Lonestar Blues

Here's a good one for whatever ails you. Lubbock, TX native Delbert McClinton and Lonestar Blues.

Death and the Purple Robe

In the sophomore literature classes I taught, we used to read a play called Everyman. This play, from the late 15th century in England, is categorized by scholars as an allegorical morality play, a play that uses personifications to teach a lesson about life. A morality play is in effect a dramatized sermon with the purpose of getting Christians to live their life in a moral manner that will ensure their salvation. Though it sounds foreboding and a bit morbid, the play actually has quite a bit of humor.

This link will lead you to a good study guide if you want to get the complete plot and other information.

In the beginning of Everyman, the central character, Everyman (that would be all of us at some point in our lives), is confronted by a mysterious character named Death who basically says, it's time for you to come with me (die). Everyman is allowed some brief time to get anyone he can to go along with him. He asks his friends, his relatives, and his material goods to go with him. When they discover where he's going they all offer excuses, some of which are lol funny. In the end, only Everyman's Good Deeds will accompany him on his final journey.

The personification of Death is a technique that's been used in other literary and musical works. One of my favorite bluegrass songs is Ralph Stanley's "O Death," in which the singer (Stanley does it A capella) directly addresses Death, who has come for him. Like Everyman, the singer-narrator in this song tries to talk his way out of Death's invitation. The song gained a larger audience after Stanley performed it in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?).

Gospel has been a significant part of bluegrass music from its origins. The Stanley Brothers (Ralph and his brother Carter) had many excellent ones in their repertoire, including "Rank Strangers," "In Heaven We'll Never Grow Old," and "Angel Band." This tune is by Odell McLeod and is called "Purple Robe." It describes the scene from the Bible where Jesus is falsely accused and brought to trial before Pontius Pilate.

The focus in the song is on the inhumanity of the mob and the suffering and innocence of the accused. I first heard this song on The Vanderbilt University radio station back in the early '80s (they had a bluegrass show on Sunday afternoons at the time) and spent a few of those pre-internet days trying to learn the chords on my guitar. I really like the fine, clear guitar picking on this one, as well as the great harmonies (that mix of the high tenor and the resonating bass voice is simply outstanding).

Townes Van Zandt Part II: No Place to Fall

Townes Van Zandt died on January 1, 1997, at the age of 52, exactly 44 years to the day that one of his greatest influences in music, Hank Williams, died.

Van Zandt seems to me to have been a trapped man. What I mean is that he was this one odd thing, while the world wanted something else, something more polished, something ideal, or at the very least, something familiar, something they could get a handle on.

The world expected him to fit into a certain category and live a certain way. It wasn't that he had other plans. He just didn't want or couldn't follow their plans. And he certainly didn't fit into any of the identities or niches they imagined for him.

He was boxed in, imprisoned in a kind of psychological Alcatraz. He was trapped by others' expectations, the terrible darkness his manic visions showed him, the poetry his genius gave him to express those visions, and by his own very human weaknesses and dependencies.

He was born into an old and influential and relatively wealthy Texas family. He was very smart and they imagined he could be a lawyer or possibly a senator. But Van Zandt seemed to spend his life trying to create an identity that was as far removed from that as possible. He became the stranger. The down and out-outsider. A guy on the edge of the abyss. An alcoholic. A veteran of one too many mornings in rehab. A strung out addict, who two years before he died, rode an old 1984 Honda Shadow motorcycle or drove around in an even older Jimmy pickup.

When he began his career in music in the mid '60s, he played in the Jester's Lounge in Houston, doing covers of Bob Dylan songs as well as covers of songs originated by bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins. But thanks to a meeting with Mickey Newbury, he ended up in Nashville in 1968 where musician and producer Cowboy Jack Clement began to try and fit him into the country niche, both as a writer and as a performer.

You've read the words to his songs. You've heard Van Zandt sing. Did he sound like any country singer in the late '60s, early '70s? Did he sound or act like Jimmy Dean, for example? Did he write like Dallas Frazier, for example? Jimmy Dean had some big '60s hits and a TV show and he did a lot for country music in that decade. But Van Zandt wasn't that kind of guy. Frazier wrote some great tunes in that era, but can you even use the word "tune" to describe a song like "Tecumseh Valley?"

After high school Van Zandt's family had wanted him to go to college. He went. But, worried about his binge drinking and depression, they brought him home in the spring of his sophomore year and put him in the hospital where he received three months of insulin shock therapy. This "therapy" put a patient in daily comas over several weeks. Van Zandt lost all his childhood memories as a result.

Van Zandt was manic depressive, or as it's sometimes labeled, bi-polar. He also had tremendous poetic and verbal skills which he employed as he tried to write himself out of those terrible dark places the manic episodes many times took him to. You can hear the ache in the words and in his voice as he sings about the darkness his illness helped him see. It's not imagined, it's a very real darkness most of us are too busy or "sane" to see. Facing that terror, and making art out of it, is a most noble and courageous human endeavor. But it doesn't ultimately lead to the solution of the problem. When the song is finished and the ink has dried on the paper, for a manic depressive the big Shadow still looms down the hall.

"No Place to Fall" was apparently written in or before 1973 when it was recorded on the "Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas" album. According to Wiki, the "Old Quarter" album wasn't released until 1977 and in the next year, the song also became part of the 1978 album "Flyin' Shoes."

In an earlier Van Zandt post I used Nanci Griffiths version of his "Techumseh Valley," called by some "the saddest song ever written." The song tells of a poor young woman who came over the hill from Spencer down into Tecumseh Valley. Her Pa had told her to find a job and make enough to buy some coal to bring back. But things didn't work out for her. Her Pa died and she chose a life on the streets. In time she was crushed by that life. Here's a couple of verses near the end.

She saved enough to get back home 
When spring replaced the winter 
But her dreams were denied, her Pa had died 
The word come down from Spencer 

She turned to whorin' out on the streets 
With all the lust inside her 
It was many a man returned again 
To lay himself beside her 

This version is by Van Zandt himself. As you listen, look into the poet's eyes. That's the Shadow reflected there.

Van Zandt might make art out of the Shadow, but his eyes also tell you that making that poem, making art won't be the end of the battle. The Shadow ain't goin' nowhere.

But the eyes also tell you that making art ain't the same as running. As a matter of fact, making art is one way of taking a stand against the darkness. I'm glad some of us have the courage to do that.

The Storms Are on the Ocean

I'm experimenting (playing around) with my blog template. It may change several times over the next few days. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions about the look of the blog or its content, please comment. 


The storms are on the ocean.

And yesterday they moved through Tennessee. A tornado watch was out for all of middle TN until 8 PM, but the focus, the paper said, was on the northern counties. We made it through the day in our area without any severe storms or tornadoes. But three people were killed in other parts of the state. The Weather channel says more storms are expected to arrive Friday. Our state is beautiful, lush and green, but March and April are stormy times in Tennessee.

I hope there's only a pleasant breeze and warm sunshine wherever you are.

The Carter Family recorded "The Storms Are on the Ocean" in 1927 and released it (with "Single Girl, Married Girl" on the other side) in 1928. This was their second record and it was very popular. Over time, it's become a country standard and has been recorded by many singers since, including this version by Sharon White and Rickey Scaggs.

Hobo Music: Crack in the Boxcar Door

Obama's bailed out the banks and the U.S. auto industry and he's added over 6 trillion dollars to the national debt. And yet, there's still lots of people out of work.

As far as I know, nobody has decided to hit the rails. Yet.

Back in the '30s lots of out of work guys and others who just wanted avoid it did just that. There was a fellow on my mother's side of the family, one of her aunts' husbands who lost his job, left his family, and hit the rails. He hoboed arround and never came back. Until about 40 years later. Just showed up one day and knocked on her door. She had remarried and her second husband had died leaving her an elderly widow. The old hobo may have wanted forgiveness, I'm not sure. And I don't know if he got it. All I know is he didn't come back around after that.

There are plenty of songs about hobos. Most of them romanticize the life. Some of them offer insights. Hank Snow's "Crack in the Boxcar Door" is a romanticized view of the freedom that the rambling hobos were said to enjoy.

Jimmy Rodgers "Hobo's Meditation," is still a bit romanticized but does provide the listener with some insights into hobo psychology. The hobo asks, "will we have to work for a living, or can we continue to roam?" It seems clear that he prefers to roam about the country depending on a little part time work and handouts as opposed to holding down a steady job. 

He wonders if heaven will be a utopian-like place where he is equal to the rich man and where he will always have (unearned?) money to spare. The hobo narrator in the song is also fully aware that not too many people respect him.  

Carter Family Sunday

The Carter Family was country music's first vocal group and recorded songs from the beginning of country music in 1927 on through the '30s until they disbanded in 1944. The members included Alvin Pleasant (A. P.) Carter, his wife Sara, and his sister-in-law, Maybelle Addington Carter who was married to his brother Ezra (not in the group). Sara and Maybelle were also cousins. All were raised in Southwestern Virginia, in the Clinch Mountains in an area called Poor Valley.

Sara sang the lead vocals, Maybelle sang harmony and accompanied the group with her eventually famous and influential "Carter Scratch" style of guitar playing. A. P. usually sang harmony and background vocals but sometimes sang lead.

They recorded first in Bristol, Tennessee, in August of 1927, under the direction of Ralph Peer. The Victor Talking Machine company released some of their records that fall; by 1930 they had sold over 300,000 records.

Sara divorced A.P. in 1936, remarried and moved to California with her new husband's family. The group continued making music but finally disbanded in 1944. The second generation of the Carter Family consisted of Mother Maybelle and her daughters Anita, June, and Helen. They, along with their electric guitar player, a fellow named Chet Atkins, joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1950.

Mother Maybelle and her daughters (minus Atkins) carried on the Carter tradition in the late '50s and '60s, riding the folk wave. Their appearance on Johnny Cash's second TV show in 1969 (June married Johnny in 1968) introduced their traditional style to an even larger audience.

The song "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" was written in 1926 and was first recorded by the Carter Family in 1936. This was the year that Sara left A.P. but that's her voice and Maybelle's on the harmonies. In this great video, put together by shallowford, you can see a sad wistfulness in Sara's face and resignation in A.P.'s.

Sara, it seems, was not as ambitious or driven as was her husband A.P. who was gone a lot during the early days of their marriage, traveling Appalachia looking for songs. Plus, he had a temper. In A.P.'s absence in 1933, Sara fell for a fellow named Coy Bays. They had a somewhat public courtship (people knew about it) that went on for almost three years.

So it's clear that there were already strains and tensions in the marriage when the Carter Family recorded "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" in 1936. I suppose it's one of those rare instances when the emotion of a song is very close to the emotional state of (at least two of) its performers.

(By the way, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" was released again in 1950 by orchestra leader Blue Baron (Harry Freidman) and reached #19 on Billboard's chart. Baron's version added the spoken narration that Elvis Presley used in his hit 1960 recording of the tune.)

I've selected what is arguably the Carter Family's most famous song "Wildwood Flower" to serve as an example of the second generation's work. It was originally recorded in their May 27, 1928, session, but Mother Maybelle and her daughters continued to perform it regularly throughout their career.

It's also the first song I learned to pick on the guitar and remains a favorite of mine. The main reason I used it as an example here though, is to illustrate Maybelle's "Carter Scratch" guitar technique. She has the capo way down the neck but the style is unmistakable.

Finally, let's hear an old country gospel tune to close out Sunday's Carter Family post. Besides suggesting that the '30s were the "end times," "No Depression in Heaven" also presents the idea that in heaven Christians will transcend and triumph over the economic Depression which had wracked the entire country tremendous suffering. "No Depression" was also recorded back in 1936 and was written by James D. Vaughn of Giles County, Tennessee. On a personal note, this is the county where Joyce and I met at Martin College.

Over time "No Depression" has become a most famous Carter tune and has been covered by many artists from the New Lost City Ramblers to Sheryl Crow. The 1936 recording features both Sara and Maybelle on guitars and A.P. sings the lead.

Of Mavericks and a Rose

In my mystery novel Blood Country the narrator and central character is Joe Rose, a Nashville side guitarist and private detective. When I was working on the book, I thought quite a bit about the car I wanted my guitar playing gumshoe to drive.

It may seem a little silly, but what kind of car a character drives is an important signal to the reader. Among other things, it can give the reader information about the character's values, his preferences, and his personality.

The cliche car for book and TV and movie heroes is the Mustang, usually a vintage model. I imagine that goes back to that great Steve McQueen movie Bullit in which he drove the hell out of a dark green one all over San Francisco.

I like Mustangs, but I didn't want Rose to be driving a cliche so the Mustang was out. What I wanted was something that would go along with his tough exterior/tender interior makeup, and something that would make a statement about his ordinariness (just plain Joe), his independence, and his individuality.

Camaros and Firebirds of that late '60s early '70s era are nice, but they just didn't seem right for Rose. I also like Pontiac GTO's but again, for some reason I couldn't picture Rose behind the wheel of one. Joe's cool, but a GTO would maybe be too cool for him. The early '70s Dodge Charger with its brutish hemi is a little more yeoman like in the cool department, which would be good for Joe, but the name itself would suggest that it's the steed for some kind of white knight dude, which Joe is definitely not. At least the knight part.

As I was thinking this over, I remembered a car my son had owned when he was stationed at Shaw AFB in South Carolina in the early '80s. A nice Maverick two door with 302 V8 engine that was manufactured in Cleveland. It was a solid car and, because it was the Ford replacement for the old and light bodied Falcon, it was pretty fast for the time.

I also like both the looks and the name of this car. The fastback style is just sporty enough and since Ford made lots of Mavericks, it underscores Rose's common man status. Also, its name speaks to his independence and stubbornness. All and all, the Maverick seemed to be a nice fit for Joe Rose, a tough Nashville shamus who's not the big star, but the ordinary guitar guy standing just outside the spotlight.

So, after considerable thought, I ended up making Rose's car a 1976 Maverick 2 door, which in the book he says he received in partial payment for his work on a protracted estate case. The car has been in storage for almost thirty years and the heirs tell him they are glad to be rid of it. Rose's Maverick, which is in excellent, almost new shape, is a black two door model with the 302 V8.

The novel is set in Nashville in the music industry. There are plenty of singers and songwriters who've made their names and established their reputations in Music City as mavericks. You might think of Hank Sr., or Waylon, or Willie. or maybe Kristofferson.

There is even one country group called the Mavericks. Their lead singer is Raul Malo who's been on his own recently, but I understand there's a chance they may do a reunion tour this summer.

Here are the Mavericks with lead singer Raul Malo singing "There Goes My Heart," live in Austin, Texas.

P.S. I've been selling quite a few books since before Christmas, mostly in the Kindle format. I think the $.99 price point has helped a lot in getting readers interested, and they are apparently spreading the word. Don't get me wrong. You won't find Blood Country on the Amazon or the NYT best seller lists. At least not yet. But I'm working on it.