Bet he couldn't ID
three of those reporters if you showed him pictures.
Just FYI, Bush, mustard gas is not a weapon of mass
destruction. Just heard that he didn't know what he
was talking about in any case. Question I would have
asked: Why have you let gasoline prices soar?
Another question I ask you: Are we going to continue
to sprawl fallow by the wayside while the rich get
richer from these outrageous prices?
And I relay this from Steve Warren (I point out he is
relaying it from Reuters):
"And The Most Obscene Lying Is Coming Out Of Iraq
we haven't been tallying civilian deaths since day
one. ignoring that was a direct order. no need to
trouble the folks back home about dead babies and
mutilated old women. now i see something that is
beyond sanity. there's a major engagement going on in
fallujah. thousands of civilians killed and wounded.
our networks, dutifully haven't shown those images but
Reuters and Al Jareeza have footage. our spokesman
Gen. Kimmitt announced that our weapons were very
precise and the operation is 'well within the rules of
engagement.' when asked about the deaths of civilian
women and children being shown on some international
news outlets he said...okay, sit down for
this....quote: 'The stations that are showing
Americans killing women and children are not
legitimate channels'. Lunacy reigns."
http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4804704
Mike Flaherty,
haywardmike@yahoo.com: "Caught your
column on the net where you mention visiting a radio
station in an orange grove in Anaheim. Musta been
KEZY Radio (and KEZR-FM). And the transmitter site
was in an even larger orange grove in Placentia or
Yorba Linda. In the early days its studio was just
off the lobby of the Disneyland Hotel and one could
look in and gawk at the talent. It was later on Ball
Road about a mile or two from Disneyland. I knew
Gordon West there about 1963 or so. Lou often
mentions you and comments on some of your writings.
He should; no one else ever granted him a doctorate!"
I swear to you, Mike, I don't remember all that much
about the trip out there to the oranges. The reason
is that Ernie Farrell was in charge of driving, in
charge of the trip. Being around Ernie in those days
was always like being around a whirlwind that couldn't
make up its mind. I can't remember the radio station,
I can't even remember the program director that I
interviewed! As for a doctorate: Nope. Did about
half of the course work. My problem was that I didn't
have a year I could spare for "residency," i.e.,
serving as a slave to some Ph.D. Some people, anyway,
have equivalencies of doctorates; they seem to already
know whatever there is that should be known. One
would be Lou Dorren, who is a friend of my entire
family. I once saw a group of white-hair
distinguished engineers gathered around this "kid" at
an NAFMB convention in Chicago; he swamped them all!
Bruce Miller Earle, a friend, is another radio
engineer who knows of which he speaks. In
programming: Jack McCoy, Bob Pitman, Ron Jacobs.
I've probably left out a few good friends. That's
what happens occasionally these days. In my various
"careers," I've know Ph.D.s who were relatively
incapacitated upstairs...and I've known many others
who never got within cold-catching distance of a
"terminal degree" that were breath-takingly brilliant.
I suppose it was always a matter of intelligence and
desire to learn what you needed to know.
Ron Bacon,
ronbacon@esedona.net "1) I am enjoying
your new book. 2) I am saddened by the fact that you
are proud of being a Liberal. 3) In the words of Yuan
Wu: 'Searching for the Truth though words and speech
is like sticking your head in a bowl of glue'."
Ah, yes, that Yaun was a bright fellow. A buddy of
mine named Jay Blackburn, who is more than likely
meandering through Pompei or some similar ancient
abode just as I write this, pointed out that my
liberal views have probably lost me a lot of readers.
And yet, this past week I heard from another of my
former students at SUNY/Brockport...Kathleen
(McClusky) Stahl. I seriously doubt that they would
bother, these handfuls of former students, unless they
had acquired something from me that was contributory
to their lives. I assure you that many contributed to
my own life. And so did countless radio men and women
(just knowing Ron Jacobs in an honor, I assure you).
I treasure these things that I have learned along the
way and also hope that some few have benefited from
what light I may have cast in their direction. My
wish is that I could teach liberalism now. Caring for
your fellow person. Caring for the world. But, of
course, I cannot. My wish must be, then, that you
have the capacity to learn this on your own. God
bless.
e-mail claude@claudehallonline.com
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