Remembering Folk Legends

Volume 1

Folk

Legends

Gone,

But Not

Forgotten...

SFM

MAGAZINE

folk legends, gone, b

Folk music often features story telling

lyrics, and has been around throughout

the ages all around the world. Some

songs date back to medeival times and even

before those days, for example Greensleeves,

Scarborough Fair, Ave Maria, Song Of

Roland, Foy Porter to name but a few.

The artists and groups I’ve included in this

volume, and those who will feature in future

volumes are folk singers from the early 20th

century and beyond, whom while they are no

longer with us today, their ground breaking

music and songs are available for us to listen to

through recordings of albums and songs made

during their lifetimes.

I have used the majority of links to their music

from Discogs, from where, should you wish

to, you should be able to find copies of their

albums for yourself, also many of them can be

found on Youtube and similar music sites.

Most of the information about artists included

can be found on Wikipedia, should you wish

to discover more about them.

Folk songs address social issues and have

shaped movements like civil rights, antiwar

protests, and cultural change. They are

a vital backbone to our modern day lives,

and it’s wonderful to look back and reflect

on the many talented artists who have made

significant contributions to shaping the folk

music scene as we know it to be today.

Jane Shields - Editor/Producer of SFMM

| 02 janeshieldsmedia@gmail.com

Index

ut not forgotten...

04 THE ALMANAC SINGERS

08 THE CARTER FAMILY

12 CHARLIE POOLE

16 JOHN DENVER

22 DAVE CARTER

26 LEONARD COHEN

36 DAVE VAN RONK

40 THE WEAVERS

44 KRIS KRISTOPHERSON

50 DOC WATSON

54 GUY CLARK

58 MARIANNE FAITHFULL

64 PATRICK SKY

66 HARRY BELAFONTE

72 GORDON LIGHTFOOT

78 WOODY GUTHRIE

84 TOWNES VAN ZANDT

88 SANDY DENNY

94 PHIL OCHS

janeshieldsmedia@gmail.com

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The Almanac Singers were an American New

York City-based folk music group, active

between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard

Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and were joined by

Woody Guthrie.

The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs

advocating an anti-war, anti-racism and pro-union

philosophy. They were part of the Popular Front,

an alliance of liberals and leftists, including the

Communist Party USA (whose slogan, under their

leader Earl Browder, was “Communism is twentieth

century Americanism”), who had vowed to put

aside their differences in order to fight fascism

and promote racial and religious inclusiveness and

workers’ rights. The Almanac Singers felt strongly

that songs could help achieve these goals.

Cultural historian Michael Denning writes, “The

base of the Popular Front was labor movement, the

organization of millions of industrial workers into

the new unions of the CIO. For this was the age of the

CIO, the years that one historian has called ‘the largest

sustained surge of worker organization in American

history.”

“By the early 1940s, the CIO was dominated by new

unions in the metalworking industries--the United

Autoworkers, the United Steel Workers, and the

United Electrical Workers--and ‘industrial unionism’

was not simply a kind of unionism but a kind of social

reconstruction”.

It is in the context of this social movement that the

story of the Almanac Singers, which formed in early

1941, ought to be seen.


The Almanac Singers

In late 1940 and early 1941 (before America entered

World War II) rearmament was putting an end to a

decade of unemployment; and labor was at its most

militant. As the CIO fought racial discrimination in

hiring, it had to confront deep racial divides in its

own membership, particularly in the UAW plants in

Detroit where white workers sometimes struck to

protest the promotion of black workers to production

jobs. It also worked on this issue in shipyards in

Alabama, mass transit in Philadelphia, and steel

plants in Baltimore. The CIO leadership, particularly

those in more left unions such as the Packinghouse

Workers, the UAW, the NMU and the Transport

Workers, undertook serious efforts to suppress hate

strikes and to educate their membership. Those

unions contrasted their relatively bold attack on the

problem with the timidity and racism of the AFL

Almanac members Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete

Seeger, and Woody Guthrie began playing together

informally in 1940 or 1941. Pete Seeger and Guthrie

had met at ‘Will Geer’s Grapes of Wrath’ Evening,

a benefit for displaced migrant workers, in March

1940. That year, Seeger joined Guthrie on a trip to

Texas and California to visit Guthrie’s relatives. Hays

and Lampell had rented a New York City apartment

together in October 1940, and on his return Seeger

moved in with them. They called their apartment

Almanac House, and it became a center for leftist

intellectuals as well as crash pad for folksingers,

including (in 1942) Sonny Terry and Brownie

McGhee.

Ed Cray says that Hays and Seeger’s first paying gig

was in January 1941 at a fund-raising benefit for

Spanish Civil War Loyalists at the Jade Mountain

restaurant in New York City. According to a 1965

interview with Lee Hays by Richard Reuss, Seeger,

Hays, and Lampell sang at an American Youth

Congress held at Turner’s Arena in Washington,

D.C., in February 1941, at which sponsors had

requested songs constructed around the slogan

“Don’t Lend or Lease our Bases” and “Jim Crow must

Go”. Shortly after this, they decided to call themselves

the Almanacs. They chose the name because Lee

Hays had said that back home in Arkansas farmers

had only two books in their houses: the Bible, to

guide and prepare them for life in the next world,

and the Almanac, to tell them about conditions in

this one.”

Performers who sang with the group at various times


included Sis Cunningham, (John) Peter Hawes and

his brother Baldwin “Butch” Hawes, Bess Lomax

Hawes (wife of Butch and sister of Alan Lomax),

Cisco Houston, Arthur Stern, Josh White, Jackie

(Gibson) Alper, Burl Ives, (Hiram) Jaime Lowden

and Sam Gary.

They invented a driving, energetic performing style,

based on what they felt was the best of American

country string band music, black and white. They

wore street clothes, which was unheard of in an era

when entertainers routinely wore formal, nightclub

attire, and they invited the audience to join in

the singing. The Almanacs had many gigs playing

at parties, rallies, benefits, unions meetings, and

informal “hootenannies”, a term Seeger and Guthrie

learned on an Almanac tour of Portland and

Washington.

On May day of 1941, they entertained a rally of

20,000 striking transit workers in Madison Square

Garden, where they introduced the song “Talking

Union” and participated in a dramatic sketch with

the young actress Carol Channing.

The Almanacs’ first record release, an album of three

78s called ‘Songs for John Doe’, written to protest the

Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, the first

peacetime draft in U.S. history. Recorded in February

or March 1941 and issued in May, it comprised four

songs written by Millard Lampell and two by Seeger

and Hays (including “Plow Under”) that followed

the Communist Party line (after the 1939 Molotov–

Ribbentrop Pact), urging non-intervention in World

War II. It was produced by the founder of Keynote

Records, Eric Bernay. Bernay, who owned a small

record store, was the former business manager of

the magazine New Masses, which in 1938 and 1939

had sponsored John H. Hammond’s landmark From

Spirituals to Swing Concert. Perhaps because of its

controversial content, ‘Songs for John Doe’ came out

under the imprint “Almanac Records”, and Bernay

insisted that the performers themselves (in this

case Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell, Josh White, and

Sam Gary, an interracial group) pay for the costs

of production. ‘Songs for John Doe’ attacked big

American corporations (such as J.P. Morgan and

DuPont), repeating the Party’s line that they had

supported German rearmament, and during the

period of re-armament in 1941, were now vying for

government contracts to build up the defenses of the

U.S. Besides being anti-union, these corporations

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were a focus of progressive and black activist anger

because they barred blacks from employment in

defense work.

The album also criticized President Roosevelt’s

unprecedented peacetime draft, insinuating that he

was going to war for J.P. Morgan. Seeger later said

that he believed the Communist argument at that

time that the war was “phony” and that big business

merely wanted to use Hitler as a proxy to attack

Soviet Russia. Bess Lomax Hawes, who was twenty at

the time and did not sing on the ‘John Doe’ album,

writes in her autobiography ‘Sing It Pretty’ (2008),

that for her part, she had taken the pacifist oath as

a girl out of repugnance for what she thought was

the senseless brutality of the First World War (a

sentiment shared by many) and that she took the

oath very seriously. However, she said

“Events were happening so fast, and such terrible news

was coming out about German atrocities, that The

Almanacs hardly knew what to believe from one day

to the next, and they found themselves adjusting their

topical repertoire on a daily basis.”

“Every day, it seemed, another once-stable European

political reality would fall to the rapidly expanding

Nazi armies, and the agonies of the death camps were

beginning to reach our ears. The Almanacs, as selfdefined

commentators, were inevitably affected by the

intense national debate between the “warmongers” and

the “isolationists” (and the points between)”.

“Before every booking we had to decide: were we going

to sing some of our hardest-hitting and most eloquent

songs, all of which were antiwar, and if we weren’t,

what would we sing anyway? ... We hoped the next

headline would not challenge our entire roster of poetic

ideas. Woody Guthrie wrote a song that mournfully

stated: “I started out to write a song to the entire

population / But no sooner than I got the words down,

here come a brand new situation”

On June 22, 1941, Hitler broke the non-aggression

pact and attacked the Soviet Union, and Keynote

promptly destroyed all its inventory of Songs for

‘John Doe’. The CIO now urged support for Roosevelt

and the draft, and it forbade its members from

participation in strikes for the duration (angering

some in the movement).

On June 25, 1941, Roosevelt, under pressure from

black leaders, who were threatening a massive march

on Washington against segregation in the army

and the exclusion of blacks from factories doing

defense work, signed Executive Order 8802 (The Fair

Employment Act) banning racial discrimination by

corporations receiving federal defense contracts. The

racial situation, which had threatened black support

for the peacetime draft, was now somewhat defused

(even though the Army still declined to desegregate)

and the march was canceled.

The Almanac’s second album, ‘Talking Union’, also

produced by Bernay, was a collection of six labor

songs: “Union Maid”, “I Don’t Want Your Millions

Mister”, “Get Thee Behind Me Satan”, “Union Train”,

“Which Side Are You On?”, and the eponymous

“Talking Union”. This album, issued in July 1941,

was not anti-Roosevelt but was criticized in a review

by Time magazine, nevertheless. It was reissued by

Folkways in 1955 with additional songs and is still

available today.

The Almanacs also issued two albums of traditional

folk songs with no political content in 1941: an

album of sea chanteys, ‘Deep Sea Chanteys and

Whaling Ballads’ (sea chanteys, as was well known,

being Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite kind of song)

and ‘Sod-Buster Ballads’, which were songs of the

pioneers. Both of these were produced by Alan

Lomax on General, the label that had issued his Jelly

Roll Morton recordings in 1940. When the USA

entered the European war after Germany’s post-Pearl

Harbor declaration of war in December 1941, the

Almanacs recorded a new topical album for Keynote

in support of the war effort, ‘Dear Mr. President’,

under the supervision of Earl Robinson, that

included Woody Guthrie’s “Reuben James” (1942).

The title song, “Dear Mr. President”, was a solo by

Pete Seeger, and its lines expressed his lifelong credo:

Now, Mr. President,

We haven’t always agreed in the past, I know,

But that ain’t at all important now.

What is important is what we got to do,

We got to lick Mr. Hitler, and until we do,

Other things can wait.

Now, as I think of our great land . . .

I know it ain’t perfect, but it will be someday,

Just give us a little time.


The Almanac Singers

This is the reason that I want to fight,

Not ‘cause everything’s perfect, or everything’s right.

No, it’s just the opposite: I’m fightin’ because

I want a better America, and better laws,

And better homes, and jobs, and schools,

And no more Jim Crow, and no more rules like

“You can’t ride on this train ‘cause you’re a Negro,”

“You can’t live here ‘cause you’re a Jew,”

“You can’t work here ‘cause you’re a union man.”

So, Mr. President,

We got this one big job to do

That’s lick Mr. Hitler and when we’re through,

Let no one else ever take his place

To trample down the human race.

So what I want is you to give me a gun

So we can hurry up and get the job done.

In 1942, Army intelligence and the FBI determined

that the Almanacs and their former anti-draft

message were still a seditious threat to recruitment

and the morale of the war effort among blacks and

youth, and they were hounded by hostile reviews,

exposure of their Communist ties and negative

coverage in the New York press, like the headline

“Commie Singers try to Infiltrate Radio”. They

disbanded in late 1942 or early 1943. It has been

suggested that the popularity and credibility of the

group were affected by the constantly changing

policies of the Communist Party and uncertainty

about where their music stood in relation to these

changes.

In 1945, after the end of the war, Millard Lampell

went on to become a successful screenwriter, writing

under a pseudonym while blacklisted. In 1943,

Woody Guthrie wrote and published his famous

semi-autobiographical book “Bound for Glory”.

Later that year he joined the Merchant Marines with

fellow (non-Almanac) folksinger Cisco Houston,

and would be drafted into the army until late

1945; Woody afterwards performed solo and with

others (but not as part of an organized band) until

becoming progressively overcome by Huntington’s

Disease in the mid 1950s. The other founding

Almanac members Pete Seeger and Lee Hays became

President and Executive Secretary, respectively, of

People’s Songs, an organization with the goal of

providing protest music to union activists, repeal of

the Taft-Hartley Act, and electing Henry A. Wallace

on the third, Progressive Party, ticket. People’s Songs

disbanded in 1948, after the defeat of Wallace. Seeger

and Hays, joined by two of Hays’ young friends,


Ronnie Gilbert and Fred Hellerman, then began

singing together again at fund-raising folk dances,

with a repertoire geared to international folk music.

The new singing group, appearing for a while in 1949

under the rubric, “The Nameless Quartet”, changed

their name to ‘The Weavers’ and went on to achieve

great renown.

discography

SONGS FOR JOHN DOE

Almanac Records 1941

Link to listen:

https://www.discogs.com/

release/8615326-The-Almanac-Singers-

Songs-For-John-Doe

TALKING UNION

Keynote 1941

Link to listen:

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=1Khc3mz0eSU

DEEP SEA SHANTIES AND

WHALING BALLADS

General 1941

Link to listen:


release/17496031-The-Almanac-

Singers-Sod-Buster-Ballads-Deep-Sea-

Chanteys-And-Whaling-Ballads

SOD BUSTER BALLADS

General 1941

Link to listen:


release/17496031-The-Almanac-

Singers-Sod-Buster-Ballads-Deep-Sea-

Chanteys-And-Whaling-Ballads

DEAR MR PRESIDENT

Keynote 1942

Link to listen:

https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=oycdbUNoUaM

SONGS OF THE LINCOLN

BRIGADE

Stinson/Asch 1940

Link to listen:

https://archive.org/details/78_songs-ofthe-lincoln-brigade_pete-seeger-besslomax-baldwin-hawes-tom-glazer_

gbia8005660

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MAGAZINE

THE CARTER FAMILY

The Carter Family was a traditional American

folk music group that recorded between

1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound

influence on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel,

pop and rock music, as well as on the U.S. folk

revival of the 1960s.

They were the first vocal group to become country

music stars, and were among the first groups to

record commercially produced country music. Their

first recordings were made in Bristol, Tennessee,

for the Victor Talking Machine Company under

producer Ralph Peer on August 1, 1927. This was the

day before country singer Jimmie Rodgers made his

initial recordings for Victor under Peer.

The success of the Carter Family’s recordings of

songs such as “Wabash Cannonball”, “Can the Circle

Be Unbroken”, “Wildwood Flower”, “Keep on the

Sunny Side”, and “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue

Eyes” made these songs country standards. The

melody of the last was used for Roy Acuff ’s “The

Great Speckled Bird”, Hank Thompson’s “The Wild

Side of Life” and Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who

Made Honky Tonk Angels”. The song became a hit all

over again in these other incarnations.

The original group consisted of Sara Carter, her

husband A. P. Carter, and her sister-in-law Maybelle

Carter. Maybelle was Sara’s first cousin, and was

married to A.P.’s brother Ezra Carter (Eck). All three

were born and raised in southwest Virginia. They

were immersed in the tight harmonies of mountain

gospel music and shape note singing. The latter dated

to the early 19th century and revivals in the South.

Throughout the group’s career, Sara Carter sang

lead vocals and played rhythm guitar or autoharp.


The Carter Family

Maybelle sang harmony and played lead guitar. On

some songs A.P. did not perform at all; on some

songs he sang harmony and background vocals,

and occasionally he sang lead. Maybelle’s distinctive

guitar-playing style became a hallmark of the group.

Her ‘Carter Scratch’ (a method for playing both lead

and rhythm on the guitar) has become one of the

most copied styles of guitar playing.

The group (in all its incarnations) recorded for

a number of labels, including RCA Victor (and

subsidiary label, Bluebird), ARC group, Columbia,

Okeh and various imprint labels.

The Carter Family made their first recordings on

August 1, 1927. The previous day, A.P. Carter had

persuaded his wife Sara Carter and his sister-in-law

Maybelle Carter to make the journey from Maces

Spring, Virginia, to Bristol, Tennessee, to audition

for record producer Ralph Peer. Peer was seeking

new talent for the relatively embryonic recording

industry. The initial sessions are part of what are

now called the Bristol Sessions. The band received

$50 for each song recorded, plus a half-cent royalty

on every copy sold of each song, for which they had

registered a copyright. On November 4, 1927, the

Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor)

released a double-sided 78 rpm record of the group

performing “Wandering Boy” and “Poor Orphan

Child”. On December 2, 1928, Victor released “The

Storms Are on the Ocean” / “Single Girl, Married

Girl”, which became very popular.

By the end of 1930, the Carter Family had sold

300,000 records in the United States. Realizing

that he would benefit financially with each new

song he collected and copyrighted, A.P. traveled

around southwestern Virginia to find songs to

record; he also composed new songs. In the early

1930s, he befriended Lesley “Esley” Riddle, a black

guitar player from Kingsport, Tennessee. Lesley

accompanied A.P. on his song-collecting trips. In

June 1931, the Carters did a recording session in

Benton, Kentucky, along with Jimmie Rodgers.

In 1933, Maybelle met the Speer Family at a fair

in Ceredo, West Virginia, fell in love with their

signature sound, and asked them to tour with the

Carter Family.

In the winter of 1938–39, the Carter Family traveled

to Texas, where they had a twice-daily program on

the border radio station XERA (later XERF) in Villa

Acuña (now Ciudad Acuña, Mexico), across the


border from Del Rio, Texas.

In the 1939–40 season, the children of A.P. and

Sara (Janette and Joe Carter) and those of Maybelle

(Helen, June, and Anita) joined the group for radio

performances, by then in San Antonio, Texas. Here

the programs were prerecorded and distributed to

multiple border radio stations. (The children did not,

however, perform on the group’s records.) In the fall

of 1942, the Carters moved their program to WBT

radio in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a one-year

contract. They occupied the sunrise slot, with the

program airing between 5:15 and 6:15 a.m.

By 1936, A.P. and Sara’s marriage had dissolved. After

Sara married A.P.’s cousin, Coy Bayes, they moved to

California. The Carter Family disbanded in 1944.

Maybelle continued to perform with her daughters

Anita Carter, June Carter, and Helen Carter and

recorded on 3 labels (RCA Victor, Columbia

and Coronet) as “The Carter Sisters and Mother

Maybelle” (sometimes billed as “The Carter Sisters”

or “Maybelle Carter and the Carter Sisters” or

“Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters”). In

1943, Maybelle Carter and her daughters, using

the name “the Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle”

had a program on WRNL in Richmond, Virginia.

Maybelle’s brother, Hugh Jack (Doc) Addington Jr.,

and Carl McConnell, known as the ‘Original Virginia

Boys’, also played music and sang on the radio show.

Chet Atkins joined them playing electric guitar in

1949 at WNOX radio in Knoxville, Tennessee. He

moved with them in October 1949 to KWTO radio

in Springfield, Missouri.

In the winter of 1938–39, the Carter Family traveled

to Texas, where they had a twice-daily program on

the border radio station XERA (later XERF) in Villa

Acuña (now Ciudad Acuña, Mexico), across the

border from Del Rio, Texas.

In the 1939–40 season, the children of A.P. and

Sara (Janette and Joe Carter) and those of Maybelle

(Helen, June, and Anita) joined the group for radio

performances, by then in San Antonio, Texas. Here

the programs were prerecorded and distributed to

multiple border radio stations. (The children did not,

however, perform on the group’s records.)

After the death of A.P. Carter in 1960, ‘Mother

Maybelle Carter and the Carter Sisters’ began using

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the name “the Carter Family” for their act during the

1960s and 1970s. Maybelle and Sara briefly reunited,

recorded a reunion album (An Historic Reunion),

and toured in the 1960s during the height of folk

music’s popularity.

A film documentary about the family, ‘Sunny Side of

Life’, was released in 1985.

In 1987, reunited sisters June Carter Cash and Helen

and Anita Carter, along with June’s daughter Carlene

Carter, appeared as the Carter Family. They were

featured on a 1987 television episode of ‘Austin City

Limits’, along with June’s husband Johnny Cash.

The Carter Family name was revived for a third time,

under the name ‘Carter Family III’. It was a project

of descendants of the original Carter Family, John

Carter Cash (grandson of Maybelle Carter, son of

June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash) and Dale Jett

(grandson of A.P. and Sara Carter), along with John’s

wife Laura (Weber) Cash. They released their first

album, ‘Past & Present’, in 2010.

Rosie Nix Adams, daughter of June Carter Cash

and her second husband, was also a semi-regular

performing member of the Carter Family.

Third Generation family member Carlene Carter

(granddaughter of Maybelle Carter) had ventured

into pop music before becoming part of the 1987

Carter Family’s second generation revival.

THE CARTER FAMILY MEMBERS

• A. P. Carter (1927–1944, 1952–1956)

• Maybelle Carter (1927–1978)

• Sara Carter (1927–1944, 1952–1956, 1960–1971)

• Janette Carter (1939–1940, 1952–1956)

• Helen Carter (1939–1940, 1944–1996)

• June Carter Cash (1939–1940, 1944–1969, 1971–

1996)

• Anita Carter (1939–1940, 1944–1996)

• Joe Carter (1952–1956)

• John Carter Cash (2012–present)

• Dale Jett (2012–present)

• Carlene Carter (1987–present)

• Laura Cash (2012–2016)

in isolation; her style is today widely known as the

“Carter scratch” or “Carter Family picking”. While

Maybelle did use a flatpick on occasion, her major

method of guitar playing was the use of her thumb

(with a thumbpick) along with one or two fingers.

What her guitar style accomplished was to allow her

to play melody lines (on the low strings of the guitar)

while still maintaining rhythm using her fingers,

brushing across the higher strings.

Before the Carter family’s recordings, the guitar

was rarely used as a lead or solo instrument among

musicians. Maybelle’s interweaving of a melodic line

on the bass strings with intermittent strums is now

a staple of steel string guitar technique. Flatpickers

such as Doc Watson, Clarence White and Norman

Blake took flatpicking to a higher technical level,

but all acknowledge Maybelle’s playing as their

inspiration.

Renewed attention to the Carter Family tune “When

I’m Gone” occurred after several covers performed

a cappella with a cup used to provide percussion, as

in the cup game and dubbed the Cups song, went

viral and culminated with a short performance in the

movie Pitch Perfect. Afterwards it was released as a

single by Anna Kendrick.

The A. P. and Sara Carter House, A. P. Carter

Homeplace, A. P. Carter Store, Maybelle and Ezra

Carter House, and Mt. Vernon Methodist Church are

listed on the National Register of Historic Places as

components of the Carter Family Thematic Resource.

In 2017, the Carter Family’s story was told in the

award-winning documentary series American

Epic. The film featured unseen film footage of The

Carter Family performing and being interviewed,

and radically improved restorations of their

1920s recordings. Director Bernard MacMahon

commented that “we first came to the Carters

through their records, but one of the other things

that struck us about them is that they were involved

in both of the main waves of America hearing itself

for the first time.

As important to country music as the family’s

repertoire of songs was Maybelle’s guitar playing. She

developed her innovative guitar technique largely


The Carter Family

LIST OF SINGLES RELEASED BY THE ORIGINAL CARTER FAMILY

YEAR A SIDE B SIDE LABEL

1927 The Poor Orphan Child The Wandering Boy Victor 20877

Single Girl, Married Girl The Storms Are On The Ocean Victor 20937

Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow Little Log Cabin By The Sea Victor 21074

1928 River Of Jordan Keep On The Sunny Side Victor 21434

Chewing Gum I Ain’t Goin’ To Work Tomorrow Victor 21517

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone Little Darling, Pal Of Mine Victor 21638

1929 Wildwood Flower Forsaken Love Victor V-40000

I Have No One To Love Anchored In Love Victor V-40036

My Clinch Mountain Home The Foggy Mountain Top Victor V-40058

Engine One-Fourty-Three I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes Victor V-40089

Little Moses God Gave Noah The Rainbow Sign Victor V-40110

Sweet Fern Lulu Wait Victor V-40126

Diamonds In The Rough The Grave On The Green Hillside Victor V-40150

John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man Bring Back My Blue Eyed Boy To Me Victor V-40190

1930 The Homestead On The Farm The Cyclone Of The Ryecove Victor V-40207

When The Roses Bloom In Dixieland No Telephone In Heaven Victor V-40229

Western Hobo A Distant Land To Roam Victor V-40255

The Lover’s Farewell Kitty Waltz Victor V-40277

When The World’s On Fire When The Springtime Comes Again Victor V-40293

Worried Man Blues The Cannon Ball Victor V-40317

Don’t Forget This Song The Little Log Hut In The Lane Victor V-40328

1931 On The Rock Where Moses Stood Darling Nellie Across The Sea Victor 23513

Where Shall I Be No More The Moon Shines On Lorena Victor 23523

Lonesome Valley The Birds Were Singing Of You Victor 23541

There’s Someone Awaiting For Me Jimmie Brown, The Newsboy Victor 23554

Can’t Feel At Home When I’m Gone Victor 23569

Jimmie Rodgers Visits The Carter Family Moonlight And Skies Victor 23574

Fond Affection Sow ‘Em On The Mountain Victor 23585

My Old Cottage Lonesome For You Victor 23599

Let The Church Roll On Room In Heaven For Me Victor 23618

1932 Sunshine In The Shadows Weary Prodigal Son Victor 23626

The Dying Soldier Motherless Children Victor 23641

Tell Me That You Love Me I Never Loved But One Victor 23656

Where We’ll Never Grow Old We Will March Through The Streets In The City Victor 23672

Picture On The Wall ‘Mid The Green Fields Of Virginia Victor 23686

Happiest Days Of All Amber Tresses Victor 23701

Carter’s Blues Lonesome Pine Special Victor 23716

Meet Me By Moonlight Alone Wabash Cannonball Victor 23731

1933 Will The Roses Bloom In Heaven The Spirit Of Love Watches Over Me Victor 23748

Sweet As The Flowers In May Time If One Won’t Another One Will Victor 23761

The Sun Of The Soul The Church In The Wildwood Victor 23776

Two Sweethearts The Broken Hearted Lover Victor 23791

The Winding Stream I Wouldn’t Mind Dying Victor 23807

Gold Watch And Chain Give Me Roses While I Live Victor 23821

I Loved You Better Than You Knew See That My Grave Is Kept Green Victor 23835

On The Sea Of Galilee This Is Like Heaven To Me Victor 23845

1934 Hello Central Give Me Heaven I’ll Be All Smiles Tonight Bluebird B 5529

Darling Dasies Lovers Return Bluebird B 5586

Happy Or Lonesome The East Virginia Blues Bluebird B 5650

I’m Working On A Building When The Roses Bloom In Dixieland Bluebird B 5716


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charlie

poole

Charles Cleveland Poole (March 22, 1892 –

May 21, 1931) was an American old-time

musician and leader of the North Carolina

Ramblers, a string band that recorded many popular

hillbilly songs between 1925 and 1930. Poole has

been regarded as a pioneer of country, bluegrass and

folk music.

Poole was born near the mill town of Franklinville,

North Carolina. He was the son of John Philip Poole

and Elizabeth Johnson. In 1918, he moved to the

town of Spray, North Carolina, now part of Eden.

As a child, he learned to play the banjo. He played

baseball, and his three-fingered technique was the

result of an accident. Whilst betting that he could

catch a baseball without a glove, the ball broke his

thumb as he closed his hand too soon, resulting in a

permanent arch in his right hand.

Poole bought his first banjo, an Orpheum No. 3

Special, with profits from making moonshine. He

later appeared in the 1929 Gibson Company catalog

to promote their banjo. He spent much of his adult

life working in textile mills.

Poole and his brother-in-law, fiddle player Posey

Rorer, whom he had met in West Virginia in

1917 and whose sister he married, formed a trio

with guitarist Norman Woodlief called the North

Carolina Ramblers. They auditioned in New York

for Columbia Records. After signing a contract, they

recorded “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Blues” on

July 27 1925. This song was successful, selling over

106,000 copies at a time when there were estimated

to be only 6,000 phonographs in the southern

United States, according to Poole’s biographer and


Charlie Poole

great-nephew, Kinney Rorrer. The band was paid $75

for the session.

For the next five years, Poole and the Ramblers

were a popular band. The band’s sound remained

consistent, although several members came and

left (including Posey Rorer and Norm Woodlief).

The band recorded over 60 songs for Columbia

Records during the 1920s, including “Sweet Sunny

South”, “White House Blues”, “He Rambled”, and

“Take a Drink on Me”. Former railroad engineer Roy

Harvey was one of the guitarists. Fiddlers in various

recording sessions were Posey Rorer, Lonnie Austin

and Odell Smith.

Bill C. Malone, in his history of country music,

Country Music, U.S.A., says, “The Rambler sound

was predictable: a bluesy fiddle lead, backed up by

long, flowing, melodic guitar runs and the fingerstyle

banjo picking of Poole. Predictable as it may

be, it was nonetheless outstanding. No string band

in early country music equaled the Ramblers’

controlled, clean, well-patterned sound.”

Poole composed few of his recordings, mostly

covering old folk songs. Nevertheless, his dynamic

renditions were popular with a broad audience in the

Southeast United States. He is considered a primary

source for old-time music revivalists and aficionados.

Songs like “Bill Morgan and His Gal”, “Milwaukee

Blues”, and “Leavin’ Home”, have been resurrected

by banjo players. Poole developed a unique

fingerpicking style, a blend of melody, arpeggio, and

rhythm (distinct from clawhammer/ frailing and

Scruggs’ variations).

Poole had been invited to Hollywood to play

background music for a film, but died before this

could happen in May 1931. His cause of death was a

heart attack due to alcohol poisoning. According to

some reports, he had been disheartened by the slump

in record sales due to the Depression.

Let Your Deal Go Down”. His recordings have also

appeared on numerous compilations of old-time

music. Since 1995, Poole’s legacy has been carried

on every year in Eden, North Carolina, during the

month of June when the Piedmont Folk Legacies,

Inc, a non-profit organization, hosts the Charlie

Poole Music Festival. Bob Dylan in his Nobel Lecture

acknowledged Poole and several lyrics of his song

“You Ain’t Talkin To Me”.

Columbia issued a three-CD box set of his music,

entitled ‘You Ain’t Talkin’ to Me: Charlie Poole

and the Roots of Country Music’ in 2005. The

album, produced by Henry “Hank” Sapoznik, was

nominated for three Grammy Awards. It chronicles

the music made for Columbia by Poole and the

North Carolina Ramblers between 1925 and 1931,

including such important songs as “Don’t Let

Your Deal Go Down”, “Can I Sleep in Your Barn

Tonight, Mister?”, “Old and Only in the Way” (the

title of which was used by Jerry Garcia to name his

1970s bluegrass band with David Grisman, Old

and in the Way), and “White House Blues”, adapted

by John Mellencamp, who in 2004 updated the

politically charged lyrics and changed the title to “To

Washington”. In addition to 43 of Poole’s original

recordings, the package features performances by

other early roots music players and singers, including

Fred Van Eps, Arthur Collins, Billy Murray, Floyd

Country Ramblers, Uncle Dave Macon and The Red

Fox Chasers.

The original liner notes, by Peter Stampfel, state,

“Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers

recorded an incredible number of songs that are

personal favorites of mine. Poole is, in fact, one of

the great musicians of the century. No doubt about

it.” The album’s cover art was created by Robert

Crumb, the celebrated illustrator and an old-time

music aficionado.

Poole’s music saw a revival in the 1960s, most

likely due to his inclusion on the 1952 Anthology

of American Folk Music, and his renditions have

been re-recorded by numerous artists, such as

John Mellencamp with “White House Blues”, The

Chieftains, New Lost City Ramblers, Holy Modal

Rounders and Hot Tuna with “Hesitation Blues”, and

Joan Baez with “Sweet Sunny South”. The Grateful

Dead’s popular song “Deal” was influenced by “Don’t


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MAGAZINE

Kinney Rorer penned a biography of Charlie Poole,

entitled Ramblin’ Blues: The Life and Songs of

Charlie Poole in 1982. Rorer is a descendant of

Poole’s fiddler Posey Rorer, and is the banjo player

for the old-time music group The New North

Carolina Ramblers.

A double-CD album paying tribute to Poole was

released by singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright

III in August 2009. The album, entitled High Wide

& Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, features 30

tracks, including new versions of songs originally

recorded by Poole, as well as tunes composed by

Wainwright and producer Dick Connette on the

artist’s life and times; it was awarded the Grammy

Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 52nd

Annual Grammy Awards.

DISCOGRAPHY FOR CHARLIE POOLE

MATRIX TITLE RECORD DATE

140786 The Girl I Left In Sunny Tennessee Columbia 15043-D July 27 1925

140787 I’m The Man That Rode The Mule ‘Round The... Columbia 15043-D July 27 1925

140788 Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister? Columbia 15038-D July 27 1925

140789 Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Blues Columbia 15038-D July 27 1925

142627 Flying Clouds Columbia 15106-D Sept 16 1926

142631 Wild Horse Columbia 15279-D Sept 16 1926

142632 Forks Of Sandy Columbia 15106-D Sept 16 1926

142633 Mountain Reel Columbia 15279-D Sept 16 1926

142637 Good-Bye Booze Columbia 15138-D Sept 17 1926

142638 Monkey On A String Columbia 15099-D Sept 17 1926

142641 Too Young To Marry Columbia 15127-D Sept 18 1926

142642 Ragtime Annie Columbia 15127-D Sept 18 1926

142643 Little Dog Waltz Unissued Sept 18 1926

142644 A Kiss Waltz Unissued Sept 18 1926

142645 Leaving Home Columbia 15116-D Sept 18 1926

142646 Budded Rose Columbia 15138-D Sept 18 1926

142657 There’ll Come A Time Columbia 15116-D Sept 20 1926

142658 Whitehouse Blues Columbia 15099-D Sept 20 1926

142659 The Highwayman Columbia 15160-D Sept 20 1926

142660 Hungry Hash House Columbia 15160-D Sept 20 1926

144509 If You Lose, I don’t Care Columbia 15215-D July 25 1927

144510 On The Battle Fields Of Belgium Unissued July 25 1927

144511 You Ain’t Talkin’ To Me Columbia 15193-D July 25 1927

144512 Coon From Tennessee Columbia 15215-D July 25 1927

144513 When I Left My Good Old Home Unissued July 25 1927

144514 The Letter That Never Came Columbia 15179-D July 25 1927

144515 Take A Drink On Me Columbia 15193-D July 25 1927

144516 Falling By The Wayside Columbia 15179-D July 25 1927

144517 Down In Gorgia Unissued July 25 1927


Charlei Poole

MATRIX TITLE RECORD DATE

144518 Sunset March Columbia 15184-D July 26 1927

144519 Teasin’ Fritz Unissued July 26 1927

144521 Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down Medley Columbia 15184-D July 26 1927

146717 A Young Boy Left His Home One Day Columbia 15584-D July 23 1928

146768 My Wife Went Away And Left Me Columbia 15584-D July 23 1928

146769 I Cannot Call Her Mother Columbia 15307-D July 23 1928

146770 I Once Loved A Sailor Columbia 15385-D July 23 1928

146771 Husband And Wife Were Angry One Night Columbia 15342-D July 23 1928

146772 Hangman, Hangman, Slack The Rope Columbia 15385-D July 23 1928

146773 Ramblin’ Blues Columbia 15286-D July 23 1928

146774 Took My Gal A-Walkin’ Columbia 15672-D July 23 1928

146775 What Is Home Without Babies Columbia 15307-D July 23 1928

146776 Jealous Mary Columbia 15342-D July 23 1928

146778 Old And Only In The Way Columbia 15672-D July 23 1928

146779 Shootin’ Creek Columbia 15286-D July 23 1928

148469 Bill Mason Columbia 15407-D May 6 1929

148470 Goodbye Mary Dear Columbia 15456-D May 6 1929

148471 Leaving Dear Old Ireland Columbia 15425-D May 6 1929

148472 Baltimore Fire Columbia 15509-D May 6 1929

148474 The Wayward Boy Columbia 15456-D May 7 1929

148475 Sweet Sunny South Columbia 15425-D May 7 1929

148476 He Rambled Columbia 15407-D May 7 1929

148477 The Mother’s Plea For Her Son Columbia 15509-D May 7 1929

2913 San Antonio Broadway 8288 May 9 1929

149900 Sweet Sixteen Columbia 15519-D Jan 23 1930

149901 My Gypsy Girl Columbia 15519-D Jan 23 1930

149902 The Only Girl I Ever Loved Columbia 15711-D Jan 23 1930

149904 Write A Letter To My Mother Columbia 15711-D Jan 23 1930

149906 If The River Was Whiskey Columbia 15545-D Jan 23 1930

149907 It’s Movin’ Day Columbia 15545-D Jan 23 1930

149908 Southern Medley Columbia 15615-D Jan 23 1930

149909 Honeysuckle Columbia 15615-D Jan 23 1930

150773 Goodbye Sweet Liza Jane Columbia !5601-D Sept 9 1930

150774 Look Before You Leap Columbia 15601-D Sept 9 1930

150775 One Moonlit Night Columbia 15688-D Sept 9 1930

150777 Just Keep Waiting ‘Till Ther Good Times... Columbia 15636-D Sept 9 1930

150779 Milwaukee Blues Columbia 15688-D Sept 9 1930

150780 Where The Whippoorwill IS Columbia 15636-D Sept 9 1930

Whispering Goodnight


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MAGAZINE

john

denver

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943

– October 12, 1997), known professionally as John

Denver, was an American singer, songwriter, and

actor. He was one of the most popular acoustic artists of

the 1970s and one of the best selling artists in that decade.

AllMusic has called Denver “among the most beloved

entertainers of his era”.

Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs,

about 200 of which he wrote himself. He had 33 albums and

singles that were certified Gold and Platinum in the U.S by

the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), with

estimated sales of more than 33 million units. He recorded

and performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang

about his joy in nature, disdain for city life, enthusiasm for

music, and relationship trials. Denver’s music appeared on

a variety of charts, including country music, the Billboard

Hot 100, and adult contemporary, earning 12 gold and four

platinum albums with his signature songs “Take Me Home,

Country Roads”; “Poems, Prayers & Promises”; “Annie’s

Song”; “Rocky Mountain High”; “Calypso”; “Thank God I’m a

Country Boy”; and “Sunshine on My Shoulders”.

Denver appeared in several films and television specials

during the 1970s and 1980s, including the 1977 hit Oh, God!,

in which he starred alongside George Burns. He continued to

record into the 1990s, also focusing on environmental issues

as well as lending vocal support to space exploration and

testifying in front of Congress to protest censorship in music.

Known for his love of Colorado, Denver lived in Aspen for

much of his life. In 1974, Denver was named poet laureate of

the state. The Colorado state legislature also adopted “Rocky

Mountain High” as one of its two state songs in 2007, and

West Virginia did the same for “Take Me Home, Country

Roads” in 2014. An avid pilot, Denver died at the age of 53

in 1997, in a single-fatality crash while piloting a recently

purchased light plane.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. was born on December 31,

1943, in Roswell, New Mexico, to Erma Louise (née Swope;

1922–2010) and Captain Henry John “Dutch” Deutschendorf

Sr. (1920–1982), a United States Army Air Forces pilot

stationed at Roswell Army Air Field. Captain Deutschendorf


John Denver

Sr. was a decorated pilot who set a number of air speed records

in a Convair B-58 Hustler in 1961.

In his 1994 autobiography ‘Take Me Home’, Denver described

his father as a stern man who could not show his love for

his children. With a military father, Denver’s family moved

often, and he found difficulty gaining friends and assimilating

with children of his own age. The introverted Denver often

felt misplaced and did not know where he truly belonged.

While stationed at Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson,

Arizona, the Deutschendorfs purchased a house and lived

there from 1951 to 1959. Denver lived in Tucson from ages six

to 14.

During these years, Denver attended Mansfeld Junior High

School and was a member of the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus

for two years. He was content in Tucson, but his father was

transferred to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery,

Alabama. The family later moved to Carswell Air Force Base

in Fort Worth, Texas, where Denver graduated from Arlington

Heights High School. Denver was distressed with life in Fort

Worth, and in his third year of high school, he drove his

father’s car to California to visit family friends and begin his

music career. His father flew to California in a friend’s jet to

retrieve him, and Denver reluctantly returned to complete his

schooling.

At age 11, Denver received an acoustic guitar from his

grandmother. He learned to play well enough to perform at

local clubs by the time he was in college. Denver decided to

change his name when Randy Sparks, founder of the New

Christy Minstrels, suggested that “Deutschendorf ” would

not fit comfortably on a marquee. Denver attended Texas

Tech University in Lubbock and sang in a folk-music group,

“The Alpine Trio”, while studying architecture. He was also a

member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Denver dropped out

of Texas Tech in 1963 and moved to Los Angeles, where he

sang in folk clubs. In 1965, Denver joined The Chad Mitchell

Trio, replacing founder Chad Mitchell. After more personnel

changes, the trio later became known as “Denver, Boise, and

Johnson” (John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson).

In 1969, Denver abandoned band life to pursue a solo career

and released his first album for RCA Records, ‘Rhymes &

Reasons’. Two years earlier, he had made a self-produced demo

recording of some of the songs he played at his concerts. It

included a song Denver had written called “Babe, I Hate to

Go”, later renamed “Leaving on a Jet Plane”. He made several

copies and gave them out as presents for Christmas. Milt

Okun, who produced records for The Chad Mitchell Trio

and folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, had become Denver’s

producer as well. Okun brought the unreleased “Jet Plane”

song to Peter, Paul and Mary. Their rendition hit number one

on the Billboard Hot 100.Denver’s song also made it to No. 2

in the UK in February 1970, having also made No. 1 on the US

Cash Box chart in December 1969.

RCA did not actively promote ‘Rhymes & Reasons’ with a

tour, but Denver embarked on an impromptu supporting

tour throughout the Midwest, stopping at towns and cities,

offering to play free concerts at local venues. When he was

successful in persuading a school, college, American Legion


hall, or coffeehouse to let him play, Denver distributed posters

in the town and usually showed up at the local radio station,

guitar in hand, offering himself for an interview. As the writer

of “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, Denver was often successful in

gaining some promotional airtime, usually performing one or

two songs live. Some venues let him play for the ‘door’; others

restricted him to selling copies of the album at intermission

and after the show. After several months of this, Denver

had built a solid fan base, many of whom remained loyal

throughout his career.

Denver recorded two more albums in 1970, ‘Take Me to

Tomorrow’ and ‘Whose Garden Was This’, including a mix of

songs he had written and covers.

Denver’s next album, ‘Poems, Prayers & Promises’ (1971), was

a breakthrough for him in the United States, thanks in part

to the single “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, which went

to No. 2 on the Billboard charts despite the first pressings of

the track being distorted. Its success was due in part to the

efforts of his new manager, future Hollywood producer Jerry

Weintraub, who signed Denver in 1970. Weintraub insisted

on a reissue of the track and began a radio airplay campaign

that started in Denver, Colorado. Denver’s career flourished

thereafter, and he had a series of hits over the next four years.

In 1972, Denver had his first Top Ten album with ‘Rocky

Mountain High,’ with its title track reaching the Top Ten in

1973. In 1974 and 1975, Denver had a string of four No. 1

songs (“Sunshine on My Shoulders”, “Annie’s Song”, “Thank

God I’m a Country Boy”, and “I’m Sorry”) and three No. 1

albums (‘John Denver’s Greatest Hits’, ‘Back Home Again’, and

‘Windsong’).

In the 1970s, Denver’s onstage appearance included long blond

hair and wire-rimmed “granny” glasses. His embroidered

shirts with images commonly associated with the American

West were created by the designer and appliqué artist Anna

Zapp. Weintraub insisted on a significant number of television

appearances, including a series of half-hour shows in the

United Kingdom, despite Denver’s protests at the time, “I’ve

had no success in Britain ... I mean none”. In December

1976, Weintraub told Maureen Orth of Newsweek: “I knew

the critics would never go for John. I had to get him to the

people.”

After appearing as a guest on many shows, Denver hosted his

own variety and music specials, including several concerts

from Red Rocks Amphitheatre. His seasonal special, ‘Rocky

Mountain Christmas’, was watched by more than 60 million

people and was the highest-rated show for the ABC network at

that time.

In 1973, Denver starred in his own BBC television series, ‘The

John Denver Show’, a weekly music and variety show directed

and produced by Stanley Dorfman.

Denver’s live concert special, An Evening with John Denver,

won the 1974–1975 Emmy Award for Outstanding Special,

Comedy-Variety or Music. When Denver ended his business

relationship in 1982 because of Weintraub’s focus on other

projects, Weintraub threw Denver out of his office and accused

him of Nazism. Denver later told Arthur Tobier, when the

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MAGAZINE

latter transcribed his autobiography, “I’d bend my principles to

support something he wanted of me. And of course, every time

you bend your principles — whether because you don’t want to

worry about it, or because you’re afraid to stand up for fear of

what you might lose — you sell your soul to the devil”

Denver was also a guest star on The Muppet Show, the

beginning of the lifelong friendship between Denver and Jim

Henson that spawned two television specials with the Muppets,

‘A Christmas Together’ and ‘Rocky Mountain Holiday.’ He also

tried acting, appearing in “The Camerons are a Special Clan”

episode of the Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law television

series in October 1973 and “The Colorado Cattle Caper”

episode of the McCloud television series in February 1974. In

1977, Denver starred in the hit comedy film Oh, God! opposite

George Burns. He also hosted the Grammy Awards five times

in the 1970s and 1980s, and guest-hosted The Tonight Show on

several occasions. In 1975, Denver was awarded the Country

Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award. At the

ceremony, the outgoing Entertainer of the Year, Charlie Rich,

presented the award to his successor after he set fire to the

slip of paper containing the official notification of the award.

Some speculated Rich was protesting the selection of a nontraditional

country artist for the award, but Rich’s son disputes

that, saying his father was drunk, taking pain medication for

a broken foot, and just trying to be funny. Denver’s music was

defended by country singer Kathy Mattea, who told Alanna

Nash of Entertainment Weekly: “A lot of people write him off

as lightweight, but he articulated a kind of optimism, and he

brought acoustic music to the forefront, bridging folk, pop,

and country in a fresh way ... People forget how huge he was

worldwide.”

In 1977, Denver co-founded The Hunger Project with Werner

Erhard and Robert W. Fuller. He served for many years

and supported the organization until his death. President

Jimmy Carter appointed Denver to serve on the President’s

Commission on World Hunger. Denver wrote the song “I Want

to Live” as the commission’s theme song. In 1979, Denver

performed “Rhymes & Reasons” at the Music for UNICEF

Concert. Royalties from the concert performances were

donated to UNICEF.

Denver’s father taught him to fly in the mid-1970s, which led

to their reconciliation. In 1980, Denver and his father, by then

a lieutenant colonel, co-hosted an award-winning television

special, The Higher We Fly: The History of Flight. It won the

Osborn Award from the Aviation/Space Writers’ Association,

and was honored by the Houston Film Festival.

n the mid-1970s, Denver became outspoken in politics.

He expressed his ecological interests in the epic 1975 song

“Calypso”, an ode to the eponymous exploration ship

RV Calypso used by Jacques Cousteau. In 1976, Denver

campaigned for Jimmy Carter, who became a close friend and

ally. Denver was a supporter of the Democratic Party and of a

number of charitable causes for the environmental movement,

the homeless, the poor, the hungry, and the African AIDS

crisis. He founded the charitable Windstar Foundation in

1976 to promote sustainable living. Denver’s dismay at the

Chernobyl disaster led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of

communist Asia and Europe.

During the 1980s, Denver was critical of Ronald Reagan’s

administration and remained active in his campaign against

hunger, for which Reagan awarded Denver the Presidential

World Without Hunger Award in 1987. Denver’s criticism

of the conservative politics of the 1980s was expressed in his

autobiographical folk-rock ballad “Let Us Begin (What Are We

Making Weapons For?)”. In an open letter to the media, Denver

wrote that he opposed oil drilling in the Arctic National

Wildlife Refuge. He had battled to expand the refuge in the

1980s, and he praised President Bill Clinton for his opposition

to the proposed drilling. The letter, which Denver wrote in the

midst of the 1996 United States presidential election, was one

of the last he ever wrote. In 1992, Denver, along with fellow

singers Liza Minnelli and John Oates, performed a benefit

to fight the passage of Amendment 2, an anti-LGBT ballot

measure that prevented Colorado municipalities from enacting

anti-discrimination protections. Denver was also on the

National Space Society’s board of governors for many years.

Denver’s first marriage, in 1967, was to Annie Martell of St.

Peter, Minnesota. She was the subject of his song “Annie’s

Song”, which he composed in 10 minutes as he sat on a

Colorado ski lift. They lived in Edina, Minnesota, from 1968

to 1971.[49] After the success of “Rocky Mountain High”,

inspired by a camping trip with Annie and some friends,

Denver bought a residence in Aspen, Colorado. He lived in

Aspen until his death. The Denvers adopted a boy, Zachary

John, and a girl, Anna Kate, who, Denver said, were “meant to

be” theirs. Denver once said, “I’ll tell you the best thing about

me. I’m some guy’s dad; I’m some little gal’s dad. When I die,

Zachary John and Anna Kate’s father, boy, that’s enough for

me to be remembered by. That’s more than enough.” Zachary

was the subject of “A Baby Just Like You”, a song that included

the line “Merry Christmas, little Zachary” which he wrote for

Frank Sinatra. Denver and Martell divorced in 1982. In a 1983

interview shown in the documentary John Denver: Country

Boy (2013), Denver said that career demands drove them apart;

Martell said they were too young and immature to deal with

Denver’s sudden success. To drive home the point that their

assets were being split in the divorce, he cut their marital bed

in half with a chainsaw.

Denver married Australian actress Cassandra Delaney in

1988 after a two-year courtship. Settling at Denver’s home

in Aspen, the couple had a daughter, Jesse Belle. Denver and

Delaney separated in 1991 and divorced in 1993. Of his second

marriage, Denver said that “before our short-lived marriage

ended in divorce, she managed to make a fool of me from one

end of the valley to the other”.

In 1993, Denver pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge

and was placed on probation. In August 1994, while still on

probation, he was again charged with misdemeanor driving

under the influence after crashing his Porsche into a tree in

Aspen. Though a July 1997 trial resulted in a hung jury on the

second DUI charge, prosecutors later decided to reopen the

case, which was closed only after Denver’s accidental death in

October 1997. In 1996, the Federal Aviation Administration

(FAA) determined that Denver was medically disqualified from

operating an aircraft due to his failure to abstain from alcohol;

in October 1995, following Denver’s drunk-driving conviction,

the FAA had directed Denver to abstain from alcohol if he


John Denver

wished to continue flying airplanes.

Beyond music, Denver’s artistic interests included painting, but

because of his limiting schedule, Denver pursued photography,

saying once, “photography is a way to communicate a feeling.”

An exhibition of over 40 never-before-seen photographs taken

by Denver debuted at the Leon Gallery in Denver, Colorado, in

2014.

Denver was also an avid skier and golfer, but his principal

interest was in flying. Denver’s love of flying was second only

to his love of music. In 1974, Denver bought a Learjet to fly

himself to concerts. He was a collector of vintage biplanes

and owned a Christen Eagle aerobatic plane, two Cessna 210

Centurion airplanes, and a 1997 amateur-built Rutan Long-EZ.

On April 21, 1989, Denver was in a plane accident while

taxiing down the runway at Holbrook Municipal Airport in his

vintage 1931 biplane. Denver had stopped to refuel on a flight

from Carefree, Arizona, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Reports

stated wind gusts caught the plane, causing it to spin around

and sustain extensive damage. Denver was not harmed in the

incident

Denver died on the afternoon of October 12, 1997, when his

light homebuilt aircraft, a Rutan Long-EZ with registration

number N555JD, crashed into Monterey Bay near Pacific

Grove, California, while making a series of touch-and-go

landings at the nearby Monterey Peninsula Airport. He was the

plane’s only occupant. The official cause of death was multiple

blunt force trauma resulting from the crash.

Denver was a pilot with over 2,700 hours of experience. He had

pilot ratings for single-engine land and sea, multi-engine land,

glider and instrument. Denver also held a type rating in his

Learjet. He had recently purchased the Long-EZ aircraft, made

by someone else from a kit, and had taken a half-hour checkout

flight with the aircraft the day before the crash.

Denver was not legally permitted to fly at the time of the

crash. In previous years, he had been arrested several times

for drunk driving. In 1996, nearly a year before the crash, the

FAA learned that Denver had failed to maintain sobriety by

not refraining entirely from alcohol and revoked his medical

certification. However, it was determined that the crash was

not caused or influenced by alcohol use; an autopsy found no

signs of alcohol or other drugs in Denver’s body.

The post-crash investigation by the National Transportation

Safety Board (NTSB) showed that the leading cause of the

crash was Denver’s inability to switch fuel tanks during flight.

The quantity of fuel had been depleted during the plane’s flight

to Monterey and in several brief practice takeoffs and landings

Denver performed at the airport immediately before the final

flight. His newly purchased amateur-built Rutan aircraft had

an unusual fuel tank selector valve handle configuration. The

handle had originally been intended by the plane’s designer to

be between the pilot’s legs. The builder instead put it behind

the pilot’s left shoulder. The fuel gauge was also placed behind

the pilot’s seat and was not visible to the person at the controls.

An NTSB interview with the aircraft mechanic servicing

Denver’s plane revealed that he and Denver had discussed the


inaccessibility of the cockpit fuel selector valve handle and its

resistance to being turned.

Before the flight, Denver and the mechanic had attempted

to extend the reach of the handle using a pair of Vise-Grip

pliers, but this did not solve the problem, and the pilot still

could not reach the handle while strapped into his seat. NTSB

officials’ post-crash investigation showed that because of the

fuel selector valve’s positioning, switching fuel tanks required

the pilot to turn his body 90 degrees to reach the valve. This

created a natural tendency to extend one’s right foot against the

right rudder pedal to support oneself while turning in the seat,

which caused the aircraft to yaw (nose right) and pitch up.

The mechanic said that he told Denver that the fuel sight

gauges were visible only to the rear cockpit occupant. Denver

had asked how much fuel was shown. He told Denver that

there was “less than half in the right tank and less than a

quarter in the left tank”. He then provided Denver with an

inspection mirror so he could look over his shoulder at the

fuel gauges. The mirror was later recovered from the wreckage.

Denver said that he would use the autopilot in flight to hold the

airplane level while he turned the fuel selector valve. He turned

down an offer to refuel the aircraft, saying that he would only

be flying for about an hour.

The NTSB interviewed 20 witnesses about Denver’s last flight.

Six of them had seen the plane crash into the bay near Point

Pinos. Four said the aircraft was originally heading west. Five

said that they saw the plane in a steep bank, with four saying

that the bank was to the right (north). Twelve described seeing

the aircraft in a steep nose-down descent. Witnesses estimated

the plane’s altitude between 350 and 500 feet (110 and 150 m)

when heading toward the shoreline. Eight said they heard a

“pop” or “backfire” accompanied by a reduction in the engine

noise level just before the plane crashed into the sea.

In addition to Denver’s failing to refuel and his subsequent

loss of control while attempting to switch fuel tanks, the NTSB

determined other key factors that led to the crash. Foremost

among these was his inadequate transition training on this

type of aircraft and the builder’s decision to put the fuel

selector handle in a hard-to-reach place. The board issued

recommendations on the requirement and enforcement of

mandatory training standards for pilots operating home-built

aircraft. It also emphasized the importance of mandatory

ease of access to all controls, including fuel selectors and fuel

gauges, in all aircraft.

Upon the announcement of Denver’s death, Colorado

Governor Roy Romer ordered all state flags to be lowered

to half-staff in his honor. Funeral services were held at Faith

Presbyterian Church in Aurora, Colorado, on October 17,

1997, officiated by Pastor Les Felker, a retired Air Force

chaplain, after which Denver’s remains were cremated and

his ashes scattered in the Rocky Mountains. Further tributes

were made at the following Grammy and Country Music

Association Awards.

In 1998, Denver posthumously received the Lifetime

Achievement Award from the World Folk Music Association,

which also established a new award in his honor.

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MAGAZINE

In 2000, CBS presented the television film ‘Take Me Home:

The John Denver Story’ loosely based on his memoirs,

starring Chad Lowe as Denver. The New York Post wrote, “An

overachiever like John Denver couldn’t have been this boring”.

That same year on April 22, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in

Kempton, Pennsylvania dedicated a bench that was funded by

donations as a tribute to his memory for that year’s Earth Day.

The bench sits on the South Lookout of the sanctuary.

On September 23, 2007, nearly 10 years after Denver’s death,

his brother Ron witnessed the dedication of a plaque placed

near the crash site in Pacific Grove, California.

Copies of DVDs of Denver’s many television appearances are

now sought-after collectibles, especially his one-hour specials

from the 1970s and his six-part series for Britain’s BBC, ‘The

John Denver Show’. An anthology musical featuring Denver’s

music, ‘Back Home Again: A John Denver Holiday’, premiered

at the Rubicon Theatre Company in 2006.

On March 12, 2007, the Colorado Senate passed a resolution

to make Denver’s trademark 1972 hit “Rocky Mountain

High” one of the state’s two official state songs, sharing duties

with its predecessor, “Where the Columbines Grow”. The

resolution passed 50–11 in the House, defeating an objection

by Representative Debbie Stafford that the song reflected drug

use, most specifically in the line “friends around the campfire

and everybody’s high”. Senator Bob Hagedorn, who sponsored

the proposal, defended the song as having nothing to do with

drugs, but rather everything to do with sharing with friends the

euphoria of experiencing the beauty of Colorado’s mountain

vistas. Senator Nancy Todd said, “John Denver to me is an icon

of what Colorado is”.

On September 24, 2007, the California Friends of John Denver

and The Windstar Foundation unveiled a bronze plaque near

the spot where his plane went down. The site had been marked

by a driftwood log carved by Jeffrey Pine with Denver’s name,

but fears that the memorial could be washed out to sea sparked

the campaign for a more permanent memorial. Initially, the

Pacific Grove Council denied permission for the memorial,

fearing the place would attract ghoulish curiosity from extreme

fans. Permission was finally granted in 1999, but the project

was put on hold at the request of Denver’s family. Eventually,

over 100 friends and family attended the dedication of the

plaque, which features a bas-relief of the singer’s face and lines

from his song “Windsong”: “So welcome the wind and the

wisdom she offers. Follow her summons when she calls again.”

To mark the 10th anniversary of Denver’s death, his family

released a set of previously unreleased recordings of his 1985

concert performances in the Soviet Union. This two-CD set,

‘John Denver – Live in the USSR’, was produced by Roger

Nichols and released by AAO Music. These digital recordings

were made during 11 concerts and then rediscovered in 2002.

Included in this set is a previously unpublished rendition

of “Annie’s Song” in Russian. The collection was released

November 6, 2007.

concerts recorded throughout Denver’s career was released

by Eagle Rock Entertainment. ‘Around the World Live’ is a

5-disc DVD set featuring three complete live performances

with full band from Australia in 1977, Japan in 1981, and

England in 1986. These are complemented by a solo acoustic

performance from Japan in 1984 and performances at Farm

Aid from 1985, 1987, and 1990. The final disc has two-hourlong

documentaries made by Denver.

On April 21, 2011, Denver became the first inductee into the

Colorado Music Hall of Fame. A benefit concert was held at

Broomfield’s 1stBank Center and hosted by Olivia Newton-

John. Other performers participating in the event included

the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Lee Ann Womack, and John Oates.

Both his ex-wives attended, and the award was presented to his

three children.

The John Denver Spirit sculpture is a 2002 bronze sculpture

statue by artist Sue DiCicco that was financed by Denver’s

fans. It is at the Colorado Music Hall of Fame at Red Rocks

Amphitheatre.

On March 7, 2014, the West Virginia Legislature approved

a resolution to make “Take Me Home, Country Roads” the

official state song of West Virginia. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin

signed the resolution into law on March 8. Denver is only the

second person, along with Stephen Foster, to have written two

state songs.

On October 24, 2014, Denver was awarded a star on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

Academy of Country Music

1975 Album of the Year for Back Home Again

American Music Awards

1975 Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist

1976 Favorite Country Album for Back Home Again

1976 Favorite Country Male Artist

Country Music Association

1975 Entertainer of the Year

1975 Song of the Year for “Back Home Again”

Emmy Awards

1975 Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special

for An Evening with John Denver[34]

Grammy Awards

1997 Best Musical Album For Children for All Aboard!

1998 Grammy Hall of Fame Award for “Take Me Home,

Country Roads”

Songwriters Hall of Fame

Inducted in 1996

On October 13, 2009, a DVD box set of previously unreleased


John Denver

john denver studio albums

John Denver Sings (1966)


release/3673469-John-Denver-John-Denver-Sings

Rocky Mountain Christmas (1975)


master/99904-John-Denver-

Rocky-Mountain-Christmas

Higher Ground (1988)


master/399926-John-Denver-Higher-Ground

Rhymes & Reasons (1969)


master/283660-John-Denver-Rhymes-Reasons

Spirit (1976)


master/99905-John-Denver-Spirit

Earth Songs (1990)


master/516312-John-Denver-Earth-Songs

Take Me To Tomorrow (1970)


release/1829722-John-Denver-Take-Me-To-Tomorrow

Whose Garden Was This (1970)


master/310890-John-Den-

ver-Whose-Garden-Was-

This

Poems, Prayers & Promises (1971)


master/97870-John-Denver-Poems-Prayers-Promises

Aerie (1971)


master/297113-John-Denver-Aerie

Rocky Mountain High (1972)


master/288895-John-Denver-Rocky-Mountain-High

Farewell Andromeda (1973)


master/99898-John-Denver-Farewell-Andromeda

I Want To Live (1977)



I-Want-To-Live

John Denver (1979)


master/240997-John-Denver-John-Denver

Autograph (1980)


master/297112-John-Denver-Autograph

Some Days Are Diamonds (1981)


master/301800-John-Denver-Some-Days-Are-Diamonds

Seasons Of The Heart (1982)


master/186241-John-Denver-Seasons-Of-The-Heart

It’s About Time (1983)


master/367646-John-Denver-Its-About-Time

The Flower That Shattered The Stone

(1990)


master/481759-John-Denver-The-Flower-That-Shattered-The-Stone

Different Directions (1991)


master/654165-John-Denver-Different-Directions

Love Again (1996)


master/816307-John-Den-

ver-Love-Again-Greatest-

Latest

All Aboard! (1997)


master/1135727-John-Denver-All-Aboard

If you’d like to catch up with John Denver

on Youtube then here’s the link to

his channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/

UC-cnCe5zradDZlcI8YZboBg

Back Home Again (1974)



Back-Home-Again

Dreamland Express (1985)


master/301806-John-Denver-Dreamland-Express

Windsong (1975)


master/97872-John-Denver-Windsong


One World (1986)


master/386572-John-Denver-One-World

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dave

carter

Dave Carter (August 13, 1952 – July 19, 2002)

was an American folk music singer-songwriter

who described his style as “post-modern mythic

American folk music”. He was one half of the duo Dave

Carter and Tracy Grammer, who were heralded as the

new “voice of modern folk music” in the months before

Carter’s unexpected death in July 2002. They were

ranked as number one on the year-end list for “Top

Artists” on the Folk Music Radio Airplay Chart for 2001

and 2002, and their popularity has endured in the years

following Carter’s death. Joan Baez, who went on tour

with the duo in 2002, spoke of Carter’s songs in the same

terms that she once used to promote a young Bob Dylan:

“There is a special gift for writing songs that are available

to other people, and Dave’s songs are very available to

me. It’s a kind of genius, you know, and Dylan has the

biggest case of it. But I hear it in Dave’s songs, too.

Carter’s songs were often noted for their poetic imagery,

spirituality and storytelling while retaining connection

to the country music of his southern American

upbringing. Carter’s memory has been kept alive by

his many admirers, most notably his former partner.

Tracy Grammer has continued to introduce previously

unrecorded songs and recordings that the duo were

working on prior to Carter’s death.

Dave Carter was born in Oxnard, California. His father

was a mathematician and a petroleum engineer and

his mother was a science teacher and a charismatic

Christian. Carter was raised in Oklahoma and Texas

and would draw on his rural upbringing in many of his

songs. He studied classical piano from age 4 to about

age 12, when he took up guitar. At 17, he left home to

hitchhike around the country, especially the Midwestern

United States (Great Plains area). After graduating with

degrees in music (cello) and fine arts from the University

of Oklahoma, Carter moved to Portland, Oregon,

where he continued his education at Portland State


Dave Carter

University, earning a degree in mathematics. He began

an advanced degree in mathematics, but a personal

epiphany led him to realize that this was not to be his

field. He went on to study what he called “the psychology

of mystical experience” at the Institute of Transpersonal

Psychology in Palo Alto and the California Institute

of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and worked as an

embedded systems programmer for several years before

taking up music full-time in the mid-1990s. Carter was

greatly influenced by mythologist Joseph Campbell,

who visited his college, and American mystic Carlos

Castaneda. He was also influenced by the American

landscape, Arthurian mythology, the environment, and

transcendental psychology.

Prior to his death, Carter released three albums with

Grammer:’ When I Go’ (1998); ‘Tanglewood Tree’

(2000); and ‘Drum Hat Buddha’ (2001). The duo rerecorded

many of the songs from Snake Handlin’ Man,

plus two previously unrecorded songs, in early 2002.

The CD, called ‘Seven Is the Number’, was released

by Tracy Grammer in 2006. A collection of the duo’s

holiday recordings called ‘American Noel’ was compiled

by Tracy Grammer and released in 2008 by Signature

Sounds. In 2012, Grammer partnered with Red House

Records to release “Little Blue Egg” and a limitededition

companion EP, “Joy My Love”, which included

previously-unpublished recordings and rare demos from

the duo’s home studio.

In 2000 Carter revealed to Grammer that he had

struggled with gender dysphoria since his early teen

years. Grammer later said, “... he was exploring a gender

change and that altered the dynamics of our off-stage

relationship. It actually made things quite difficult for

us personally, but anyone on the outside would not have

known that. It was just a process that we were going

through and that, thankfully, we reconciled with by the

time he died.”

Of this timeframe, Grammer said: “... We even had a

whole plan for the unveiling. He was going to release

one more manly ‘Cowboy Dave’ album, and I would

introduce myself as a solo artist. Then he would go

change and we would come back as an all-girl band,

calling ourselves ‘The Butterfly Conservatory’. He would

be she and that would be that.

Dave Carter’s songs have been covered by many others,

most notably by Judy Collins and Willie Nelson (“When

I Go”), Joan Baez (“The Mountain”), Lucy Kaplansky

(“Cowboy Singer”) and Chris Smither (“Crocodile

Man”). Tributes to Dave following his death were written

by Tracy Grammer (“The Verdant Mile”) and Richard

Shindell (“So Says the Whippoorwill”), among others.

One song, “Gentle Arms of Eden”, was added to

the hymnal in at least one Unitarian Universalist

congregation. More of Carter’s songs were recorded by

Tracy Grammer on her 2005 album ‘Flower of Avalon’.

Dave Carter was the first winner of the songwriting

contest held at Sisters Folk Festival in 1995. In 2005

the contest took his name, becoming the Dave Carter

Memorial Songwriting Contest, to honor both his

initial victory and his advocacy of the festival in the

subsequent years. Carter is listed among the winners of

the 1998 edition of the Kerrville New Folk Songwriting

Competition. He also won the 1998 edition of the

Wildflower Performing Songwriter Award and the Napa

Valley Folk Festival Emerging Songwriter Award.

Songs written by other artists as tributes to Dave Carter:

“The Verdant Mile”, from The Verdant Mile (Tracy

Grammer Music, 2004), Tracy Grammer

“Between Here and Gone,” from Between Here and Gone

(2004) Mary Chapin Carpenter

“Friend of the Coyote”, from Kickin’ This Stone (2004),

Johnsmith

“So Says the Whippoorwill”, from Vuelta (Signature

Sounds, 2004), Richard Shindell

“God’s Poet Now”, from God’s Poet Now (2003), Erik

Balkey

“Wheel Inside the Wheel”, from Mercy Now (2004),

Mary Gauthier

“Tribute”,[24] from From the Hazel Tree (written 2002,

recorded 2004), written by Catherine Faber, recorded by

Echo’s Children

“I Shall Not Look Away”, from Tiger Tattoo (Waterbug

Records, 2002), Andrew Calhoun

“Willow”, from Open The Gate (200

7), Sense of Wonder

“Dave’s Song”, from White Bird (2003), Emily Kurn

“Oklahoma Spirit Guide”, from Spirit Guide (2006,

Redbud Hill), Randy Auxier

“Where Did You Go?” from Sunset Waltz (2008), Pat

Wictor


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MAGAZINE

Carter & Grammer

When I GO....


Dave Carter

DISCOGRAPHY

Snake Handlin’ Man, Dave Carter (self-release, 1995, out of print)

Link here:

When I Go, Dave Carter with Tracy Grammer (self-release 1998, Signature Sounds 2002)

Link here:

Tanglewood Tree, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Signature Sounds, 2000)

Link here:

Drum Hat Buddha, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Signature Sounds, 2001)

Link here:

Seven Is the Number Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Tracy Grammer Music, 2006)

Link here:

American Noel Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Signature Sounds, 2008)

Link here:

Little Blue Egg Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Red House Records, 2012–2017)

Link here:

Joy My Love Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (Red House Records, 2012–2017) limited edition EP

Link here:


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MAGAZINE

leonard

cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ (September 21,

1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian songwriter,

singer, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored

throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation

and depression, betrayal and redemption, social and political

conflict, and sexual and romantic love, desire, regret, and loss.

He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the

Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll

Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order

of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour. In 2011, he

received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and

the ninth Glenn Gould Prize. In 2023, Rolling Stone named

Cohen the 103rd-greatest singer.

Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s

and early 1960s, and did not begin a music career until 1966.

His first album, ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’ (1967), was followed

by three more albums of folk music: ‘Songs from a Room’

(1969), ‘Songs of Love and Hate’ (1971) and ‘New Skin for the

Old Ceremony’ (1974). His 1977 record ‘Death of a Ladies’

Man’, co-written and produced by Phil Spector, was a move

away from Cohen’s previous minimalist sound.

In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent

Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz, East Asian,

and Mediterranean influences. Cohen’s most famous song,

“Hallelujah”, was released on his seventh album, ‘Various

Positions’ (1984). ‘I’m Your Man’ in 1988 marked Cohen’s

turn to synthesized productions. In 1992, Cohen released its

follow-up, ‘The Future’, which had dark lyrics and references to

political and social unrest.

Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of ‘Ten New

Songs’, a major hit in Canada and Europe. His eleventh album,

‘Dear Heather’, followed in 2004. In 2005, Cohen discovered

that his manager had stolen most of his money and sold his

publishing rights, prompting a return to touring to recoup

his losses. Following a successful string of tours between 2008

and 2013, he released three albums in the final years of his life:

‘Old Ideas’ (2012), ‘Popular Problems’ (2014), and ‘You Want

It Darker’ (2016), the last of which was released three weeks

before his death. His fifteenth studio album, ‘Thanks for the

Dance’, was released in November 2019.

Leonard Norman Cohen was born into an Orthodox Jewish

family in the Montreal anglophone enclave of Westmount,

Quebec, on September 21, 1934. His Lithuanian Jewish mother,


Leonard Cohen

Marsha (“Masha”) Klonitsky (1905–1978), emigrated to

Canada in 1927 and was the daughter of Talmudic writer and

rabbi Solomon Klonitsky-Kline. His paternal grandfather, who

had emigrated from Suwałki, in Congress Poland, to Canada,

was Canadian Jewish Congress founding president Lyon

Cohen. His parents gave him the Hebrew name Eliezer, which

means “God helps”. His father, clothing store owner Nathan

Bernard Cohen (1891–1944), died when Cohen was nine years

old. The family attended Congregation Shaar Hashomayim,

to which Cohen retained connections for the rest of his life.

On the topic of being a kohen, he said in 1967, “I had a very

Messianic childhood. I was told I was a descendant of Aaron,

the high priest.”

Cohen attended Roslyn Elementary School and completed

grades seven through nine at Herzliah High School, where his

literary mentor (and later inspiration) Irving Layton taught.

He then transferred in 1948 to Westmount High School, where

he studied music and poetry. He became especially interested

in the Spanish poetry of Federico García Lorca. During high

school, he was involved in various extracurricular activities,

including photography, yearbook, cheerleading, arts club,

current events club, and theater. He also served as president

of the Students’ Council. During that time, he taught himself

to play the acoustic guitar and formed a country–folk group

that he called the ‘Buckskin Boys’. After a young Spanish

guitar player taught him “a few chords and some flamenco”,

he switched to a classical guitar. He has attributed his love of

music to his mother, who sang songs around the house: “I

know that those changes, those melodies, touched me very

much. She would sing with us when I took my guitar to a

restaurant with some friends; my mother would come, and we’d

often sing all night.”

Cohen frequented Montreal’s Saint Laurent Boulevard for

fun and ate at places such as the Main Deli Steak House.

According to journalist David Sax, he and one of his cousins

would go to the Main Deli to “watch the gangsters, pimps, and

wrestlers dance around the night”. When he left Westmount, he

purchased a place on Saint-Laurent Boulevard in the previously

working-class neighbourhood of Little Portugal. He would read

his poetry at assorted nearby clubs. In that period and place, he

wrote the lyrics to some of his most famous songs.

In 1951, Cohen enrolled at McGill University, where he became

president of the McGill Debating Union and won the Chester

MacNaghten Literary Competition for the poems “Sparrows”

and “Thoughts of a Landsman”. Cohen published his first

poem in March 1954 in the magazine CIV/n. The issue also

included poems by Cohen’s poet–professors (who were also on

the editorial board) Irving Layton and Louis Dudek. Cohen

graduated from McGill the following year with a B.A. degree.

His literary influences during this time included William Butler

Yeats, Irving Layton (who taught political science at McGill and

became both Cohen’s mentor and his friend), Walt Whitman,

Federico García Lorca, and Henry Miller. His first published

book of poetry, ‘Let Us Compare Mythologies’ (1956), was

published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry

Series the year after Cohen’s graduation. The book contained

poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15

and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father. The

well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a


review of the book in which he gave Cohen “restrained praise”.

After completing his undergraduate degree, Cohen spent a

term in the McGill Faculty of Law and then a year (1956–1957)

at the Columbia University School of General Studies. Cohen

described his graduate school experience as “passion without

flesh, love without climax”. Consequently, Cohen left New York

and returned to Montreal in 1957, working various odd jobs

and focusing on the writing of fiction and poetry, including

the poems for his next book, ‘The Spice-Box of Earth’ (1961),

which was the first book that Cohen published through the

Canadian publishing company McClelland & Stewart. Cohen’s

first novella and early short stories were not published until

2022 ‘A Ballet of Lepers’. His father’s will provided him with

a modest trust income sufficient to allow him to pursue his

literary ambitions for the time, and ‘The Spice-Box of Earth’

was successful in helping to expand the audience for Cohen’s

poetry, helping him reach out to the poetry scene in Canada,

outside the confines of McGill University. The book also helped

Cohen gain critical recognition as an important new voice

in Canadian poetry. One of Cohen’s biographers, Ira Nadel,

stated that “reaction to the finished book was enthusiastic

and admiring....” The critic Robert Weaver found it powerful

and declared that Cohen was ‘probably the best young poet in

English Canada right now.’

Cohen continued to write poetry and fiction throughout the

1960s and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances

after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic

Gulf. While living and writing on Hydra, Cohen published the

poetry collection ‘Flowers for Hitler’ (1964), and the novel ‘The

Favourite Game’ (1963), an autobiographical Bildungsroman

about a young man who discovers his identity through writing.

Cohen was the subject of a 44-minute documentary in 1965

from the National Film Board called ‘Ladies and Gentlemen...

Mr. Leonard Cohen’.

The 1966 novel ‘Beautiful Losers’ received a good deal of

attention from the Canadian press and stirred up controversy

because of a number of sexually graphic passages. Regarding

Beautiful Losers, the Boston Globe stated: “James Joyce is not

dead. He is living in Montreal under the name of Cohen.”

In 1966 Cohen also published ‘Parasites of Heaven’, a book

of poems. Both ‘Beautiful Losers’ and ‘Parasites of Heaven’

received mixed reviews and sold few copies.

In 1966, CBC-TV producer Andrew Simon produced a

local Montreal current affairs program, ‘Seven on Six’, and

offered Cohen a position as host. “I decided I’m going to be

a songwriter. I want to write songs,” Simon recalled Cohen

telling him.

Subsequently, Cohen published less, with major gaps,

concentrating more on recording songs. In 1966 he wrote

“Suzanne”, which was performed the same year by The Stormy

Clovers, and recorded by Judy Collins on her album ‘In My

Life’

In 1978, he published his first book of poetry in many years,

‘Death of a Lady’s Man’ (not to be confused with the album he

released the previous year, the similarly titled Death of a Ladies’

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MAGAZINE

Man). It was not until 1984 that Cohen published his next

book of poems, ‘Book of Mercy’, which won him the Canadian

Authors Association Literary Award for Poetry. The book

contains 50 prose-poems, influenced by the Hebrew Bible and

Zen writings. Cohen himself referred to the pieces as “prayers”.

In 1993 Cohen published ‘Stranger Music: Selected Poems

and Songs’, and in 2006, after 10 years of delays, additions,

and rewritings, ‘Book of Longing’. The Book of Longing is

dedicated to the poet Irving Layton. Also, during the late

1990s and 2000s, many of Cohen’s new poems and lyrics were

first published on the fan website ‘The Leonard Cohen Files’,

including the original version of the poem “A Thousand Kisses

Deep” (which Cohen later adapted for a song).

Cohen’s writing process, as he told an interviewer in 1998,

was “like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache:

I’m stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it’s delicious

and it’s horrible and I’m in it and it’s not very graceful and it’s

very awkward and it’s very painful and yet there’s something

inevitable about it.”

In 2011, Cohen was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award

for literature. His poetry collection ‘The Flame’, which he

had been working on at the time of his death, appeared

posthumously in 2018. Cohen’s books have been translated

into several languages..

In 1967, disappointed with his lack of success as a writer,

Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk

music singer–songwriter. During the 1960s, he was a fringe

figure in Andy Warhol’s “Factory” crowd. Warhol speculated

that Cohen had spent time listening to Nico in clubs and that

this had influenced his musical style.

His song “Suzanne” became a hit for Judy Collins (who

subsequently recorded a number of Cohen’s other songs), and

was for many years his most recorded song. Collins recalls that

when she first met him, he said he could not sing or play the

guitar, nor did he think “Suzanne” was even a song:

And then he played me “Suzanne” ... I said, “Leonard, you

must come with me to this big fundraiser I’m doing” ...

Jimi Hendrix was on it. He’d never sung in front of a large

audience before then. He got out on stage and started singing.

Everybody was going crazy—they loved it. And he stopped

about halfway through and walked off the stage. Everybody

went nuts. ... They demanded that he come back. And I

demanded; I said, “I’ll go out with you.” So we went out, and

we sang it. And of course, that was the beginning.

She first introduced him to television audiences during one of

her shows in 1966, where they performed duets of his songs.

Still new to bringing his poetry to music, he once forgot the

words to “Suzanne” while singing to a different audience.

Singers such as Joan Baez have sung it during their tours.

Cohen stated that he was duped into giving up the rights for

the song, but was glad it happened, as it would be wrong to

write a song that was so well loved and to get rich for it also.

Collins told Bill Moyers, during a television interview, that she

felt Cohen’s Jewish background was an important influence on

his words and music.

After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the

attention of Columbia Records producer John Hammond,

who signed Cohen to a record deal. Cohen’s first album was

‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’. The album was released in the US

in late 1967 to generally dismissive reviews, but became a

favourite in the UK on its release in early 1968, where it spent

over a year on the album charts. He appeared on BBC TV in

1968 where he sang a duet from the album with Julie Felix.

Several of the songs on that first album were recorded by other

popular folk artists, including James Taylor and Judy Collins.

Cohen followed up that first album with ‘Songs from a Room’

(1969, featuring the often-recorded “Bird on the Wire”) and

‘Songs of Love and Hate’ (1971).

In 1971, film director Robert Altman featured the songs

“The Stranger Song”, “Winter Lady”, and “Sisters of Mercy”,

originally recorded for Songs of Leonard Cohen, in ‘McCabe

& Mrs. Miller.’ Scott Tobias wrote in 2014 that “The film is

unimaginable to me without the Cohen songs, which function

as these mournful interstitials that unify the entire movie.”

Tim Grierson wrote in 2016, shortly after Cohen’s death,

that ‘”Altman’s and Cohen’s legacies would forever be linked

by McCabe. The movie is inextricably connected to Cohen’s

songs. It’s impossible to imagine Altman’s masterpiece without

them.”

In 1970, Cohen toured for the first time, in the United

States, Canada, and Europe, and appeared at the Isle of

Wight Festival. In 1972 he toured again in Europe and Israel,

captured on film by Tony Palmer and eventually released in

2010 under the title ‘Bird on a Wire’. When his performance

in Israel did not seem to be going well he walked off the stage,

went to his dressing room, and took some LSD. He then heard

the audience clamouring for his reappearance by singing to

him in Hebrew, and under the influence of the psychedelic, he

returned to finish the show.

In 1973, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on the Yom

Kippur day, Cohen arrived in Israel. He had no guitar, and

intended to volunteer in some kibbutz for the harvest, though

he had no solid plan. He was spotted in a Tel Aviv Pinati Café

by Israeli musicians Oshik Levi, Matti Caspi and Ilana Rovina,

who offered him to go together to Sinai to sing for Israeli

soldiers. Even though he reportedly voiced “pro-Arab political

views” before the war, he said after the war “I am joining my

brothers fighting in the desert. I don’t care if their war is just

or not. I know only that war is cruel, that it leaves bones, blood

and ugly stains on the holy soil.” Cohen played his mostknown

songs to the troops: “Suzanne”, “So Long Marianne”,

“Bird on the Wire”, and his new song he called “Lover Lover

Lover”. In Sinai, Cohen was introduced to the Major General

Ariel Sharon, future Prime Minister of Israel. Cohen later

described the improvised concerts:

“We would just drop into little places, like a rocket site and

they would shine their flashlights at us and we would sing

a few songs. Or they would give us a jeep and we would go

down the road towards the front and wherever we saw a few

soldiers waiting for a helicopter or something like that we

would sing a few songs. And maybe back at the airbase we

would do a little concert, maybe with amplifiers. It was very

informal, and you know, very intense.”


Leonard Cohen

In 1974 Cohen released a new album, ‘New Skin for the Old

Ceremony’, with songs inspired by the war. “Lover Lover Lover”,

was written and performed in Sinai. “Who By Fire”, written

reflecting on the war, takes its name from the Yom Kippur

prayer, the Unetaneh Tokef. Other songs inspired by the war

are “Field Commander Cohen” and “There is a War”. In 1976,

Cohen said during the concert that his now famous song was

written for “the Egyptians and the Israelis”, though he wrote

and performed the song for the Israeli soldiers during the war,

and the song originally contained the lines “I went down to the

desert to help my brothers fight”.

In 1973, Columbia Records released Cohen’s first concert album,

‘Live Songs’. Then beginning around 1974, Cohen’s collaboration

with pianist and arranger John Lissauer created a live sound

praised by the critics. They toured together in 1974 in Europe,

the US and Canada in late 1974 and early 1975, in support of

Cohen’s record ‘New Skin for the Old Ceremony’. In late 1975

Cohen and Lissauer performed a short series of shows in the US

and Canada with a new band, in support of Cohen’s ‘Best Of ’

release. The tour included new songs from an album in progress,

co-written by Cohen and Lissauer and titled ‘Songs for Rebecca’.

None of the recordings from these live tours with Lissauer were

ever officially released, and the album was abandoned in 1976.

In 1976, Cohen embarked on a new major European tour with

a new band and changes in his sound and arrangements, again,

in support of his ‘The Best of Leonard Cohen’ release (in Europe

retitled as Greatest Hits). Laura Branigan was one of his backup

singers during the tour. From April to July, Cohen gave 55

shows, including his first appearance at the famous Montreux

Jazz Festival.

After the European tour of 1976, Cohen again attempted a new

change in his style and arrangements: his new 1977 record,

‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’ was co-written and produced by Phil

Spector. One year later, in 1978, Cohen published a volume of

poetry with the subtly revised title, ‘Death of a Lady’s Man’.

In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional ‘Recent

Songs’, which blended his acoustic style with jazz and East Asian

and Mediterranean influences. Beginning with this record,

Cohen began to co-produce his albums. Produced by Cohen

and Henry Lewy (Joni Mitchell’s sound engineer), ‘Recent

Songs’ included performances by Passenger, an Austin-based

jazz–fusion band that met Cohen through Mitchell. The band

helped Cohen create a new sound by featuring instruments

like the oud, the Gypsy violin, and the mandolin. The album

was supported by Cohen’s major tour with the new band, and

Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson on the backing vocals, in

Europe in late 1979, and again in Australia, Israel, and Europe in

1980. In 2000, Columbia released an album of live recordings of

songs from the 1979 tour, titled ‘Field Commander Cohen: Tour

of 1979.’

During the 1970s, Cohen toured twice with Jennifer Warnes

as a backup singer (1972 and 1979). Warnes would become a

fixture on Cohen’s future albums, receiving full co-vocals credit

on Cohen’s 1984 album ‘Various Positions’ (although the record

was released under Cohen’s name, the inside credits say “Vocals

by Leonard Cohen and Jennifer Warnes”). In 1987 she recorded

an album of Cohen songs, ‘Famous Blue Raincoat.’ Cohen said


that she sang backup for his 1980 tour, even though her career

at the time was in much better shape than his. “So this is a real

friend”, he said. “Someone who in the face of great derision, has

always supported me.”

In the early 1980s, Cohen co-wrote (with Lewis Furey) the

rock musical film ‘Night Magic’ starring Carole Laure and Nick

Mancuso. Columbia declined to release his 1984 LP ‘Various

Positions’ in the United States. Cohen supported the release of

the album with his biggest tour to date, in Europe and Australia,

and with his first tour in Canada and the United States since

1975. The band performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and

the Roskilde Festival.

They also gave a series of highly emotional and politically

controversial concerts in Poland, which had been under

martial law just two years before, and performed the song

“The Partisan”, regarded as the hymn of the Polish Solidarity

movement.

In 1987, Jennifer Warnes’s tribute album ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’

helped restore Cohen’s career in the US. The following year he

released ‘I’m Your Man’. Cohen supported the record with a

series of television interviews and an extensive tour of Europe,

Canada, and the US. Many shows were broadcast on European

and US television and radio stations, while Cohen performed

for the first time in his career on PBS’s Austin City Limits show.

“Hallelujah” was first released on Cohen’s studio album ‘Various

Positions’ in 1984, and he sang it during his Europe tour in

1985. The song had limited initial success but found greater

popularity through a 1991 cover by John Cale, which formed

the basis for a later cover by Jeff Buckley. “Hallelujah” has been

performed by almost 200 artists in various languages. New York

Times movie reviewer A. O. Scott wrote that “Hallelujah is one

of those rare songs that survives its banalization with at least

some of its sublimity intact”.

The song is the subject of the 2012 book ‘The Holy or the

Broken’ by Alan Light and the 2022 documentary film

‘‘Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song” by Dan Geller

and Dayna Goldfine] Janet Maslin’s New York Times book

review said that Cohen spent years struggling with the song,

which eventually became “one of the most haunting, mutable

and oft-performed songs in American musical history”.

The album track “Everybody Knows” from I’m Your Man and

“If It Be Your Will” in the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume

helped expose Cohen’s music to a wider audience. He first

introduced the song during his world tour in 1988.[76] The

song “Everybody Knows” also featured prominently in fellow

Canadian Atom Egoyan’s 1994 film, Exotica. In 1992, Cohen

released The Future, which urges (often in terms of biblical

prophecy) perseverance, reformation, and hope in the face of

grim prospects. Three tracks from the album – “Waiting for

the Miracle”, “The Future” and “Anthem” – were featured in the

movie Natural Born Killers, which also promoted Cohen’s work

to a new generation of US listeners.

As with ‘I’m Your Man’, the lyrics on ‘The Future’ were dark, and

made references to political and social unrest. The title track

is reportedly a response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Cohen

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promoted the album with two music videos, for “Closing Time”

and “The Future”, and supported the release with the major

tour through Europe, United States and Canada, with the same

band as in his 1988 tour, including a second appearance on

PBS’s Austin City Limits. Some of the Scandinavian shows were

broadcast live on the radio. The selection of performances,

mostly recorded on the Canadian leg of the tour, was released

on the 1994 ‘Cohen Live’ album.

In 1993, Cohen also published his book of selected poems and

songs, ‘Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs’, on which

he had worked since 1989. It includes a number of new poems

from the late 1980s and early 1990s and major revision of his

1978 book ‘Death of a Lady’s Man’.

In 1994, Cohen retreated to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los

Angeles, beginning what became five years of seclusion at the

center. In 1996, Cohen was ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist

monk and took the Dharma name Jikan, meaning “silence”. He

served as personal assistant to Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi.

In 1997, Cohen oversaw the selection and release of the ‘More

Best of Leonard Cohen’ album, which included a previously

unreleased track, “Never Any Good”, and an experimental

piece “The Great Event”. The first was left over from Cohen’s

unfinished mid-1990s album, which was tentatively called

‘On The Path’, and slated to include songs like “In My Secret

Life” (already recited as a song-in-progress in 1988) and “A

Thousand Kisses Deep”, both later re-worked with Sharon

Robinson for the 2001 album ‘Ten New Songs’.

Although there was a public impression that Cohen would

not resume recording or publishing, he returned to Los

Angeles in May 1999. He began to contribute regularly to ‘The

Leonard Cohen Files’ fan website, emailing new poems and

drawings from ‘Book of Longing’ and early versions of new

songs, like “A Thousand Kisses Deep” in September 1998 and

Anjani Thomas’s story sent on May 6, 1999, the day they were

recording “Villanelle for our Time” (released on 2004’s ‘Dear

Heather’ album). The section of ‘The Leonard Cohen Files’ with

Cohen’s online writings has been titled “The Blackening Pages”.

After two years of production, Cohen returned to music in

2001 with the release of ‘Ten New Songs’, featuring a major

influence from producer and co-composer Sharon Robinson.

The album, recorded at Cohen’s and Robinson’s home studios

– Still Life Studios, includes the song “Alexandra Leaving”, a

transformation of the poem “The God Abandons Antony”, by

the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy. The album was a major

hit for Cohen in Canada and Europe, and he supported it with

the hit single “In My Secret Life” and accompanying video shot

by Floria Sigismondi. The album won him four Canadian Juno

Awards in 2002: Best Artist, Best Songwriter, Best Pop Album,

and Best Video (“In My Secret Life”). In October 2003 he was

named a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country’s

highest civilian honour.

In October 2004, Cohen released ‘Dear Heather’, largely a

musical collaboration with jazz chanteuse (and romantic

partner) Anjani Thomas, although Sharon Robinson returned

to collaborate on three tracks (including a duet). As light as

the previous album was dark, ‘Dear Heather’ reflects Cohen’s

own change of mood – he said in a number of interviews that

his depression had lifted in recent years, which he attributed

to Zen Buddhism. In an interview following his induction into

the Canadian Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, Cohen explained that

the album was intended to be a kind of notebook or scrapbook

of themes, and that a more formal record had been planned for

release shortly afterwards, but that this was put on ice by his

legal battles with his ex-manager.

‘Blue Alert’, an album of songs co-written by Anjani and

Cohen, was released in 2006 to positive reviews. Sung by

Anjani, who according to one reviewer “... sounds like Cohen

reincarnated as woman ... though Cohen doesn’t sing a note on

the album, his voice permeates it like smoke.”

Before embarking on his 2008–2010 world tour, and without

finishing the new album that had been in work since 2006,

Cohen contributed a few tracks to other artists’ albums – a

new version of his own “Tower of Song” was performed by

him, Anjani Thomas and U2 in the 2006 tribute film ‘Leonard

Cohen I’m Your Man’ (the video and track were included on

the film’s soundtrack and released as the B-side of U2’s single

“Window in the Skies”, reaching No 1 in the Canadian Singles

Chart). In 2007 he recited “The Sound of Silence” on the album

‘Tribute to Paul Simon: Take Me to the Mardi Gras’ and “The

Jungle Line” by Joni Mitchell, accompanied by Herbie Hancock

on piano, on Hancock’s Grammy-winning album ‘River: The

Joni Letters’, while in 2008, he recited the poem “Since You’ve

Asked” on the album ‘Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy

Collins’.

In late 2005, Cohen’s daughter Lorca began to suspect his

longtime manager, Kelley Lynch, of financial impropriety.

According to the Cohen biographer Sylvie Simmons, Lynch

handled Cohen’s business affairs and was a close family friend.

Cohen discovered that he had unknowingly paid a credit card

bill of Lynch’s for $75,000, and that most of the money in his

accounts was gone, including money from his retirement

accounts and charitable trust funds. This had begun as early

as 1996, when Lynch started selling Cohen’s music publishing

rights, despite the fact that Cohen had had no financial

incentive to do so.

In October 2005, Cohen sued Lynch, alleging that she had

misappropriated more than US $5 million from his retirement

fund, leaving only $150,000. Cohen was sued in turn by other

former business associates. The events drew media attention,

including a cover feature with the headline “Devastated!” in

the Canadian magazine Maclean’s. In March 2006, Cohen won

a civil suit and was awarded US $9 million by a Los Angeles

County superior court. Lynch ignored the suit and did not

respond to a subpoena issued for her financial records. NME

reported that Cohen might never be able to collect the awarded

amount. In 2012, Lynch was jailed for 18 months and given five

years’ probation for harassing Cohen after he dismissed her.

Cohen published a book of poetry and drawings, ‘Book of

Longing’, in May 2006. In March, a Toronto-based retailer

offered signed copies to the first 1,500 orders placed online: all

1,500 sold within hours. The book quickly topped bestseller

lists in Canada. On May 13, Cohen made his first public

appearance in 13 years, at an in-store event at a bookstore


Leonard Cohen

in Toronto. Approximately 3,000 people arrived, causing the

streets surrounding the bookstore to be closed. He sang two of

his earliest and best-known songs: “So Long, Marianne” and

“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”, accompanied by the

Barenaked Ladies and Ron Sexsmith. Appearing with him was

Anjani, promoting her new CD along with his book.

That same year, Philip Glass composed music for ‘Book of

Longing’. Following a series of live performances that included

Glass on Keyboards, Cohen’s recorded spoken text, four

additional voices (soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bassbaritone),

and other instruments, and as well as screenings of

Cohen’s artworks and drawings, Glass’ label Orange Mountain

Music released a double CD of the work, titled ‘Book of

Longing. A Song Cycle’ based on the Poetry and Artwork of

Leonard Cohen.

To recoup the money his ex-manager had stolen, Cohen

embarked on his first world tour in 15 years. He said that

being “forced to go back on the road to repair the fortunes of

my family and myself ... was a most fortunate happenstance

because I was able to connect... with living musicians. And I

think it warmed some part of my heart that had taken on a

chill.”

The tour began on May 11 in Fredericton, New Brunswick,

and was extended until late 2010. The schedule of the first

leg in mid-2008 encompassed Canada and Europe, including

performances at The Big Chill, the Montreal Jazz Festival, and

on the Pyramid Stage at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival on

June 29, 2008. His performance at Glastonbury was hailed by

many as the highlight of the festival, and his performance of

“Hallelujah” as the sun set received a rapturous reception and

a lengthy ovation from a packed Pyramid Stage field. He also

played two shows in London’s O2 Arena.

In Dublin, Cohen was the first performer to play an openair

concert at IMMA (Royal Hospital Kilmainham) ground,

performing there on June 13, 14 and 15, 2008. In 2009, the

performances were awarded Ireland’s Meteor Music Award as

the best international performance of the year.

In September, October and November 2008, Cohen toured

Europe, including stops in Austria, Ireland, Poland, Romania,

Italy, Germany, France and Scandinavia. In March 2009, Cohen

released ‘Live in London’, recorded in July 2008 at London’s O2

Arena and released on DVD and as a two-CD set. The album

contains 25 songs and is more than two and one-half hours

long. It was the first official DVD in Cohen’s recording career.

The third leg of Cohen’s World Tour 2008–2009 encompassed

New Zealand and Australia from January 20 to February 10,

2009. In January 2009, The Pacific Tour first came to New

Zealand, where the audience of 12,000 responded with five

standing ovations.

On February 19, 2009, Cohen played his first American concert

in 15 years at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.The show,

showcased as the special performance for fans, Leonard Cohen

Forum members and press, was the only show in the whole

three-year tour that was broadcast on the radio (NPR) and

available as a free podcast.


The North American Tour of 2009 opened on April 1, and

included the performance at the Coachella Valley Music and

Arts Festival on Friday, April 17, 2009, in front of one of the

largest outdoor theatre crowds in the history of the festival. His

performance of Hallelujah was widely regarded as one of the

highlights of the festival, thus repeating the major success of

the 2008 Glastonbury appearance.

In July 2009, Cohen started his marathon European tour, his

third in two years. The itinerary mostly included sport arenas

and open air Summer festivals in Germany, UK, France, Spain,

Ireland (the show at O2 in Dublin won him the second Meteor

Music Award in a row), but also performances in Serbia in the

Belgrade Arena, in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, and

again in Romania.

The third leg of Cohen’s World Tour 2008–2009 encompassed

New Zealand and Australia from January 20 to February 10,

2009. In January 2009, The Pacific Tour first came to New

Zealand, where the audience of 12,000 responded with five

standing ovations.

On February 19, 2009, Cohen played his first American concert

in 15 years at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The show,

showcased as the special performance for fans, Leonard Cohen

Forum members and press, was the only show in the whole

three-year tour that was broadcast on the radio (NPR) and

available as a free podcast.

The North American Tour of 2009 opened on April 1, and

included the performance at the Coachella Valley Music and

Arts Festival on Friday, April 17, 2009, in front of one of the

largest outdoor theatre crowds in the history of the festival. His

performance of ‘Hallelujah’ was widely regarded as one of the

highlights of the festival, thus repeating the major success of

the 2008 Glastonbury appearance.

In July 2009, Cohen started his marathon European tour, his

third in two years. The itinerary mostly included sport arenas

and open air Summer festivals in Germany, UK, France, Spain,

Ireland (the show at O2 in Dublin won him the second Meteor

Music Award in a row), but also performances in Serbia in the

Belgrade Arena, in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, and

again in Romania.

Officially billed as the “World Tour 2010”, the tour started on

July 25, 2010, in Arena Zagreb, Croatia, and continued with

stops in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, and Ireland,

where on July 31, 2010, Cohen performed at Lissadell House

in County Sligo. It was Cohen’s eighth Irish concert in just

two years after a hiatus of more than 20 years. On August 12,

Cohen played the 200th show of the tour in Scandinavium,

Gothenburg, Sweden. The third leg of the 2010 tour started on

October 28 in New Zealand and continued in Australia.

In 2011, Cohen’s poetical output was represented in Everyman’s

Library Pocket Poets, in a selection Poems and Songs edited

by Robert Faggen. The collection included a selection from

all Cohen’s books, based on his 1993 books of selected works,

‘Stranger Music’, and as well from ‘Book of Longing’, with

addition of six new song lyrics. Nevertheless, three of those

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songs, “A Street”, recited in 2006, “Feels So Good”, performed

live in 2009 and 2010, and “Born in Chains”, performed live

in 2010, were not released on Cohen’s 2012 album ‘Old Ideas’,

with him being unhappy with the versions of the songs in the

last moment; the song “Lullaby”, as presented in the book and

performed live in 2009, was completely re-recorded for the

album, presenting new lyrics on the same melody.

A biography, ‘I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen’,

written by Sylvie Simmons, was published in October 2012.

The book is the second major biography of Cohen (Ira Nadel’s

1997 biography Various Positions was the first).

Leonard Cohen’s 12th studio album, ‘Old Ideas’, was released

worldwide on January 31, 2012, and it soon became the

highest-charting album of his entire career, reaching No. 1

positions in Canada, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain,

Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, New

Zealand, and top ten positions in United States, Australia,

France, Portugal, UK, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland,

Germany, and Switzerland, competing for number one position

with Lana Del Rey’s debut album ‘Born to Die’, released the

same day.

The lyrics for the song “Going Home” were published as a

poem in The New Yorker magazine in January 2012, prior to

the record’s release. The entire album was streamed online by

NPR on January 22 and on January 23 by The Guardian.

The album received uniformly positive reviews from Rolling

Stone, the Chicago Tribune, and The Guardian. At a record

release party for the album in January 2012, Cohen spoke

with The New York Times reporter Jon Pareles who states that

“mortality was very much on his mind and in his songs on

this album.” Pareles goes on to characterize the album as “an

autumnal album, musing on memories and final reckonings,

but it also has a gleam in its eye. It grapples once again with

topics Mr. Cohen has pondered throughout his career: love,

desire, faith, betrayal, redemption. Some of the diction is

biblical; some is drily sardonic.”

On August 12, 2012, Cohen embarked on a new European tour

in support of ‘Old Ideas’, adding a violinist to his 2008–2010

tour band, now nicknamed ‘Unified Heart Touring Band’, and

following the same three-hour set list structure as in 2008–2012

tour, with the addition of a number of songs from ‘Old Ideas’.

The European leg ended on October 7, 2012, after concerts

in Belgium, Ireland (Royal Hospital), France (Olympia in

Paris), England (Wembley Arena in London), Spain, Portugal,

Germany, Italy (Arena in Verona), Croatia (Arena in Pula),

Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Romania and Turkey.

The second leg of the Old Ideas World Tour took place in the

US and Canada in November and December, with 56 shows

altogether on both legs.

Cohen returned to North America in the spring of 2013 with

concerts in the United States and Canada. A summer tour of

Europe happened shortly afterwards.

Cohen then toured Australia and New Zealand in November

and December 2013. His final concert was performed at the

Vector Arena in Auckland.

Cohen released his 13th album, ‘Popular Problems’, on

September 24, 2014. The album includes “A Street”, which

he had previously recited in 2006, during promotion of his

book of poetry ‘Book of Longing’, and later printed twice,

as “A Street” in the March 2, 2009, issue of The New Yorker

magazine, and appeared as “Party’s Over” in Everyman’s

Library edition of Poems and Songs in 2011.

Cohen’s 14th and final album, ‘You Want It Darker’, was

released on October 21, 2016. Cohen’s son Adam Cohen has

a production credit on the album. On February 23, 2017,

Cohen’s son and his final album collaborator Sammy Slabbinck

released a special, posthumous tribute video set to the album

track “Traveling Light”, featuring never before seen archival

footage of Cohen from his career. The title track was awarded a

Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance in January 2018.

Before his death, Cohen had begun working on a new album

with his son Adam, a musician and singer-songwriter.The

album, titled ‘Thanks for the Dance’, was released on November

22, 2019. One posthumous track, “Necropsy of Love”, appeared

on the 2018 compilation album ‘The Al Purdy Songbook’

and another track named “The Goal” was also published on

September 20, 2019, on Leonard Cohen’s official YouTube

channel.

Writing for AllMusic, critic Bruce Eder assessed Cohen’s overall

career in popular music by asserting that “he is one of the most

fascinating and enigmatic ... singer-songwriters of the late

‘60s ... Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon),

he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians

more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s

who continued to work in the 21st century.” The Academy

of American Poets commented more broadly, stating that

“Cohen’s successful blending of poetry, fiction, and music is

made most clear in Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs,

published in 1993 ... while it may seem to some that Leonard

Cohen departed from the literary in pursuit of the musical,

his fans continue to embrace him as a Renaissance man who

straddles the elusive artistic borderlines.” Bob Dylan was an

admirer, describing Cohen as the ‘number one’ songwriter of

their time (Dylan described himself as ‘number zero’):

“When people talk about Leonard, they fail to mention his

melodies, which to me, along with his lyrics, are his greatest

genius. ... Even the counterpoint lines--they give a celestial

character & melodic lift to his songs. ... no one else comes close

to this in modern music. ... I like all of Leonard’s songs, early

or late. ... they make you think & feel. I like some of his later

songs even better than his early ones. Yet there’s a simplicity to

his early ones that I like, too. ... He’s very much a descendant of

Irving Berlin. ... Both of them just hear melodies that most of

us can only strive for. ... Both Leonard & Berlin are incredibly

crafty. Leonard particularly uses chord progressions that are

classical in shape. He is a much more savvy musician than

you’d think.”

Themes of political and social justice also recur in Cohen’s

work, especially in later albums. In “Democracy”, he both

acknowledges political problems and celebrates, the hopes of


Leonard Cohen

reformers: “from the wars against disorder/ from the sirens

night and day/ from the fires of the homeless/ from the ashes

of the gay/ Democracy is coming to the USA.” He made the

observation in “Tower of Song” that “The rich have got their

channels in the bedrooms of the poor/ And there’s a mighty

judgment coming.” In the title track of The Future he recasts

this prophecy on a pacifist note: “I’ve seen the nations rise and

fall/ ... / But love’s the only engine of survival.” In that same

song he comments on current topics (abortion, anal sex and

the use of drugs): “Give me crack and anal sex. Take the only

tree that’s left and stuff it up the hole in your culture”, “Destroy

another fetus now, we don’t like children anyhow”. In “Anthem”,

he promises that “the killers in high places [who] say their

prayers out loud/ [are] gonna hear from me.”

“Epic and Enigmatic Songwriter” Over a musical career that

spanned nearly five decades, Mr. Cohen wrote songs that

addressed—in spare language that could be both oblique

and telling—themes of love and faith, despair and exaltation,

solitude and connection, war and politics. It’s inevitable that

Mr. Cohen will be remembered above all for his lyrics. They are

terse and acrobatic, scriptural and bawdy, vividly descriptive

and enduringly ambiguous, never far from either a riddle or a

punch line.”

The New York Times: Obituary, Nov. 10, 2016, and “An

Appraisal”, Nov. 11, 2016

War is an enduring theme of Cohen’s work that—in his earlier

songs and early life—he approached ambivalently. Challenged

in 1974 over his serious demeanor in concerts and the military

salutes he ended them with, Cohen remarked, “I sing serious

songs, and I’m serious onstage because I couldn’t do it any

other way ... I don’t consider myself a civilian. I consider myself

a soldier, and that’s the way soldiers salute.”

Deeply moved by encounters with Israeli and Arab soldiers,

he left the country to write “Lover Lover Lover”. This song has

been interpreted as a personal renunciation of armed conflict,

and ends with the hope his song will serve a listener as “a shield

against the enemy”. He would later remark, “’Lover, Lover,

Lover’ was born over there; the whole world has its eyes riveted

on this tragic and complex conflict. Then again, I am faithful

to certain ideas, inevitably. I hope that those of which I am in

favour will gain.” Asked which side he supported in the Arab-

Israeli conflict, Cohen responded, “I don’t want to speak of

wars or sides ... Personal process is one thing, it’s blood, it’s the

identification one feels with their roots and their origins. The

militarism I practice as a person and a writer is another thing.

... I don’t wish to speak about war.”

In 1991, playwright Bryden MacDonald launched ‘Sincerely,

A Friend’, a musical revue based on Cohen’s music. Cohen is

mentioned in the Nirvana song “Pennyroyal Tea” from the

band’s 1993 release, In Utero. Kurt Cobain wrote, “Give me a

Leonard Cohen afterworld/So I can sigh eternally.” Cohen, after

Cobain’s suicide, was quoted as saying “I’m sorry I couldn’t

have spoken to the young man. I see a lot of people at the Zen

Centre, who have gone through drugs and found a way out

that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives,

and I might have been able to lay something on him.” He is

also mentioned in the lyrics of songs by Lloyd Cole & The

Commotions, Mercury Rev and Marillion.


Cohen was one of the inspirations for Matt Bissonnette and

Steven Clark’s 2002 film Looking for Leonard. Centred on a

group of small-time criminals in Montreal, one of the film’s

characters idolizes Cohen as a symbol of her dreams for a

better life, obsessively rereading his writings and rewatching

‘Ladies and Gentlemen’. Bissonnette followed up in 2020 with

‘Death of a Ladies’ Man’, a film that uses seven Cohen songs in

its soundtrack to illuminate key themes in the film’s screenplay.

The Leonard Cohen song “So Long, Marianne” is the title of the

season 4, episode 9 episode of ‘This Is Us’. The song is played

and its meaning is discussed as an important plot point of the

episode.

In April 2022, author and journalist Matti Friedman published

“Who By Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of

Leonard Cohen” the story of Leonard Cohen’s 1973 tour to the

front lines of the Yom Kippur War. TV miniseries by Yehonatan

Indursky based on the book is expected in 2024/2025.

Susan Cain, author of ‘Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing

Make Us Whole’ (2022), said that humorous references to

Cohen as the “Poet Laureate of Pessimism” miss the point that

Cohen’s life suggests that “the quest to transform pain into

beauty is one of the great catalysts of artistic expression”. Cain

dedicated the book “In memory of Leonard Cohen”, quoting

lyrics from Cohen’s song “Anthem” (1992): “There is a crack, a

crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

New York Times critic A. O. Scott wrote that “Cohen wasn’t

one to offer comfort. His gift as a songwriter and performer

was rather to provide commentary and companionship

amid the gloom, offering a wry, openhearted perspective on

the puzzles of the human condition”. Dan Geller and Dayna

Goldfine, creators of the 2022 documentary film ‘Hallelujah:

Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song’, acknowledged that Cohen

was initially perceived as a “monster of gloom”; but Goldfine

described Cohen as “one of the funniest guys ever” with “a

very droll, dry wit”,] and Geller remarking, “Almost everything

Cohen said came out with a twinkle in his eye”. Long before his

death, Cohen said “I feel I have a huge posthumous career in

front of me”.

Suzanne Vega spoke of Leonard Cohen’s admirers in a New

Yorker interview, saying that knowing his work was like being

part of a “secret society” among people of her generation.

Cohen died on November 7, 2016, at the age of 82 at his home

in Los Angeles; leukemia was a contributing cause. According

to his manager, Cohen’s death was the result of a fall at his

home that evening, and he subsequently died in his sleep. His

death was announced on November 10, the same day as his

funeral, which was held in Montreal. As was his wish, Cohen

was laid to rest with a Jewish rite, in a simple pine casket, in a

family plot in the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim cemetery

on Mount Royal.

33 |

SFM

MAGAZINE

leonard cohen books

THE FLAME:

Poems Notebooks Lyrics

Drawings Hardcover – Illustrated,

October 2, 2018

$14.52

Amazon link here:

PARASITES OF HEAVEN

Paperback – January 1, 1973

by Leonard Cohen (Author)

$85.00

Amazon link here:

BEAUTIFUL LOSERS

Paperback – November 2, 1993


$16.00

Amazon link here:

LEONARD COHEN:

SELECTED POEMS

1956-1968 Mass Market Paperback –

June 26, 1968

$13.47

Amazon link here:

LET US COMPARE

MYTHOLOGIES

Hardcover – Illustrated, May 29,

2007 by Leonard Cohen (Author)

$15.99

Amazon link here:

THE ENERGY OF SLAVES:

POEMS



$41.47

Amazon link here:

SPICE-BOX OF EARTH



$29.48

Amazon link here:

DEATH OF A LADY’S MAN:

A Collection of Poetry and Prose

Hardcover – May 1, 2011

$34.00

Amazon link here:

THE FAVORITE GAME

Paperback – October 14, 2003


$22.00

Amazon link here:

STRANGER MUSIC:

SELECTED POEMS AND SONGS

Paperback – November 1, 1994


$14.08

Amazon link

FLOWERS FOR HITLER



$133.28

Amazon link here:

BOOK OF LONGING

Paperback – Illustrated, May 29, 2007


Paperback

$10.49

Amazon link here:


Leonard Cohen

leonard cohen

compilation albums

THE BEST OF LEONARD

COHEN is a greatest hits album

by Leonard Cohen, released in

1975. Link to album here:

LIEBESTRÄUME – Leonard

Cohen singt seine schönsten

Lieder 1980

link to album here:

Leonard Cohen – SO LONG,

MARIANNE. Genre: Rock Style:

Folk RockYear:1989

link to album here:

Leonard Cohen – MORE BEST

OF Genre: Rock Style: Folk Rock

Year: 1997

Link to album here:

THE ESSENTIAL LEONARD

COHEN

Style: Folk Rock, Acoustic, Folk

Year:2002 Link to album here:

Leonard Cohen – THE

COLLECTION

Format:5 x CD, Compilation

Box Set Link to album here:

Leonard Cohen –

GREATEST HITS Label: Columbia

– 88697581772 Format: CD,

Compilation Released:2009

Link to album here:


Leonard Cohen – THE

COMPLETE STUDIO ALBUMS

COLLECTION Label: Sony Music

886979617728, 2011

Link to album here:

Leonard Cohen – HALLELUJAH

& SONGS FROM HIS ALBUMS

Genre: Rock, Folk, World, &

Country 2022

Link to album here:

35 |

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MAGAZINE

dave van ronk

David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936

– February 10, 2002) was an American folk

singer. An important figure in the American

folk music revival and New York City’s Greenwich

Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the

“Mayor of MacDougal Street”.

Van Ronk’s work ranged from old English ballads

to blues, gospel, rock, New Orleans jazz, and swing.

He was also known for performing instrumental

ragtime guitar music, especially his transcription

of “St. Louis Tickle” and Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf

Rag”. Van Ronk was a widely admired avuncular

figure in the Village, presiding over the coffeehouse

folk culture and acting as a friend to many up-andcoming

artists by inspiring, assisting, and promoting

them. Folk performers he befriended include Jim

and Jean, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Patrick Sky, Phil

Ochs, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Joni Mitchell. Dylan

recorded Van Ronk’s arrangement of the traditional

song “House of the Rising Sun” on his first album

which The Animals would later cover and which

would become a chart-topping rock single for them

in 1964, helping inaugurate the folk rock movement.

Van Ronk received a Lifetime Achievement Award

from the American Society of Composers, Authors

and Publishers (ASCAP) in December 1997.

Van Ronk was born in Brooklyn, New York City,

to a family that was “mostly Irish, despite the

Dutch ‘Van’ name”. He moved from Brooklyn to

Queens around 1945 and began attending Holy

Child Jesus Catholic School, whose students were

mainly of Irish descent. He had been performing

in a barbershop quartet since 1949, but left before


Dave Van Ronk

finishing high school spending time in the Merchant

Marine.

His first professional gigs were playing tenor

banjola, a wooden bodied combination of mandola

and banjo, with various traditional jazz bands

around New York City, of which he later observed:

“We wanted to play traditional jazz in the worst

way ... and we did!” But the trad jazz revival had

already passed its prime, and Van Ronk turned to

performing the blues he had stumbled across while

shopping for jazz 78s by artists like the Reverend

Gary Davis, Furry Lewis and Mississippi John Hurt.

By about 1958, he was firmly committed to the

folk-blues style, accompanying himself with his

own acoustic guitar. He performed blues, jazz and

folk music, occasionally writing his own songs but

generally arranging the work of earlier artists and

his folk revival peers.

He became noted both for his large physical stature

and for his expansive charisma which bespoke an

intellectual, cultured gentleman of diverse talents.

Among his many interests were cooking, science

fiction (he was active for some time in science fiction

fandom, referring to it as “mind rot”, contributing

to fanzines), world history, and politics. During

the 1960s he supported radical left-wing political

causes and was, at various times, a member of the

Libertarian League and the Young Socialist League,

at that time the youth wing of the “Shachtmanite”

Independent Socialist League. In 1964, he was part

of a group expelled from the Trotskyist Socialist

Workers Party which would eventually go on to

become the American Committee for the Fourth

International (ACFI, later renamed the Workers

League).

In 1974, he appeared at “An Evening For Salvador

Allende”, a concert organized by Phil Ochs,

alongside such other performers as his old friend

Bob Dylan, to protest the overthrow of the

democratic socialist government of Chile and to

aid refugees from the U.S.-backed military junta

led by Augusto Pinochet. After Ochs’s suicide in

1976, Van Ronk joined the many performers who

played at his memorial concert in the Felt Forum at

Madison Square Garden, playing his bluesy version

of the traditional folk ballad “He Was A Friend Of

Mine”. Although Van Ronk was less politically active

in later years, he remained committed to anarchist


and socialist ideals and was a dues-paying member

of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

almost until his death. According to former wife and

manager Terri Thal, Van Ronk “insisted that he was

a Trotskyist until he died.”

Van Ronk was among 13 people arrested at the

Stonewall Inn June 28, 1969, the night of the

Stonewall Riots, which is widely credited as the

spark of the contemporary gay rights movement.

He had been dining at a neighboring restaurant

and joined the riot against the police occupation

of the club and was dragged from the crowd into

the building by police deputy inspector Seymour

Pine. The police slapped and punched Van Ronk

to the point of near unconsciousness, handcuffed

him to a radiator near the doorway, and decided

to charge him for assault. Recalling the expanding

riot, Van Ronk said, “There were more people out

there, outside the building, when I came out than

when I went in. Things were still flying through the

air, cacophony—I mean, just screaming and yelling,

sirens, strobe lights, the whole spaghetti.” The next

day, he was arrested and later released on his own

recognizance for having thrown a heavy object at

a police officer. City records show he was charged

with felony assault in the second degree and pleaded

guilty to the lesser charge of harassment, classified in

1969 as a violation under PL 240.25.

In 2000, he performed at Blind Willie’s in Atlanta,

speaking fondly of his impending return to

Greenwich Village. He reminisced over tunes like

“You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon”, a song teasing

a worn-out lover, which he ruefully remarked had

seemed humorous to him back in 1962.

He continued to perform for four decades and gave

his last concert just a few months before his death.

Van Ronk was married to Terri Thal in the 1960s,

lived for many years with Joanne Grace, then

married Andrea Vuocolo, with whom he spent the

rest of his life.

On February 10, 2002, Van Ronk died in a New

York hospital of cardiopulmonary failure while

undergoing postoperative treatment for colon

cancer. He died before completing work on his

memoirs, which were finished by his collaborator,

Elijah Wald, and published in 2005 as ‘The Mayor Of

MacDougal Street’.

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MAGAZINE

Van Ronk’s guitar work, for which he credits Tom

Paley as fingerpicking teacher, is noteworthy

for both syncopation and precision. Revealing

similarities to Mississippi John Hurt’s, Van Ronk’s

main influence was the Reverend Gary Davis, who

conceived the guitar as “a piano around his neck.”

Van Ronk took this pianistic approach and added

a harmonic sophistication adapted from the band

voicings of Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington.

Van Ronk was among the first to adapt traditional

jazz and ragtime to the solo acoustic guitar with

arrangements of such ragtime staples as “St.

Louis Tickle”, “The Entertainer”, “The Pearls” and

“Maple Leaf Rag”. Van Ronk brought the blues

style to Greenwich Village during the 1960s, while

introducing the folk music world to the complex

harmonies of Kurt Weill with his many Brecht and

Weill interpretations. A traditional revivalist who

moved with the times, Van Ronk brought old blues

and ballads together with the new sounds of Dylan,

Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Dylan says of his

impact:

“I’d heard Van Ronk back in the Midwest on records

and thought he was pretty great, copied some of his

recordings phrase for phrase. Van Ronk could howl

and whisper, turn blues into ballads and ballads into

blues. I loved his style. He was what the city was all

about. In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of

the street, he reigned supreme”.

Van Ronk gave guitar lessons in Greenwich Village,

including to Christine Lavin, David Massengill,

Terre Roche and Suzzy Roche. He influenced his

protégé Danny Kalb and the Blues Project.

Van Ronk once said, “Painting is all about space, and

music is all about time.”

The Coen brothers film ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ follows

a folk singer similar to Van Ronk, and incorporates

anecdotes based on Van Ronk’s life. He is mentioned

in David Bowie’s 2013 song ‘You Will Set the World

on Firee on The Next Day’ and was mentioned

among the dead musicians and recording artists in

the song “Mirror Door” by the Who in 2006 on the

album ‘Endless Wire’.

was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award

posthumously by the World Folk Music Association

in 2004.

Joni Mitchell said that Van Ronk’s rendition of her

song “Both Sides, Now” (which he called “Clouds”)

was her favorite version of the song.

Van Ronk was portrayed by Joe Tippett in the 2024

film ‘A Complete Unknown’.

Van Ronk refused for many years to fly and never

learned to drive (he took trains or buses or, when

possible, recruited a girlfriend or young musician

as his driver), and he declined to ever move from

Greenwich Village for any extended period of time

(having stayed in California for a short time in the

1960s). Van Ronk’s trademark stoneware jug of

Tullamore Dew was frequently seen on stage next to

him in his early days.

Critic Robert Shelton described Van Ronk as “the

musical mayor of MacDougal Street” -

...”a tall, garrulous, hairy man of three quarters, or,

more accurately, three fifths Irish descent. Topped

by light brownish hair and a leonine beard which

he smoothed down several times a minute, he

resembled an unmade bed strewn with books,

record jackets, pipes, empty whiskey bottles, lines

from obscure poets, finger picks, and broken guitar

strings. He was Dylan’s first New York guru. Van

Ronk was a walking museum of the blues. Through

an early interest in jazz, he had gravitated toward

black music—its jazz pole, its jug-band and ragtime

center, its blues bedrock.... His manner was rough

and testy, disguising a warm, sensitive core.”

Van Ronk was author of a posthumous memoir, ‘The

Mayor of MacDougal Street’ (2005) written with

Elijah Wald. Anecdotes from the book were used as

a source for the film ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’.

Van Ronk and Richard Ellington collected and

edited ‘The Bosses’ Songbook’: ‘Songs to Stifle the

Flames of Discontent’, Second Edition – A Collection

of Modern Political Songs and Satire (Richard

Ellington, publisher: New York, 1959).

In 2004, a section of Sheridan Square, where Barrow

Street meets Washington Place, was renamed

Dave Van Ronk Street in his memory. Van Ronk


Dave Van Ronk

STUDIO ALBUMS

1959: Van Ronk Sings Ballads, Blues, and a Spiritual (also

released as Gambler’s Blues and Black Mountain Blues)

(Folkways) Listen here:

1961: Dave Van Ronk Sings (also released as Dave Van

Ronk Sings the Blues and Dave Van Ronk Sings Earthy

Ballads and Blues) (Folkways) Listen here:

1962: Dave Van Ronk, Folksinger (Prestige)

1963: In the Tradition (Prestige) Listen here:

1964: Inside Dave Van Ronk (Prestige) listen here:

1964: Dave Van Ronk and the Ragtime Jug Stompers

(Mercury) Listen here:

1964: Just Dave Van Ronk (Mercury) listen here:

1966: No Dirty Names (Verve/Forecast) listen here:

1967: Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters (Verve

Forecast) Listen here:

1971: Van Ronk (Polydor)

1973: Songs for Ageing Children (Cadet) Listen here:

1976: Sunday Street (Philo) Listen here:

1980: Somebody Else, Not Me (Philo) Listen here:

1982: Your Basic Dave Van Ronk Listen here:

1985: Going Back to Brooklyn (Reckless) Listen here:

1990: Hummin’ to Myself Listen here:

1990: Peter and the Wolf Listen here:

1992: Let No One Deceive You: Songs of Bertolt

Brecht (Frankie Armstrong & Dave Van Ronk)

Listen here:

1994: To All My Friends in Far-Flung Places

Listen here:

1995: From... Another Time & Place Listen Here:

2001: Sweet & Lowdown Listen here:

2013: Down in Washington Square: The Smithsonian

Folkways Collection (Smithsonian Folkways)

Listen here:

LIVE ALBUMS

1982: Your Basic Dave Van Ronk Listen here:

1983: St James Infirmary (released in 1996 as Statesboro

Blues) Listen here:

1983: Dave Van Ronk in Rome Listen here:

1997: Live at Sir George Williams University (recorded in

1967) Listen here:

2004: Dave Van Ronk: ...and the tin pan bended and the

story ended... (Smithsonian Folkways) Listen here:

2008: On Air (1993) Listen here:

2014: Live in Monterey (recorded in 1998) Listen here:

2015: Hear Me Howl: Live 1964 (recorded Indiana

University, Bloomington Indiana, October 20, 1964)

Listen here:

COMPILATION ALBUMS

1972: Van Ronk (includes Folksinger and Inside

Dave Van Ronk in their entirety. Later released on

CD as Inside Dave Van Ronk LP reissued in 2013)

Listen here:

1988: Hesitation Blues

Listen here:

1989: Inside Dave Van Ronk

Listen here:

1991: The Folkways Years, 1959–1961 (Smithsonian

Folkways)

Listen here:

1992: A Chrestomathy

Listen here:

2002: Two Sides of Dave Van Ronk (includes all of

In the Tradition and most of Your Basic Dave Van

Ronk) Listen here:

2005: The Mayor of MacDougal Street (previously

unreleased material) Listen here:

2012: Bluesmaster (includes all of Sings Ballads,

Blues and a Spiritual and selections from Dave Van

Ronk Sings)


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MAGAZINE

the weavers

The Weavers were an American folk music

quartet based in the Greenwich Village area

of New York City originally consisting of

Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred

Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang

traditional folk songs from around the world, as well

as blues, gospel music, children’s songs, labor songs,

and American ballads. The group sold millions of

records at the height of their popularity, including the

first folk song to reach No. 1 on popular music charts,

their recording of Lead Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene.”

Despite their popularity, the Weavers were blacklisted

during much of the 1950s. During the Red Scare,

members of the group were followed by the FBI and

denied recording and performance opportunities,

with Seeger and Hays called in to testify before the

House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Pete Seeger left the group in 1958. His tenor and

banjo part was covered in succession by Erik Darling,

Frank Hamilton and finally Bernie Krause until

the group disbanded in 1964. Seeger discussed the

history of folk music and the impact of The Weavers

in an April 1963 interview on Folk Music Worldwide.

In 1940, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger co-founded the

Almanac Singers, which – along with American folk

songs and ballads – promoted peace and isolationism

in the years preceding World War II, working with

the Communist Party-backed American Peace

Mobilization (APM). The Almanacs featured many

songs opposing entry into the war by the U.S. In June

1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the

APM changed its name to the American People’s

Mobilization and followed the Party line by altering

its focus to supporting U.S. entry into the war. The

Almanacs supported the change and produced many


The Weavers

pro-war songs urging the U.S. to fight on the side of

the Allies. The Almanac Singers disbanded after the

U.S. entered the war.

The Weavers were formed in November 1948 by

Hays, Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman.

At Hellerman’s suggestion, the group took its name

from a play by Gerhart Hauptmann, ‘Die Weber’

(The Weavers 1892), a powerful work depicting

the uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844 which

contains the lines, “I’ll stand it no more, come what

may”.

After a period of being unable to find much

paid work, they landed a steady and successful

engagement at the Village Vanguard jazz club.

This led to their discovery by arranger-bandleader

Gordon Jenkins and their signing with Decca

Records. The group had a big hit in 1950 with Lead

Belly’s “Goodnight, Irene”, backed with the 1941

song “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”, which in turn became

a best seller. The recording stayed at number one

on the charts for 13 weeks, the first folk song

arrangement to achieve such success. “Goodnight,

Irene” sold one million copies in 1950. (Pete Seeger

later wrote that total sales were about two million

records.) In keeping with the style of the time, these

and other early Weavers’ releases had violins and

orchestration added behind the group. For example,

on their hit, ‘Lonesome Traveler’ which Lee Hays

wrote, they were backed by Jenkins and his orchestra

Because of the deepening Red Scare of the early

1950s, their manager Pete Cameron advised them

not to sing their most explicitly political songs

and to avoid performing at “progressive” venues

and events. Because of this, some folk song fans

criticized them for watering down their beliefs and

commercializing their singing style. But the Weavers

felt it was worth it to get their songs before the

public, and to avoid the explicit type of commitment

which had led to the demise of the Almanacs. The

new approach proved a success, leading to many

bookings and increased demand for the group’s

recordings.

The successful concerts and hit recordings of

the Weavers helped introduce to new audiences

such folk revival standards as “On Top of Old

Smoky” (with guest vocalist Terry Gilkyson),

Woody Guthrie’s 1935 “So Long, It’s Been Good

to Know Yuh”, the B side of ‘Lonesome Traveler,’


(which reached #4 in 1951), “Follow the Drinking

Gourd”, “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”, Tony Saletan’s

adaptation of “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore”, “The

Wreck of the John B” (a/k/a “Sloop John B”), “Rock

Island Line”, “The Midnight Special”, “Pay Me My

Money Down”, “Darling Corey” and “Wimoweh”.

The Weavers encouraged sing-alongs in their

concerts, and sometimes Seeger would shout out the

lyrics in advance of each line, in lining out style.

Film footage of the Weavers is relatively scarce.

The group appeared as a specialty act in a B-movie

musical, ‘Disc Jockey’ (1951), and filmed five of their

record hits that same year for TV producer Lou

Snader: “Goodnight, Irene”, “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”,

“So Long”, “Around the World”, and “The Roving

Kind”.

During the 1950s Red Scare, Pete Seeger and Lee

Hays were identified as Communist Party USA

members by FBI informant Harvey Matusow

(who later recanted). Both were called to testify to

the House Committee on Un-American Activities

in 1955. Hays asserted his rights under the Fifth

Amendment, which allows people not to give

evidence against themselves. Seeger also refused

to answer, but claimed justification under the First

Amendment, the first to do so after the conviction

of the Hollywood Ten in 1950. Seeger was found

guilty of contempt and placed under restrictions by

the court pending appeal, but in 1961 his conviction

was overturned on technical grounds. Because

Seeger was among those listed in the entertainment

industry blacklist publication ‘Red Channels’, all

of the Weavers were placed under FBI surveillance

and not allowed to perform on television or radio

during the McCarthy era. Despite their enormous

popularity, Decca Records terminated the Weavers’

recording contract and deleted their records from

its catalog in 1953. Their recordings were denied

airplay, which curtailed their income from royalties.

Right-wing and anti-Communist groups protested

at their performances and harassed promoters. As

a result, the group’s economic viability diminished

rapidly and in 1952 it disbanded. After this, Pete

Seeger continued his solo career, although as with

all of them, he continued to suffer from the effects of

blacklisting.

In December 1955, the group reunited to play a

sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. The concert was

a huge success. A recording of some of the concert,

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MAGAZINE

The Weavers at Carnegie Hall, was issued in 1957

by the independent Vanguard Records, and this led

to their signing by that record label. (Additional

selections from the 1955 Carnegie Hall concert were

included on 1957’s The Weavers on Tour.) By the

late 1950s, folk music was surging in popularity and

McCarthyism was fading. Yet it was not until the

height of the 1960s that Seeger was able to end his

blacklisting by appearing on the nationally broadcast

CBS-TV variety show ‘The Smothers Brothers

Comedy Hour’ in 1967.

After the April 1957 LP release of the Carnegie

Hall concert, the Weavers launched a month-long

concert tour. That August, the group reassembled

for a series of recording sessions for Vanguard. As

Seeger’s college concert bookings grew, the singer

felt restricted by his obligations to the group.

Vanguard booked the Weavers for a January 15,

1958, session to record a rock-and-roll single.

The results were embarrassing and fueled Seeger’s

frustration. The following month Gilbert, Hays,

and Hellerman overruled Seeger about recording a

cigarette ad for a tobacco company. Seeger, opposed

to the dangers of tobacco and discouraged by the

group’s apparent sell-out to commercial interests,

decided to resign. After honoring their commitment

to record the jingle, he left the group on March 3,

1958.

Seeger recommended Erik Darling of the Tarriers as

his replacement. Darling remained with the group

until June 1962, leaving to persue a solo career and

eventually forming the folk trio the Rooftop Singers.

Frank Hamilton, who replaced Darling, stayed

with the group nine months, giving his notice just

before the Weavers celebrated the group’s fifteenth

anniversary with two nights of concerts at Carnegie

Hall in March 1963. Folksinger Bernie Krause,

later a pioneer in bringing the Moog synthesizer to

popular music, was the last performer to occupy

“the Seeger chair”. The group disbanded in 1964,

but Gilbert, Hellerman, and Hays occasionally

reunited with Seeger during the next 16 years.

In 1980, Lee Hays, ill and using a wheelchair,

wistfully approached the original Weavers for one

last get-together. Hays’ informal picnic prompted

a professional reunion and a triumphant return to

Carnegie Hall on November 28, 1980, which was to

be the group’s last full performance. They appeared

one final time in June 1981 at the Clearwater

Festival, in an informal “rehearsal”.

In a 1968 interview, in response to claims that record

companies found the Weavers difficult to classify,

Seeger told the Pop Chronicles music documentary

to “leave that up to the anthropologists, the folklorists.

... For you and me, the important thing is a song, a

good song, a true song. ... Call it anything you want.”

A documentary film, The Weavers: ‘Wasn’t That

a Time!’ (1982), was released after the 1981 death

of Hays. The film chronicled the history of the

group, including the events leading up to their final

reunion. Critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars

out of a possible four in his Chicago Sun-Times

review and named it one of his top 10 films for 1982.

Following the Weavers’ dissolution, Ronnie Gilbert

toured America as a soloist, and Fred Hellerman

worked as a recording engineer and producer.

Gilbert also performed and recorded with Holly

Near, and then (in 1985) as “HARP,” featuring

Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Gilbert, and Pete

Seeger.

The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall

of Fame in 2001. In February 2006, the Weavers

received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Represented by members Ronnie Gilbert and Fred

Hellerman, they struck a chord with the crowd as

their struggles with political witch hunts during

the 1950s were recounted. “If you can exist, and

stay the course – not a course of blind obstinacy

and faulty conception – but one of decency and

good sense, you can outlast your enemies with your

honor and integrity intact”, Hellerman said. Some

commentators see the reference to “blind obstinacy”

as a veiled criticism of those who believed

uncritically in all the actions of the Communist

Party.

Lee Hays died in 1981, aged 67. His biography,

‘Lonesome Traveler’ by Doris Willens, was

published in 1988. Erik Darling died August 3,

2008, aged 74, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,

from lymphoma. After a long career in music

and activism, Pete Seeger died at the age of 94 on

January 27, 2014, in New York City. Ronnie Gilbert

died at the age of 88 on June 6, 2015. Last-surviving

founding member Fred Hellerman died at the age of

89 on September 1, 2016.


THE WEAVERS, PARTIAL DISCOGRAPHY

The Weavers

THE WEAVERS’ GREATEST HITS

Link here:

THE WEAVERS AT CARNEGIE HALL (live)

Link here:

THE WEAVERS AT CARNEGIE HALL VOL. 2 (live)

Link here:

WASN’T THAT A TIME! boxed set

Link here:

BEST OF THE VANGUARD YEARS

Link here:

THE WEAVERS REUNION AT CARNEGIE HALL: 1963 (live)

Link here:

THE REUNION AT CARNEGIE HALL, 1963, PT. 2 (live)

Link here:

THE WEAVERS AT HOME – Vanguard VRS 9024 (1957–58)

Link here:

TRAVELLING ON WITH THE WEAVERS VRS 9043 (1957–58)

Link here:

REUNION AT CARNEGIE HALL NO. 2 (live)

Link here:

RARITIES FROM THE VANGUARD VAULT

Link here:

KISSES SWEETER THAN WINE (compilation of 1950–51 live shows, edited by Fred Hellerman)

Link here:

THE WEAVERS ALMANAC

Link here:

THE BEST OF THE DECCA YEARS

Link here:

ULTIMATE COLLECTION

Link here:

THE WEAVERS CLASSICS

Link here:

BEST OF THE WEAVERS

Link here:

GOSPEL

Link here:

GOODNIGHT IRENE: Weavers 1949–53 boxed set

Link here:

WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS (1952)

Link here:

THE WEAVERS ON TOUR (Live) – Vanguard VRS 9013

Link here:

TOGETHER AGAIN (Live at Carnegie Hall in 1980, recorded in 1981) Loom 10681

Link here:

THE WEAVERS: WASN’T THAT A TIME! (video)

Link here:


43 |

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MAGAZINE

kris

kristofferson

Kristoffer Kristofferson (June 22, 1936 – September

28, 2024) was an American singer, songwriter, and

actor. He was a pioneering figure in the outlaw

country movement of the 1970s, moving away from

the polished Nashville sound and toward a more raw,

introspective style. Some of his most famous songs include

“Me and Bobby McGee”, “For the Good Times”, “Sunday

Mornin’ Comin’ Down”, and “Help Me Make It Through the

Night”, all of which became hits for other artists.

Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas; the family

relocated to San Mateo, California during his childhood

and he was briefly drafted into military service in the early

1960s. After one single for Epic Records, Kristofferson

was signed by Monument Records. He recorded a total

of 10 albums for Monument, two albums for Mercury

Records, one album each for Justice Records and Atlantic

Records, and two albums each for New West Records and

KK Records. In September 1971, Kristofferson made his

film debut in ‘The Last Movie’ and devoted much of the

later decade to making Hollywood films. Some of his most

famous films include ‘Cisco Pike’ (1972), ‘A Star Is Born’

(1976), ‘Heaven’s Gate’ (1980), and the ‘Blade’ film trilogy

(1998–2004). He continued performing until his retirement

in 2021 and death in 2024.

Kristofferson was also a member of the country music

supergroup the Highwaymen between 1985 and 1995.

He has charted 12 times on the American Billboard Hot

Country Songs charts; his highest peaking singles there

are “Why Me” and “Highwayman”, which reached number

one in 1973 and 1985, respectively. He was inducted into

the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and received

the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. He

was a three-time Grammy Award winner, out of 13 total

nominations.

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, the

oldest of three children born to Mary Ann (née Ashbrook)

and Lars Henry Kristofferson, a United States Army Air

Corps officer (later a major general in the United States Air

Force).[2] Lars later worked as a manager for Saudi Aramco

after retiring from the service.[3] During Kristofferson’s

childhood, his father encouraged him to pursue a military


Kris Kristofferson

career.

Kristofferson moved around frequently as a youth because

of his father’s military service, and the family settled in San

Mateo, California. After graduating from San Mateo High

School in 1954, he enrolled at Pomona College, hoping to

become a writer. His early writing included prize-winning

essays: “The Rock” and “Gone Are the Days” were published

in The Atlantic Monthly. These stories touch on the roots of

Kristofferson’s passions and concerns. “The Rock” is about a

geographical feature resembling the form of a woman, while

the latter was about a racial incident.

At the age of 17, Kristofferson took a summer job with a

dredging contractor on Wake Island in the western Pacific

Ocean. He called it “the hardest job I ever had”.

Kristofferson attended Pomona College and experienced

his first national exposure in 1958, appearing in the March

31 issue of Sports Illustrated for his achievements in

collegiate rugby union, American football, and track and

field. He and his classmates revived the Claremont Colleges

Rugby Club in 1958, and it remains a Southern California

rugby institution. Kristofferson graduated in 1958 with a

Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in literature.

He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year. In a 2004

interview with Pomona College Magazine, Kristofferson

mentioned philosophy professor Frederick Sontag as an

important influence in his life.

Also in 1958, Kristofferson was awarded a Rhodes

Scholarship to the University of Oxford, studying at Merton

College. While at Oxford, he was awarded a Blue for boxing,

played rugby for his college, and began writing songs. At

Oxford, he became acquainted with fellow Rhodes scholar,

art critic, and poet Michael Fried. With the help of his

manager, Larry Parnes, Kristofferson recorded for Top Rank

Records under the name Kris Carson. Parnes was working

to sell Kristofferson as “a Yank at Oxford” to the British

public; Kristofferson was willing to accept that promotional

approach if it helped his singing career, which he hoped

would enable him to progress toward his goal of becoming

a novelist.

This early phase of his music career was unsuccessful. In

1960, Kristofferson graduated with a B.Phil. in English

literature. In 1961, he married his longtime girlfriend,

Frances “Fran” Mavia Beer.

Kristofferson, under pressure from his family, joined

the United States Army in 1961 and was commissioned

as a second lieutenant, attaining the rank of captain. He

became a helicopter pilot after receiving flight training at

Fort Rucker, Alabama. He also completed Ranger School.

During the early 1960s, he was stationed in West Germany

as a member of the 8th Infantry Division. During this time,

he resumed his music career and formed a band to play

at service clubs. It was at this point that he met Marijohn

Wilkin, the aunt of his platoon commander. In 1965, after


his tour in West Germany ended, Kristofferson taught

English literature at the United States Military Academy.

While on a two-week leave to Nashville, Tennessee, in

June 1965, he contacted Wilkin and decided to become a

country songwriter. After resigning from the Army and

relocating his family to Nashville that year, Wilkin signed

Kristofferson publishing house Buckhorn Music. Wilkin

pitched his song “Talkin’ Vietnam Blues” to singer Dave

Dudley. Concurrently, Kristofferson worked a series of odd

jobs that included bartender, construction worker, and

railroad worker. He later worked as a janitor for Columbia

Records, which afforded him the possibility of talking

directly with the artists and a presence during recording

sessions. He released his debut single containing his songs

“Golden Idol” and “Killing Time” in 1967 on Epic Records.

After his second child was born with esophagus issues

in 1968, Kristofferson worked at Petroleum Helicopters

International (PHI) in Lafayette, Louisiana. While flying

workers to and from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, he

would often write new songs. At weekends, he returned

to Nashville, and for the following week he would pitch

the songs around town before returning to Louisiana. The

trips exhausted Kristofferson; his children were living with

Fran in California and he felt his career as a songwriter was

failing. PHI also admonished him for his increased alcohol

consumption. Upon returning to Nashville the same week,

Kristofferson learned three of his songs had been recorded:

“Jody and the Kid” by Roy Drusky, “Help Me Make It

Through the Night” by Jerry Lee Lewis and “Me and Bobby

McGee” by Roger Miller.

Through June Carter, Kristofferson first attempted to pitch

material to her husband Johnny Cash. Carter took the

demos, which were eventually lost in a pile of other material

Cash had received. At the time, Kristofferson worked on

the weekends for the Tennessee National Guard. To attract

Cash’s attention, Kristofferson landed a helicopter in Cash’s

property. Cash eventually invited Kristofferson to a “guitar

pull” party in his house. Cash was impressed and invited

Kristofferson to perform with him at the 1969 Newport

Folk Festival. Unsatisfied by Buckhorn Music, Kristofferson

decided to change labels. Monument Records director Bob

Beckham invited Kristofferson to play songs for him and

label owner Fred Foster. Kristofferson performed “To Beat

the Devil”, “Jody and the Kid”, “The Best of All Possible

Worlds” and “Duvalier’s Dream”; Foster was impressed

and offered Kristofferson two contracts; one as a recording

artist for Monument Records and one as a songwriter

for Combine Music. The ten-year contract required

Kristofferson to submit ten records containing songs he had

written. Kristofferson was surprised he had been signed as

a singer; he told Foster at the time: “I can’t sing, I sound like

a frog!” Kristofferson later said Buckhorn Music had not

allowed him to record demos of his compositions.

In 1969, Kristofferson divorced Beer and left Nashville

to join the production of his first motion picture, Dennis

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MAGAZINE

Hopper’s ‘The Last Movie’, in Peru. In his absence, Cash

continued promoting Kristofferson’s original songs with

other singers. Upon returning to Nashville, Kristofferson

learned of his new popularity and started to work on

his debut album for Monument, Kristofferson. As his

manager and producer, Foster had decided to keep some

of Kristofferson’s original material from being passed to

other artists. The new material, as well as his songs that

had already been recorded by other artists, were included

in the recording sessions, which were held at Monument

Recording Studio.

Monument released ‘Kristofferson’ in June 1970.

Kristofferson wrote or co-wrote every song on the album.

He collaborated with Marijohn’s son, John Buck Wilkin,

on “Blame it on the Stones”. Though Kristofferson was not

a commercial success, it received positive reviews from

critics. According to Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles

Times, the album “is able to combine lyric sophistication

with country music’s traditional interest in everyday

problems”. The commercial success of “Sunday Mornin’

Comin’ Down” led to the first of several industry awards

nominations for the singer. Johnny Cash’s rendition of

the single earned Kristofferson his first Country Music

Association award for Song of the Year that November.

Also in 1970, he made his debut performance as a singer

at the Los Angeles nightclub The Troubadour. Fred Roos,

the casting director of Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces,

invited him to audition for his film debut for a leading role

on’ Two-Lane Blacktop’. Kristofferson, who was signed to

Columbia Records, arrived to the appointment intoxicated

and left. Kristofferson was next offered Bill L. Norton’s

script for ‘Cisco Pike’ by Columbia. His peers encouraged

him to reject the role and to take acting lessons instead,

but he accepted the part, and later said; “I read the script

and I could identify with this cat” and that acting is

“understanding a character, and then being just as honest as

you can possibly be”.

Kristofferson began an 18-month tour, during which he

suffered a bout of walking pneumonia, which was worsened

by his alcohol consumption. While performing, he would

not face the audience and mumbled the words to his

songs. Eventually, he was hospitalized. During the tour,

Kristofferson performed on ‘The Johnny Cash Show’. While

in California, Kristofferson befriended singer Janis Joplin.

Upon returning to Nashville in early 1971, he received with

his mail at Combine Music Joplin’s posthumous album

‘Pearl,’ which at the time was still unreleased. Joplin’s

album included a cover of his original composition “Me

and Bobby McGee”. The following morning, he returned

to the studio and recorded his second Monument album,

‘The Silver Tongued Devil and I’, which was released that

July. He wrote nine of the album’s 10 songs, including the

single “Lovin’ Her Was Easier (than Anything I’ll Ever Do

Again)”. He collaborated with songwriter Shel Silverstein

on “The Taker” and keyboardist Donnie Fritts on “Epitaph

(Black and Blue)”. Also included on the album was a cover

of Bobby Bare’s “Good Christian Soldier”. “Lovin’ Her

Was Easier (than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” reached

number 46 on Billboard Hot 100 and number 4 on Adult

Contemporary. These songs would later be used on the

soundtrack for ‘Cisco Pike’, which was released on January

14, 1972.

That February, Monument released his third album

‘Border Lord’. The album was all-new material and sales

were sluggish. He also swept the Grammy Awards that

year with numerous songs nominated, winning country

song of the year for “Help Me Make It Through the Night”.

Kristofferson’s fourth album, ‘Jesus Was a Capricorn’,

initially had slow sales, but the third single, “Why Me”, was

a success and significantly increased album sales. It sold

over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the

RIAA on November 8, 1973. Kristofferson appeared with

Rita Coolidge on the BBC television series ‘The Old Grey

Whistle Test’, performing “Help Me Make It Through the

Night”. Al Green later released his version of “For the Good

Times” on the album ‘I’m Still in Love with You’.

In April 1973, Kristofferson received an honorary doctorate

in fine arts from Pomona College during Alumni Weekend,

accompanied by Cash and Coolidge. Four months later,

Kristofferson married Coolidge. The duo released an album

titled ‘Full Moon’, another success buoyed by numerous hit

singles and Grammy nominations.

His fifth album, ‘Spooky Lady’s Sideshow’, released in 1974,

was a commercial failure, setting the trend for most of the

rest of his musical career. Artists such as Ronnie Milsap and

Johnny Duncan continued to record Kristofferson’s material

with success, but his distinctively rough voice and anti-pop

sound kept his own audience to a minimum. Meanwhile,

more artists took his songs to the top of the charts,

including Willie Nelson, whose 1979 LP release of ‘Willie

Nelson Sings Kristofferson’ reached number five on the U.S.

Country Music chart and certified Platinum in the U.S.

In 1979, Kristofferson traveled to Havana, Cuba, to

participate in the historic Havana Jam festival that took

place on March 2–4, alongside Coolidge, Stephen Stills,

the CBS Jazz All-Stars, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars,

Billy Swan, Bonnie Bramlett, Mike Finnigan, Weather

Report, and Billy Joel, plus an array of Cuban artists such as

Irakere, Pacho Alonso, Tata Güines, and Orquesta Aragón.

His performance is captured on Ernesto Juan Castellanos’s

documentary Havana Jam ‘79.

On November 18, 1979, Kristofferson and Coolidge

appeared on The Muppet Show, where Kristofferson sang

“Help Me Make It Through the Night” with Miss Piggy,

Coolidge sang “We’re All Alone” with forest animals, and

the pair sang “Song I’d Like to Sing” with the Muppet

monsters. They divorced in 1980.

In 1982, Kristofferson joined Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton,

and Brenda Lee on ‘The Winning Hand’, a double album


Kris Kristofferson

consisting of remastered and updated performances of

recordings the four artists had made for the Monument

label during the mid-1960s; the album reached the top ten

on the U.S. country album charts. He married again, to Lisa

Meyers, and concentrated on films for a time, appearing

in the 1984 releases ‘The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck’,

‘Flashpoint’, and ‘Songwriter’. Nelson and Kristofferson both

appeared in ‘Songwriter’, and Kristofferson was nominated

for an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The album

Music from Songwriter, featuring Nelson-Kristofferson

duets, was a country success.

Nelson and Kristofferson continued their partnership,

and by 1985, they added Waylon Jennings and Johnny

Cash to form the supergroup the Highwaymen. Their

self-titled first album, released on May 6, was a success,

and the supergroup continued working together for a

time. The single from the album, a cover of Jimmy Webb’s

“Highwayman”, was awarded the ACM’s single of the year

in 1985. In 1985, Kristofferson starred in’ Trouble in Mind’

and released ‘Repossessed’, a politically aware album that

was a country success, particularly “They Killed Him” (also

performed by Bob Dylan), a tribute to his heroes, including

Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, and Mahatma Gandhi.

Kristofferson also appeared in ‘Amerika’ at about the same

time, a mini series that attempted to depict life in America

under Soviet control.

In spite of the success of Highwayman 2 in 1990,

Kristofferson’s solo recording career slipped significantly in

the early 1990s, though he continued to record successfully

with the Highwaymen. ‘Lone Star’ (1996 film by John

Sayles) reinvigorated Kristofferson’s acting career, and

he soon appeared in ‘Blade’, ‘Blade II’, ‘Blade: Trinity’, ‘A

Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries’, ‘Fire Down Below’, Tim

Burton’s remake of ‘Planet of the Apes’, ‘Chelsea Walls’,

‘Payback’, ‘The Jacket’, and ‘Fast Food Nation’.

The Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted Kristofferson in

1985, as had the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame earlier,

in 1977. In 1999, ‘The Austin Sessions’ was released, an

album on which Kristofferson reworked some of his favorite

songs with the help of artists such as Mark Knopfler, Steve

Earle, and Jackson Browne. Shortly after the album’s release,

he underwent coronary artery bypass surgery.

In 1997, Kristofferson co-starred in the film ‘Fire Down

Below’ with Steven Seagal. Kristofferson appeared in the

Stephen Norrington film ‘Blade’, alongside Wesley Snipes, as

‘Blade’s’ mentor Abraham Whistler. He reprised the role in

‘Blade II’ (2002) and again in ‘Blade: Trinity’ (2004). In 1998

he starred in ‘Dance with Me’ along with Vanessa Williams

and Chayanne.

In 2003, ‘Broken Freedom Song’ was released, a live album

recorded in San Francisco. That year, he received the “Spirit

of Americana” free speech award from the Americana

Music Association. In 2004, he was inducted into the

Country Music Hall of Fame. On October 21, 2005, the


movie ‘Dreamer’ was released, in which Kristofferson

played the role of “Pop”, a retired thoroughbred horse

trainer. The movie was inspired by the true story of the

mare ‘Mariah’s Storm’ which won the Turfway Breeders Cup

Classic. In 2006, he received the Johnny Mercer Award from

the Songwriters Hall of Fame and released his first album

full of new material in 11 years; ‘This Old Road’. On April

21, 2007, Kristofferson won CMT’s Johnny Cash Visionary

Award. Rosanne Cash, Cash’s daughter, presented the honor

during the April 16 awards show in Nashville. Previous

recipients include Cash, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn,

Reba McEntire, and the Dixie Chicks. “John was my hero

before he was my friend, and anything with his name on it

is really an honor in my eyes,” Kristofferson said during a

phone interview. “I was thinking back to when I first met

him, and if I ever thought that I’d be getting an award with

his name on it, it would have carried me through a lot of

hard times.” In 2006, Kristofferson starred with Geneviève

Bujold in the film ‘Disappearances’ about whiskey running

from Quebec to the U.S. during the Great Depression

In July 2007, Kristofferson was featured on CMT’s Studio

330 Sessions where he played many of his hits.

On June 13, 2008, Kristofferson performed an acoustic

in-the-round set with Patty Griffin and Randy Owen

(Alabama) for a special taping of a PBS songwriters series

aired in December. Each performer played five songs.

Kristofferson’s set included “The Best of All Possible

Worlds”, “Darby’s Castle”, “Casey’s Last Ride”, “Me and

Bobby McGee”, and “Here Comes that Rainbow Again”.

Taping was done in Nashville.

Kristofferson released a new album of original songs titled

‘Closer to the Bone on September 28, 2009. It was produced

by Don Was on the New West Records label. Prior to the

release, Kristofferson remarked: “I like the intimacy of the

new album. It has a general mood of reflecting on where we

all are at this time of life.”

On November 10, 2009, Kristofferson was honored as

a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI Country Awards.

Throughout his career, Kristofferson’s songwriting garnered

48 BMI Country and Pop Awards. He later remarked, “The

great thing about being a songwriter is you can hear your

baby interpreted by so many people that have creative

talents vocally that I don’t have.” Kristofferson had always

denied having a good voice, and had said that as he had

aged, any quality it once had was beginning to decay.

In December 2009, it was announced that Kristofferson

would be portraying Joe on the upcoming album ‘Ghost

Brothers of Darkland County’, a collaboration between rock

singer John Mellencamp and novelist Stephen King.

On May 11, 2010, Light in the Attic Records released demos

that were recorded during Kristofferson’s janitorial stint at

Columbia. ‘Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends’: The

Publishing Demos was the first time these recordings were

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MAGAZINE

released and included material that would later be featured

on other Kristofferson recordings and on the recordings of

other prominent artists, such as the original recording of

“Me and Bobby McGee”.

On June 4, 2011, Kristofferson performed a solo acoustic

show at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, showcasing

both some of his original hits made famous by other artists,

and newer songs.

In early 2013, Kristofferson released a new album of

original songs called ‘Feeling Mortal’. A live album titled ‘An

Evening With Kris Kristofferson’ was released in September

2014. Kristofferson voiced the character Chief Hanlon of

the NCR Rangers in the hit 2010 video game Fallout: New

Vegas.

In an interview for Las Vegas magazine Q&A by Matt

Kelemen on October 23, 2015, Kristofferson revealed

that a new album, ‘The Cedar Creek Sessions’, recorded

in Austin, would include some old and some new songs.

Released on June 17, 2016, it would be his last studio album

issued during his lifetime. That December, the album

was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Americana

Album.

Kristofferson covered Brandi Carlile’s “Turpentine” on the

2017 album ‘Cover Stories.’

In August 2018, Kristofferson’s final film, ‘Blaze’, opened.

Three months later, on November 7, Kristofferson

performed, with assistance from Carlile, the Joni Mitchell

composition “A Case of You”, from the 1971 Mitchell

album ‘Blue, at the Both Sides Now’ – Joni 75 A Birthday

Celebration to celebrate the 75th birthday of Mitchell.

In June 2019, Kristofferson was announced as being one

of the supporting artists for a Barbra Streisand “exclusive

European concert” on July 7 in London’s Hyde Park as part

of the Barclay’s Summertime Concert series.

By January 2021, Kristofferson announced his retirement

from performing, citing age and concerns regarding the

COVID-19 pandemic. According to manager Tamara

Saviano, “It was an evolution, and it just felt very organic.”

Kristofferson’s final performance was held in Los Angeles

at the Hollywood Bowl on April 29, 2023, where he sang

a cover of “Lovin’ You Was Easier” with Rosanne Cash in

honor of Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday; the concert was

later released as Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90 that

December.

Kristofferson died at his Maui home on September 28, 2024;

he was 88. He previously requested for the first three lines of

Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire” on his tombstone.

Like a bird on the wire

Like a drunk in a midnight choir

I have tried in my way to be free..

In 1961, Kristofferson married his longtime girlfriend

Frances “Fran” Mavia Beer, but they divorced in 1969.

Kristofferson briefly dated Janis Joplin before her death

in October 1970. His second marriage was to singer Rita

Coolidge in 1973, ending in divorce in 1980. Kristofferson

married Lisa Meyers in 1983.

Kristofferson and Meyers owned a home in Las Flores

Canyon in Malibu, California, and maintained a residence

in Hana, Hawaii, on the island of Maui. Kristofferson had

eight children from his three marriages: two from his first

marriage, one from his second marriage, and five from his

marriage to his third wife.

Kristofferson was a vocal opponent of the Gulf War and

Iraq War and a critic of a number of United States military

interventions and foreign policy positions, including the

United States invasion of Panama and U.S. support of the

Contras during the Nicaraguan Revolution and of the

Apartheid government in South Africa.

Kristofferson endorsed Jesse Jackson’s presidential

campaign in 1988 and Ross Perot’s presidential campaign in

1992.

Kristofferson’s debut LP included a pro-Vietnam War

song, but he said that he later became an opponent of the

war after speaking with returning soldiers who had seen

combat. Speaking about a soldier who had told him that

he had witnessed other soldiers throwing people out of

helicopters during interrogation, Kristofferson said, “The

notion that you could make a young person do something

so inhumane to another soldier—or even worse, a civilian—

convinced me that we were in the wrong.” Kristofferson

called himself a “dove with claws” and remained proud of

his military service in spite of his anti-imperialist views.

In a 1991 interview on New Zealand TV, he condemned

media support for the Gulf War, saying “The lapdog

media cranks out propaganda that would make a Nazi

blush.” Kristofferson was a supporter of the United Farm

Workers and appeared at several rallies and benefits for

them, campaigning with Cesar Chavez for the passage of

Proposition 14. He continued to play at benefits for the

UFW through the 2010s. In 1987, he played at a benefit

concert for Leonard Peltier with Jackson Browne, Willie

Nelson and Joni Mitchell. In 1995, he dedicated a song to

Mumia Abu-Jamal at a concert in Philadelphia, and was

booed by the crowd.

He performed in benefit concerts for Palestinian children,

and said that he “found a considerable lack of work as a

result.” At a Bob Dylan anniversary concert shortly after

Sinead O’Connor’s protest on Saturday Night Live, he

showed solidarity with her when she was booed by the

crowd.


Kris Kristofferson

studio albums, films, awards

KRISTOFFERSON (1970)

Link

THE SILVER TONGUED DEVIL AND I (1971)

Link

BORDER LORD (1972)

Link

JESUS WAS A CAPRICORN (1972)

Link

FULL MOON (with Rita Coolidge) (1973)

Link

SPOOKY LADY’S SIDESHOW (1974)

Link

BREAKAWAY (with Rita Coolidge) (1974)

Link

WHO’S TO BLESS AND WHO’S TO BLAME (1975)

Link

SURREAL THING (1976)

Link

EASTER ISLAND (1978)

Link

NATURAL ACT (with Rita Coolidge) (1978)

Link

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (1979)

Link

TO THE BONE (1981)

Link

REPOSSESSED (1986)

Link

THIRD WORLD WARRIOR (1990)

Link

A MOMENT OF FOREVER (1995)

Link

THE AUSTIN SESSIONS (1999)

Link

THIS OLD ROAD (2006)

Link

CLOSER TO THE BONE (2009)

Link

FEELING MORTAL (2013)

Link

THE CEDAR CREEK SESSIONS (2016)

Link

THE LAST MOVIE (1971)

CISCO PIKE (1972)

PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973)

BLUME IN LOVE (1973)

ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1974)

CONVOY (1978)


HEAVEN’S GATE (1980)

FLASHPOINT (1984)

BIG TOP PEE-WEE (1988)

LONE STAR (1996)

BLADE (1998)

MOLOKAI: THE STORY OF FATHER DAMIEN

(1999)

BLADE II (2002)

BLADE: TRINITY (2004)

DOLPHIN TALE (2011)

1970 Country Music Association Awards

Song Of The Year Winner SUNDAY MORNIN’

COMIN’ DOWN

1976 Golden Globe Awards

Best Actor In Musical Winner A STAR IS BORN

1985 Academy Of Country Music Awards

Album Of The Year Winner HIGHWAYMEN

2003 Americana Music Honors & Awards

Free Speech Award Winner

2005 Academy Of Music Awards

Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award Winner

2013 Acadamy Of Music Awards

Poets Awards Winner

2019 Country Music Association Awards

Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

1971 Grammy Awards

Song Of The Year Winner HELP ME MAKE IT

THROUGH THE NIGHT

1973 Grammy Awards

Best Country Performance By Duo Winner

FROM THE BOTTLE TO THE BOTTOM

1975 Grammy Awards

Best Country Performance By Duo Winner

LOVER PLEASE

2014 Grammy Awards

Lifetime Achievement Award

Winner

49 |

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MAGAZINE

doc watson

Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson (March 3, 1923 – May

29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter,

and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues,

and gospel music. He won seven Grammy awards

as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

His fingerpicking and flatpicking skills, as well as his

knowledge of traditional American music, were highly

regarded. Blind from a young age, he performed publicly

both in a dance band and solo, as well as for over 15

years with his son, guitarist Merle Watson, until Merle’s

death in 1985 in an accident on the family farm.

Watson was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina.

According to Watson on his three-CD biographical

recording Legacy, he got the nickname “Doc” during

a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked

that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an

easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted “Call him

Doc!”, presumably in reference to the literary character

Sherlock Holmes’s companion, Doctor Watson. The

name stuck.

An eye infection caused Watson to lose his vision before

his second birthday. He attended North Carolina’s

school for the blind, the Governor Morehead School, in

Raleigh, North Carolina.

In a 1989 radio interview with Terry Gross on the Fresh

Air show on National Public Radio, Watson spoke

about how he got his first guitar. His father told him if

he and his brother David chopped down all the small

dead chestnut trees along the edge of their field, they

could sell the wood to a tannery. Watson bought a

Sears Silvertone from Sears Roebuck with his earnings,

while his brother bought a new suit. Later in the same

interview, Watson mentioned that his first high-quality

guitar was a Martin D-18.

Watson’s earliest influences were country roots

musicians and groups such as the Carter Family and


Doc Watson

Jimmie Rodgers. The first song he learned to play on

the guitar was “When Roses Bloom in Dixieland”, first

recorded by the Carter Family in 1930. Watson said in

an interview with American Songwriter that “Jimmie

Rodgers was the first man that I started to claim as my

favorite.” Watson proved to be a natural musical talent

and within months was performing on local street

corners playing songs from the Delmore Brothers,

Louvin Brothers, and Monroe Brothers alongside his

brother Linny. By the time Watson reached adulthood,

he had become a proficient acoustic and electric guitar

player.

In 1953, Watson joined the Johnson City, Tennessee–

based Jack Williams’s country and western swing band

on electric guitar. The band seldom had a fiddle player,

but was often asked to play at square dances. Following

the example of country guitarists Grady Martin and

Hank Garland, Watson taught himself to play fiddle

tunes on his Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. He later

transferred the technique to acoustic guitar, and playing

fiddle tunes became part of his signature sound.[3]

[14] During his time with Jack Williams, Watson also

supported his family as a piano tuner.

In 1960, as the American folk music revival grew,

Watson took the advice of folk musicologist and

Smithsonian curator Ralph Rinzler and began playing

acoustic guitar and banjo exclusively. That move ignited

Watson’s career when he played on his first recording,

‘Old Time Music’ at Clarence Ashley’s. Also of pivotal

importance for his career was his February 11, 1961,

appearance at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village. He then

began to tour as a solo performer and appeared at

universities and clubs like the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.

Watson eventually got his big break and rave reviews

for his performance at the Newport Folk Festival in

Newport, Rhode Island in 1963. Watson recorded his

first solo album in 1964 and began performing with his

son Merle in the same year.

After the folk revival waned during the late 1960s, Doc

Watson’s career was sustained by his performance of the

Jimmy Driftwood song “Tennessee Stud” on the 1972

live album recording ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken.’ As

popular as ever, Doc and Merle began playing as a trio

with T. Michael Coleman on bass guitar in 1974. The

trio toured the globe during the late seventies and early

eighties, recording eleven albums between 1973 and

1985, and bringing Doc and Merle’s unique blend of

acoustic music to millions of new fans. In 1985, Merle

died in a tractor accident on his family farm. Two years

later Merle Fest was inaugurated in remembrance of

him.

Doc Watson played guitar in both flatpicking and


fingerpicking style, but is best known for his flatpick

work. His guitar playing skills, combined with his

authenticity as a mountain musician, made him a highly

influential figure during the folk music revival. He

pioneered a fast and flashy bluegrass lead guitar style

including fiddle tunes and crosspicking techniques

which were adopted and extended by Clarence White,

Tony Rice and many others. Watson was also an

accomplished banjo player and sometimes accompanied

himself on harmonica as well. Known also for his

distinctive and rich baritone voice, Watson over the

years developed a vast repertoire of mountain ballads,

which he learned via the oral tradition of his home area

in Deep Gap, North Carolina.

Watson played a Martin model D-18 guitar on

his earliest recordings. In 1968, Watson began a

relationship with Gallagher Guitars when he started

playing their G-50 model. His first Gallagher, which

Watson referred to as “Ol’ Hoss”, was on display at

the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville before

residing at the Gallagher shop until 2012, when it was

auctioned through Christie’s on November 27, 2012.

In 1974, Gallagher created a customized G-50 line to

meet Watson’s preferred specifications, which bears the

Doc Watson name. In 1991, Gallagher customized a

personal cutaway guitar for Watson that he played until

his death and which he referred to as “Donald” in honor

of Gallagher guitar’s second-generation proprietor and

builder, Don Gallagher. During his last years, Watson

played a Dana Bourgeois dreadnought given to him by

Ricky Skaggs for his 80th birthday. Another of Watson’s

favorites was his Arnold guitar, “The Jimmie”, built by

luthier John Arnold as a tribute to the famous 1926

Martin 00-18 played by Jimmie Rodgers.

In 1994, Watson teamed with musicians Randy Scruggs

and Earl Scruggs to contribute the classic song “Keep on

the Sunny Side” to the AIDS benefit album ‘Red Hot +

Country’ produced by the Red Hot Organization.

In his later life, Watson scaled back his touring schedule.

He was generally joined onstage by his grandson

(Merle’s son) Richard, as well as longtime musical

partners David Holt or Jack Lawrence. On June 19, 2007,

Watson was accompanied by Australian guitar player

Tommy Emmanuel at a concert at the Bass Performance

Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. Watson also performed,

accompanied by Holt and Richard, at the Hardly Strictly

Bluegrass festival in San Francisco in 2009, as he had

done for several previous festivals.

Watson hosted the annual MerleFest music festival

held every April at Wilkes Community College in

Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The festival features a

vast array of acoustic style music focusing on the folk,

51 |

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MAGAZINE

bluegrass, blues and old-time music genres. It was

named in honor of Merle Watson and is one of the most

popular acoustic music festivals in the world, drawing

over 70,000 music fans each year. The festival has

continued after his death.

Watson was inducted into the North Carolina Music

Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 1947, Watson married Rosa Lee Carlton, the daughter

of popular fiddle player Gaither Carlton. The couple had

two children, Eddy Merle (named after country music

legends Eddy Arnold and Merle Travis) in 1949 and

Nancy Ellen in 1951.

On April 29, 2012, Watson performed with the Nashville

Bluegrass Band on the Creekside Stage at MerleFest. It

was an annual tradition for Watson to join the Nashville

Bluegrass Band for a gospel set on the festival’s Sunday

morning. It would be his final performance.

On May 21, 2012, Watson fell at his home. He was not

seriously injured in the fall, but an underlying medical

condition prompted surgery on his colon. Watson died

on May 29, 2012, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

of complications following the surgery at the age of 89.

He is buried in the Merle and Doc Watson Memorial

Cemetery, Deep Gap with his wife and son.

In 2002, High Windy Audio released a multi-CD

biographical album of Watson’s work, titled ‘Legacy.’

The collection features audio interviews with Watson

interspersed with music, as well as a complete recording

of a live performance at the Diana Wortham Theatre in

Asheville, North Carolina. The collection won the 2002

Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album.

In 2010, Blooming Twig Books published a

comprehensive biography of Watson, written by Kent

Gustavson. The book, titled ‘Blind But Now I See: The

Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson’, features never

before published content regarding Watson’s life and

career, gleaned from interviews with Watson’s friends

and collaborators including Norman Blake, Sam Bush,

members of the Seeger family, Michelle Shocked, and

many others. The book also covers the life, supporting

role, and untimely death of Merle Watson. An updated

edition was released by Sumach-Red Books in March

2012.

In April 2013, Open Records released a multi-disc

collection of unreleased recordings by Watson. The

collection, titled ‘Milestones’, features 94 songs as well

as stories, remembrances, and over 500 photographs.

The collection was created by Watson’s daughter, Nancy,

and is being produced by ETSU Bluegrass and ETSU

professor Roy Andrade.

The popularity of the flat picking style of guitar playing

has been partially credited to Doc Watson and bluegrass

bands have incorporated it widely including artist such

as Billy Strings.

AWARDS AND HONORS

In 1986, Watson received the North Carolina Award

and in 1994 he received a North Carolina Folk Heritage

Award. He is a recipient of a 1988 National Heritage

Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the

Arts, which is the United States government’s highest

honor in the folk and traditional arts. In 2000, Watson

was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music

Hall of Honor in Owensboro, Kentucky. In 1997, Watson

received the National Medal of Arts from U.S. President

Bill Clinton. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary

doctor of music degree from Berklee College of Music in

Boston, Massachusetts.

There is a sign on U.S. Route 421 near Deep Gap

(Watson’s birthplace) with the inscription, “Doc and

Merle Watson Highway”, where that part of the highway

is named for both Doc Watson and his son.

GRAMMY AWARDS

1973 Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (Including

Traditional Blues): Doc Watson for ‘Then and Now’

1974 Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording: Merle

Watson and Doc Watson for ‘Two Days in November’

1979 Best Country Instrumental Performance: Doc

Watson and Merle Watson for “Big Sandy/Leather

Britches”

1986 Best Traditional Folk Recording: Doc Watson for

‘Riding the Midnight Train’

1990 Best Traditional Folk Recording: Doc Watson for

‘On Praying Ground’

2002 Best Traditional Folk Album: Doc Watson and

David Holt for ‘Legacy’

2004 Lifetime Achievement Award

2006 Best Country Instrumental Performance: Bryan

Sutton and Doc Watson for “Whiskey Before Breakfast”

track from ‘Not Too Far from the Tree’ by Bryan Sutton


Doc Watson

discography

1964 Doc Watson

link

1965 Doc Watson & Son

link

1966 Southbound

link

1966 Home Again!

link

1967 Ballads From Deep Gap

link

1968 Doc Watson in Nashville: Good

link Deal!

1971 Doc Watson on Stage (live)

link

1972 The Elementary Doctor Watson!

link

1973 Then and Now

link

1974 Two Days in November

link

1975 Memories

link

1976 Doc and the Boys

link

1977 Lonesome Road

link

1978 Look Away!

link

1979 Live and Pickin’ (live)

link

1981 Red Rocking Chair

link

1983 Doc and Merle Watson’s Guitar

link Album

1984 Down South

link

1985 Pickin’ the Blues

link

1986 Riding the Midnight Train

link

1987 Portrait

link

1990 On Praying Ground

link

1990 Songs for Little Pickers (live)

link

1991 My Dear Old Southern Home

link

1992 Remembering Merle

link

1995 Docabilly

link

1999 Third Generation Blues

link

2002 Legacy

link

2002 Round the Table Again (live)

link

2017 Bear’s Sonic Journals: Never the Same

link Way Once (live)


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MAGAZINE

guy clark

Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 –

May 17, 2016) was an American folk and

country singer-songwriter and luthier. He

released more than 20 albums, and his songs have

been recorded by other artists, including Townes

Van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Kathy

Mattea, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Steve Wariner,

Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle,

Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith and

Chris Stapleton. He won the 2014 Grammy Award

for Best Folk Album: ‘My Favorite Picture of You’.

Clark was born in Monahans, Texas. His family

moved to Rockport, Texas in 1954. After he

graduated from high school in 1960, he spent

almost a decade living in Houston as part of the

folk music revival in that city. His wife Susanna

Talley Clark and he eventually settled in Nashville,

where he helped create the Americana genre. His

songs “L.A. Freeway” and “Desperados Waiting

for a Train” helped launch his career and were

covered by numerous performers, including Steve

Earle, Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith, and Brian

Joens. The New York Times described him in its

obituary as “a king of the Texas troubadours”,

declaring his body of work “as indelible as that of

anyone working in the Americana idiom in the last

decades of the 20th century”.

Clark had been a mentor to such other singers as

Noel McKay, Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell. He

organized Earle’s first job as a writer in Nashville.

In the 1970s, the Clarks’ home in Nashville was an

open house for songwriters and musicians, and

it features in the film ‘Heartworn Highways’, an

evocation of the songwriter scene in Nashville at


Guy Clark

that time.

Numerous artists have charted with Clark-penned

tunes. “The Last Gunfighter Ballad” was the title

song of Johnny Cash’s 1977 studio album. In 1982,

Bobby Bare made it to the Country Top 20 with

Clark’s “New Cut Road”. That same year, bluegrass

leader Ricky Skaggs hit number one with Clark’s

“Heartbroke”, a song that permanently established

his reputation as an ingenious songwriter. Among

the many others who have covered Clark’s songs

are Vince Gill, who took “Oklahoma Borderline”

to the Top 10 in 1985; The Highwaymen, who

introduced “Desperados Waiting for a Train” to

a new generation that same year; John Conlee,

whose interpretation of “The Carpenter” rode

into the Top 10 in 1987; and John Denver, who

recorded Clark’s “Homegrown Tomatoes” in

1988. Clark is frequently referred to as the Fifth

Highwayman.

Steve Wariner took his cover of Clark’s “Baby

I’m Yours” to number one in 1988; ‘Asleep at the

Wheel’ charted with Clark’s “Blowin’ Like a Bandit”

the same year. Crowell was Clark’s co-writer on

“She’s Crazy for Leavin’”, which in 1989 became the

third of five straight number-one hits for Crowell.

Brad Paisley and Alan Jackson covered Clark’s

“Out in the Parkin’ Lot”, co-written with Darrell

Scott, on ‘Paisley’s Time Well Wasted’ CD. Jimmy

Buffett, obviously influenced by Jerry Jeff Walker’s

earlier quality cover of “Boats to Build” on 1997’s

“Cowboy Boots & Bathin Suits”, then covered

Clark’s “Boats to Build” and “Cinco de Mayo in

Memphis”. Clark credits Townes Van Zandt as

being a major influence on his songwriting. One of

the most famous photos in country music history

was taken on Clark’s porch in 1972 of Clark, wife

Susanna, Van Zandt, and Daniel Antopolsky by

photographer Al Clayton. Clark and Van Zandt

were best friends for many years until Van Zandt’s

death in 1997, and Clark has included a Van Zandt

composition on most of his albums. In 1995, he

recorded a live album with Van Zandt and Steve

Earle, ‘Together at the Bluebird Cafe’, which was

released in October 2001. Other live material can

be found on his album ‘Keepers’. Earle released the

tribute album ‘Guy’ in 2019.

In 2006, Clark released ‘Workbench Songs’. The

album was nominated for Best Contemporary

Folk/Americana Album at the Grammy Awards.

He also toured with Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, and

John Hiatt in 2004, 2005, and 2007. In May 2008,

Clark canceled four concerts after breaking his

leg. After two months on crutches, he began to

perform again on July 4 at the Smithsonian Folklife

Festival in Washington, DC, where he appeared

with Verlon Thompson. On June 20, 2009, Clark

announced a new album titled ‘Somedays the Song

Writes You,’ which was released on September 22,

2009. It features originals along with a Townes Van

Zandt song titled “If I Needed You”.

In December 2011, ‘This One’s for Him: A Tribute

to Guy Clark’ (a two-CD set) was released by

Icehouse Music and produced by longtime fan

Tamara Saviano. The CD won Americana Album

of the Year at the 2012 Americana Music Honors

& Awards. Clark won the Grammy Award for Best

Folk Album in 2014 for ‘My Favorite Picture of

You’.

The final song that Clark completed was co-written

with Angaleena Presley and titled “Cheer Up Little

Darling”. It appeared on Presley’s 2017 album

‘Wrangled.’

Texas country singer/songwriter Aaron Watson

paid tribute to Clark in his song entitled “Ghost

of Guy Clark”, released in June 2019. In the song,

Clark’s ghost asks the protagonist to perform a

song and is unimpressed; he then encourages the

performer to write songs with greater passion.

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ song ‘Hashtag’,

from their 2024 album ‘Woodland’, is a tribute to

Clark and refers to the moment Welch found out

about his death on social media, when his name

was accompanied by a hashtag.

Clark had one son, Travis Carroll Clark (December

18, 1966 - October 12, 2017; aortic aneurysm),

from his first marriage to folksinger Susan Spaw.

He was married to songwriter and artist Susanna

Clark from 1972 until her death from cancer on

June 27, 2012.

On May 17, 2016, Clark died in Nashville following

a lengthy battle with lymphoma at the age of 74.


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MAGAZINE

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MAGAZINE

MARIANNE

FAITHFULl

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (29 December 1946

– 30 January 2025) was an English singer and actress

who achieved popularity in the 1960s with the

release of her UK top 10 single “As Tears Go By”. She became

one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion in the

United States.

Born in Hampstead, London, Faithfull began her career in

1964 after attending a party for the Rolling Stones, where she

was discovered by the band’s manager Andrew Loog Oldham.

Her 1965 debut studio album ‘Marianne Faithfull,’ released

simultaneously with her studio album ‘Come My Way’, was a

huge success and was followed by further albums on Decca

Records. From 1966 to 1970 she had a highly publicised

romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity

was enhanced by roles in films, including ‘I’ll Never Forget

What’s’isname’ (1967), ‘The Girl on a Motorcycle’ (1968) and

‘Hamlet’ (1969). Her popularity was overshadowed by personal

problems in the 1970s, when she became anorexic, homeless

and addicted to heroin.

During her 1960s musical career, Faithfull was noted for her

distinctive melodic, high-register vocals. In the subsequent

decade her voice was altered by severe laryngitis and persistent

drug abuse, which left her sounding permanently raspy,

cracked and lower in pitch. The new sound was praised as

“whisky soaked” by some critics and was seen as having helped

to capture the raw emotions expressed in her music.

After a long absence, Faithfull made a musical comeback in

1979 with the release of a critically acclaimed seventh studio

album, ‘Broken English’. The album was a commercial success

and marked a resurgence of her musical career. Broken English

earned Faithfull a nomination for a Grammy Award for

Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and is regarded as her

“definitive recording”. She followed this with a series of studio

albums including ‘Dangerous Acquaintances’ (1981), ‘A Child’s

Adventure’ (1983) and ‘Strange Weather’ (1987). Faithfull

wrote three books about her life: ‘Faithfull: An Autobiography’

(1994), ‘Memories, Dreams & Reflections’ (2007) and

‘Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record’ (2014).

Faithfull received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at

the 2009 Women’s World Awards, and in 2011 she was made

a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the

government of France.


Marriane Faithfull

Faithfull was born at the old Queen Mary’s Maternity House

in Hampstead, London. Her father, Major Robert Glynn

Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer and professor of

Italian literature at Bedford College, London University. Her

mother, Eva, was the daughter of Artur Wolfgang Ritter von

Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953), an Austro-Hungarian nobleman

of old Polonized Catholic Ruthenian nobility. Eva was born

in Budapest and moved to Vienna in 1918; she chose to

style herself as Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso in

adulthood. She had been a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt

Company during her early years, and danced in productions of

works by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt

Weill.

The Sacher-Masoch family secretly opposed the Nazi regime

in Vienna. Faithfull’s father met Eva through his intelligence

work for the British Army, which brought him into contact

with her family. Faithfull’s maternal grandfather had

aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty, and Faithfull’s

maternal grandmother was Jewish.

Faithfull’s maternal great-great-uncle was Leopold von Sacher-

Masoch, whose erotic novel ‘Venus in Furs’ spawned the word

“masochism”. Regarding her roots in the Austrian nobility,

Faithfull appeared on the British television series ‘Who Do

You Think You Are?’, which discussed that the title used by

family members was Ritter von Sacher-Masoch.

Faithfull began her singing career in 1964. Her first gigs as a

folk music performer were in coffeehouses and she soon began

taking part in London’s exploding social scene. In early 1964

she attended a Rolling Stones launch party with artist John

Dunbar and met Andrew Loog Oldham, who ‘discovered’ her.

“As Tears Go By”, her first single, was written and composed

by Jagger, Keith Richards, and Oldham, and became a chart

success. (The Rolling Stones recorded their version one year

later, which was also successful.) She then released a series

of successful singles, including “This Little Bird”, “Summer

Nights”, and “Come and Stay with Me”. Faithfull married John

Dunbar on 6 May 1965 in Cambridge, with Peter Asher as the

best man. The couple lived in a flat at 29 Lennox Gardens in

Belgravia, London SW1. On 10 November 1965, she gave birth

to their son, Nicholas.

In 1966 she took Nicholas to stay with Brian Jones and Anita

Pallenberg in London. During this period, Faithfull started

smoking marijuana and became best friends with Pallenberg.

She began a much-publicised relationship with Mick Jagger

that same year and left her husband to live with him. The

couple became a notorious part of the hip Swinging London

scene. Her voice is heard on The Beatles’ song “Yellow

Submarine”. She was found wearing only a fur rug by police

executing a drug search at Redlands, Keith Richards’s house

in West Wittering, Sussex. In an interview 27 years later with

A.M. Homes for Details, Faithfull discussed her wilder days

and admitted that the drug bust fur rug incident had ravaged

her personal life: “It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict

and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A

woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother.”

It was during this time that Faithfull lost three opportunities

to appear in films. “I really thought I had blown my career.”

In May 1967, Graham Nash, who found Marianne Faithfull

“unbelievably attractive,” wrote and released the hit song


“Carrie Anne” with The Hollies, a track which started out as

being about Faithfull. In 1968, Faithfull, by now addicted to

cocaine, gave birth to a stillborn daughter (whom she had

named Corrina) while returning from Jagger’s country house

in Ireland.

Faithfull’s involvement in Jagger’s life was reflected in some

of the Rolling Stones’ best known songs. “Sympathy for the

Devil”, featured on the 1968 album Beggars Banquet, was

partially inspired by The Master and Margarita, written by

Mikhail Bulgakov, a book that Faithfull introduced to Jagger.

The song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” on the 1969

album Let It Bleed was supposedly written and composed

about Faithfull; the songs “Wild Horses” and “I Got the Blues”

on the 1971 album Sticky Fingers were allegedly influenced

by Faithfull, and she co-wrote “Sister Morphine”. The writing

credit for the song was the subject of a protracted legal battle

that was resolved by listing Faithfull as co-author. In her

autobiography, Faithfull said Jagger and Richards released it

in their own names so that her agent would not collect all the

royalties and proceeds from the song, especially as she was

homeless and addicted to heroin at the time. In 1968, Faithfull

appeared in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus concert,

giving a solo performance of “Something Better”.

Faithfull ended her relationship with Jagger in May 1970

after starting an affair with Anglo-Irish nobleman “Paddy”

Rossmore. She lost custody of her son in that same year, which

led to her attempting suicide. Faithfull’s personal life went

into decline and her career went into a tailspin. She made

only a few public appearances, including an October 1973

performance with David Bowie singing Sonny & Cher’s “I Got

You Babe”.

Faithfull lived on London’s Soho streets for two years,

suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa. Friends

intervened and enrolled her in an NHS heroin-assisted

treatment programme. She failed to control or stabilise her

addiction. In 1971, producer Mike Leander found her on the

streets and made an attempt to revive her career, producing

part of her album ‘Rich Kid Blues.’ The album was shelved

until 1985.

In 1975, she released the country-influenced record ‘Dreamin’

My Dreams’. The album was re-released in 1978 as Faithless

with some new tracks added and reached No.1 on the Irish

Albums Chart. Faithfull squatted in a Chelsea flat without hot

water or electricity with her then-boyfriend Ben Brierly of

the band the Vibrators. She later shared flats in Chelsea and

Regent’s Park with Henrietta Moraes.

In 1979, the same year that she was arrested for marijuana

possession in Norway, Faithfull’s career returned full force

with the album ‘Broken English’, her most critically hailed

album. Partially influenced by the punk explosion and her

marriage to Brierly in the same year, it ranged from the punkpop

sounds of the title track, which addressed terrorism in

Europe (and was dedicated to Ulrike Meinhof), to the punkreggae

rhythms of “Why D’Ya Do It?”, a song with aggressive

lyrics adapted from a poem by Heathcote Williams. This song

had a complex musical structure. On the superficial hard rock

it had a tango in 4/4 time, with an opening electric guitar riff

by Barry Reynolds in which beats 1 and 4 of each measure

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were accented on the up-beat, and beat 3 was accented on the

down beat. Faithfull, in her autobiography, commented that

her fluid yet rhythmic reading of Williams’ lyric was “an early

form of rap”. ‘Broken English’ was the album that revealed the

full extent of Faithfull’s alcohol and drug use and their effects on

her singing voice, with the melodic vocals on her early records

replaced by raucous, deep vocals which helped to express the

raw emotions expressed in the album’s songs. A disastrous

February 1980 appearance on Saturday Night Live was blamed

on too many rehearsals, but it was suspected that drugs had

caused her voice to seize up.

“The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” was released as a single from the

album in October 1979 and became one of her highest-charting

songs. It featured on the soundtracks of the films ‘Montenegro,

Tarnation’ and ‘Thelma & Louise’. Faithfull also performed the

song during a guest appearance in an episode in the fourth

season of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. In 2016, the song was used in

the finale of American Horror Story: ‘Hotel’. Faithfull discussed

her interpretation of the song in a 2007 interview on ITV’s The

South Bank Show.

Faithfull began living in New York City after the release

of ‘Dangerous Acquaintances’ in 1981. The same year, she

appeared as a vocalist on the single “Misplaced Love” by Rupert

Hine, which charted in Australia. Despite her comeback, in the

mid-1980s she was battling with addiction and at one point

tripped and broke her jaw on a flight of stairs while under the

influence. ‘Rich Kid Blues’ (1985) was another collection of

her early work combined with new recordings, a double record

showcasing both the pop and rock ‘n’ roll facets of her output to

date. In 1985, Faithfull performed “Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife”

on Hal Willner’s tribute album ‘Lost in the Stars: The Music of

Kurt Weill’. Faithfull’s restrained readings lent themselves to the

material and this collaboration informed several subsequent

works.

In 1985, she attended the Hazelden Foundation Clinic in

Minnesota for rehabilitation and received treatment at McLean

Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. While living at a hotel

in nearby Cambridge, Massachusetts, Faithfull started an

affair (while still married to Brierly) with a dual diagnosis

(mentally ill and drug dependent) man, Howard Tose, who later

committed suicide by jumping from a 14th floor window of

the flat they shared. In 1987, Faithfull dedicated a “thank you”

to Tose on the album sleeve of ‘Strange Weather’: “To Howard

Tose with love and thanks”. Faithfull’s divorce from Brierly was

finalised that year. In 1995, she wrote and sang about Tose’s

death in “Flaming September” on the album ‘A Secret Life’.

In 1987, Faithfull ventured into jazz and blues on ‘Strange

Weather’, which was also produced by Willner. The album

became her most critically lauded album of the decade. Coming

full circle, the renewed Faithfull cut another recording of “As

Tears Go By” for Strange Weather, this time in a tighter, more

gravelly voice. The singer confessed to a lingering irritation

with her first hit. “I always childishly thought that was where

my problems started, with that damn song,” she told Jay Cocks

in Time magazine, but she came to terms with it as well as with

her past. In a 1987 interview with Rory O’Connor of Vogue,

Faithfull declared “forty is the age to sing it, not seventeen.” The

album of covers was produced by Hal Willner after the two had

spent numerous weekends listening to hundreds of songs from

20th-century music. They chose such diverse tracks to record as

Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It with Mine” and “Yesterdays”, written by

Broadway composers Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The work

included tunes first made notable by such blues luminaries as

Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith; Tom Waits wrote the title track.

In 1988, Faithfull married writer and actor Giorgio Della Terza,

and they divorced in 1991.

When Roger Waters assembled an all-star cast of musicians to

perform the rock opera ‘The Wall live in Berlin’ in July 1990,

Faithfull played the part of Pink’s overprotective mother. Her

musical career rebounded for the third time during the early

1990s with the live album ‘Blazing Away’, which featured

Faithfull revisiting songs she had performed over the course of

her career. ‘Blazing Away’ was recorded at St. Ann’s Cathedral

in Brooklyn. The 13 selections include “Sister Morphine”, a

cover of Edith Piaf ’s “Les Prisons du Roy”, and “Why D’Ya

Do It?” from ‘Broken English’. Alanna Nash of Stereo Review

commended the musicians whom Faithfull had chosen to

back her: Longtime guitarist Reynolds was joined by former

Band member Garth Hudson and pianist Dr. John. Nash was

impressed with the album’s autobiographical tone, noting that

“Faithfull’s gritty alto is a cracked and halting rasp, the voice

of a woman who’s been to hell and back on the excursion fare

which, of course, she has.” She extolled Faithfull as “one of the

most challenging and artful of women artists,” and Rolling

Stone writer Fred Goodman asserted: “Blazing Away is a fine

retrospective – proof that we can still expect great things from

this greying, jaded contessa.”

‘A Collection of Her Best Recordings’ was released in 1994

by Island Records to coincide with the release of Faithfull’s

autobiography; they originally shared the same cover art. The

album contained Faithfull’s updated version of “As Tears Go

By” from ‘Strange Weather’, several cuts from ‘Broken English’

and ‘A Child’s Adventure’ and a song written by Patti Smith

which had been scheduled for inclusion on an Irish AIDS

benefit album. This track, “Ghost Dance”, suggested to Faithfull

by a friend who later died of AIDS, was made with a trio of

old friends; Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ron

Wood backed Faithfull’s vocals on the song and Keith Richards

co-produced it. The retrospective album featured one live track,

“Times Square”, from ‘Blazing Away’, as well as the Faithfull

original “She”, written with composer and arranger Angelo

Badalamenti. It was released the following year on ‘A Secret Life’,

with additional songs co-written with Badalamenti. Faithfull

sang “Love Is Teasin”, an Irish folk standard, with The Chieftains

on their album ‘The Long Black Veil’, released in 1995. During

this time she sang a duet with John Prine on the song “This

Love Is Real” on Prine’s album ‘Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings’.

Faithfull sang a duet and recited text on the San Francisco

band Oxbow’s 1997 album ‘Serenade in Red’. She sang interlude

vocals on Metallica’s song “The Memory Remains” on their

1997 album ‘Reload’ and appeared in the song’s music video.

The track reached No.13 in the UK, No. 28 in the U.S. (No.3 on

the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart).

As her fascination with the music of Weimar-era Germany

continued, Faithfull performed in The Threepenny Opera at the

Gate Theatre, Dublin, playing Pirate Jenny. Her interpretation

of the music led to a new album, Twentieth Century Blues

(1996), which focused on the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt

Brecht as well as Noël Coward, followed in 1998 by a recording


Marianne Faithfull

of The Seven Deadly Sins with the Vienna Radio Symphony

Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. A hugely

successful concert and cabaret tour, accompanied by pianist

Paul Trueblood, culminated in the filming at the Montreal Jazz

Festival of the DVD Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill.

In 1998, Faithfull released ‘A Perfect Stranger: The Island

Anthology’, a two-disc compilation that chronicled her years

with Island Records. It featured tracks from her albums ‘Broken

English’, ‘Dangerous Acquaintances’, ‘A Child’s Adventure’,

‘Strange Weather’, ‘Blazing Away’, and ‘A Secret Life’, as well as

several B sides and unreleased tracks.

Faithfull’s 1999 DVD ‘Dreaming My Dreams’ contained

material about her childhood and parents, with historical video

footage going back to 1964, and included interviews with the

artist and several friends who had known her since childhood.

The documentary included sections on her relationship with

John Dunbar and Mick Jagger, and brief interviews with Keith

Richards. It concluded with footage from a 30-minute live

concert, originally broadcast on PBS for the series Sessions

at West 54th. The same year, she ranked 25th in VH1’s 100

Greatest Women in Rock and Roll.

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd wrote the song “Incarceration of a

Flower Child” as a portrayal of Syd Barrett in 1968, although it

was never recorded by Pink Floyd. The song was recorded by

Faithfull on her 1999 album ‘Vagabond Ways’.

Faithfull released several albums from the late 1990s into the

2000s that received positive critical response, beginning with

Vagabond Ways (1999), which was produced and recorded by

Mark Howard. Vagabond Ways included collaborations with

Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, and

writer and friend Frank McGuinness. Later that year she sang

“Love Got Lost” on Joe Jackson’s Night and Day II.

Her renaissance continued with Kissin Time, released in

2002. The album contained songs written with Blur, Beck,

Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker, Dave Stewart, David Courts and

the French pop singer Étienne Daho. On this record, she

paid tribute to Nico (with “Song for Nico”), whose work she

admired. The album included an autobiographical song she cowrote

with Cocker, called “Sliding Through Life on Charm”.

In 2005, she released ‘Before the Poison’. The album was

primarily a collaboration with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave;

Damon Albarn and Jon Brion also contributed. Before the

Poison received mixed reviews from both Rolling Stone

and Village Voice. In 2005 she recorded and co-produced

“Lola R Forever”, a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg song “Lola

Rastaquouere” with Sly and Robbie for the tribute album

Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. In 2007, Faithfull collaborated

with the British singer-songwriter Patrick Wolf on the duet

“Magpie” from his third album ‘The Magic Position’, and wrote

and recorded a new song for the French film ‘Truands’ called “A

Lean and Hungry Look” with Ulysse.

In March 2007, she returned to the stage with a touring show

titled Songs of Innocence and Experience. Supported by a trio,

the performance had a semi-acoustic feel and toured European

theatres throughout the spring and summer. The show featured

many songs she had not performed live before, including


“Something Better”, the song she sang on The Rolling Stones

Rock and Roll Circus. The show included the Harry Nilsson

song “Don’t Forget Me”, “Marathon Kiss” from Vagabond Ways,

and a version of the traditional “Spike Driver Blues”. On 4

November 2007, the European Film Academy announced that

Faithfull had received a nomination for Best Actress for her role

as Maggie in Irina Palm

Articles published at that time hinted that Faithfull was

looking to retire and was hoping that money from ‘Songs of the

Innocence and Experience’ would enable her to live in comfort.

She said: “I’m not prepared to be 70 and absolutely broke. I

realised last year that I have no safety net at all and I’m going to

have to get one. So I need to change my attitude to life, which

means I have to put away 10 per cent every year of my old age.

I want to be in a position where I don’t have to work. I should

have thought about this a long time ago but I didn’t. She still

lived in her flat located on one of the richest Parisian avenues

and had a house in County Waterford, Ireland. Recording

of ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’ commenced in New York City on 6

December 2007; the album was produced by Hal Willner, who

had recorded Strange Weather in 1997. and featured a version

of Morrissey’s “Dear God Please Help Me” from his 2006 album

Ringleader of the Tormentors. In March 2009, she performed

“The Crane Wife 3” on The Late Show. In late March, Faithfull

began the Easy Come, Easy Go tour, which took her to France,

Germany, Austria, New York City, Los Angeles and London.

In November, Faithfull was interviewed by Jennifer Davies on

World Radio Switzerland, where she described the challenges

of being stereotyped as a “mother, or the pure wife”. Because

of this, she insisted, it had been hard to maintain a long career

as a female artist, which, she said, gave her empathy for Amy

Winehouse when they had met recently.

On 5 March 2009, Faithfull received the World Arts Award

for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Women’s World

Awards. “Marianne’s contribution to the arts over a 45-year

career including 18 studio albums as a singer, songwriter and

interpreter, and numerous appearances on stage and screen is

now being acknowledged with this special award.” The award

was presented in Vienna, with ceremonies televised in over 40

countries on 8 March 2009 as part of International Women’s

Day.

On 26 October 2009, Faithfull was honoured with the Icon of

the Year award from Q magazine.

On 31 January 2011, Faithfull released her 18th studio album,

‘Horses and High Heels’, in mainland Europe to mixed reviews.

The 13-track album contained four songs co-written by

Faithfull; the rest were mainly covers of well-known songs such

as Dusty Springfield’s “Goin’ Back” and the Shangri-Las’ “Past,

Present, Future”. A UK CD release was planned for 7 March

2011. Faithfull supported the album’s release with an extensive

European tour with a five-piece band and arrived in the UK on

24 May for a rare show at London’s Barbican Centre, with an

extra UK show added at Leamington Spa on 26 May.

On 23 March 2011, Faithfull was awarded the Commandeur

of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France’s highest

cultural honours. On 7 May 2011, she appeared on the Graham

Norton Show. She reunited with Metallica in December 2011

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for their 30th anniversary celebration at the Fillmore where she

performed “The Memory Remains”.

In 2012, Faithfull recorded a cover version of a Stevie Nicks

track from the Fleetwood Mac album ‘Tusk’ as part of a

Fleetwood Mac tribute project. The track, “Angel”, was released

on 14 August 2012 as part of the tribute album ‘Just Tell Me

That You Want Me’. On 22 June 2013, she made a sell-out

concert appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with jazz

musician Bill Frisell playing guitar, as a part of the Meltdown

Festival curated by Yoko Ono. In September 2014, Faithfull

released an album of all-new material, titled Give My Love to

London. She started a 12-month 50th anniversary tour at the

end of 2014.

two months later, she made a public statement of full recovery.

In October 2007, on the UK television program This Morning,

Faithfull disclosed that she suffered from hepatitis C, which had

first been diagnosed 12 years earlier. She discussed both the

cancer and hepatitis diagnoses in greater depth in her memoir

‘Memories, Dreams and Reflections’. On 27 May 2008, she

posted the following on her MySpace page, with the headline

“Tour Dates Cancelled” (and credited to FR Management, the

company operated by her boyfriend/manager François Ravard):

“Due to general mental, physical, and nervous exhaustion,

doctors have ordered Marianne Faithfull to immediately cease

all work activities and rehabilitate. The treatment and recovery

should last around six months.”

During a webchat hosted by The Guardian on 1 February

2016, Faithfull revealed plans to release a live album from her

50th anniversary tour. She had ideas for a follow-up for ‘Give

My Love to London’, but had no intention of recording new

material for at least a year and a half. Faithfull’s album ‘Negative

Capability’, was released in November 2018. It featured Rob

Ellis, Warren Ellis, Nick Cave, Ed Harcourt, and Mark Lanegan.

A spoken word album titled ‘She Walks in Beauty’ was

released in May 2021. Faithfull was accompanied with musical

arrangements by Warren Ellis, Brian Eno, Nick Cave and

Vincent Segal. The album saw her recite 19th-century British

Romantic poets.

On 14 March 2025, the single “Burning Moonlight”, which was

co-written by Faithfull, was released; the single is from an EP

of the same name, which is due to be released for Record Store

Day later in 2025.

In later years, Faithfull’s touring and work schedule were

interrupted by health problems. In late 2004, she called off the

European leg of a world tour, promoting ‘Before the Poison’,

after collapsing on stage in Milan, and was hospitalised for

exhaustion. In 2005, the tour resumed to include a U.S. leg. In

September 2006, she again cancelled a concert tour, this time

after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis The following month,

she underwent surgery in France, but required no further

treatment as the tumour had been caught very early. Less than

In August 2013, Faithfull was forced to cancel a string of

concerts in the U.S. and Lebanon, after a back injury during a

holiday trip in California.

On 30 May 2014, Faithfull suffered a broken hip after a

fall while vacationing on the Greek island of Rhodes and

underwent surgery. Afterwards, an infection developed,

causing Faithfull to cancel or postpone parts of her 50th

anniversary tour, so that she could receive additional surgery

and rehabilitation.

In 2016, she revealed she had emphysema, a lung disease

induced by smoking, and needed to use inhaled medication

daily. She continued to smoke, however, and was not able to

quit until 2019, later regretting that she had not done so sooner.

On 4 April 2020, it was announced that Faithfull was

hospitalised in London for pneumonia following a positive

COVID-19 test. Her management company reported that

she was “stable and responding to treatment.” On 21 April,

following a three-week stay, she was discharged from the

hospitalisation. In a brief statement, she publicly thanked the

hospital staff for, “without a doubt,” saving her life. She initially

thought she would be unable to sing again after the effects of the

coronavirus on her lungs, and she continued to suffer memory

loss because of it. She worked on her breathing and undertook

singing practice as a part of her recovery. Faithfull died in

London on 30 January 2025, at the age of 78.

marianne faithfull discography

MARIANNE

FAITHFULL

Released 1965

Decca

https://www.discogs.

com/release/1847291-

Marianne-Faithfull-

Marianne-Faithfull

COME WHAT MAY

Released 1965

Decca


com/release/3055413-

Marianne-Faithfull-

Come-My-Way

GO AWAY FROM MY

WORLD

Released 1966

London


master/287577-Mari-

anne-Faithfull-Go-Away-

From-My-World

NORTH COUNTRY

MAID

Released 1966

Decca


com/master/498269-

Marianne-Faithfull-

North-Country-Maid

FAITHFULL FOREVER

Released 1966

London


com/master/476869-

Marianne-Faithfull-

Faithfull-Forever

LOVE IN A MIST

Released 1966

Decca


release/5389918-Marianne-Faithfull-Loveinamist


DREAMIN MY

DREAMS

Released 1976


master/795425-Marianne-Faithfull-Dreamin-My-Dreams

BROKEN ENGLISH

Released 1979

Island


com/master/57119-Marianne-Faithfull-Broken-English

Marianne Faithfull

DANGEROUS AC-

QUAINTENCES

Released 1981


master/102043-Marianne-Faithfull-Dangerous-Acquaintances

A CHILD’S

ADVENTURE

Released 1983

Island


com/master/84422-Marianne-Faithfull-A-Childs-Adventure

RICH KID BLUES

Released 1985

Castle


master/708339-Mari-

anne-Faithfull-Rich-Kid-

Blues

STRANGE WEATHER

Released 1987

Island


master/102045-Marianne-Faithfull-Strange-Weather

A SECRET LIFE

Released 1995

Island


master/294488-Marianne-Faithfull-A-Secret-Life

SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Released 1997

BMG


release/12933695-Marianne-Faithfull-The-Seven-Deadly-Sins

VAGABOND WAYS

Released 2000

Instinct Records


master/171506-Marianne-Faithfull-Vagabond-Ways

KISSIN TIME

Released 2002

Hut/Virgin


master/237233-Marianne-Faithfull-Kissin-Time

BEFORE THE POISON

Released 2004

Naive


master/154882-Marianne-Faithfull-Before-The-Poison

EASY COME, EASY GO

Released 2008

Naive


com/master/127206-

Marianne-Faithfull-Easy-

Come-Easy-Go

HORSES AND HIGH

HEELS

Released 2011

Naive


master/319943-Mari-

anne-Faithfull-Horses-

And-High-Heels

GIVE MY LOVE TO

LONDON

Released 2014

Naive


master/740804-Mari-

anne-Faithfull-Give-My-

Love-To-London

NEGATIVE

CAPABILITY

Released 2018

Panta Rei


master/1447890-Marianne-Faithfull-Negative-Capability

SHE WALKS IN

BEAUTY

Released 2021

Panta Rei


master/2102863-Mar-

ianne-Faithfull-With-

Warren-Ellis-She-Walks-

In-Beauty


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patrick sky

Patrick Sky (born Patrick Linch; October

2, 1940 – May 26, 2021) was an American

musician, folk singer, songwriter, and record

producer. He was of Irish and Native American

ancestry, and played Irish traditional music and

uilleann pipes in the later part of his career.

Sky was born in College Park, Georgia, on October

2, 1940. He was of Muscogee and Irish descent. He

grew up near the Lafourche Swamps of Louisiana,

where he learned guitar, banjo, and harmonica. He

moved to New York City after military service in the

early 1960s, and began playing traditional folk songs

in clubs before starting to write his own material.

A close contemporary of Dave Van Ronk, Tom

Paxton, Phil Ochs and others in the Greenwich

Village folk boom, Sky released four well received

albums from 1965 to 1969. He played with many of

the leading performers of the period, particularly

Buffy Sainte-Marie, Eric Andersen and the blues

singer Mississippi John Hurt (whose Vanguard

albums Sky produced). Sky’s song “Many a Mile”

became a folk club staple; with recordings by Sainte-

Marie and others.

Being politically radical, Sky wrote, recorded, and

released the satirical ‘Songs That Made America

Famous’ in 1973 (the album was recorded in 1971

but rejected by several record companies before

it found a home). This album featured the earliest

known recorded version of the song “Luang

Prabang”, written by Sky’s friend Dave Van Ronk.

Sky had honed his politically charged satire in earlier

albums, but ‘Songs That Made America Famous’

raised the stakes. The Adelphi Records website

describes how the content was, indeed, shocking,

yet how several critics encouraged the public to rush


Patrick Sky

and buy these timely and brilliant “explicit lyrics”

while it could. Sky gradually moved into the field

of Irish traditional music, producing artists, and

founding Green Linnet Records in 1973. He was

recognised as an expert in building and playing the

Irish uilleann pipes, often performing with his wife,

Cathy.

Sky released his final full-length studio album,

‘Through a Window’, in 1985.

Sky married Cathy Larson Sky in 1981. They met

three years earlier and moved to North Carolina six

years after getting married. Together, they had one

child, Liam.

Sky edited a reissued version of the important

19th century dance tune book ‘Ryan’s Mammoth

Collection’ in 1995. This was followed up with a

reissue of ‘Howe’s 1000 Jigs and Reels’ six years later.

Sky died on May 26, 2021, while in hospice care in

Asheville, North Carolina. He was 80, and suffered

from prostate cancer and bone cancer prior to his

death. He had also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s

disease in 2017.

patrick sky discography

SINGER SONGWRITER

PROJECT 1965

ELEKTRA


release/5944384-Various-

Singer-Songwriter-Project

PATRICK SKY

1965

VANGUARD


master/425784-Patrick-Sky-

Patrick-Sky

A HARVEST OF GENTLE

CLANG

1966

VANGUARD


master/470741-Patrick-Sky-A-

Harvest-Of-Gentle-Clang

REALITY IS BAD ENOUGH

1968

VERVE FORECAST



Reality-Is-Bad-Enough

PHOTOGRAPHS

1969

VERVE FORECAST



Photographs

SONGS THAT MADE

AMERICA FAMOUS

1973

VERVE FORECAST



Songs-That-Made-America-

Famous

TWO STEPS FOREWARD,

ONE STEP BACK

1975

ADELPHI RECORDS



Two-Steps-Forward-One-Step-

Back

THROUGH A WINDOW

1985

SANACHI



Through-A-Window


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harry

belafonte

Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April

25, 2023) was an American singer, actor, and civil

rights activist who popularized calypso music with

international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Belafonte’s

career breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first

million-selling LP by a single artist.

Belafonte was best known for his recordings of “Day-O (The

Banana Boat Song)”, “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)”,

“Jamaica Farewell”, and “Mary’s Boy Child”. He recorded

and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel,

show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in films

such as Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), Odds

Against Tomorrow (1959), Buck and the Preacher (1972), and

Uptown Saturday Night (1974). He made his final feature film

appearance in Spike Lee’s BlacK Klansman (2018).

Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul

Robeson to be a mentor. Belafonte was also a close confidant

of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement of

the 1950s and 1960s and acted as the American Civil Liberties

Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues. He was

also a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush and

Donald Trump administrations.

Belafonte won three Grammy Awards, including a Grammy

Lifetime Achievement Award, an Emmy Award, and a Tony

Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He

was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014,

he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the

academy’s 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was

inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early

Influence category. He is one of the few performers to have

received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT),

although he won the Oscar in a non-competitive category.

Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. on March

1, 1927, at Lying-in Hospital in Harlem, New York, the son of

Jamaican-born parents Harold George Bellanfanti Sr. (1900–

1990), who worked as a chef, and Melvine Love (1906–1988), a

housekeeper. There are disputed claims of his father’s place of

birth, which is also stated as Martinique.

His mother was the child of a Scottish Jamaican mother and


Harry Belafonte

an Afro-Jamaican father, and his father was the child of an

Afro-Jamaican mother and a Dutch-Jewish father of Sephardic

Jewish descent. Harry Jr. was raised Catholic and attended

parochial school at St. Charles Borromeo.

From 1932 to 1940, Belafonte lived with one of his

grandmothers in her native country of Jamaica, where he

attended Wolmer’s Schools. Upon returning to New York City,

he had a brief, unsuccessful stay at George Washington High

School. It was later reported that undiagnosed dyslexia and

blindness in one eye contributed to his academic difficulties.

After dropping out of high school, he joined the U.S. Navy

and served during World War II. In the 1940s, he worked

as a janitor’s assistant, during which a tenant gave him, as a

gratuity, two tickets to see the American Negro Theater. He

fell in love with the art form and befriended Sidney Poitier,

who was also financially struggling. They regularly purchased

a single seat to local plays, trading places in between acts, after

informing the other about the progression of the play.

At the end of the 1940s, Belafonte took classes in acting at

the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York

City with German director Erwin Piscator alongside Marlon

Brando, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, and

Poitier, while performing with the American Negro Theater.

He subsequently received a Tony Award for his participation

in the Broadway revue ‘John Murray Anderson’s Almanac’

(1954). He also starred in the 1955 Broadway revue ‘3 for

Tonight’ with Gower Champion.

Belafonte started his career in music as a club singer in New

York to pay for his acting classes. The first time he appeared

in front of an audience, he was backed by the Charlie Parker

band, which included Charlie Parker, Max Roach, and Miles

Davis, among others. He launched his recording career as a

singer on the Roost label in 1949, but quickly developed a keen

interest in folk music, learning material through the ‘Library

of Congress’ American folk songs’ archives. Along with

guitarist and friend Millard Thomas, Belafonte soon made his

debut at the jazz club The Village Vanguard. In 1953, he signed

a contract with RCA Victor, recording exclusively for the label

until 1974. Belafonte also performed during the Rat Pack era

in Las Vegas. Belafonte’s first widely released single, which

went on to become his “signature” audience participation song

in virtually all his live performances, was “Matilda”, recorded

April 27, 1953. Between 1953 and 1954, he was a cast member

of the Broadway musical revue and sketch comedy show John

Murray Anderson’s Almanac where he sang “Mark Twain”.

Following his success in the film Carmen Jones (1954),

Belafonte had his breakthrough album with Calypso (1956),

which became the first LP in the world to sell more than one

million copies in a year. He stated that it was the first millionselling

album ever in England. The album is number four on

Billboard’s “Top 100 Album” list for having spent 31 weeks at

number 1, 58 weeks in the top ten, and 99 weeks on the U.S.

chart. The album introduced American audiences to calypso

music, which had originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the

early 19th century, and Belafonte was dubbed the “King of

Calypso”, a title he wore with reservations since he had no

claims to any Calypso Monarch titles.

One of the songs included in the album is “Banana Boat Song”,


listed as “Day-O” on the Calypso LP, which reached number

five on the pop chart and featured its signature lyric “Day-O”.

Many of the compositions recorded for Calypso, including

“Banana Boat Song” and “Jamaica Farewell”, gave songwriting

credit to Irving Burgie.

In the United Kingdom, “Banana Boat Song” was released

in March 1957 and spent ten weeks in the top 10 of the UK

singles chart, reaching a peak of number two, and in August,

“Island in the Sun” reached number three, spending 14 weeks

in the top 10. In November, “Mary’s Boy Child” reached

number one in the UK, where it spent seven weeks.

While primarily known for calypso, Belafonte recorded in

many different genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show

tunes, and American standards. His second-most popular

hit, which came immediately after “The Banana Boat Song”,

was the comedic tune “Mama Look at Bubu”, also known as

“Mama Look a Boo-Boo”, originally recorded by Lord Melody

in 1955, in which he sings humorously about misbehaving and

disrespectful children. It reached number 11 on the pop chart.

In 1959, Belafonte starred in ‘Tonight With Belafonte’, a

nationally televised special that featured Odetta, who sang

“Water Boy” and performed a duet with Belafonte of “There’s

a Hole in My Bucket” that hit the national charts in 1961.

Belafonte was the first Jamaican American to win an Emmy,

for ‘Revlon Revue: Tonight with Belafonte’ (1959). Two live

albums, both recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1959 and 1960,

enjoyed critical and commercial success. From his 1959 album,

“Hava Nagila” became part of his regular routine and one of

his signature songs. He was one of many entertainers recruited

by Frank Sinatra to perform at the inaugural gala of President

John F. Kennedy in 1961, which included Ella Fitzgerald and

Mahalia Jackson, among others. Later that year, RCA Victor

released another calypso album, ‘Jump Up Calypso,’ which

went on to become another million seller. During the 1960s

he introduced several artists to U.S. audiences, most notably

South African singer Miriam Makeba and Greek singer Nana

Mouskouri. His album Midnight Special (1962) included Bob

Dylan as harmonica player.

As the Beatles and other stars from Britain began to

dominate the U.S. pop charts, Belafonte’s commercial success

diminished; 1964’s Belafonte at The Greek Theatre was his last

album to appear in Billboard’s Top 40. His last hit single, “A

Strange Song”, was released in 1967 and peaked at number 5

on the adult contemporary music charts. Belafonte received

Grammy Awards for the albums Swing Dat Hammer (1960)

and An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba (1965), the latter of

which dealt with the political plight of black South Africans

under apartheid. He earned six Gold Records.

During the 1960s, Belafonte appeared on TV specials

alongside artists such as Julie Andrews, Petula Clark, Lena

Horne, and Nana Mouskouri. In 1967, Belafonte was the first

non-classical artist to perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts

Center (SPAC) in Upstate New York, soon to be followed by

concerts there by the Doors, the 5th Dimension, the Who, and

Janis Joplin.

From February 5 to 9, 1968, Belafonte guest hosted The

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Tonight Show substituting for Johnny Carson. Among his

interview guests were Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator

Robert F. Kennedy.

Belafonte’s fifth and final calypso album, ‘Calypso Carnival’, was

issued by RCA in 1971. Belafonte’s recording activity slowed

down after releasing his final album for RCA in 1974. From the

mid-1970s to early 1980s, Belafonte spent most of his time on

tour, which included concerts in Japan, Europe, and Cuba. In

1977, Columbia Records released the album ‘Turn the World

Around’, with a strong focus on world music.

In 1978, he appeared as a guest star on an episode of The

Muppet Show, on which he performed his signature song

“Day-O”. However, the episode is best known for Belafonte’s

rendition of the spiritual song “Turn the World Around” from

the album, which he performed with specially made Muppets

that resembled African tribal masks. It became one of the series’

most famous performances and was reportedly Jim Henson’s

favorite episode. After Henson’s death in May 1990, Belafonte

was asked to perform the song at Henson’s memorial service.

“Turn the World Around” was also included in the 2005 official

hymnal supplement of the Unitarian Universalist Association,

Singing the Journey.

From 1979 to 1989, Belafonte served on the Royal Winnipeg

Ballet’s board of directors.

In December 1984, soon after Band Aid, a group of British

and Irish artists, released “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”,

Belafonte decided to create an American benefit single for

African famine relief. With fundraiser Ken Kragen, he enlisted

Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and

Michael Jackson. The song they produced and recorded, “We

Are the World”, brought together some of the era’s best-known

American musicians and is the eighth-best-selling single of

all time, with physical sales in excess of 20 million copies. In

1986 the American Music Awards named “We Are the World”

Song of the Year, and honored Belafonte with the Award of

Appreciation.

Belafonte released his first album of original material in over

a decade. ‘Paradise in Gazankulu’ in 1988 which contained

ten protest songs against the South African Apartheid policy

and was his last studio album. In the same year Belafonte as

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador attended a symposium in

Harare, Zimbabwe, to focus attention on child survival and

development in Southern African countries. He performed a

concert for UNICEF. A Kodak video crew filmed the concert

which was released as a sixty minute concert video entitled

‘Global Carnival.’

Following a lengthy recording hiatus, An Evening with Harry

Belafonte and Friends, a soundtrack and video of a televised

concert, were released in 1997 by Island Records. The Long

Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music, a multiartist

project recorded by RCA during the 1960s and 1970s,

was finally released by the label in 2001. Belafonte went on the

Today Show to promote the album on September 11, 2001, and

was interviewed by Katie Couric just minutes before the first

plane hit the World Trade Center. The album was nominated for

the 2002 Grammy Awards for Best Boxed Recording Package,

for Best Album Notes, and for Best Historical Album.

Belafonte received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1989. He

was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994 and he won a

Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. He performed

sold-out concerts globally through the 1950s to the 2000s. His

last concert was a benefit concert for the Atlanta Opera on

October 25, 2003. In a 2007 interview, he stated that he had

since retired from performing.

On January 29, 2013, Belafonte was the keynote speaker

and 2013 honoree for the MLK Celebration Series at the

Rhode Island School of Design. Belafonte used his career and

experiences with King to speak on the role of artists as activists.

Belafonte was inducted as an honorary member of Phi Beta

Sigma fraternity on January 11, 2014.

In March 2014, Belafonte was awarded an honorary doctorate

from Berklee College of Music in Boston.

In 2017, Belafonte released ‘When Colors Come Together,’ an

anthology of some of his earlier recordings, produced by his son

David, who wrote lyrics for an updated version of “Island In The

Sun”, arranged by longtime Belafonte musical director Richard

Cummings, and featuring Harry Belafonte’s grandchildren

Sarafina and Amadeus and a children’s choir.

Belafonte and Marguerite Byrd were married from 1948 to

1957. They had two daughters: Adrienne and Shari. They

separated when Byrd was pregnant with Shari. Adrienne

and her daughter Rachel Blue founded the Anir Foundation/

Experience, focused on humanitarian work in southern Africa.

In 1953, Belafonte was financially able to move from

Washington Heights, Manhattan, “into a white neighborhood

in East Elmhurst, Queens.” Belafonte had an affair with actress

Joan Collins during the filming of Island in the Sun.

On March 8, 1957, Belafonte married his second wife Julie

Robinson (1928–2024), a dancer with the Katherine Dunham

Company who was of Jewish descent. They had two children:

Gina and David. After 47 years of marriage, Belafonte and

Robinson divorced in 2004.

In Fall 1958, Belafonte was looking for an apartment to rent

on the Upper West Side. After he had been turned away from

other apartment buildings due to being black, he had his white

publicist rent an apartment at 300 West End Avenue for him.

When he moved in, and the owner realized that he was an

African American, he was asked to leave. Belafonte not only

refused, but he also used three dummy real estate companies

to buy the building and converted it into a co-op, inviting his

friends, both white and black, to buy apartments. He lived in

the 21-room, 6-bedroom apartment for 48 years. In April 2008,

he married Pamela Frank, a photographer.

Belafonte had five grandchildren: Rachel and Brian through

his children with Marguerite Byrd, and Maria, Sarafina and

Amadeus through his children with Robinson. He had two

great-grandchildren by his oldest grandson Brian. In October

1998, Belafonte contributed a letter to Liv Ullmann’s book

Letter to My Grandchild. In 1996, Belafonte was diagnosed with

prostate cancer and was treated for the disease. He suffered a

stroke in 2004, which took away his inner-ear balance. From


2019, Belafonte’s health began to decline, but he remained an

active and prominent figure in the civil rights movement.

Harry Belafonte

Belafonte died from congestive heart failure at his home on the

Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, on April 25,

2023, at the age of 96.

harry belafonte discography

STUDIO ALBUMS

Mark Twain & Other Folk Favorites

1954 RCA Victor


master/398407-Harry-Belafonte-Mark-

Twain-And-Other-Folk-Favorites

BELAFONTE

1956 RCA Victor


master/80040-Harry-Belafonte-

Belafonte

CALYPSO

1956 RCA Victor



Calypso

AN EVENING WITH

BELAFONTE

1957 RCA Victor



An-Evening-With-Belafonte

BELAFONTE SINGS OF THE

CARRIBEAN

1957 RCA Victor



Belafonte-Sings-Of-The-Caribbean

TO WISH YOU A MERRY

CHRISTMAS

1958 RCA Victor



To-Wish-You-A-Merry-Christmas

BELAFONTE SINGS THE BLUES

1958 RCA Victor



Belafonte-Sings-The-Blues

LOVE IS A GENTLE THING

RCA Victor



Love-Is-A-Gentle-Thing

MY LORD WHAT A MORNIN’

1960 RCA Victor



My-Lord-What-A-Mornin

SWING DAT HAMMER

1960 RCA Victor



And-The-Belafonte-Folk-Singers-

Conducted-By-Robert-De-

Cormier-Swing-Dat-Hammer

JUMP UP CALYPSO

1961 RCA Victor



Jump-Up-Calypso

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

1962 RCA Victor



The-Midnight-Special

THE MANY MOODS OF

BELAFONTE

1962 RCA Victor



The-Many-Moods-Of-Belafonte

STREETS I HAVE WALKED

1963 RCA Victor



Streets-I-Have-Walked

BALLADS BLUES AND

BOASTERS

1964 RCA Victor



Ballads-Blues-And-Boasters

IN MY QUIET ROOM

1966 RCA Victor



In-My-Quiet-Room

CALYPSO IN BRASS

1966 RCA Victor



Calypso-In-Brass

BELAFONTE ON CAMPUS

1967 RCA Victor



Belafonte-On-Campus

BELAFONTE SINGS OF LOVE

1968 RCA Victor



Belafonte-Sings-Of-Love

HOMEWARD BOUND

1969 RCA Victor



Homeward-Bound

BELAFONTE BY REQUEST

1970 RCA Victor


release/3225179-Harry-Belafonte-

Belafonte-By-Request

THE WARM TOUCH

1971 RCA Victor



The-Warm-Touch

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE


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harry belafonte discography

CALYPSO CARNIVAL

1971 RCA Victpr

https://www.discogs.com/master/395485-

Belafonte-Calypso-Carnival

PLAY ME

1973 RCA Victor

https://www.discogs.com/master/521612-

Harry-Belafonte-Play-Me

TURN THE WORLD AROUND

1977 Columbia



Turn-The-World-Around

LOVING YOU IS WHERE I

BELONG

1981 Columbia



Loving-You-Is-Where-I-Belong

PARADISE IN GAZANKULU

1988 EMI



Paradise-In-Gazankulu

LIVE ALBUMS

BELAFONTE AT CARNEGIE

HALL

1959 RCA Victor



Belafonte-At-Carnegie-Hall-The-

Complete-Concert

BELAFONTE RETURNS TO

CARNEGIE HALL

1960 RCA Victor


master/264515-Harry-

Belafonte-With-Odetta-Miriam-

MakebaChad-Mitchell-Trio-

And-The-Belafonte-Folk-Singers-

Conducted

BELAFONTE AT THE GREEK

THEATRE

1964 RCA Victor



Belafonte-At-The-Greek-Theatre

BELAFONTE LIVE

1972 RCA Victor



Belafonte-Live

BELAFONTE CONCERT IN

JAPAN

1974 RCA Victor


master/353812-Belafonte-

Concert-In-Japan

BELAFONTE ‘89

1989 EMI



Belafonte-89

AN EVENING WITH HARRY

BELAFONTE & FRIENDS

1997 Island



An-Evening-With-Harry-

Belafonte-Friends

SELECT

COMPILATIONS

THIS IS HARRY BELAFONTE

1970 RCA Victor



This-Is-Harry-Belafonte

ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND

JOHN

1974 RCA Camden



Abraham-Martin-And-John

HARRY BELAFONTE - PURE

GOLD

1975 RCA



Pure-Gold

HARRY BELAFONTE A

LEGENDARY PERFORMER

1978 RCA



A-Legendary-Performer

GREATEST HITS

2000 BMG



Greatest-Hits

ISLAND IN THE SUN -

COMPLETE RECORDINGS

1949-1957

2002 Bear Family

https://genius.com/albums/Harrybelafonte/Island-in-the-sun-thecomplete-recordings-1949-1957

THE ESSENTIAL BELAFONTE

2005 Legacy



The-Essential-Harry-Belafonte

PLAYLIST - THE VERY BEST OF

HARRY BELAFONTE

2012 Legacy



Playlist-The-Very-Best-Of-Harry-

Belafonte

COLLABORATIONS

PORGY & BESS

Lena Horn & H Belafonte

1959 RCA


release/3244636-Lena-Horne-

Harry-Belafonte-Porgy-And-Bess


AN EVENING WITH

BELAFONTE/MAKEBA

Miriam Makeba & H Belafonte

1965 RCA


master/287178-Belafonte-

Makeba-An-Evening-With-

BelafonteMakeba

HARRY AND LENA FOR THE

LOVE OF LIFE

Lena Horne & H Belafonte

1970 RCA


release/4467459-Harry-Belafonteand-Lena-Horne-Harry-Lena

THE TRADITION OF

CHRISTMAS

1991 Hallmark Cards



Jennifer-WarnesAmerican-

BoychoirLondon-Symphony-

Orchestra-The-Tradition-Of-

Christmas

THE LONG ROAD TO

FREEDOM - ANTHOLOGY OF

BLACK MUSIC

2021 Buddah Records


release/10095052-Various-The-

Long-Road-To-Freedom-An-

Anthology-Of-Black-Music

SINGLES

GOMEN NASSAI (FORGIVE

ME)

1953 RCA Victor



Gomen-Nasai-Springfield-

Mountain

JAMAICA FAREWELL

1956 RCA Victor



Jamaica-Farewell


MARY’S BOY CHILD

1956 RCA Victor



Marys-Boy-Child

THE BLUES IS MAN

1956 RCA Victor



The-Blues-Is-Man

BANANA BOAT (DAY-O)

1956 RCA Victor



Banana-Boat-Day-O-Star-O

HOLD ‘EM JOE

1957 RCA Victor



Hold-Em-Joe-Scarlet-Ribbons

MAMA LOOK AT BUBU

1957 RCA Victor



Mama-Look-A-Boo-Boo-Day-O

DON’T EVER LOVE ME

1957 RCA Victor



Dont-Ever-Love-Me-Mama-

Look-At-Bubu

COCONUT WOMAN

1957 RCA Victor



Coconut-Woman

ISLAND IN THE SUN

1957 RCA Victor



Island-In-The-Sun

SCARLET RIBBONS

1957 RCA Victor



Scarlet-Ribbons

Harry Belafonte

THE MARCHING SAINTS

1958 RCA Victor



The-Marching-Saints

LITTLE BERNADETTE

1958 RCA Victor


release/1364073-Belafonte-Little-

Bernadette

THE SON OF MARY

1958 RCA Victor


master/1234721-Belafonte-The-

Son-Of-Mary

ROUND THE BAY OF MEXICO

1958 RCA Victor


release/3883921-Belafonte-

Fifteen-Round-The-Bay-Of-

Mexico

HOLE IN THE BUCKET

1960 RCA Victor



And-Odetta-Theres-A-Hole-In-

My-Bucket-Chickens

A STRANGE SONG

1967 RCA Victor



A-Strange-Song-Sunflower

BY THE TIME I GET TO

PHOENIX

1968 RCA Victor



By-The-Time-I-Get-To-Phoenix-

SKIN TO SKIN

1988 RCA Victor



Skin-To-Skin

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gordon

lightfoot

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jnr. CC OOnt (November 17,

1938 – May 1, 2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter

and guitarist who achieved international success in folk,

folk-rock, pop, and country music and helped define the singersongwriter

era of the 1970s. Often referred to as Canada’s greatest

songwriter, he had numerous gold and platinum albums, and his

songs have been covered by many of the world’s most renowned

musical artists. Lightfoot’s biographer Nicholas Jennings wrote,

“His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and

shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness.”

Lightfoot’s songs, including “For Lovin’ Me”, “Early Morning

Rain”, “Steel Rail Blues”, “Home From The Forest”, and “Ribbon of

Darkness”, a number one hit on the U.S. country chart for Marty

Robbins, brought him recognition from the mid-1960s. Chart

success with his own recordings began in Canada in 1962 with the

No. 3 hit “Remember Me, I’m the One” and led to a series of major

hits at home and abroad throughout the 1970s. He topped the US

Hot 100 or Adult Contemporary (AC) chart with “If You Could

Read My Mind” (1970), “Sundown” (1974); “Carefree Highway”

(1974), “Rainy Day People” (1975), and “The Wreck of the Edmund

Fitzgerald” (1976).

Robbie Robertson of the Band described Lightfoot as “a national

treasure”. Bob Dylan said,

“I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like. Every time I

hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.”

Lightfoot was the featured musical performer at the opening

ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympics and received numerous

honours and awards during his career.

Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ontario, on November 17, 1938, to

Jessie Vick Trill Lightfoot and Gordon Lightfoot Sr., who owned

a local dry cleaning business. He was of Scottish descent. He had

an older sister, Beverley (1935–2017). His mother recognized

Lightfoot’s musical talent early on and schooled him to become a

successful child performer. He first performed publicly in grade

four, singing the Irish-American lullaby “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral”,

which was broadcast over his school’s public address system during a

parents’ day event.

As a youth, he sang in the choir of Orillia’s St. Paul’s United Church

under the direction of choirmaster Ray Williams. Lightfoot credited

Williams with teaching him to sing with emotion and to have

confidence in his voice. Lightfoot was a boy soprano; he appeared

periodically on local Orillia radio, performed in local operettas


Gordon Lightfoot

and oratorios, and gained exposure through various Kiwanis music

festivals. At the age of twelve, after winning a competition for boys

whose voices had not yet changed, he made his first appearance at

Massey Hall in Toronto, a venue he would ultimately play over 170

more times throughout his career.

As a teenager, Lightfoot learned piano and taught himself to play

drums and percussion. He performed live in Muskoka, a resort area

north of Orillia, singing “for a couple of beers”. Lightfoot performed

extensively throughout high school, Orillia District Collegiate &

Vocational Institute (ODCVI), and taught himself to play folk guitar.

A formative influence on his music at this time was 19th-century

master American songwriter Stephen Foster.

Lightfoot relocated to Los Angeles in 1958 to study jazz composition

and orchestration for two years at the Westlake College of Music.

To support himself while in California, Lightfoot sang on

demonstration records and wrote, arranged, and produced

commercial jingles. Among his influences was the folk music of Pete

Seeger, Bob Gibson, Ian & Sylvia Tyson, and The Weavers. Homesick

for Toronto, he returned there in 1960 and lived in Canada thereafter,

though some of his recording, and much of his touring, would be

done in the United States.

After his return to Canada, Lightfoot performed with the ‘Singin’

Swingin’ Eight’, a group featured on the CBC’s Country Hoedown TV

series, and with the ‘Gino Silvi Singers’. He soon became known at

Toronto folk-oriented coffee houses. In 1961, Lightfoot released two

singles, both recorded at RCA in Nashville and produced by Louis

Innis and Art Snider, that were local hits in Toronto and received

some airplay elsewhere in Canada and the northeastern United States.

“Remember Me, I’m the One” reached No. 3 on CHUM radio in

Toronto in July 1962 and was a top 20 hit on Montreal’s CKGM, then

a very influential Canadian Top 40 station. The follow-up single was

“Negotiations”/”It’s Too Late, He Wins”; it reached No. 27 on CHUM

in December. He sang with Terry Whelan in a duo called the ‘Two-

Tones/Two-Timers’. They recorded a live album, released in 1962,

Two-Tones at the Village Corner (1962, Chateau CLP-1012)

In 1963, Lightfoot travelled in Europe and for one year in the UK

he hosted the BBC’s Country and Western Show TV series before

returning to Canada in 1964. He appeared at the Mariposa Folk

Festival and started to develop his reputation as a songwriter. Ian

and Sylvia Tyson recorded “Early Mornin’ Rain” and “For Lovin’

Me”; a year later both songs were recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary;

other performers covering one or both of these songs included Elvis

Presley, Bob Dylan, Chad & Jeremy, George Hamilton IV, the Clancy

Brothers, and the Johnny Mann Singers. Established recording artists

such as Marty Robbins (“Ribbon of Darkness”), Judy Collins (“Early

Morning Rain”), Richie Havens and Spyder Turner (“I Can’t Make

It Anymore”), and the Kingston Trio (“Early Morning Rain”) all

achieved chart success with Lightfoot’s material.

In 1965, Lightfoot signed a management contract with Albert

Grossman, who also represented many prominent American folk

performers, and signed a recording contract with United Artists who

released his version of “I’m Not Sayin’” as a single. Appearances at the

Newport Folk Festival, The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson,

and New York’s Town Hall increased his following and bolstered his

reputation. 1966 marked the release of his debut album ‘Lightfoot!’,

which was made in New York, and brought him greater exposure

as both a singer and a songwriter. The album featured many nowfamous

songs, including “For Lovin’ Me”, “Early Mornin’ Rain”,

“Steel Rail Blues”, and “Ribbon of Darkness”. On the strength of the

Lightfoot! album, blending Canadian and universal themes, Lightfoot

became one of the first Canadian singers to achieve definitive homegrown

stardom without having to move permanently to the United

States to develop it. Lightfoot also recorded in Nashville at Forest


Hills Music Studio (“Bradley’s Barn”) run by Owen Bradley and his

son Jerry during the 1960s.

To kick off Canada’s Centennial year, the CBC commissioned

Lightfoot to write the “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” for a special

broadcast on January 1, 1967. Between 1966 and 1969, Lightfoot

recorded four additional albums at United Artists: ‘The Way I Feel’

(1967), ‘Did She Mention My Name?’ (1968), ‘Back Here on Earth’

(1968), and the live ‘Sunday Concert’ (1969), and consistently placed

singles in the Canadian top 40, including “Go-Go Round”, “Spin,

Spin”, and “The Way I Feel”. His biggest hit of the era was a cover of

Bob Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”, which peaked at No. 3 on

the Canadian charts in December 1965. ‘Did She Mention My Name?’

featured “Black Day in July” about the 1967 Detroit riot. Weeks later,

upon the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, radio

stations in thirty states pulled the song for “fanning the flames”, even

though the song was a plea for racial harmony. Lightfoot stated at the

time radio station owners cared more about playing songs “that make

people happy” and not those “that make people think.”

Unhappy at a lack of support from United Artists, he defected to

Warner Bros. Records, scoring his first major international hit early

in 1971 with “If You Could Read My Mind”. His albums prior to this

were well received abroad but did not produce hit singles outside

Canada. Until 1971, he was better known in the US as a songwriter

than a performer, but was to find commercial success there before

being fully appreciated in his home country.

His success as a live performer continued to grow throughout the

late 1960s. He embarked on his first Canadian national tour in 1967

and went on to tour Europe in addition to his North American dates

through the mid-70s. He was also well-received on two tours of

Australia.

“If You Could Read My Mind” sold over a million copies and was

awarded a gold disc. It had originally appeared on the 1970 album

Sit Down Young Stranger. After the song’s success, the album was

reissued under the new title ‘If You Could Read My Mind’. It then

reached No. 5 in the US and represented the turning point in

Lightfoot’s career. The album also featured his version of “Me and

Bobby McGee”, as well as “The Pony Man” and “Minstrel of the Dawn”

Over the next seven years, he recorded a series of albums that

established him as a major singer-songwriter:

Summer Side of Life (1971), with the title track, “Ten Degrees and

Getting Colder”, “Cotton Jenny”, “Talking in Your Sleep”, and a reworking

of one of his early 60s songs, “Cabaret”

Don Quixote (1972), with “Beautiful”, “Looking at the Rain”,

“Christian Island (Georgian Bay)”, and the title track

Old Dan’s Records (1972), his first frontline album to be recorded in

Toronto, with the title track, “That Same Old Obsession”, “You Are

What I Am”, “It’s Worth Believin’” and “Can’t Depend on Love”

Sundown (1974), known for the title track and “Carefree Highway”,

plus “The Watchman’s Gone”, “High and Dry”, “Circle of Steel”, and

“Too Late for Prayin’”

Cold on the Shoulder (1975), with the title track, “All the Lovely

Ladies”, “Fine as Fine Can Be”, “Cherokee Bend”, and “Rainy Day

People”

The double compilation Gord’s Gold (1975) containing his major

Reprise hits to that point and twelve new versions of his most popular

songs from his United Artists era (as UA were continuing to release

compilation albums in light of his success at Warner)

Summertime Dream (1976) including “The Wreck of the Edmund

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Fitzgerald” and “I’m Not Supposed to Care”, “Race Among the Ruins”,

“Spanish Moss” and “Never Too Close”

Endless Wire (1978) with “Daylight Katy”, “Dreamland”, a new

version of “The Circle Is Small”, and the title track.

During the 1970s, Lightfoot’s songs covered a wide range of subjects,

including “Don Quixote”, referencing Cervantes’ famous literary

character, “Ode to Big Blue”, about the widespread killing of whales,

“Carefree Highway”, about the freedom of the open road, “Protocol”,

about the futility of war, and “Alberta Bound”, inspired by a lonely

teenaged girl he met on a bus while travelling to Calgary in 1971.

In 1972, Lightfoot contracted Bell’s palsy, a condition that left his

face partially paralyzed for a time. The affliction curtailed his touring

schedule but Lightfoot nevertheless continued to deliver major hits: in

June 1974 his classic single “Sundown” went to No.1 on the American

and Canadian charts. It would be his only number one hit in the

United States. He performed it twice on NBC’s The Midnight Special.

The follow-up “Carefree Highway” (inspired by Arizona State Route

74 in Phoenix, Arizona) also charted Top 10 in both countries.

Late in 1975, Lightfoot read a Newsweek magazine article reporting

on the loss of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank on November

10th on Lake Superior during a severe storm with the loss of all 29

crew members. The lyrics he wrote for “The Wreck of the Edmund

Fitzgerald”, released the following year, were substantially based on

facts found in the article and elsewhere. It reached number two on

the United States Billboard chart and hit number one in Canada.

Lightfoot appeared at several 25th anniversary memorial services of

the sinking and stayed in personal contact with the family members

of the men who perished.

In 1978, Lightfoot had a top 40 hit in the United States with “The

Circle Is Small”, which reached the top 5 on the adult contemporary

chart. It was his last major hit.

During the 1980s and the 1990s, Lightfoot recorded six more original

albums and a compilation for Warner Bros./Reprise: Dream Street

Rose (1980), Shadows (1982), Salute (1983), East of Midnight (1986),

another compilation Gord’s Gold Volume II (1988), Waiting for You

(1993), and A Painter Passing Through (1998).

With the title cut a middling hit on the AC chart, Dream Street

Rose continues the folk-pop sound Lightfoot established during the

previous decade. It also includes “Ghosts of Cape Horn” and the

Leroy Van Dyke standard “The Auctioneer” that was a concert staple

for Lightfoot from the mid-1960s to the 1980s. Shadows represents

a departure from the acoustic sound of his guitar playing in the

1970s and emphasizes an adult-contemporary sound. The title track,

“Heaven Help the Devil”, “Thank You for the Promises”, “She’s Not

The Same”, and “I’ll Do Anything” suggest an underlying sadness and

resignation. The 1982 single “Baby Step Back” marked his last time in

the US top 50.

After overcoming a long-standing problem with alcohol, he released

the mostly electric ‘Salute’ in 1983. It yielded no hit songs and

unlike his previous efforts, sold poorly. The 1986 follow-up, ‘East of

Midnight’, emphasized adult contemporary songs, and the lead single,

“Anything for Love”, was a hit on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary

chart and also made the Pop and Country charts.

In April 1987, Lightfoot filed a lawsuit against composer Michael

Masser, claiming that Masser’s melody for the song “The Greatest

Love of All”, versions of which were recorded and released by George

Benson in 1977 and Whitney Houston in 1985, had stolen 24 bars

from Lightfoot’s 1971 hit song “If You Could Read My Mind”. The

transitional section that begins “I decided long ago never to walk in

anyone’s shadow” of the Masser song has the same melody as “I never

thought I could feel this way and I got to say that I just don’t get it; I

don’t know where we went wrong but the feeling’s gone and I just can’t

get it back” of Lightfoot’s song. Lightfoot later stated that he did not

want people thinking that he had stolen his melody from Masser. The

case was settled out of court and Masser issued a public apology.

He rounded out the decade with the ‘Gord’s Gold Volume II,’ made up

mostly of new versions of songs that were not part of the first Gord’s

Gold project. Though commercially successful, the contrast between

his vocals on the re-recorded tracks and the originals dramatically

underscored just how much thinner his voice had become in the

years since his radio peak. Lightfoot performed with Ian Tyson at

the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympics at McMahon

Stadium in Calgary that same year.

During the 1990s, Lightfoot returned to his acoustic roots and

recorded two albums. ‘Waiting for You’ (1993) includes songs such

as “Restless”, “I’d Rather Press On”, and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ring

Them Bells”. 1998’s ‘A Painter Passing Through’ continued in a style

more reminiscent of his early recordings, although his voice was

not strong and he relied more on outside material (Ian Tyson’s “Red

Velvet” and a new song written for him, “I Used to Be a Country

Singer”). Throughout the decade, Lightfoot played 50-75 concerts

each year. In 1999 Rhino Records released ‘Songbook’, a four-CD

boxed set of Lightfoot recordings with rare and unreleased tracks

from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s plus a small hardback

booklet describing how he wrote his songs and gave facts about his

career.

In April 2000, Lightfoot taped a live concert in Reno, Nevada; an

edited one-hour version was broadcast by the CBC in October, and

on PBS across the United States. PBS stations offered a videotape

of the concert as a pledge gift, and a DVD was released in 2001 in

Europe and North America, making it the first Lightfoot concert

video released. In April 2001, he closed the Tin Pan South Legends

concert at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. In May, he performed

“Ring Them Bells” at Massey Hall in honour of Dylan’s 60th birthday.

By January 2002, Lightfoot had written 30 new songs for his next

album. He recorded guitar and vocal demos of some of these new

songs. In September, before the second concert of a two-night stand

in Orillia, Lightfoot suffered severe stomach pain and was airlifted

to McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. He

underwent emergency vascular surgery for a ruptured abdominal

aortic aneurysm, and he remained in serious condition in the

Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Lightfoot endured a six-week coma and

a tracheotomy, and underwent four surgeries.His remaining 2002

concert dates were cancelled. More than three months after being

taken to McMaster, Lightfoot was released in December to continue

his recovery at home.

In 2003, Lightfoot underwent follow-up surgery to continue the

treatment of his abdominal condition. In November he signed a new

recording contract with Linus Entertainment and began rehearsing

with his band for the first time since his illness. Also in 2003, Borealis

Records, a label related to Linus Entertainment, released ‘Beautiful: A

Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot’. On this album, various artists, including

The Cowboy Junkies, Bruce Cockburn, Jesse Winchester, Maria

Muldaur, and The Tragically Hip interpreted Lightfoot’s songs. The

final track on the album, “Lightfoot”, was the only song not previously

released by Lightfoot. It was composed and performed by Aengus

Finnan.

In January 2004, Lightfoot completed work on Harmony, which he

had mostly recorded prior to his illness. It was his 19th original album

and included a single and video of “Inspiration Lady”. Other notable

entries are “Clouds of Loneliness”, “Sometimes I Wish”, “Flyin’ Blind”,

and “No Mistake About It”. The album also contains the upbeat, yet

reflective track, “End of All Time”. In July 2004, he made a surprise


Gordon Lightfoot

comeback performance, his first since falling ill, at Mariposa in

Orillia, performing “I’ll Tag Along” solo. In August he performed a

five-song solo set in Peterborough, Ontario, at a flood relief benefit.

In November he made his long-awaited return to the concert stage

with two sold-out benefit shows in Hamilton. Lightfoot returned to

the music business with his new album selling well and an appearance

on Canadian Idol, where the six top contestants each performed

a song of his, culminating in a group performance – on their own

instruments – of his Canadian Railroad Trilogy. He returned to the

road in 2005 on his Better Late Than Never Tour. On September 14,

2006, during a performance in Harris, Michigan, Lightfoot suffered a

minor stroke that temporarily left him without the use of the middle

and ring fingers on his right hand. He returned to performing nine

days later and briefly used a substitute guitarist for more difficult

guitar work. Full recovery took longer, “I fought my way back in

seven or eight months”. By 2007, Lightfoot had full use of his right

hand and played all of the guitar parts in concert as he originally

wrote them.

In February 2010, Lightfoot was the victim of a death hoax

originating on Twitter, when then-CTV journalist David Akin posted

on Twitter and Facebook that Lightfoot had died. Lightfoot was at a

dental appointment at the time the rumours spread and found out

when listening to the radio on his drive home. Lightfoot dispelled

those rumours by phoning Charles Adler of CJOB live on-air, and

made clear that he was alive and well

Lightfoot performed at the 100th Grey Cup at Rogers Centre in

November 2012, performing “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”, and

was extremely well received. Lightfoot made his first tour of the

United Kingdom in almost forty years in 2016, playing eleven dates

across England, Scotland, and Ireland. In a 2016 interview with The

Canadian Press Lightfoot said: “At this age, my challenge is doing the

best show I can ... I’m very much improved from where I was and the

seriousness with which I take it.”

Lightfoot played at Canada’s 150th birthday celebration on Parliament

Hill, July 1, 2017, introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Prime Minister mentioned that Lightfoot had played the same

stage exactly 50 years earlier, for Canada’s 100th birthday. Lightfoot’s

2019 tour was interrupted when he was injured while working

out in a gym. In March 2020 his concert schedule was delayed by

governmental restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Lightfoot had said in 2016 that he would not return to songwriting

late in life as it was “such an isolating thing” earlier in his career,

affecting his family life. However, in 2020 Lightfoot released his

20th studio album, ‘Solo’, unaccompanied by other musicians, 54

years after his debut album. It was put out by Warner Music Canada,

marking Lightfoot’s return to Warner. Two weeks after his death in

2023, it was announced that his 2016 concert performance at Royal

Albert Hall would be released in July 2023 as the live album ‘At Royal

Albert Hall’.

Lightfoot’s sound, in the studio and on tour, was centred on his

baritone voice and folk-based twelve-string acoustic guitar.

Lightfoot was married three times. His first marriage in 1963 was to

Brita Ingegerd Olaisson, a Swede, with whom he had two children.

They divorced in 1973, the marriage ending in part because of his

infidelity. Lightfoot acknowledged that he found fidelity difficult in a

long-distance relationship brought on by touring, which contributed

to the failure of at least two relationships.

“If You Could Read My Mind” was written in reflection upon

his disintegrating marriage. At the request of his daughter, he

performed the lyrics with a slight change: the line “I’m just trying to

understand the feelings that you lack” is altered to “I’m just trying

to understand the feelings that we lack.” He said in an interview that

the difficulty with writing songs inspired by personal stories is that


there is not always the emotional distance and clarity to make lyrical

improvements such as the one his daughter suggested.

Lightfoot was single for 16 years and had two other children from

relationships between his first and second marriages.

In the early 1970s, Lightfoot was involved with Cathy Smith; their

volatile relationship inspired “Sundown” and “Rainy Day People”

among others. “Cathy was a great lady,” Lightfoot told The Globe and

Mail after her death. “Men were drawn to her, and she used to make

me jealous. But I don’t have a bad thing to say about her.” Smith later

became notorious as the person who injected John Belushi with a

fatal speedball.

In 1989, he married Elizabeth Moon. They had two children. They

divorced in 2011 after a separation of nine years. Lightfoot married

for a third time in 2014 at Toronto’s Rosedale United Church, to Kim

Hasse.

To stay in shape to meet the demands of touring and public

performing, Lightfoot worked out in a gym six days per week, but

declared in 2012 that he was “fully prepared to go whenever I’m

taken.” He calmly stated, “I’ve been almost dead a couple times, once

almost for real ... I have more incentive to continue now because I feel

I’m on borrowed time, in terms of age.”

Lightfoot’s band members displayed loyalty to him, as both musicians

and friends, recording and performing with him for as long as 55

years.

Lightfoot was a long-time resident of Toronto having settled in

the Rosedale neighbourhood in the 1970s, which once hosted an

infamous after-party following a Maple Leaf Gardens date on Bob

Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour. In 1999, he purchased his final

home in the Bridle Path neighbourhood, where he would eventually

live across the street from fellow musician Drake who purchased

property in the mid-2010s, and at various times down the street from

both Mick Jagger and Prince.

Lightfoot was a lifelong fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs and was made

an honorary captain of the team for the 1991–92 season.

In his last two years of touring, he had shortened the show to an hour,

and remained seated for the last few dates he performed. Lightfoot

played what turned out to be his final concert on October 30, 2022, in

Winnipeg. Remaining dates were postponed to 2023, but as his health

declined, there were further postponements. In hospital in April, he

fully cancelled his 2023 tour. Lightfoot died of natural causes two

weeks later at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto on May

1, 2023, at the age of 84.

The Mariners’ Church in Detroit (the “Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral”

mentioned in “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”) honored

Lightfoot the day after his death by ringing its bell a total of 30

times, 29 for each of the crewmen lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald,

and the final time for Lightfoot himself. Additionally, the Split Rock

Lighthouse, which overlooks Lake Superior in Minnesota, shone its

light in honor of Lightfoot on May 3.

In the days after his death, a series of tributes took place in his

hometown of Orillia, one of them previously planned. On May 6, the

local opera house hosted Leisa Way & the Wayward Wind Band, a

previously planned show that paid tribute to Lightfoot that became

a memorial show of sorts. It sold out in the event of his death. A day

later, a public visitation was held at St. Paul’s United Church that drew

more than 2,400 people. On May 8, 2023, a private funeral was held

for Lightfoot at St. Paul’s United Church. His body was later cremated,

and his ashes were buried next to his parents at St. Andrew’s and St.

James’ Cemetery in Orillia.

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gordon lightfo

LIGHTFOOT!

1966 United Artists


com/master/143682-Gordon-Lightfoot-Lightfoot

THE WAY I FEEL

1967 United Artists


master/143681-Gordon-

Lightfoot-The-Way-I-Feel

DID SHE MENTION MY

NAME

1968 United Artists



Lightfoot-Did-She-Mention-My-Name

BACK HERE ON EARTH

1968 United Artists



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Earth

SIT DOWN YOUNG

STRANGER

1970 Reprise



Lightfoot-Sit-Down-

Young-Stranger

SUMMER SIDE OF LIFE

1971 Reprise



Lightfoot-Summer-Side-

Of-Life

DON QUIXOTE

1972 Reprise



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Of-Life

OLD DAN’S RECORDS

1972 Reprise



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Records

SUNDOWN

1974 Reprise


com/master/143692-Gordon-Lightfoot-Sundown

COLD ON THE

SHOULDER

1975 Reprise



Lightfoot-Cold-On-The-

Shoulder


Gordon Lightfoot

ot discography

SUMMERTIME DREAM

1976 Reprise


com/master/143694-Gordon-Lightfoot-Summertime-Dream

ENDLESS WIRE

1978 Reprise



Lightfoot-Endless-Wire

DREAM STREET ROSE

1980 Warner Brothers



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Rose

SHADOWS




Lightfoot-Shadows

SALUTE



com/master/311706-Gordon-Lightfoot-Salute

EAST OF MIDNIGHT




Lightfoot-East-Of-

Midnight

WAITING FOR YOU

1983 Reprise



Lightfoot-Waiting-For-You

A PAINTER PASSING

THROUGH

1998 Reprise



Lightfoot-A-Painter-

Passing-Through-

HARMONY

2004 Reprise


com/master/902412-Gordon-Lightfoot-Harmony

SOLO

2020 Reprise



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woody guthrie

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October

3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter and

composer who was one of the most significant

figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes

of American socialism and anti-fascism and has inspired many

generations both politically and musically with songs such as

“This Land Is Your Land”.

Guthrie wrote hundreds of country, folk, and children’s songs,

along with ballads and improvised works. ‘Dust Bowl Ballads’,

Guthrie’s album of songs about the Dust Bowl period, was

included on Mojo magazine’s list of 100 Records That Changed

the World, and many of his recorded songs are archived in

the Library of Congress. Songwriters who have acknowledged

Guthrie as a major influence on their work include Steve

Earle, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, Bruce

Springsteen, Donovan, Robert Hunter, Harry Chapin, John

Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy

Bragg, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Jeff Tweedy, Tom Paxton, Brian

Fallon, Sean Bonnette, and Sixto Rodríguez. He frequently

performed with the message “This machine kills fascists”

displayed on his guitar.

Guthrie was brought up by middle-class parents in Okemah,

Oklahoma. He married at 19, but with the advent of the dust

storms that marked the Dust Bowl period, he left his wife

and three children to join the thousands of Okies who were

migrating to California looking for employment. He worked

at Los Angeles radio station KFVD, achieving some fame from

playing hillbilly music, made friends with Will Geer and John

Steinbeck, and wrote a column for the communist newspaper

People’s World from May 1939 to January 1940.

Throughout his life, Guthrie was associated with United States

communist groups, although he apparently did not belong

to any. With the outbreak of World War II and the Molotov–

Ribbentrop non-aggression pact the Soviet Union had signed

with Germany in 1939, the anti-Stalin owners of KFVD radio

were not comfortable with Guthrie’s political leanings after

he wrote a song praising the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and

the Soviet invasion of Poland. He left the station, ending up

in New York, where he wrote and recorded his 1940 album

Dust Bowl Ballads, based on his experiences during the 1930s,

which earned him the nickname the “Dust Bowl Troubadour”.

In February 1940, he wrote his most famous song, “This Land

Is Your Land”. He said it was a response to what he felt was the


Woody Guthrie

overplaying of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” on the radio.

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children.

His son Arlo Guthrie became nationally known as a musician.

Guthrie died in 1967 from complications of Huntington’s

disease. His first two daughters also died of the disease.

Three significant fires impacted Guthrie’s early life. In 1909, one

fire caused the loss of his family’s home in Okemah a month

after it was completed. When Guthrie was seven, his sister Clara

died after setting her clothes on fire during an argument with

her mother, and, later, in 1927, their father was severely burned

in a fire at home. Guthrie’s mother, Nora, was afflicted with

Huntington’s disease, although the family did not know this

at the time. What they could see was dementia and muscular

degeneration.

When Woody was 14, Nora was committed to the Oklahoma

Hospital for the Insane. At the time his father Charles was living

and working in Pampa, Texas, to repay debts from unsuccessful

real estate deals. Woody and his siblings were on their own in

Oklahoma; they relied on their eldest brother Roy for support.

The 14-year-old Woody Guthrie worked odd jobs around

Okemah, begging meals and sometimes sleeping at the homes of

family friends.

Guthrie had a natural affinity for music, learning old ballads

and traditional English and Scottish songs from the parents of

friends. Guthrie befriended an African-American shoeshine

boy named George, who played blues on his harmonica. After

listening to George play, Guthrie bought his own harmonica

and began playing along with him. He used to busk for money

and food. Although Guthrie did not do well as a student and

dropped out of high school in his senior year before graduation,

his teachers described him as bright. He was an avid reader on a

wide range of topics.

In 1929, Guthrie’s father sent for Woody to join him in Texas,

but little changed for the aspiring musician. Guthrie, then 18,

was reluctant to attend high school classes in Pampa; he spent

most of his time learning songs by busking on the streets and

reading in the library at Pampa’s city hall. He regularly played

at dances with his father’s half-brother Jeff Guthrie, a fiddle

player. His mother died in 1930 of complications of Huntington’s

disease while still in the Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane.

During the latter part of the dust bowl decade in Los Angeles, he

achieved fame with radio partner Maxine “Lefty Lou” Crissman

as a broadcast performer of commercial hillbilly music and

traditional folk music. Guthrie was making enough money to

send for his family to join him from Texas. While appearing on

the radio station KFVD, owned by a populist-minded New Deal

Democrat, Frank W. Burke, Guthrie began to write and perform

some of the protest songs that he eventually released on his

album Dust Bowl Ballads.

While at KFVD, Guthrie met newscaster Ed Robbin. Robbin

was impressed with a song Guthrie wrote about political activist

Thomas Mooney, wrongly convicted in a case that was a cause

célèbre of the time. Robbin, who became Guthrie’s political

mentor, introduced Guthrie to socialists and Communists

in Southern California, including Will Geer. (He introduced

Guthrie to writer John Steinbeck) Robbin remained Guthrie’s

lifelong friend, and helped Guthrie book benefit performances


in the communist circles in Southern California.

Notwithstanding Guthrie’s later claim that “the best thing that

I did in 1936 was to sign up with the Communist Party”, he

was never a member of the party. He was noted as a fellow

traveler—an outsider who agreed with the platform of the party

while avoiding party discipline. Guthrie wrote a column for

the communist newspaper, People’s World. The column, titled

“Woody Sez”, appeared a total of 174 times from May 1939 to

January 1940. “Woody Sez” was not explicitly political, but it

covered current events as observed by Guthrie. He wrote the

columns in an exaggerated hillbilly dialect and usually included

a small comic. These columns were published posthumously as a

collection after Guthrie’s death.

With the outbreak of World War II and publicity about the nonaggression

pact the Soviet Union had signed with Germany in

1939, the owners of KFVD radio did not want its staff “spinning

apologia” for the Soviet Union. They fired both Robbin and

Guthrie. Without the daily radio show, Guthrie’s employment

chances declined, and he returned with his family to Pampa,

Texas. Although Mary was happy to return to Texas, Guthrie

preferred to accept Will Geer’s invitation to New York City and

headed east.

Arriving in New York, Guthrie, known as “the Oklahoma

cowboy”, was embraced by its folk music community. For a

time, he slept on a couch in Will Geer’s apartment. Guthrie

made his first recordings—several hours of conversation and

songs recorded by the folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of

Congress—as well as an album, Dust Bowl Ballads, for Victor

Records in Camden, New Jersey.

In February 1940, he wrote his most famous song, “This Land

Is Your Land”, as a response to what he felt was an overplaying

of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” on the radio. Guthrie

thought the lyrics were unrealistic and complacent. He adapted

the melody from an old gospel song, “Oh My Loving Brother”,

which had been adapted by the country group the Carter Family

for their song “Little Darling Pal Of Mine”. Guthrie signed

the manuscript with the comment, “All you can write is what

you see.” Although the song was written in 1940, it was four

years before he recorded it for Moses Asch in April 1944. Sheet

music was produced and given to schools by Howie Richmond

sometime later.

In March 1940, Guthrie was invited to play at a benefit hosted

by the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers, to

raise money for migrant workers. There he met the folk singer

Pete Seeger, and the two men became good friends. Seeger

accompanied Guthrie back to Texas to meet other members of

the Guthrie family. He recalled an awkward conversation with

Mary Guthrie’s mother, in which she asked for Seeger’s help to

persuade Guthrie to treat her daughter better.

From April 1940, Guthrie and Seeger lived together in the

Greenwich Village loft of sculptor Harold Ambellan and his

fiancée. Guthrie had some success in New York at this time as

a guest on CBS’s radio program ‘Back Where I Come From’

and used his influence to get a spot on the show for his friend

Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter. Ledbetter’s Tenth Street

apartment was a gathering spot for the musician circle in New

York at the time, and Guthrie and Ledbetter were good friends,

as they had busked together at bars in Harlem.

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In November 1941, Seeger introduced Guthrie to his friend

the poet Charles Olson, then a junior editor at the fledgling

magazine Common Ground. The meeting led to Guthrie writing

the article “Ear Players” in the Spring 1942 issue of the magazine.

The article marked Guthrie’s debut as a published writer in the

mainstream media.

In September 1940, Guthrie was invited by the Model Tobacco

Company to host their radio program Pipe Smoking Time.

Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940. He

was finally making enough money to send regular payments

back to Mary. He also brought her and the children to New York,

where the family lived briefly in an apartment on Central Park

West. The reunion represented Woody’s desire to be a better

father and husband. He said, “I have to try real hard to think of

being a dad.” Guthrie quit after the seventh broadcast, claiming

he had begun to feel the show was too restrictive when he was

told what to sing. Disgruntled with New York, Guthrie packed

up Mary and his children in a new car and headed west to

California.

Choreographer Sophie Maslow developed Folksay as an

elaborate mix of modern dance and ballet, which combined folk

songs by Woody Guthrie with text from Carl Sandburg’s 1936

book-length poem The People, Yes. The premiere took place in

March 1942 at the Humphrey-Weidman Studio Theatre in New

York City. Guthrie provided live music for the performance,

which featured Maslow and her New Dance Group. Two and a

half years later, Maslow brought Folksay to early television under

the direction of Leo Hurwitz. The same group performed the

ballet live in front of CBS TV cameras. The 30-minute broadcast

aired on WCBW, the pioneer CBS television station in New York

City (now WCBS-TV), from 8:15–8:45 pm ET on November 24,

1944. Featured were Maslow and the New Dance Group, which

included among others Jane Dudley, Pearl Primus, and William

Bales. Woody Guthrie and fellow folk singer Tony Kraber

played guitar, sang songs, and read text from The People, Yes.

The program received positive reviews and was performed on

television over WCBW a second time in early 1945.

In May 1941, after a brief stay in Los Angeles, Guthrie moved to

Portland, Oregon, in the neighborhood of Lents, on the promise

of a job. Gunther von Fritsch was directing a documentary

about the Bonneville Power Administration’s construction of

the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, and needed a

narrator. Alan Lomax had recommended Guthrie to narrate the

film and sing songs onscreen. The original project was expected

to take 12 months, but as filmmakers became worried about

casting such a political figure, they minimized Guthrie’s role. The

Department of the Interior hired him for one month to write

songs about the Columbia River and the construction of the

federal dams for the documentary’s soundtrack. Guthrie toured

the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest. Guthrie said he

“couldn’t believe it, it’s a paradise”, which appeared to inspire him

creatively. In one month Guthrie wrote 26 songs, including three

of his most famous: “Roll On, Columbia, Roll On”, “Pastures

of Plenty”, and “Grand Coulee Dam”. The surviving songs were

released as Columbia River Songs. The film “Columbia” was

not completed until 1949. At the conclusion of the month in

Oregon and Washington, Guthrie wanted to return to New York.

Tired of the continual uprooting, Mary Guthrie told him to go

without her and the children. Although Guthrie would see Mary

again, once on a tour through Los Angeles with the Almanac

Singers, it was essentially the end of their marriage. Divorce was

difficult, since Mary was a Catholic, but she reluctantly agreed in

December 1943.

Following the conclusion of his work in the Northwest, Guthrie

corresponded with Pete Seeger about Seeger’s newly formed

folk-protest group, the Almanac Singers. Guthrie returned to

New York with plans to tour the country as a member of the

group. The singers originally worked out of a loft in New York

City hosting regular concerts called “hootenannies”, a word

Pete and Woody had picked up in their cross-country travels.

The singers eventually outgrew the space and moved into the

cooperative Almanac House in Greenwich Village.

Initially, Guthrie helped write and sing what the Almanac

Singers termed “peace” songs while the Nazi–Soviet Pact was

in effect. After Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, the group

wrote anti-fascist songs. The members of the Almanac Singers

and residents of the Almanac House were a loosely defined

group of musicians, though the core members included Guthrie,

Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell and Lee Hays. In keeping with

common utopian ideals, meals, chores and rent at the Almanac

House were shared. The Sunday hootenannies were good

opportunities to collect donation money for rent. Songs written

in the Almanac House had shared songwriting credits among all

the members, although in the case of “Union Maid”, members

would later state that Guthrie wrote the song, ensuring that his

children would receive residuals.

In the Almanac House, Guthrie added authenticity to their

work, since he was a “real” working class Oklahoman. “There

was the heart of America personified in Woody ... And for a New

York Left that was primarily Jewish, first or second generation

American, and was desperately trying to get Americanized,

I think a figure like Woody was of great, great importance”, a

friend of the group, Irwin Silber, would say. Woody routinely

emphasized his working-class image, rejected songs he felt were

not in the country blues vein he was familiar with, and rarely

contributed to household chores. House member Agnes “Sis”

Cunningham, another Okie, would later recall that Woody

“loved people to think of him as a real working class person

and not an intellectual”. Guthrie contributed songwriting

and authenticity in much the same capacity for Pete Seeger’s

post-Almanac Singers project People’s Songs, a newsletter and

booking organization for labor singers, founded in 1945.

Guthrie was a prolific writer, penning thousands of pages of

unpublished poems and prose, many written while living in

New York City. After a recording session with Alan Lomax,

Lomax suggested Guthrie write an autobiography. Lomax

thought Guthrie’s descriptions of growing up were some of the

best accounts he had read of American childhood. During this

time, Guthrie met Marjorie Mazia (the professional name of

Marjorie Greenblatt), a dancer in New York who would become

his second wife. Mazia was an instructor at the Martha Graham

Dance School, where she was assisting Sophie Maslow with her

piece Folksay. Based on the folklore and poetry collected by Carl

Sandburg, Folksay included the adaptation of some of Guthrie’s

Dust Bowl Ballads for the dance. Guthrie continued to write

songs and began work on his autobiography. The end product,

Bound for Glory, was completed with editing assistance by

Mazia and was first published by E.P. Dutton in 1943. It is told in

the artist’s down-home dialect. The Library Journal complained


Woody Guthrie

about the “too careful reproduction of illiterate speech”.

However, Clifton Fadiman, reviewing the book in The New

Yorker, remarked that “Someday people are going to wake up

to the fact that Woody Guthrie and the ten thousand songs that

leap and tumble off the strings of his music box are a national

possession, like Yellowstone and Yosemite, and part of the best

stuff this country has to show the world.”

This book was the inspiration for the movie Bound for Glory,

starring David Carradine, which won the 1976 Academy

Award for Original Music Score for Original Song Score and

Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score, and the National Board of

Review Award for Best Actor, among other accolades.

In 1944, Guthrie met Moses “Moe” Asch of Folkways Records,

for whom he first recorded “This Land Is Your Land”. Over

the next few years, he recorded “Worried Man Blues”, along

with hundreds of other songs. These recordings would later

be released by Folkways and Stinson Records, which had joint

distribution rights. The Folkways recordings are available

(through the Smithsonian Institution online shop); the most

complete series of these sessions, culled from dates with Asch, is

titled The Asch Recordings.

In April 1942, Time magazine reported that the AFL

(American Federation of Labor) and the Congress of Industrial

Organizations (CIO) had agreed to a joint radio production,

called Labor for Victory. NBC agreed to run the weekly segment

as a “public service”. The AFL and CIO presidents William Green

and Philip Murray agreed to let their press chiefs, Philip Pearl

and Len De Caux, narrate on alternate weeks. The show ran on

NBC radio on Saturdays 10:15–10:30 pm, starting on April 25,

1942. Time wrote, “De Caux and Pearl hope to make the Labor

for Victory program popular enough for an indefinite run, using

labor news, name speakers and interviews with workmen. Labor

partisanship, they promise, is out.” Writers for Labor for Victory

included: Peter Lyon, a progressive journalist; Millard Lampell

(born Allan Sloane), later an American movie and television

screenwriter; and Morton Wishengrad, who worked for the AFL.

For entertainment on CIO episodes, De Caux asked singer

and songwriter Woody Guthrie to contribute to the show.

“Personally, I would like to see a phonograph record made of

your ‘Girl in the Red, White, and Blue.’” The title appears in at

least one collection of Guthrie records. Guthrie consented and

performed solo two or three times on this program (among

several other WWII radio shows, including Answering You,

Labor for Victory, Jazz in America, and We the People). On

August 29, 1942, he performed “The Farmer-Labor Train”,

with lyrics he had written to the tune of “Wabash Cannonball”.

(In 1948, he reworked the “Wabash Cannonball” melody as

“The Wallace-Taylor Train” for the 1948 Progressive National

Convention, which nominated former U.S. Vice President

Henry A. Wallace for president.) The Almanac Singers (of

which Guthrie and Lampell were co-founders) appeared on

The Treasury Hour and CBS Radio’s We the People. The latter

was later produced as a television series. (Also, Marc Blitzstein’s

papers show that Guthrie made some contributions to four

CIO episodes (dated June 20, June 27, August 1, August 15,

1948) of Labor for Victory.) While Labor for Victory was a

milestone in theory as a national platform, in practice it proved

less so. Only 35 of 104 NBC affiliates carried the show. Episodes

included the announcement that the show represented “twelve

million organized men and women, united in the high resolve

to rid the world of Fascism in 1942”. Speakers included Donald

E. Montgomery, then “consumer’s counselor” at the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

Guthrie lobbied the United States Army to accept him as a USO

performer instead of conscripting him as a soldier in the draft.

When Guthrie’s attempts failed, his friends Cisco Houston and

Jim Longhi persuaded the singer to join the U.S. Merchant

Marine in June 1943. He made several voyages aboard merchant

ships SS William B. Travis, SS William Floyd, and SS Sea

Porpoise, while they traveled in convoys during the Battle of the

Atlantic. He served as a mess man and dishwasher, and frequently

sang for the crew and troops to buoy their spirits on transatlantic

voyages. His first ship, William B. Travis, hit a mine in

the Mediterranean Sea, killing one person aboard, but the ship

sailed to Bizerte, Tunisia under her own power.

His last ship, Sea Porpoise, took troops from the United States to

England and France for the D-Day invasion. Guthrie was aboard

when the ship was torpedoed off Utah Beach by the German

submarine U-390 on July 5, 1944, injuring 12 of the crew.

Guthrie was unhurt and the ship stayed afloat; Sea Porpoise

returned to England, where she was repaired at Newcastle. In

July 1944, she returned to the United States.

Guthrie was an active supporter of the National Maritime

Union, one of many unions for wartime American merchant

sailors. Guthrie wrote songs about his experience in the

Merchant Marine but was never satisfied with them. Longhi

later wrote about Guthrie’s marine experiences in his book

Woody, Cisco and Me. The book offers a rare first-hand account

of Guthrie during his Merchant Marine service, at one point

describing how Guthrie referred to his guitar as a “Hoping

Machine”. But later during duty aboard the troop ship, Guthrie

built an actual “Hoping Machine” made of cloth, whirligigs

and discarded metal attached to a railing at the stern, aimed

at lifting the soldiers’ spirits. In 1945, the government decided

that Guthrie’s association with communism excluded him from

further service in the Merchant Marine; he was drafted into the

U.S. Army.

While he was on furlough from the Army, Guthrie married

Marjorie. After his discharge, they moved into a house on

Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island and over time had four

children: daughters Cathy and Nora; and sons Arlo and Joady.

Cathy died as a result of a fire at the age of four, and Guthrie

suffered a serious depression from his grief. Arlo and Joady

followed in their father’s footsteps as singer-songwriters.

When his family was young, Guthrie wrote and recorded Songs

to Grow on for Mother and Child, a collection of children’s

music, which includes the song “Goodnight Little Arlo

(Goodnight Little Darlin’)”, written when Arlo was about nine

years old. During 1947, he wrote House of Earth, an historical

novel containing explicit sexual material, about a couple who

build a house made of clay and earth to withstand the Dust

Bowl’s brutal weather. He could not get it published. It was

published posthumously in 2013, by Harper, under actor Johnny

Depp’s publishing imprint, Infinitum Nihil.

Guthrie was also a prolific sketcher and painter, his images

ranging from simple, impressionistic images to free and


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characterful drawings, typically of the people in his songs.

In 1949, Guthrie’s music was used in the documentary

film Columbia River, which explored government dams

and hydroelectric projects on the river. Guthrie had been

commissioned by the US Bonneville Power Administration in

1941 to write songs for the project, but it had been postponed by

World War II.

The years immediately after the war when he lived on Mermaid

Avenue were among Guthrie’s most productive as a writer. His

extensive writings from this time were archived and maintained

by Marjorie and later his estate, mostly handled by his daughter

Nora. Several of the manuscripts also contain writing by a young

Arlo and the other Guthrie children.

During this time Ramblin’ Jack Elliott studied extensively

under Guthrie, visiting his home and observing how he wrote

and performed. Elliott, like Bob Dylan later, idolized Guthrie.

He was inspired by the singer’s idiomatic performance style

and repertoire. Because of the decline caused by Guthrie’s

progressive Huntington’s disease, Arlo Guthrie and Bob

Dylan both later said that they had learned much of Guthrie’s

performance style from Elliott. When asked about this, Elliott

said, “I was flattered. Dylan learned from me the same way I

learned from Woody. Woody didn’t teach me. He just said, If you

want to learn something, just steal it—that’s the way I learned

from Lead Belly.”

By the late 1940s, Guthrie’s health was declining, and his

behavior was becoming extremely erratic. He received various

diagnoses (including alcoholism and schizophrenia). In 1952, it

was finally determined that he was suffering from Huntington’s

disease, a genetic disorder inherited from his mother. Believing

him to be a danger to their children because of his behavior,

Marjorie suggested he return to California without her. They

eventually divorced.

Upon his return to California, Guthrie lived at the Theatricum

Botanicum, a summer-stock type theatre founded and owned

by Will Geer. Together with singers and actors who had been

blacklisted by HUAC, he waited out the anti-communist political

climate.

As his health worsened, he met and married his third wife,

Anneke van Kirk. They had a child, Lorina Lynn. The couple

moved to Fruit Cove, Florida, where they briefly lived. They

lived in a bus on land called Beluthahatchee, owned by his

friend Stetson Kennedy. Guthrie’s arm was hurt in an accident

when gasoline used to start the campfire exploded. Although

he regained movement in the arm, he was never able to play the

guitar again. In 1954, the couple returned to New York, living

in the Beach Haven apartment complex owned and operated

by Fred Trump in Gravesend, Brooklyn; Guthrie composed

there the song “Old Man Trump”. Shortly after, Anneke filed

for divorce, a result of the strain of caring for Guthrie. Anneke

left New York after arranging for friends to adopt Lorina Lynn.

Lorina had no further contact with her birth parents. She died

in a car crash in California in 1973 at the age of 19. After the

divorce, Guthrie’s second wife, Marjorie, re-entered his life and

cared for him until his death.

Increasingly unable to control his muscles, Guthrie was

hospitalized at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Morris

County, New Jersey, from 1956 to 1961; at Brooklyn State

Hospital (now Kingsboro Psychiatric Center) in East Flatbush

until 1966; and finally at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in

Queens Village, New York, until his death in 1967. Marjorie

and the children visited Guthrie at Greystone every Sunday.

They answered fan mail and the children played on the hospital

grounds. Eventually, a longtime fan of Guthrie invited the

family to his nearby home for the Sunday visits. This lasted until

Guthrie was moved to the Brooklyn State Hospital, which was

closer to Howard Beach, New York, where Marjorie and the

children then lived.

During the final few years of his life, Guthrie had become

isolated except for family. By 1965, he was unable to speak,

often moving his arms or rolling his eyes to communicate.

The progression of Huntington’s threw Guthrie into extreme

emotional states, causing him to lash out at those nearby and

to damage a prized book collection of Anneke’s. Huntington’s

symptoms include uncharacteristic aggression, emotional

volatility, and social disinhibition.

Guthrie’s death increased awareness of the disease. Marjorie

helped found the Committee to Combat Huntington’s Disease,

which became the Huntington’s Disease Society of America.

None of Guthrie’s three surviving children with Marjorie have

developed symptoms of Huntington’s.

His son Bill (with his first wife Mary Guthrie) died in an autotrain

accident in Pomona, California, at the age of 23. His two

daughters, Gwendolyn and Sue with wife, Mary, suffered from

Huntington’s disease. Both died at the age of 41.

The Woody Guthrie Foundation is a non-profit organization

that serves as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie

Archives. The archives house the largest collection of Guthrie

material in the world. In 2013, the archives were relocated

from New York City to the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa,

Oklahoma, after being purchased by the Tulsa-based George

Kaiser Foundation. The Center officially opened on April 27,

2013. The Woody Guthrie Center features, in addition to the

archives, a museum focused on the life and the influence of

Guthrie through his music, writings, art, and political activities.

The museum is open to the public; the archives are open only

to researchers by appointment. The archives contains thousands

of items related to Guthrie, including original artwork, books,

correspondence, lyrics, manuscripts, media, notebooks,

periodicals, personal papers, photographs, scrapbooks, and

other special collections.

Guthrie’s unrecorded written lyrics housed at the archives have

been the starting point of several albums including the Wilco

and Billy Bragg albums Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue

Vol. II, created in 1998 sessions at the invitation of Guthrie’s

daughter Nora. Blackfire interpreted previously unreleased

Guthrie lyrics. Jonatha Brooke’s 2008 album, The Works,

includes lyrics from the Woody Guthrie Archives set to music by

Jonatha Brooke. The various artists compilation Note of Hope: A

Celebration of Woody Guthrie was released in 2011. Jay Farrar,

Will Johnson, Anders Parker, and Yim Yames recorded her

father’s lyrics for New Multitudes to honor the 100th anniversary

of his birth and a box set of the Mermaid Avenue sessions was

also released.


Woody Guthrie

woody guthrie discography

1940 DUSTBOWL BALLADS

VICTOR RECORDS

Reissued 1964 Folkway Records

Reissued 2000 Buddah Records

Link here:

1951 NURSERY DAYS

FOLKWAY RECORDS

Reissued 1992 Smithsonian Folkways

Link here:

1956 SONGS TO GROW ON MOTHER AND

CHILD

FOLKWAY RECORDS


Link here:

1956 BOUND FOR GLORY

FOLKWAYS RECORDS


Link here:

1960 BALLADS OF SACCO & VANZETTI

FOLKWAYS RECORDS


Link here:

1962 WOODY GUTHRIE SINGS FOLK SONGS

FOLKWAYS RECORDS


Link here:

1964 HARD TRAVELLIN’

DISC RECORDS

Link here:

1964 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS RECORDINGS

ELEKTRA RECORDS

Reissied by Rounder Records 1988

Link here:

1972 GREATEST SONGS OF WOODY GUTHRIE

VANGUARD RECORDS

Link here:

1976 STRUGGLE

FOLKWAY RECORDS


Link here:

1987 COLUMBIA RIVER COLLECTION

ROUNDER RECORDS

Link here:

1994 LONG WAYS TO TRAVEL THE

UNRELEASED FOLKWAYS MASTERS 1944-1949

SMITHSONIAN FOLKFAWS

Link here:

1997 THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, THE ASCH

RECORDINGS VOLUME 1

SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS

Link here:

1997 MULESKINNER BLUES, THE ASCH

RECORDINGS VOLUME 2


Link here:

1998 HARD TRAVELLING, THE ASCH

RECORDINGS VOLUME 3


Link here:

1999 BUFFALO SKINNERS, THE ASCH

RECORDINGS VOLUME 4


Link here:

2007 THE LIVE WIRE, GUTHRIE IN

PERFORMANCE 1949

WOODY GUTHRIE FOUNDATION

Link here:

2009 MY DUSTY ROAD

ROUNDER RECORDS

Link here:

2012 WOODY AT 100, THE WOODY GUTHRIE

CENTENIAL COLLECTION


Link here:


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townes van zandt

John Townes Van Zandt (March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997)

was an American singer-songwriter. He wrote numerous

songs, such as “Pancho and Lefty”, “For the Sake of the

Song”, “If I Needed You”, “Snake Mountain Blues”, “Our Mother

the Mountain”, “Waitin’ Round to Die”, and “To Live Is to Fly”.

His musical style has often been described as melancholic and

features rich, poetic lyrics. During his early years, Van Zandt

was respected for his guitar playing and fingerpicking ability.

Much of Van Zandt’s life was spent touring various bars, music

clubs, colleges, and folk venues and festivals, often lodging in

motel rooms or the homes of friends. He suffered from drug

addiction and alcoholism, and was diagnosed with bipolar

disorder. When he was young, the now-discredited insulin

shock therapy erased much of his long-term memory.

In 1983, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covered and

popularized Van Zandt’s song “Pancho and Lefty”, reaching

number one on the Billboard country music chart. Van Zandt’s

influence has been cited by countless artists across multiple

genres and his music has been recorded or performed by Bob

Dylan, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Merle Haggard, Norah

Jones, Emmylou Harris, Counting Crows, Steve Earle, Whitey

Morgan, Rodney Crowell, Robert Earl Keen Jr., Nanci Griffith,

Guy Clark, Wade Bowen, Gillian Welch, Richard Buckner, Pat

Green, Colter Wall, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Jason Isbell,

Calvin Russell, Natalie Maines, Jason Molina, Kevin Morby,

Stephen Duffy, Doc Watson, Cowboy Junkies, Frank Turner,

Rowland S. Howard, Tindersticks, Cave In, Amenra, Charley

Crockett, Tyler Childers, Lost Dog Street Band, The Brothers

Lazaroff and Marissa Nadler.

Van Zandt died on New Year’s Day 1997 from cardiac

arrhythmia caused by health problems stemming from years of

substance abuse. A revival of interest in Van Zandt blossomed

in the 2000s. During the decade, two books, a documentary

film (Be Here to Love Me), and numerous magazine articles

were written about him.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, into a wealthy family, Van Zandt

was a great-great-great-grandson of Isaac Van Zandt (a

prominent leader of the Republic of Texas) and a great-greatgrandnephew

of Khleber Miller Van Zandt (a major in the

Confederate army and one of the founders of Fort Worth).

Townes’ parents were Harris Williams Van Zandt and Dorothy


Townes Van Zandt

Townes. He had two siblings, Bill (1949–2009) and Donna

(1941–2011). Harris was a corporate lawyer and his career

required the family to move several times during the 1950s

and 1960s. In 1952, the family relocated from Fort Worth

to Midland, Texas for six months before moving to Billings,

Montana.

At Christmas in 1956, Townes’s father gave him a guitar, which

he practiced while wandering the countryside. He later told

an interviewer that “seeing Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan

Show was the starting point for me becoming a guitar player...

I just thought that Elvis had all the money in the world, all the

Cadillacs and all the girls, and all he did was play the guitar and

sing. That made a big impression on me.”[In 1958, the family

moved to Boulder, Colorado. Van Zandt remembered his time

in Colorado fondly and often visited it as an adult. He later

referred to Colorado in “My Proud Mountains”, “Colorado Girl”,

and “Snowin’ on Raton”. Townes was a good student and active

in team sports. In grade school, he was found to have a high

IQ, and his parents began grooming him to become a lawyer or

senator. Fearing that his family would move again, he willingly

decided to attend the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minnesota.

He received a score of 1170 when he took the SAT in January

1962. His family soon moved to Houston, Texas.

In 1962, he enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder,

wrote poetry, and listened to records by Lightnin’ Hopkins and

Hank Williams. In the spring of his second year, his parents flew

to Boulder to bring Townes back to Houston, worried about

his binge drinking and episodes of depression. They admitted

him to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston,

where he was diagnosed with manic depression. He received

three months of insulin shock therapy, which erased much of

his long-term memory.Afterwards, his mother said that her

“biggest regret in life was that she had allowed that treatment

to occur”. In 1965, he was accepted into the University of

Houston’s pre-law program. Soon after, he attempted to join

the Air Force, but was rejected because of a doctor’s diagnosis

that labelled him “an acute manic-depressive who has made

minimal adjustments to life”. After Townes’s father died in

January 1966 at age 52, he quit school and went on the road

for the first time having been inspired by his singer-songwriter

heroes to pursue a career in playing music.

In 1965, Van Zandt began playing regular shows at the Jester

Lounge in Houston for $10 per night. After the Jester closed,

he began to regularly perform (and occasionally live) at Sand

Mountain Coffee House. In these Houston clubs, he met fellow

musicians Lightnin’ Hopkins, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, and

Doc Watson. His repertoire consisted mostly of covers of songs

written by Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and others, as well as original

novelty songs like “Fraternity Blues.” In 1966, Harris Van Zandt

had encouraged his son to stop playing covers and write his

own songs.

At one point around 1968, Van Zandt was roommates with 13th

Floor Elevators singer Roky Erickson. Erickson suggested that

he audition as the Elevators’ new bassist, even though he was

a guitarist who had never played bass before. When Tommy

Hall found out he never played bass, he kicked him out of the

audition.

In 1968, Van Zandt met songwriter Mickey Newbury in a


Houston coffee shop. Newbury persuaded Van Zandt to go to

Nashville, Tennessee, where he was introduced by Newbury to

the man who became his longtime producer, “Cowboy” Jack

Clement.

Van Zandt cited Lightnin’ Hopkins, Bob Dylan, and Hank

Williams and such varied artists as Muddy Waters, The Rolling

Stones, Blind Willie McTell, Tchaikovsky, and Jefferson Airplane

as having had a major impact on his music.

The years between 1968 and 1973 proved to be his most prolific

era. Van Zandt released six albums during the time period: For

the Sake of the Song, Our Mother the Mountain, Townes Van

Zandt, Delta Momma Blues, High, Low and In Between, and

The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. Among the tracks written

for these albums were “To Live Is to Fly”, “Pancho and Lefty”,

and “If I Needed You”. These songs eventually raised Van Zandt

to near-legend status in American and European songwriting

circles.

In 1972, he recorded tracks for an album with a working title

of Seven Come Eleven, which remained unreleased for many

years due to a dispute between his manager Kevin Eggers and

producer Jack Clement. Eggers either could not or refused to

pay for the studio sessions, so Clement erased the master tapes.

However, before they were deleted, Eggers sneaked into the

studio and recorded rough mixes of the songs on to a cassette

tape. Tracks from the aborted Seven Come Eleven debacle later

surfaced on The Nashville Sessions.

In 1975, Van Zandt was featured prominently in the

documentary film Heartworn Highways with Guy Clark,

Steve Earle, Steve Young, Gamble Rogers, Charlie Daniels

and David Allan Coe. His segment of the film was shot at his

run-down trailer home in Austin, Texas, where Van Zandt is

shown drinking straight whiskey during the middle of the day,

shooting and playing with guns, and performing the songs

“Waitin’ Around to Die” and “Pancho and Lefty.” He was the

only person in the film to play directly to the camera, and,

according to Steve Earle, “stole that entire film.” His soonto-be

second wife Cindy and dog Geraldine (a large, “keenly

intelligent” half-wolf, half-husky) are featured in the film.

In 1977, Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas was released.

The album showcased Van Zandt solo at a 1973 concert before

a small audience, and less elaborately produced than many of

his early records. The album received positive reviews, and

is considered by many to be among the best albums that the

songwriter ever released.

In the mid-1970s, Van Zandt split from his longtime manager,

Kevin Eggers. He found a new manager, John Lomax III

(grandson of the famed folk music historian John Lomax),

who set up a fan club for Van Zandt. Though the club was only

advertised through small ads in the back of music magazines,

Lomax immediately began to receive hundreds of impassioned

letters from around the world written by people who felt

touched by Van Zandt. Some of the letters described how his

material often served as a crutch for those who were dealing

with depression. In 1978, the singer fired Lomax and re-hired

Eggers. He soon signed with Eggers’ new label, Tomato Records

The following year, he recorded Flyin’ Shoes; he did not release

another album until 1987’s At My Window. Despite critical

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acclaim, he remained a cult figure. He normally played small

venues (often to crowds of fewer than fifty people) but began to

move towards playing larger venues (and even made a handful

of television appearances) during the 1990s. For much of the

1970s, he lived a reclusive life outside of Nashville in a tinroofed,

bare-boards shack with no heat, plumbing or telephone,

occasionally appearing in town to play shows.

Several of Van Zandt’s compositions were recorded by other

artists, such as Emmylou Harris who, with Don Williams, had

a No. 3 country hit in 1981 with “If I Needed You,” and Willie

Nelson and Merle Haggard, the pair taking “Pancho and Lefty”

to No. 1 on the country charts in 1983. Van Zandt had a small

cameo appearance in the video for the song. In his later years,

he recorded less frequently, his voice and singing style altered in

part because of his drug addiction and alcoholism. However, he

continued writing songs, such as “Marie” and “The Hole”.

According to Susanna Clark, Van Zandt turned down repeated

invitations to write with Bob Dylan. Dylan was reportedly a

“big fan” of Townes and claimed to have all of his records; Van

Zandt admired Dylan’s songs, but didn’t care for his celebrity.

The two first met during a chance encounter outside a costume

shop in the South Congress district of Austin, on June 21, 1986.

According to Johnny Guess, Dylan later arranged another

meeting with the songwriter. The Drag in Austin was shut down

due to Dylan being in town; Van Zandt drove his motorhome

to the cordoned-off area, after which Dylan boarded the vehicle

and requested to hear him play several songs. In May and June

1990, he opened for the Cowboy Junkies during a two-monthlong

tour of the United States and Canada, which exposed him

to a younger generation of fans. As a result, he wrote the song

“Cowboy Junkies Lament” for the group, with a verse about

each member of the band.

Van Zandt was addicted to heroin and alcohol throughout his

adult life. At times, he became drunk on stage and forgot the

lyrics to his songs. At one point, his heroin habit was so intense

that he offered Kevin Eggers the publishing rights to all of the

songs on each of his first four albums for $20. At various points,

his friends saw him shoot up not just heroin, but also cocaine,

vodka, as well as a mixture of rum and Coke. On at least one

occasion, he shot up heroin in the presence of his son J.T., who

was only eight years old at the time.

As a result of Van Zandt’s constant drinking, Harold Eggers,

Kevin’s brother, was hired as his tour manager and 24-hour

caretaker in 1976, a partnership that lasted for the rest of the

singer’s life. Although the musician was years older than he

was, Eggers later said that Van Zandt was his “first child.”

His battles with addiction led him into rehab nearly a dozen

times throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Medical records from

his recovery centers indicate that he believed his drinking

had become a problem around 1973, and that by 1982 he

was drinking at least a pint of vodka daily. Doctors’ notes

reported: “He admits to hearing voices, mostly musical

voices”, and “Affect is blunted and mood is sad. Judgment and

insight is impaired.” At various times he was prescribed the

antidepressant Zoloft and the mood stabilizer lithium. The

longest and final period of sobriety during his adult life was

about a year in 1989 and 1990.

Van Zandt continued writing and performing through the

1990s, though his output slowed noticeably. He had enjoyed

some sobriety during the early 1990s, but actively abused

alcohol during his final years. In 1994, he was admitted to

the hospital to detox, when a doctor told Jeanene Van Zandt

that trying to detox Townes again could potentially kill him.

He grew increasingly frail during the mid-1990s, with friends

noting that he seemed to have “withered.”

In early 1996, he was contacted by Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley,

who informed Van Zandt that he was interested in recording

and releasing an album for him on the band’s Ecstatic Peace

label, funded by Geffen. Van Zandt agreed, and sessions were

scheduled to begin in Memphis during late December of that

year. On December 19 or 20, Van Zandt fell down the concrete

stairs outside his home, badly injuring his hip. After lying

outside for an hour, he dragged himself inside and called his exwife

Jeanene, who sent friends Royann and Jim Calvin to check

on him. He told the couple that he had sustained the injury

while getting out of bed, and refused medical treatment. They

took him back to their home, and he spent Christmas week on

their couch, unable to get up even to use the bathroom.

Determined to finish the album that he had scheduled to

record with Shelley and Two Dollar Guitar, Van Zandt arrived

at the Memphis studio being pushed in a wheelchair by road

manager Harold Eggers. Shelley canceled the sessions due to

the songwriter’s erratic behavior and drunkenness. Van Zandt

finally agreed to hospitalization, but not before returning to

Nashville. By the time he consented to receive medical care,

eight days had passed since the injury. On December 31,

X-rays revealed that Van Zandt had an impacted left femoral

neck fracture in his hip, and several corrective surgeries were

performed. Jeanene informed the surgeon that one of Townes’s

previous rehab doctors had told her detoxing could kill him.

The medical staff tried to explain to her that detoxing a “lateterm

alcoholic” at home would be ill-advised, and he would

have a better chance at recovering under hospital supervision.

She did not heed the warnings, and checked Townes out of

the hospital. Understanding that he would most likely drink

immediately after leaving the hospital, the physicians refused to

prescribe him any painkillers.

By the time Van Zandt was checked out of the hospital early the

next morning, he had begun to show signs of delirium tremens.

Jeanene rushed him to her car, where she gave him a flask of

vodka to ward off the withdrawal delirium. She later reported

that after getting him back home to Smyrna, Tennessee, and

giving him alcohol, he became “lucid, in a real good mood,

calling his friends on the phone.” Jim Calvin shared a marijuana

joint with him, and he was also given about four Tylenol PM

tablets.While Jeanene was on the phone with Susanna Clark,

their son Will noticed that Townes had stopped breathing

and “looked dead”, and alerted his mother, who attempted to

perform CPR, “screaming his name between breaths”. Townes

Van Zandt died in the early morning hours of January 1, 1997,

at the age of 52. His official cause of death was “natural” cardiac

arrhythmia.[

Two services were held for Van Zandt: one in Texas for family,

and another in a large Nashville church, attended by friends,

acquaintances, and fans.[9] Some of his ashes were placed

underneath a headstone in the Van Zandt family plot at the

Dido Cemetery in Dido, Texas, near Fort Worth.


townes van zandt

discography

STUDIO ALBUMS

FOR THE SAKE OF THE SONG

1968 - Link here:

OUR MOTHER THE

MOUNTAIN

1969 - Link here:

TOWNES VAN ZANDT

1969 - Link here:

DELTA MORNING BLUES

1969 - Link here:

HIGH, LOW & INBETWEEN

1971 - Link here:

THE LATE GREAT TOWNES

VAN ZANDT

1972 - Link here:

FLYIN’ SHOES

1978 - Link here:

AT MY WINDOW

1987 - Link here:

THE NASHVILLE SESSIONS

1993 - Link here:

NO DEEPER BLUE

1994 - Link here:

POSTHUMOUS ALBUMS

A FAR CRY FROM DEAD

1999 9 Link here:

TEXAS RAIN - THE TEXAS

HILL COUNTRY RECORDINGS

2001 - Link here:

IN THE BEGINNING

2003 - Link here:

SUNSHINE BOY - THE

UNHEARD STUDIO SESSIONS

& DEMOS 1971-1972

2013 Link here:

SKY BLUE

2019 - Link here:

SOMEBODY HAD TO WRITE IT

2020 - Link here:

LIVE ALBUMS

LIVE AT THE OLD QUARTER,

HOUSTON TEXAS 1977

1973 - Link here:

LIVE & OBSCURE 1987

1985 - Link here:

DOWN HOME & ABROAD 2018

1985/1993 Link here:

RAIN ON A CONGA DRUM:

LIVE IN BERLIN 1991

1990 - Link here:

REAR VIEW MIRROR 1993

1978 - Link here:

ROADSONGS 1993

1970’s - 1980’s - Link here:

ABNORMAL 1996

1998 - Link here:

THE HIGHWAY KIND

1997 - Link here:

DOCUMENTARY

1997 - Link here:

LAST RIGHTS

1997 - Link here:

TOGETHER AT THE BLUEBIRD

CAFE

1995 - Link Here:

Townes Van Zandt

IN PAIN 1999

1994/1996 - Link here:

LIVE AT MCCABES 2001

1995 - Link here:

A GENTLE EVENING WITH

TOWNES VAN ZANDT 2002

1969 - Link here:

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING 2002

1991-1996 Link here:

ACOUSTIC BLUE 2003

1994-1996 - Link here:

LIVE AT THE JESTER LOUNGE,

HOUSTON TEXAS 1966

2004 - Link here:

REAR VIEW MIRROR VOLUME

2 2004

1977-1980 - Link here:

LIVE AT UNION CHAPEL,

LONDON 2005

1994 - Link here:

HOUSTON 1998: A PRIVATE

CONCERT

2005 - Link here:


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sandy denny

Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny (6 January 1947

– 21 April 1978) was an English singer-songwriter

who was lead singer of the British folk rock band

Fairport Convention. She has been described as “the preeminent

British folk rock singer”.

After briefly working with The Strawbs, Denny joined

Fairport Convention in 1968, remaining with them until

1969. She formed the short-lived band Fotheringay in 1970,

before focusing on a solo career. Between 1971 and 1977,

Denny released four solo albums: ‘The North Star Grassman

and the Ravens’, ‘Sandy’, ‘Like an Old Fashioned Waltz’ and

‘Rendezvous’. She also duetted with Robert Plant on “The

Battle of Evermore” for Led Zeppelin’s album ‘Led Zeppelin

IV’ in 1971. Denny died in 1978 at the age of 31 from head

injuries sustained as a result of a fall down a flight of stairs.

Music publications Uncut and Mojo have described Denny

as Britain’s finest female singer-songwriter. Her composition

“Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” has been recorded by

Judy Collins, Eva Cassidy, Nina Simone, Mary Black, Kate

Wolf, Nanci Griffith, 10,000 Maniacs and Cat Power. Her

recorded work has been the subject of numerous reissues,

along with a wealth of previously unreleased material which

has appeared over the more than 45 years since her death,

including a 19-CD box set released in November 2010.

In January 2023, Denny was ranked #164 on Rolling Stone’s

list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Denny was born on 6 January 1947 at Nelson Hospital,

Kingston Road, Merton Park, London, to Neil and Edna

Denny. She studied classical piano as a child.

Denny’s paternal grandfather was from Dundee, and her

paternal grandmother was a Scots Gaelic speaker and singer

of traditional Gaelic songs. At an early age Denny showed

an interest in singing, although her strict parents were

reluctant to believe there was a living to be made from it. She

attended Coombe Girls’ School in New Malden; after leaving

school she began training as a nurse at the Royal Brompton

Hospital.


Sandy Denny

Denny’s nursing career proved short-lived. In the meantime

she had secured a place on a foundation course at Kingston

College of Art, which she took up in September 1965,

becoming involved with the folk club on campus. Her

contemporaries at the college included guitarist and future

member of Pentangle, John Renbourn.

After her first public appearance at the Barge in Kingston

upon Thames, Denny began working the folk club circuit

in the evenings with an American-influenced repertoire,

including songs by Tom Paxton, together with traditional

folk songs. Denny made the first of many appearances for

the BBC at Cecil Sharp House on 2 December 1966 on the

Folk Song Cellar programme where she accompanied herself

on two traditional songs: “Fir a Bhata” and “Green Grow the

Laurels”.

Denny’s earliest professional recordings were made a few

months later in mid-1967 for the Saga label, featuring

traditional songs and covers of folk contemporaries including

her boyfriend of this period, the American singer-songwriter

Jackson C. Frank. They were released on the albums ‘Alex

Campbell and His Friends’ and ‘Sandy and Johnny’ with

Johnny Silvo. These songs were collected on the 1970 album

‘It’s Sandy Denny’ where the tracks from Sandy and Johnny

had been re-recorded with more accomplished vocals and

guitar playing. The complete Saga studio recordings were

issued on the 2005 compilation ‘Where The Time Goes’.

By this time, she had abandoned her studies at art college

and was devoting herself full-time to music. While she was

performing at The Troubadour folk club, a member of The

Strawbs heard her, and in 1967, she was invited to join the

band. She recorded one album with them in Denmark, which

was released belatedly in 1973, credited to Sandy Denny and

the Strawbs: ‘All Our Own Work’. The album includes an

early solo version of her best-known (and widely recorded)

composition, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” A

demo of that song found its way into the hands of American

singer Judy Collins, who chose to cover it as the title track

of an album of her own, released in November 1968 and

prominently featured in the film ‘The Subject Was Roses’, thus

giving Denny international exposure as a songwriter before

she had become widely known as a singer.

After making the Saga albums with Alex Campbell and

Johnny Silvo, Denny looked for a band that would allow her

to stretch herself as a vocalist, reach a wider audience, and

have the opportunity to display her songwriting. She said, “I

wanted to do something more with my voice.” After working

briefly with The Strawbs, Denny remained unconvinced that

they could provide that opportunity, and so she ended her

relationship with the band.

Fairport Convention conducted auditions in May 1968 for

a replacement singer following the departure of Judy Dyble

after their debut album, and Denny became the obvious

choice. According to group member Simon Nicol, her

personality and musicianship made her stand out from the

other auditionees “like a clean glass in a sink full of dirty

dishes”.

Beginning with ‘What We Did on Our Holidays’, the first

of three albums she made with the band in the late 1960s,

Denny is credited with encouraging Fairport Convention

to explore the traditional British folk repertoire, and is thus

regarded as a key figure in the development of British folk

rock. She brought with her the traditional repertoire she

had refined in the clubs, including “A Sailor’s Life” featured

on their second album together ‘Unhalfbricking’. Framing

Denny’s performance of this song with their own electric

improvisations, her bandmates discovered what then proved

to be the inspiration for an entire album, the influential ‘Liege

& Lief ‘(1969).

Denny left Fairport Convention in December 1969 to develop

her own songwriting more fully. To this end, she formed her

own band, Fotheringay, which included her future husband,

Australian Trevor Lucas, formerly of the group Eclection.

They created one self-titled album, which included an

eight-minute version of the traditional “Banks of the Nile”,

and several Denny originals, among them “The Sea” and

“Nothing More”. The latter marked her first composition on

the piano, which was to become her primary instrument

from then on. Fotheringay started to record a second

album in late 1970, but it remained unfinished after Denny

announced that she was leaving the group and producer Joe

Boyd left to take up a job at Warner Brothers in California.

Denny would later blame Boyd’s hostility towards the group

for its demise.

Denny then turned to recording her first solo album, ‘The

North Star Grassman and the Ravens’. Released in 1971,

it is distinguished by its elusive lyrics and unconventional

harmonies. Highlights included “Late November”, inspired

by a dream and the death of Fairport band member Martin

Lamble, and “Next Time Around” a cryptogram about

Jackson C. Frank, one of her many portraits in song.

‘Sandy,’ with a cover photograph by David Bailey, followed

in 1972 and was the first of her albums to be produced by

Trevor Lucas. As well as introducing eight new original

compositions, the album marked her last recording of a

traditional song, “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” (words

by Richard Fariña), with Denny’s ambitious multi-tracked

vocal arrangement inspired by the Ensemble of the Bulgarian

Republic.

Melody Maker readers twice voted her the “Best British

Female Singer”, in 1970 and 1971 and, together with

contemporaries including Richard Thompson and Ashley

Hutchings, she participated in a one-off project called The

Bunch to record a collection of rock and roll era standards

released under the title of ‘Rock On’.

In 1971, Denny duetted with Robert Plant on “The Battle of

Evermore”, which was included on Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album

(Led Zeppelin IV); she was the only guest vocalist ever to

appear on a Led Zeppelin album. In 1972 Denny had a small

cameo on Lou Reizner’s symphonic arrangement of The


89 |

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MAGAZINE

Who’s rock opera ‘Tommy’. In a brief appearance, she sang

the character of The Nurse on the track “It’s a Boy,” which

also featured vocals from Pete Townshend.

In 1973, she married long-term boyfriend and producer

Trevor Lucas and recorded a third solo album, ‘Like an Old

Fashioned Waltz’. The songs continued to detail many of her

personal preoccupations: loss, loneliness, fear of the dark,

the passing of time and the changing seasons. The album

contained one of her best loved compositions, “Solo”, and

featured a cover image by Gered Mankowitz.

In 1974, Denny returned to Fairport Convention (of which

her husband was by then a member) for a world tour

(captured on the 1974 album ‘Fairport Live Convention’)

and a studio album, ‘Rising for the Moon’ in 1975. Although

her development as a soloist and songwriter had taken her

further away from the folk roots direction that the band had

pursued since ‘Liege & Lief ’, seven of the eleven tracks on

‘Rising for the Moon’ were either written or co-written by her.

Denny and Lucas left Fairport Convention at the end of

1975 and embarked on what was to become her final album

‘Rendezvous’. Released in 1977, the album sold poorly and

Denny was subsequently dropped by Island Records. Denny

gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Georgia,

in July 1977 after relocating to the village of Byfield in

Northamptonshire.

A UK tour to promote ‘Rendezvous’ in autumn 1977 marked

her final public appearances. The closing night at the Royalty

Theatre in London on 27 November 1977 was recorded for a

live album, ‘Gold Dust’, which, because of technical problems

in the recording of the electric guitar, was belatedly released

in 1998 after most of the guitars had been re-recorded by

Jerry Donahue.

Linda Thompson would later note that Denny “really started

going downhill in 1976” and demonstrated increasing levels

of both manic and depressive behaviour. Depression, mood

swings and the unravelling of her “tumultuous” marriage

to Trevor Lucas heightened her drug and alcohol abuse,

in the midst of which she learned that she was pregnant.

Her daughter, Georgia, was born prematurely in July 1977.

Much like her moods, Denny’s interest towards her daughter

appeared to oscillate between obsessive and unconcerned;

friends recalled both frantic, middle-of-the-night phone calls

about teething, as well as Denny “crashing the car and leaving

the baby in the pub and all sorts of stuff ”.

Friends would later note that Denny had a history of

purposely throwing herself off bar stools and down flights

of stairs, presumably as a humorous pratfall in the manner

of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau character. Several

remembered this behaviour as “Sandy’s party trick”, while

Dave Pegg’s wife Chris stated, “She certainly did it in my

house and it could be a very dramatic gesture, like selfharming.

She could do it without hurting herself usually but I

had a feeling there would be one time too many.” Those who

knew Denny said that her increasing level of alcohol abuse

in the last years of her life led to an increasing number of

falls (both accidental and deliberate), resulting in a growing

number of injuries.

In late March 1978, while on holiday with her parents and

baby Georgia in Cornwall, Denny was injured when she fell

down a staircase and hit her head on concrete. Following

the incident, she suffered from intense headaches; a doctor

prescribed her the painkiller dextropropoxyphene, a drug

known to have fatal side effects when mixed with alcohol.

On 1 April, several days after the fall in Cornwall, Denny

performed a charity concert at Byfield. The final song she

performed was “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?”

At some unknown point during the first half of April 1978,

Denny suffered yet another major fall at her home in Byfield.

On 13 April, concerned about his wife’s erratic behaviour

and fearing for his daughter’s safety, Trevor Lucas left the UK

and returned to his native Australia with their child, leaving

Denny without telling her. He sold their Austin Princess car

in order to raise funds for the journey.

On discovering Lucas’ departure, Denny went to stay at the

home of her friend Miranda Ward. During this time, Denny

apparently set up an appointment to speak with a doctor

about her headaches, and also intended to get advice about

her alcohol addiction. At some point after 8 am on 17 April,

Denny fell into a coma. Ward was out of the house at the

time, and had asked her friend Jon Cole (of the band The

Movies) to check in on Denny. Cole entered the home at 3

pm, and found Denny unconscious at the foot of the staircase

which led to the second floor of the house. She was rushed by

ambulance to Queen Mary’s Hospital in nearby Roehampton.

On 19 April, she was transferred to Atkinson Morley Hospital

in Wimbledon. After receiving news that Denny was in a

coma, Lucas returned from Australia. Doctors informed him

that Denny was effectively brain-dead and her condition

would not improve. She died on 21 April 1978 without

regaining consciousness. Her death was ruled to be the

result of a traumatic mid-brain haemorrhage and blunt force

trauma to her head. She was 31 years old.

The funeral took place on 27 April 1978 at Putney Vale

Cemetery. After the vicar had read Denny’s favourite psalm,

Psalm 23, a piper played “Flowers of the Forest”, a traditional

song commemorating the fallen of Flodden Field and one

which had appeared on the 1970 Fairport album ‘Full House’.

Although Denny had a devoted following in her lifetime,

she did not achieve mass market success. In the years since

her death, her reputation has grown and there have been a

number of releases.

A four-album box set entitled’ Who Knows Where the Time

Goes?’ (1985) was produced by her widower Trevor Lucas

and Joe Boyd and included a number of rare and previously

unreleased tracks by Denny, either solo or with Fairport

Convention (1968, 1969, 1974) and Fotheringay (1970). This

was the first public indication that a large cache of unreleased


Sandy Denny

material existed. A one-disc subset of these recordings was

subsequently issued on CD by Island in 1987 entitled ‘The

Best Of Sandy Denny’.

In 1987, a compilation of previously unreleased tracks

recorded for the BBC by incarnations of Fairport including

Denny was released on LP under the title ‘Heyday’, which was

subsequently released on CD in 2001 and again, with extra

tracks, in 2002; all tracks were later included, with others, on

the 2007 4-CD box set ‘Fairport Convention Live at the BBC’

(2006 - 2008). The initial purpose of this compilation was to

document the more “American” material performed live by

the ‘What We Did on Our Holidays’ lineup of the band that

never made it to vinyl, while the re-releases added additional

songs as performed by the ‘Unhalfbricking’ and ‘Liege and

Lief ’ lineups.

Also in 1987, a VHS documentary, “It All Comes ‘Round

Again, on Fairport Convention” was released which

contained excerpts of several audio recordings featuring

Denny, plus a single poor-quality video recording of her

singing her song “Solo” during her second stint with Fairport

in 1974, as filmed by the University of Birmingham’s “Guild

TV” amateur organisation. The original tape of this recording

has apparently been lost; however, “Like an Old Fashioned

Waltz” does appear on the DVD documentary ‘Sandy Denny

Under Review, and other tracks have been made available via

YouTube in very poor quality.

In 1991, Joe Boyd issued a new version of Denny’s ‘All Our

Own Work’ album with The Strawbs, called ‘Sandy Denny

and the Strawbs’, on his Hannibal Records label. The album

had strings added to some tracks, including “Who Knows

Where the Time Goes?” and further tracks with Denny on

lead vocal.

Over the period 1988–1994, the Australian “Friends

of Fairport” issued a series of subscriber-only cassette

compilations drawing in the main on previously unreleased

tapes from Trevor Lucas’ collection (as stored in his attic in

fact). Attic Tracks (AT) 1 (1988) contained out-takes from

Sandy as well as some Fairport material and a few bizarre

extras; AT 2 (1989) contained only Trevor Lucas material,

no Denny; AT 3 (1989) entitled ‘First and Last Tracks’

comprised 1966–1967 home demos and rare radio tracks,

as well as 9 “pre-overdub” songs from Denny’s last concert

at the Royalty Theatre, London, on 27 November 1977 (a

partial alternative to the later, overdubbed CD release Gold

Dust), and AT 4 (1994): ‘Together Again’ comprised one side

of Lucas and the other of Denny in the form of more home

demos, studio outtakes, and 4 tracks from a 1973 BBC radio

concert. A cut-down version of these tracks (18 songs) was

subsequently compiled for CD release by the Australian label

Raven Records in 1995 called ‘Sandy Denny, Trevor Lucas

and Friends: The Attic Tracks 1972–1984’.

In 1997, a one-disc compilation of Denny’s solo BBC

recordings was released as The BBC Sessions 1971–1973 on

Strange Fruit Records. Due to rights issues it was withdrawn

on the day of release, thereby creating a highly collectible

disc (up until the release of the comprehensive Live at the

BBC box set in 2007). This release was followed in 1998

when Denny’s final performance at the Royalty Theatre,

entitled ‘Gold Dust’, was issued on CD, following a degree of

re-recording and overdubbing of selected backing parts to

replace reportedly unsatisfactory originals.

In 1999, a single-disc compilation, ‘Listen Listen – An

Introduction to Sandy Denny,’ was released on Island Records

comprising 17 previously released tracks taken from her four

Island solo albums.

‘No More Sad Refrains: The Anthology’ was released

by Universal Records in 2000. When first released, this

compilation had several rare tracks, including “The Ballad of

Easy Rider” from the ‘Liege and Lief ‘sessions, “Learning the

Game” and “When Will I Be Loved” from the Bunch album

Rock On, “Here in Silence” and “Man of Iron” from the Pass

of Arms soundtrack, and a previously unissued demo of

“Stranger to Himself ”.

In 2002, a previously unreleased, 2-CD live US concert

recording by Fairport Convention from 1974 featuring

Denny was released on the Burning Airlines label. Entitled

‘Before The Moon, it originated from a radio broadcast from

Ebbets Field in Denver, Colorado, on 23/24 May 1974. The

second disc was a limited release bonus with the original

release comprising the second set from the same concert.

This recording was re-released in shortened form as a single

disc in 2011 on the It’s About Music label entitled ‘Fairport

Convention with Sandy Denny: Ebbets Field 1974’.

Also in 2002, the American A&M Records issued a budgetprice

“20th Century Masters” compilation called ‘The Best of

Sandy Denny ‘with 10 tracks all available on Denny’s studio

albums.

In 2004 a second comprehensive five-CD box set was released

on the Fledg’ling record label called ‘A Boxful of Treasures’

that included many unreleased recordings, in particular a

whole disc of acoustic demos, many recorded at her home in

Byfield that was highly prized amongst fans and critics alike,

who had long asserted that her solo performances showed

her work in its best light, revealing the true quality of her

vocal style and compositions. Also in 2004, the Spectrum

label issued a 16-track compilation of previously released

material entitled ‘The Collection: Chronological Covers &

Concert Classics’, including a mix of studio recordings and

live excerpts from the Gold Dust Royalty concert.

In 2005, remastered versions of all Denny’s solo albums came

out with bonus tracks. Also in 2005, a single CD compilation

entitled ‘Where the Time Goes: Sandy ‘67’ was released on

Castle Music containing all of Saga’s Denny album tracks

(including the alternative recordings on It’s Sandy Denny),

together with two self accompanied tracks from Denny’s

recordings with The Strawbs.


91 |

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STUDIO ALBUMS

sandy denny

THE NORTH STAR GRASSMAN AND THE

RAVENS 1971

LINK HERE:

TRACK LIST:

Late November 4:25

Blackwaterside 4:07

The Sea Captain 3:07

Down In The Flood 3:17

John The Gun 4:35

Next Time Around 4:20

The Optimist 3:21

Let’s Jump The Broomstick 2:40

Wretched Wilbur 2:34

The North Star Grassman And The Ravens 3:25

Crazy Lady Blues 3:21

LIKE AN OLD FASHIONED WALTZ 1974

LINK HERE:

TRACK LIST:

Solo 4:24

Like An Old Fashioned Waltz 4:09

Whispering Grass 3:56

Friends 3:31

Carnival 5:44

Dark The Night 4:27

At The End Of The Day 6:28

Until The Real Thing Comes Along 3:40

No End 6:36

SANDY 1972

LINK HERE:

TRACK LIST:

It’ll Take A Long Time 5:14

Sweet Rosemary 2:26

For Nobody To Hear 4:15

Tomorrow Is A Long Time 3:54

Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood 4:31

Listen, Listen 3:57

The Lady 4:00

Bushes And Briars 4:00

It Suits Me Well 5:05

The Music Weaver 3:13

RENDEZVOUS 1977

LINK HERE:

TRACK LIST

I Wish I Was A Fool For You 4:25

Gold Dust 3:54

Candle In The Wind 4:08

Take Me Away 4:23

One Way Donkey Ride 3:34

I’m A Dreamer 4:45

All Our Days 7:25

Silver Threads And Golden Needles 3:40

No More Sad Refrains 2:48

| 90


discography

SONGS SUNG BY SANDY DENNY

3.10 TO YUMA - link

ALL I NEED IS YOU - link

ALL OUR DAYS - link

ALWAYS ON MY MIND - link

AND YOU NEED ME - link

AT THE END OF THE DAY - link

BALULALOW - link

BANKS OF THE NILE (Fotheringay) - link

BEEN ON THE ROAD SO LONG - link

BLACKWATERSIDE - link

BLACKWATERSIDE (BBC In Concert)

BRUTON TOWN (BBC In Concert) - link

BUSHES AND BRIARS - link

CARNIVAL - link

CHUFFA CHUFFA CHUFF - link

CRAZY LADY BLUES - link

CRAZY LADY BLUES (Demo)

CRAZY MAN MICHAEL (Fairport) - link

DARK THE NIGHT - link

DOWN IN THE FLOOD - link

ECOUTE ECOUTE - link

FAIRY TALE LULLABY - link

FAREWELL FAREWELL (Fairport) - link

FOR NOBODY TO HEAR - link

FOR SHAME OF DOING WRONG - link

FOTHERINGAY (Fairport) = link

FRIENDS - link

HERE IN SILENCE - link

HOW EVERYONE BUT SAM WAS A HYPOCRITE link

I’LL TAKE A LONG TIME - link

I’M A DREAMER - link

I’VE BEEN MY OWN WORST FRIEND - link

IF YOU SAW THROUGH MY EYES - link

INDIAN SUMMER - link

IT SUITS ME WELL - link

IT’LL TAKE A LONG TIME - link

JIMMIE BROWN THE NEWSBOY - link

JOHN THE GUN - link

JOHN THE GUN (BBC In Concert)

KING AND QUEEN OF ENGLAND - link

LATE NOVEMBER - link

LATE NOVEMBER (BBC Sessions)

LEARNING THE GAME (The Bunch) - link

LET’S JUMP THE BROOMSTICK - link

LIKE AN OLD FASHIONED WALTZ - link

LISTEN LISTEN - link

LORD BATEMAN - link

LOSING GAME - link

MAKE ME A PALLET ON YOUR FLOOR - link

MAN OF IRON - link

MILK AND HONEY - link

MUSIC WEAVER - link

Sandy Denny

MY RAMBLIN’ BOY - link

NEXT TIME AROUND - link

NEXT TIME AROUND (No Strings)

NO END - link

NO MORE SAD REFRAINS - link

NOTHING ELSE WILL DO - link

NOTHING MORE (fotheringay) - link

ON MY WAY - link

ONE MORE CHANCE - link

ONE WAY DONKEY RIDE - link

OPTOMIST - link

PIECES OF 79 & 15 - link

POOR JIMMY WILSON - link

PRETTY POLLY - link

QUIET JOYS OF BROTHERHOOD - link

SAIL AWAY TO THE SEA - link

THE SEA CAPTAIN - link

SHE MOVES THROUGH THE FAIR - link

SOLO - link

STAY AWHILE WITH ME - link

STRANGER TO HIMSELF - link

STRAWBERRY PICKING - link

SWEET ROSEMARY - link

SWEETLING - link

TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE IN ME - link

THE BALLAD OF EASY RIDER (Fairport) - link

THE FALLING LEAVES - link

THE FALSE BRIDE - link

THE LADY - link

THE LAST THING ON MY MIND - link

THE LEAVES OF LIFE - link

THE LOWLANDS OF HOLLAND (BBC Sessions) - link

THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL - link

THE NORTH STAR GRASSMAN AND THE RAVENS

(BBC In Concert) - link

THE OPTIMIST - link

THE POND AND THE STREAM (Fotheringay) - link

THE SANS DAY CAROL - link

THE SEA (Fotheringay) - link

THE SEA CAPTAIN - link

THIS TRAIN - link

TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME - link

TROUBLE IN MIND - link

TWO WEEKS LAST SUMMER - link

UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG - link

WALKING THE FLOOR OVER YOU - link

WHEN WILL I BE LOVED (The Bunch) - link

WHISPERING GRASS - link

WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES - link

WILD STRAWBERRIES - link

WILLIE MOORE- link

WRETCHED WILBUR - link

YOU NEVER WANTED ME - link

janeshieldsmedia@gmail.com 91 |

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phil

ochs

Philip David Ochs (December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976)

was an American songwriter, protest singer (or, as he

preferred, “topical singer”), and political activist. Ochs

was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, and political

commentary. He wrote approximately 200 songs throughout the

1960s and 1970s, and released eight albums.

Ochs performed at many political events throughout the

course of his career—including the 1968 Democratic National

Convention, multiple mass demonstrations sponsored by the

National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam,

civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events—

and was known to perform at benefits for free. Politically, early

in his career, Ochs described himself as a “left social democrat,”

but became an early revolutionary after the police riots at the

1968 Democratic National Convention, which had a profound

effect on his state of mind.

After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs’ mental

stability declined in the 1970s. He had a number of mental

health problems, including depression, bipolar disorder and

alcoholism, and died by suicide on April 9, 1976.

Ochs’ influences included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Buddy

Holly, Elvis Presley, Bob Gibson, Faron Young, and Merle

Haggard. His best-known songs include “I Ain’t Marching

Anymore”, “When I’m Gone”, “Changes”, “Crucifixion”, “Draft

Dodger Rag”, “Love Me, I’m a Liberal”, “Outside of a Small

Circle of Friends”, “Power and the Glory”, “There but for

Fortune”, and “The War Is Over”.

Born in El Paso, Texas, to Jacob “Jack” Ochs (August 11, 1909

– April 30, 1963), a physician who was born in New York to

Polish-Jewish parents, and Gertrude Ochs (née Phin; February

26, 1912 – March 9, 1994), who was born in Scotland to Jewish

parents. His parents met and married in Edinburgh where Jack

was attending medical school, and afterwards moved to the

United States. Ochs grew up with an older sister, Sonia (known

as Sonny, born April 12, 1937), and a younger brother, Michael

(born February 27, 1943).

After being drafted into the army, Jack was sent overseas near

the end of World War II and treated soldiers at the Battle of the

Bulge. His war experiences, however, affected his mental health

and he received an honorable medical discharge in November

1945. Upon arriving home, Jack was hospitalized for bipolar


Phil Ochs

disorder and depression, and was distant from his wife and

children. He was also unable to establish a successful medical

practice and instead worked at a series of hospitals around the

country. As a result, Ochs and his family moved frequently: first

to Far Rockaway, New York, when Ochs was a teenager; then to

Perrysburg in western New York, where he first studied music;

and then to Columbus, Ohio.

As a teen, Ochs was recognized as a talented clarinet player;

in an evaluation, one music instructor wrote: “You have

exceptional musical feeling and the ability to transfer it on

your instrument is abundant.” His musical skills allowed him

to play clarinet with the orchestra at the Capital University

Conservatory of Music in Ohio, where he rose to the status

of principal soloist before he was 16. Although Ochs played

classical music, he soon became interested in other music

sounds he heard on the radio, such as early rock icons (Buddy

Holly and Elvis Presley) and country artists (Faron Young,

Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams Sr., and Johnny Cash).

Ochs also spent a lot of time at the movies while living in Far

Rockaway, as there were three theaters in town. Because his

mother did not want to hire a babysitter, she instead gave her

sons money and the brothers saw five to six films each week.

He especially liked big screen heroes (John Wayne and Audie

Murphy) and later developed an interest in movie rebels

(Marlon Brando and James Dean).

From 1956 to 1958, Ochs was a student at the Staunton Military

Academy in rural Virginia, and after graduating, he returned to

Columbus and enrolled at Ohio State University. Unhappy after

his first quarter, 18-year-old Ochs took a leave of absence and

went to Florida, where was jailed for two weeks for sleeping on

a park bench in Miami, an incident he would later recall:

“Somewhere during the course of those fifteen days I decided to

become a writer. My primary thought was journalism ... so in a

flash, I decided—I’ll be a writer and a major in journalism.”

Ochs returned to Ohio State to study journalism and developed

an interest in politics, with a particular interest in the Cuban

Revolution of 1959. At Ohio State, he met Jim Glover, a fellow

student who was a devotee of folk music and whose father was

a socialist. Glover introduced Ochs to the music of Pete Seeger,

Woody Guthrie, and the Weavers. Glover taught Ochs how

to play guitar, and they debated politics. Ochs began writing

newspaper articles, often on radical themes. When the student

paper refused to publish some of his more radical articles, he

started his own underground newspaper called ‘The Word’, as

well as writing for the satire magazine, ‘The Sundial’, with fellow

classmate R.L. Stine. His two main interests, politics and music,

soon merged, and Ochs began writing topical political songs.

Ochs and Glover formed a duet called “The Singing Socialists”,

later renamed “The Sundowners”, but the duo broke up before

their first professional performance and Glover went to New

York City to become a folksinger.

Ochs’ parents and brother had moved from Columbus to

Cleveland, and Ochs started to spend more time there,

performing professionally at a local folk club called Farragher’s

Back Room. He was the opening act for a number of musicians

in the summer of 1961, including the Smothers Brothers. Ochs

met folk singer Bob Gibson that summer as well, and according


to Dave Van Ronk, Gibson became “the seminal influence” on

Ochs’ writing. Ochs continued at Ohio State into his senior year,

but was bitterly disappointed at not being appointed editorin-chief

of the college newspaper, and dropped out in his last

quarter without graduating. He left for New York, as Glover

had, to become a folksinger.

Ochs arrived in New York City in 1962 and began performing

in numerous small folk nightclubs, eventually becoming an

integral part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene. He

emerged as an unpolished but passionate vocalist who wrote

pointed songs about current events: war, civil rights, labor

struggles and other topics. While others described his music as

“protest songs”, Ochs preferred the term “topical songs”.

However, in order to get by, in November 1962, Ochs accepted

$50 to record a children’s album, a collection of traditional

popular campfire songs, titled Camp Favorites (1963). In 1963,

Cameo Records released this budget LP. Ochs requested his

name not be used and it wasn’t until well after his death that its

existence became known. The Campers consists of Ochs (who

is not credited on the record), an unknown female vocalist and

a group of children.

Ochs described himself as a “singing journalist”, saying he built

his songs from stories he read in Newsweek. By the summer of

1963, he was sufficiently well known in folk circles to be invited

to sing at the Newport Folk Festival, where he performed

“Too Many Martyrs” (co-written with Bob Gibson), “Talking

Birmingham Jam”, and “Power and the Glory”—his patriotic

Guthrie-esque anthem that brought the audience to its feet.

Other performers at the 1963 folk festival included Peter, Paul

and Mary, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Tom Paxton. Ochs’

return appearance at Newport in 1964, where he performed

“Draft Dodger Rag,” “Talking Vietnam Blues,” and other songs,

was widely praised. However, he was not invited to appear in

1965, the festival when Dylan infamously performed “Maggie’s

Farm” with an electric guitar. Although many in the folk world

decried Dylan’s choice, Ochs admired Dylan’s courage in

defying the folk establishment, and publicly defended him.

In 1963, Ochs performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall and

Town Hall in hootenannies. He made his first solo appearance

at Carnegie Hall in 1966. Throughout his career, Ochs would

perform at a wide range of venues, including civil rights rallies,

anti-war demonstrations, and concert halls.

Ochs contributed many songs and articles to the influential

Broadside Magazine. He recorded his first three albums for

Elektra Records: All the News That’s Fit to Sing (1964), I Ain’t

Marching Anymore (1965), and Phil Ochs in Concert (1966).

Critics wrote that each album was better than its predecessors,

and fans seemed to agree; record sales increased with each new

release.

On these records, Ochs was accompanied only by an acoustic

guitar. The albums contain many of Ochs’s topical songs, such

as “Too Many Martyrs”, “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, and

“Draft Dodger Rag”; and some musical reinterpretation of

older poetry, such as “The Highwayman” (poem by Alfred

Noyes) and “The Bells” (poem by Edgar Allan Poe). ‘Phil Ochs

in Concert’ includes some more introspective songs, such as

“Changes” and “When I’m Gone”.

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During the early period of his career, Ochs and Bob Dylan had

a friendly rivalry. Dylan said of Ochs, “I just can’t keep up with

Phil—and he’s gettin’ better and better”. On another occasion,

when Ochs criticized either “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or

Later)” or “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” (sources

differ), Dylan threw him out of his limousine, saying, “You’re

not a folk singer. You’re a journalist.”

In 1962, Ochs married Alice Skinner, who was pregnant with

their daughter Meegan, in a City Hall ceremony with Jim

Glover as best man and Jean Ray as bridesmaid, and witnessed

by Dylan’s girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo. Phil and Alice

separated in 1965, but they never divorced.

Like many people of his generation, Ochs deeply admired

President John F. Kennedy, even though he disagreed with the

president on issues such as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban

Missile Crisis, and the growing involvement of the United States

in the Vietnamese civil war. When Kennedy was assassinated on

November 22, 1963, Ochs wept. He told his wife that he thought

he was going to die that night. It was the only time she ever saw

Ochs cry.

Ochs’s managers during this part of his career were Albert

Grossman (who also managed Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul, and

Mary and Gordon Lightfoot) followed by Arthur Gorson.

Gorson had close ties with such groups as Americans For

Democratic Action, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating

Committee, and Students for a Democratic Society.

Ochs was writing songs at a fast pace. Some of the songs he

wrote during this period were held back and recorded on his

later albums.

In 1967, Ochs – now managed by his brother Michael—left

Elektra Records for A&M Records and moved to Los Angeles,

California. He recorded four studio albums for A&M: ‘Pleasures

of the Harbor’ (1967), ‘Tape from California’ (1968), ‘Rehearsals

for Retirement’ (1969), and the ironically titled ‘Greatest Hits’

(1970) (which actually consisted of all new material). For his

A&M albums, Ochs moved away from simply produced solo

acoustic guitar performances and experimented with ensemble

and even orchestral instrumentation, “baroque-folk”, in the

hopes of producing a pop-folk hybrid that would be a hit.

Critic Robert Christgau, writing in Esquire of Pleasures of the

Harbor in May 1968, did not consider this new direction a good

turn. While describing Ochs as “unquestionably a nice guy”,

he went on to say, “too bad his voice shows an effective range

of about half an octave and his guitar playing would not suffer

much if his right hand were webbed.” “Pleasures of the Harbor”,

Christgau continued, “epitomizes the decadence that has infected

pop since Sgt. Pepper. The gaudy musical settings ... inspire

nostalgia for the three-chord strum.”

With an ironic sense of humor, Ochs included Christgau’s

“webbed hand” comment in his 1968 songbook ‘The War is

Over ‘on a page titled “The Critics Raved”, opposite a full-page

picture of Ochs standing in a large metal garbage can. Despite

his sense of humor, Ochs was unhappy that his work was

not receiving the critical acclaim and popular success he had

hoped to achieve. Still, Ochs would joke on the back cover of

‘Greatest Hits’ that there were 50 Phil Ochs fans (“50 fans can’t

be wrong!”), a sarcastic reference to an Elvis Presley album that

bragged of 50 million Elvis fans.

None of Ochs’s songs became hits, although “Outside of a Small

Circle of Friends” received a good deal of airplay. It reached No.

119 on Billboard’s national “Hot Prospect” listing before being

pulled from some radio stations because of its lyrics, which

included “smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer”.

It was the closest Ochs ever came to the Top 40. Joan Baez,

however, did have a Top Ten hit in the U.K. in August 1965,

reaching No. 8 with her recording of Ochs’s song “There but

for Fortune”, which was also nominated for a Grammy Award

for “Best Folk Recording”. In the U.S. it peaked at No. 50 on the

Billboard charts—a good showing, but not a hit.

Although he was trying new things musically, Ochs did not

abandon his protest roots. He was profoundly concerned with

the escalation of the Vietnam War, performing tirelessly at

anti-war rallies across the country. In 1967, he organized two

rallies to declare that “The War Is Over, Is everybody sick of this

stinking war? In that case, friends, do what I and thousands of

other Americans have done—declare the war over.”—one in

Los Angeles in June, the other in New York in November. He

continued to write and record anti-war songs, such as “The War

Is Over” and “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land”. Other

topical songs of this period include “Outside of a Small Circle

of Friends”, inspired by the murder of Kitty Genovese, who

was stabbed to death outside of her New York City apartment

building while dozens of her neighbors reportedly ignored her

cries for help, and “William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park and

Escapes Unscathed”, about the despair he felt in the aftermath of

the Chicago 1968 Democratic National Convention police riot.[

Ochs was writing more personal songs as well, such as

“Crucifixion”, in which he compared the deaths of Jesus Christ

and assassinated President John F. Kennedy as part of a “cycle

of sacrifice” in which people build up heroes and then celebrate

their destruction; “Chords of Fame”, a warning against the

dangers and corruption of fame; “Pleasures of the Harbor”, a

lyrical portrait of a lonely sailor seeking human connection far

from home; and “Boy in Ohio”, a plaintive look back at Ochs’s

childhood in Columbus.

A lifelong movie fan, Ochs worked the narratives of justice and

rebellion that he had seen in films into his music, describing

some of his songs as “cinematic”. He was disappointed and bitter

when his onetime hero John Wayne embraced the Vietnam

War with what Ochs saw as the blind patriotism of Wayne’s

1968 film, The Green Berets:

Here we have John Wayne, who was a major artistic and

psychological figure on the American scene, ... who at one point

used to make movies of soldiers who had a certain validity, ... a

certain sense of honor about what the soldier was doing. ... Even

if it was a cavalry movie doing a historically dishonorable thing

to the Indians, even as there was a feeling of what it meant to be

a man, what it meant to have some sense of duty. ... Now today

we have the same actor making his new war movie in a war so

hopelessly corrupt that, without seeing the movie, I’m sure it is

perfectly safe to say that it will be an almost technically-robotview

of soldiery, just by definition of how the whole country has

deteriorated. And I think it would make a very interesting double

feature to show a good old Wayne movie like, say, She Wore a


Phil Ochs

Yellow Ribbon with The Green Berets. Because that would make

a very striking comment on what has happened to America in

general.

Ochs was involved in the creation of the Youth International

Party, known as the Yippies, along with Jerry Rubin, Abbie

Hoffman, Stew Albert, and Paul Krassner. At the same time,

Ochs actively supported Eugene McCarthy’s more mainstream

bid for the 1968 Democratic nomination for President, a

position at odds with the more radical Yippie point of view.

Still, Ochs helped plan the Yippies’ “Festival of Life” which

was to take place at the 1968 Democratic National Convention

along with demonstrations by other anti-war groups including

the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in

Vietnam.

Despite warnings that there might be trouble, Ochs went to

Chicago both as a guest of the McCarthy campaign and to

participate in the demonstrations. He performed in Lincoln

Park, Grant Park, and at the Chicago Coliseum, witnessed

the violence perpetrated by the Chicago police against the

protesters, and was arrested at one point. Ochs also purchased

the young boar who became known as the Yippie 1968

Presidential candidate “Pigasus the Immortal” from a farm in

Illinois.

The events of 1968 – the assassination of Martin Luther King

Jr. and of Robert F. Kennedy weeks later, the Chicago police

riot, and the election of Richard Nixon – left Ochs feeling

disillusioned and depressed. The cover of his 1969 album

‘Rehearsals for Retirement’ portrayed a tombstone with the

words:

PHIL OCHS

(AMERICAN)

BORN: EL PASO, TEXAS, 1940

DIED: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 1968

At the trial of the Chicago Seven in December 1969, Ochs

testified for the defense. His testimony included his recitation of

the lyrics to his song “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”. On his way

out of the courthouse, Ochs sang the song for the press corps;

to Ochs’s amusement, his singing was broadcast that evening by

Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News.

After the riot in Chicago and the subsequent trial, Ochs

changed direction again. The events of 1968 convinced him

that the average American was not listening to topical songs or

responding to Yippie tactics. Ochs thought that by playing the

sort of music that had moved him as a teenager he could speak

more directly to the American public.

Ochs turned to his musical roots in country music and early

rock and roll. He decided he needed to be “part Elvis Presley

and part Che Guevara”, so he commissioned a gold lamé suit

from Elvis Presley’s costumer Nudie Cohn. Ochs wore the

gold suit on the cover of his 1970 album, ‘Greatest Hits’, which

consisted of new songs largely in rock and country styles.

Ochs went on tour wearing the gold suit, backed by a rock

band, singing his own material along with medleys of songs by

Buddy Holly, Elvis, and Merle Haggard. His fans did not know

how to respond. This new Phil Ochs drew a hostile reaction


from his audience. Ochs’s March 27, 1970, concerts at Carnegie

Hall were the most successful, and by the end of that night’s

second show, Ochs had won over many in the crowd. The show

was recorded and released as ‘Gunfight at Carnegie Hall’.

During this period, Ochs was taking drugs to get through

performances. He had been taking Valium for years to help

control his nerves, and he was also drinking heavily. Pianist

Lincoln Mayorga said of that period, “He was physically abusing

himself very badly on that tour. He was drinking a lot of wine and

taking uppers. The wine was pulling him one way and the uppers

were pulling him another way, and he was kind of a mess. There

were so many pharmaceuticals around – so many pills. I’d never

seen anything like that.” Ochs tried to cut back on the pills, but

alcohol remained his drug of choice for the rest of his life.

Depressed by his lack of widespread appreciation and suffering

from writer’s block, Ochs did not record any further albums.

He slipped deeper into depression and alcoholism. His personal

problems notwithstanding, Ochs performed at the inaugural

benefit for Greenpeace on October 16, 1970, at the Pacific

Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia. A recording of his

performance, along with performances by Joni Mitchell and

James Taylor, was released by Greenpeace in 2009.

In August 1971, Ochs went to Chile, where Salvador Allende,

a Marxist, had been democratically elected in the 1970 election.

There he met Chilean folksinger Víctor Jara, an Allende

supporter, and the two became friends. In October, Ochs left

Chile to visit Argentina. Later that month, after singing at

a political rally in Uruguay, he and his American traveling

companion David Ifshin were arrested and detained overnight.

When the two returned to Argentina, they were arrested as they

got off the airplane. After a brief stay in an Argentinian prison,

Ochs and Ifshin were sent to Bolivia via a commercial airliner

where authorities were to detain them.

Ifshin had previously been warned by Argentinian leftist

friends that when the authorities sent dissidents to Bolivia, they

would disappear forever. When the airliner arrived in Bolivia,

the American captain of the Braniff International Airways

aircraft allowed Ochs and Ifshin to stay on the aircraft and

barred Bolivian authorities from entering. The aircraft then flew

to Peru where the two disembarked and they were not detained.

Fearful that Peruvian authorities might arrest him, Ochs

returned to the United States a few days later.

Ochs was having difficulties writing new songs during this

period, but he had occasional breakthroughs. He updated his

sarcastic song “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” as “Here’s

to the State of Richard Nixon”, with cutting lines such as “the

speeches of the Spiro are the ravings of a clown”, a reference

to Nixon’s vitriolic vice president, Spiro Agnew—sung as “the

speeches of the President are the ravings of a clown” after

Agnew’s resignation.

Ochs was personally invited by John Lennon to sing at a large

benefit at the University of Michigan in December 1971 on

behalf of John Sinclair, an activist poet who had been arrested

on minor drug charges and given a severe sentence. Ochs

performed at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally along with Stevie

Wonder, Allen Ginsberg, David Peel, Abbie Hoffman, and

many others. The rally culminated with Lennon and Yoko Ono,

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MAGAZINE

who were making their first public performance in the United

States since the breakup of the Beatles.

Although the 1968 election had left him deeply disillusioned,

Ochs continued to work for the election campaigns of antiwar

candidates, such as George McGovern’s unsuccessful

Presidential bid in 1972.

In 1972, Ochs was asked to write the theme song for the film

Kansas City Bomber. The task proved difficult, as he struggled

to overcome his writer’s block. Although his song was not used

in the soundtrack, it was released as a single.

In mid-1972, Ochs traveled to Australia and New Zealand and

then to Africa the following year, where he visited Ethiopia,

Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa. While visiting Tanzania

one night, he was attacked and choked by robbers in Dar es

Salaam, which damaged his vocal cords, causing a loss of the

top three notes in his vocal range. The attack also exacerbated

his growing mental problems, and he became increasingly

paranoid. Ochs believed the attack may have been arranged by

US government agents, perhaps the CIA. Still, he continued his

trip, even recording a single in Kenya, “Bwatue”.

On September 11, 1973, the Allende government of Chile was

overthrown in a coup d’état. Allende committed suicide during

the bombing of the presidential palace, and singer Victor Jara

was rounded up with other professors and students, tortured

and murdered. When Ochs heard about the manner in which

his friend had been killed, he was outraged and decided to

organize a benefit concert to bring to public attention the

situation in Chile, and raise funds for the people of Chile.

The concert, “An Evening with Salvador Allende”, was held on

May 9, 1974, at New York City’s Felt Forum, included films of

Allende; singers such as Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Dave Van

Ronk, and Bob Dylan; and political activists such as former

U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Dylan had agreed to

perform at the last minute when he heard that the concert had

sold so few tickets that it was in danger of being canceled. Once

his participation was announced, the event quickly sold out.

After the Chile benefit, Ochs and Dylan discussed the

possibility of a joint concert tour, playing small nightclubs.

Nothing came of the Dylan-Ochs plans, but the idea eventually

evolved into Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue.

The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. Ochs planned a

final “War Is Over” rally, which was held in New York’s Central

Park on May 11. More than 100,000 people came to hear Ochs,

joined by Harry Belafonte, Odetta, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon

and others. Ochs and Joan Baez sang a duet of “There but for

Fortune” and he closed with his song “The War Is Over”.

Ochs’ drinking became more and more of a problem, and his

behavior became increasingly erratic. He frightened his friends

both with his drunken rants about the FBI and CIA and about

his claiming to want to have Elvis’ manager Colonel Tom

Parker or Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders manage

his career.

In mid-1975, Ochs took on the identity of John Butler Train.

He told people that Train had murdered Ochs and that he,

John Butler Train, had replaced him. Ochs was convinced that

someone was trying to kill him, so he carried a weapon at all

times: a hammer, a knife, or a lead pipe.

His brother, Michael, attempted to have him committed to

a psychiatric hospital. Friends pleaded with him to get help

voluntarily. They feared for his safety because he was getting

into fights with bar patrons. Unable to pay his rent, he began

living on the streets.

After several months, the Train persona faded and Ochs

returned, but his talk of suicide disturbed his friends and

family. They hoped it was a passing phase, but Ochs was

determined. One of his biographers explains Ochs’ motivation:

By Phil’s thinking, he had died a long time ago: he had died

politically in Chicago in 1968 in the violence of the Democratic

National Convention; he had died professionally in Africa a

few years later when he had been strangled and felt that he

could no longer sing; he had died spiritually when Chile had

been overthrown and his friend Victor Jara had been brutally

murdered; and, finally, he had died psychologically at the hands

of John Train.

On Christmas Eve 1975, Ochs visited the apartment of

Larry Sloman and Dave Peller, which he had done semifrequently

near the end of 1975. On this particular evening,

Peller recorded Ochs singing ten songs, five of them new

and intended for an album that “would be an unflinching

narrative of his psychosis over the past year” which went by

the working title of ‘Duels in the Sun’. Five other songs were

also in some level of completion by this time. A second tape,

possibly recorded before Christmas Eve, features additional

songs intended for this project. This album would never come

to fruition beyond these two recordings.

In January 1976, Ochs moved to Far Rockaway, New York, to

live with his sister Sonny. He was lethargic; his only activities

were watching television and playing cards with his nephews.

Ochs saw a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with bipolar

disorder. He was prescribed medication, and he told his sister

he was taking it. On April 9, 1976, Ochs died by suicide by

hanging himself in Sonny’s home.

Years after his death, it was revealed that the FBI had a file of

nearly 500 pages on Ochs. Much of the information in those

files relates to his association with counterculture figures,

protest organizers, musicians, and other people described by

the FBI as “subversive”. The FBI was often sloppy in collecting

information about Ochs: his name was frequently misspelled

“Oakes” in their files, and they continued to consider him

“potentially dangerous” after his death.

Congresswoman Bella Abzug (Democrat from New York), an

outspoken anti-war activist who had appeared at the 1975 “War

is Over” rally, entered this statement into the Congressional

Record on April 29, 1976:

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, a young folksinger whose music

personified the protest mood of the 1960s took his own life. Phil

Ochs – whose original compositions were compelling moral

statements against the war in Southeast Asia – apparently felt

that he had run out of words.


Phil Ochs

While his tragic action was undoubtedly motivated by terrible

personal despair, his death is a political as well as an artistic

tragedy. I believe it is indicative of the despair many of the

activists of the 1960s are experiencing as they perceive a

government that continues the distortion of national priorities

that is exemplified in the military budget we have before us.

Phil Ochs’s poetic pronouncements were part of a larger effort to

galvanize his generation into taking action to prevent war, racism,

and poverty. He left us a legacy of important songs that continue

to be relevant in 1976—even though “the war is over”.

Just one year ago – during this week of the anniversary of the end

of the Vietnam War – Phil recruited entertainers to appear at the

“War is Over” celebration in Central Park, at which I spoke.

It seems particularly appropriate that this week we should

commemorate the contributions of this extraordinary young man.

Robert Christgau, who had been so critical of Pleasures of the

Harbor and Ochs’s guitar skills eight years earlier, wrote warmly

of Ochs in his obituary in The Village Voice. “I came around to

liking Phil Ochs’s music, guitar included,”

Christgau wrote. “My affection for Ochs no doubt prejudiced me,

so it is worth noting that many observers who care more for folk

music than I do remember both his compositions and his vibrato

tenor as close to the peak of the genre.”

On learning of Ochs’ death, Tom Paxton wrote a song titled

“Phil”, which he recorded for his 1978 album ‘Heroes’. Ochs is

also the subject of “I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night”, by

Billy Bragg, from his 1990 album ‘The Internationale’, which

was based on the Alfred Hayes/Earl Robinson song “Joe Hill”

which Ochs helped popularize. Ochs also had his own, different

song (“Joe Hill”) about the early 20th-century union activist/

songwriter. “Thin Wild Mercury,” by Peter Cooper and Todd

Snider, is about Ochs’s infamous clash with Dylan and getting

thrown out of Dylan’s limo.

Ochs is mentioned in the Dar Williams song “All My

Heroes Are Dead”, the Will Oldham song “Gezundheit”, the

Chumbawamba song “Love Me”, and the They Might Be Giants

song “The Day”. The Josh Joplin Group recorded a tribute to

Ochs on their album ‘Useful Music’. Schooner Fare recorded

“Don’t Stop To Rest (Song for Phil Ochs)” on their 1981 album

Closer to the Wind. Latin Quarter memorialized him in the

song “Phil Ochs” on their album Long Pig.

John Wesley Harding recorded a song titled “Phil Ochs,

Bob Dylan, Steve Goodman, David Blue and Me”, the title a

reference to the Ochs song “Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and

Me”. Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith wrote a song about Phil

entitled “Radio Fragile”, included in her album ‘Storms’. English

folk/punk songwriter Al Baker recorded a song about Ochs

entitled “All The News That’s Fit To Sing”, a reference to the title

of Ochs’s first album. Cajun musician Vic Sadot wrote a song

about Ochs entitled “Broadside Balladeer”. Singer-songwriter

Jen Cass’s “Standing In Your Memory”, and Harry Chapin’s

“The Parade’s Still Passing By” are tributes to Ochs. Leslie Fish

recorded “Chickasaw Mountain”, which is dedicated to Ochs, on

her 1986 album of that name.

The punk band Squirrel Bait cited Ochs as a major creative

influence in the liner notes of their 1986 album ‘Skag Heaven’,


and cover his “Tape From California”. The American hardcore

punk supergroup Hesitation Wounds wrote a song called

“P. Ochs (The Death of a Rebel)”, which appeared on their

self-titled debut EP in 2013. The song’s lyrics reference the

folk singer’s life and suicide. Ochs has also influenced Greek

folk-rock songwriters; Dimitris Panagopoulos’ Astathis

Isoropia (Unstable Equilibrium) (1987) was dedicated to his

memory. On the 2005 ‘Kind Of Like Spitting’ album ‘In the Red’,

songwriter Ben Barnett included his song “Sheriff Ochs”, which

was inspired by reading a biography of Ochs. On April 9, 2009,

Ochs’ friend Jim Glover performed a tribute to Ochs at Mother’s

Musical Bakery in Sarasota, Florida.

phil ochs

discography

All he News That’s Fit To Sing

1964 - Link here:

I Ain’t Marching anymore

1965 - Link here:

Phil Ochs In Concert

1966 - Link here:

Pleasures Of The Harbour

1967 - Link here:

Tape from California

1968 - Link here:

Rehearsals for Retirement

1969 - Link here:

Greatest Hits

1970 - Link here:

Gunfight at Carnegie Hall

1974 - Link here:

There and Now: Live in Vancouver

1991 - Link here:

Live at Newport

1996 - Link here:

Amchitka

2009 - Link here:

On My Way 1963

2010) - Link here::

Live Again

2014 - Link here:

Live in Montreal 10/22/66

2017 - Link here:

99 |

Remembering Folk Legends

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