I can still recall when Columbus Day always fell on the 12th, and you know what? I'm pretty happy it does today...but
that doesn't mean I think Columbus correctly named "the Indians,"
simply because he THOUGHT he found India. Or that he actually parked the Mayflower in October of 1492 at all--let alone, on the 12th. But all that's academic now; he actually docked the thing on the second Monday in October, as we now know...so we all could have a bank holiday, and take advantage of Macy*s sheet sales.
I also liked it better, back when Pluto was a bona fide planet. But that doesn't mean it has to be, if science proves otherwise.
Like many folks my age, I'm
used to "Mount McKinley" being the tallest peak in the Western
Hemisphere...but I'm perfectly okay with going BACK to "Mount Denali," if
that's what it was really called, hundreds of
years before we European invaders came along. After all, Denali is not a river in Alaska.
And yeah, I've always loved a good Redskins-Giants football game...but should our relatively recent sense of white "tradition" supersede the obvious INSULT to the 'Indians' we used to call "Redskins?"
My point is simple:
Despite
what O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck keep telling you, there's definitely something GOOD to be said, for "political correctness."
Without tact, deference, or decorum, we inevitably descend
into The Land of Trump--wherein snark is king, disparaging comments pass for "intelligence," and everyone is...what's the word I'm looking for, here? Oh yeah: Nuts.
So, if I was "for it, before I was against it," regarding the Redskins or Pluto, or the 'Indians' or even Columbus Day...so what?
I
personally have no problem changing my mind, to make other people feel better about
themselves--or correcting myself if I've been wrong; or seeing things another way, given the wisdom time is supposed
to bring us all.
Maybe we should even re-name "Columbus Day."
I hereby nominate
"Stop Pretending You're Always Right" Day! Or how about...
They still sell
these illustrations on the streets of New York City for five bucks or so, but I guess not
too many people frame them and hang 'em in their laundry rooms. (Any
wonder I'm single? )
Like a few of you, I'm sure, I am old enough to have seen all
Your faithful correspondent, 1978
these guys play
baseball together at Yankee Stadium several times, as far back as the
fabulous 1961 season. I can still remember every player at every
position that year, and even their back-ups. (As comedian Robert Klein
once put it, "I had a permanent 'NY' dent in my forehead!") You knew Yogi was as much a legend as anybody there...there's a reason there
are three guys in the above illustration, and not just two. He was
in his sunset years by the time Roger Maris came along, and yet it
never seemed odd to us kids that Berra was the last guy in the lineup
who'd actually played in the '40s, with Rizzuto, DiMaggio, Crosetti, and
the rest. Back when Yogi came up, the Yankees still carried six
catchers on their roster, and first-stringer Bill Dickey wore the number
"8." They'd never need six catchers again. Nor would there ever
again be any doubt--even with all of Dickey's own accomplishments--who
eventually OWNED the (now retired) #8 Yankee uniform.
Jerry
Seinfeld often jokes that these days, baseball fans just 'root for
laundry'--since the players change teams so often, we hardly know their
names. Not so, in Yogi's time. I can still remember watching the games on WPIX, (Channel 11 in NY)...and Berra was the clutchest of all clutch
hitters. While Mickey struggled with his legs and struck out as much as
he homered, and Roger Maris hit what they (unfairly) disparaged as "cheap"
homers over the short right field fence, Yogi was a stone powerhouse.
Credit: The Yogi Berra Museum
But he
could bunt as well as swing away, and he often clobbered the ball to the
upper deck of the opposite field--not something everyone can do. His defensive play behind the plate alone would have made him an all-star. He was like a brick wall; nothing got past him safely. Anyway, that's a thumbnail sketch of the player.
Then came the coach, the manager--and the coach and the manager again. All good. George Steinbrenner never apologized to any Yankee for
anything that I know of, besides
Yogi--who literally stayed away from Yankee Stadium for 14 straight
years after his abrupt firing as manager in '64. (His sin was losing the seventh
game of the World Series to the Cardinals, and it stung even more because he was fired by Ralph Houk, who'd been his own Yankee manager and predecessor.) They should have given him a
*medal* for getting a lousy team that far! (Mantle was literally on his 'last legs,' and Maris had faded almost as fast as he rose.)
During Yogi's extended boycott, every single Yankee fan *knew* something wasn't right
in the world. The team stunk. People lost interest. And even the
acquisitions of Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter from the A's wouldn't
"fix" the Yankee spirit, until Yogi Berra came back, for real. It
wasn't until he did, and the team once again got his blessing, that a
new 'Yankee dynasty' was born.
Without exception, Yogi Berra became the most beloved living Yankee. And then there were the sayings--the 'Yogi-isms' which perhaps more than anything, cemented his legend.
Phil Rizzuto (as a Yankee announcer) had started quoting Yogi
"sayings" on slow game days, but it was probably Yogi's boyhood chum from St.
Louis--Joe Garagiola--who actually
enshrined (and sometimes embellished) the stories, endlessly reciting "Yogi quotes," until finally there were
books and talk show appearances, making another whole 'life' for the
Italian fireplug behind the plate. His malapropisms made even Ringo Starr seem like a pale
imitation. Ringo once famously blurted out, "It's been a hard day's night," giving his
bandmates the title for a movie. That was good enough, and very
Yogi-like.
But Yogi was the Heavyweight Champion of such sayings. (Ogden Nash may have been his equal, but he made his stuff up on purpose. Yogi Berra was truly 'a natural.') Now that he's gone, the internet will no doubt add FAKE quotes to all the
real ones, as it likes to do, with all kinds of memes that start out
accurate and end up fiction, because that is the time we live in--when
people attempt to feel 'legendary,' by attaching something THEY thought
up to a famous name, not their own. What a world, eh? That
widespread (and relatively new) lack of integrity was foreign to Yogi
Berra. In fact, he was so modest, he'd often shrug when asked about a
particularly famous quote, and say "I'm not sure. They TELL me I said
it..." His humility had the ring of truth you can bet will disappear
within a few months, as one after another, folks add their lame quotes
to his image, and pretend. (Just like they have with 'George Carlin' and so many others.) That's the age we're in now. The age of liars. Photoshop. False colors and enhanced images. Yogi Berra came from another time entirely, which wasn't over 'til...well...it really is over now. And ya know what? Yogi was right about the whole game, be it baseball or life. "...it got late early."
____________________________ This opinion column is Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved.
____________ Here's a cool one hour documentary about Yogi Berra. Enjoy...
Thursday is Election Day, here in
Nashville. We will pick a new Mayor for the first time in 8 years of
unprecedented growth. No matter how you vote, I urge you to vote! Here are my own thoughts on this election. By Peter Rodman
The notion that all liberals must vote for Megan Barry for Mayor of Nashville is preposterous. Just below you will find one of her numerous TV ads (called "Earn") which repeats over and over again how she’s going to “earn” our votes. The plain fact is, she hasn’t. On the issues we all care about most, Ms. Barry has been vague, if not slippery. But my instinct would still be to support her, because I disagree with (the more conservative) David Fox on even more issues. The problem with Ms. Barry, for me, is one of trust. Look for yourself:
"I want to earn your vote," she says over the music, "because these are fights that I am willing to keep fighting!" ...huh? Now watch the above Robert Redford scene from The Candidate, and draw your own conclusions.
Any of Megan Barry's ads (or speeches) could just as accurately be called “Continue,” because her obvious intention is to continue the mindless madness of ‘growth without purpose’ that has recently begun obliterating the Nashville I moved to, over 25 years ago.
Downtown Nashville, 2015~ Photograph Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman.
Current Mayor Karl Dean has giddily welcomed the world to Nashville, lopping 90% of his attention (and our resources) into a single square mile of our 7,500 square mile city: ...downtown. He has shown laughably little interest in outlying areas-- which, let's face it, produce few politically beneficial headlines. Police and Metro Codes enforcement are a joke everywhere else but downtown--and I'm not just talking about “cars on lawns,” although that should have been cracked down on years ago. (Just try selling your house, next door to some slob whose lawn is littered with vehicles.) Just this year, Mr. Dean attempted to fob off the entire downtown jail on Near South Nashville, in order to clear out yet another classic building...so developers could erect even more condos downtown. The madness has got to stop--and the sad truth is, it WON’T stop, under a ‘Mayor Megan Barry.’
I have repeatedly been told Megan Barry’s a nice person, and I believe that. More than one friend has written that I should “Have coffee with her!” as a remedy for any nagging doubts about trusting her to be more than just a continuation of the voracious 'Karl Dean Growth Machine.' I don’t need to.
From the earliest days of our seven-candidate scrum, Ms. Barry--and no one else--was the candidate whose campaign first pulled a smear campaign. It was nasty, too. As Bill Freeman (a fellow liberal) outspent and out-polled his six rivals, Ms. Barry used her connections at The Tennessean to parlay story after (inaccurate) story into portraying him as a right wing conservative. For example: Freeman is pro choice, and a ‘pro life’ group of protesters followed him around for several days, finally tracking him down in a parking lot, where they videotaped him answering their taunts, by saying he agreed that abortion shouldn’t be used as birth control--an obvious way to get rid of these pests. Quite strangely, Megan Barry was there before the story was even written--the ONLY candidate asked for (or ready with) a retort for publication---and although she knew it was inaccurate, immediately painted Freeman as ‘anti-choice.’ The next morning’s paper carried a headline to the effect that ‘Freeman Speaks to Anti-Abortion Group,’ as if he had given some kind of speech to them in support of their ‘pro life’ views! It was this kind of chicanery that gradually whittled away liberal votes from Mr. Freeman, until Barry eeked out a narrow victory. The Tennessean later endorsed Ms. Barry, though the slant of its ‘story telling’ columns was transparent from the very beginning. It then proceeded to chip away at Mr. Freeman’s commanding lead, by citing “polls” that turned out to be Barry-sponsored. (These are commonly known as ‘push polls,’ designed to ask questions which lead to a desired answer--thereby puffing up the numbers for a given candidate. No reputable news organizations report them as ‘news.’ The Tennessean has pretty much damaged its reputation beyond repair, during this mayoral race.) Essentially, “the fix” has been in for Megan Barry, from the start. In the early going she spent very little, as free publicity emerged from the paper. Meanwhile, Barry quietly held fundraiser after fundraiser, in the kind of homes where the crown molding and nick-nacks alone cost nearly as much as most other Nashville dwellings.
David Fox has long sought to be portrayed as the ‘fiscally responsible, conservative’ candidate--code words for the usual 'austerity' Republicans tout as the solution to everything, these days. I have never voted Republican in my life, and don’t intend to start now. And yet… What if paring back our ‘It City’ bullshit resulted in a return to paying attention to how we grow, instead of just growth-for-its-own-sake? What if fewer resources were siphoned off from the rest of the city for downtown, and more attention was paid to details--like the depressing collection of Gannett circulars piling up in driveways all over town, while that conglomerate continues to chuck ‘em in driveways overnight, every Wednesday? The amount of trash that generates weekly--from literally hundreds of thousands of yellow plastic bags that do NOT go away, and often are left to rot for weeks or months at a time--is staggering.
It's technically illegal...but Mayor Dean looks the other way. What if he didn't? It’s precisely the kind of ‘boring’ detail Karl Dean abhors. Unless there’s a blue ribbon to cut--and a high profile ceremony to go with it--Mayor Dean would rather not even be there.
Megan Barry’s backers--including Gannett Publishing, Karl Dean, and most of our mega-developers--consist almost entirely of the entrenched towniecontingent. Most of her support comes from Belle Meade and Green Hills, where incomes are high and very few neighborhoods endure the kind of ‘shoebox-building’ on tiny house lots we’re seeing in East Nashville and elsewhere, these days. Ms. Barry has been Mayor Dean’s most solid supporter, on
Nashville's "Mass Transit," circa 2015:
A man waits on Nolensville Road for one of the
'hourly' buses that never seem to arrive. Photograph Copyright 2015 Peter Rodman.
everything from the insulting and ridiculous “AMP” bus lane proposal (connecting West End to East Nashville, instead of North to South, where people actually need a better bus system) to charter schools--which increasingly siphon tax dollars away from our public schools, and into a select few 'better performing' ones.
Here’s my opinion on charter schools: I gladly pay my school taxes, though I have no children. But can I withdraw MY tax dollars from public schools, for another purpose of my own choosing? Of COURSE not!!! Neither should you, as a parent, be able to do so. I fully sympathize with your desire to better educate your kid…but the Public School system only works when we all pitch in to it, period. If schools are under-performing, the answer is more resources--not withdrawing tax monies from them to fund your family's individual desires. Charter schools aren't "choice"--they're welfare for the few, at the expense of the many. Nashville’s public schools deserve better. Neither Mr. Fox nor Ms. Barry is in the right place, on this issue.
I always assumed I’d vote for Ms. Barry, until I finally saw all the debates, and realized I don't see much substance behind the pleasant, slightly-forced smile. She speaks in platitudes. It’s scary how her vagueness gets rewarded, too--because tons of corporate 'growth' money has lined up behind her. Never forget, her underlying message is this: “Continue the Mayor Dean legacy.”
There are many great things Dean has done, mostly by picking low-hanging fruit and taking obvious paths. After all, downtown Nashville was more or less an empty canvas, when he started! There was virtually no residential housing downtown back then, compared to now. But he’s managed to “grow” a theme park, not a real city. There’s not a single drug store, grocery store, or hardware store--think about that--in all of downtown Nashville! Name any other major city you could say that about. You can’t...because it doesn’t exist.
~ Nature is losing the fight, in downtown Nashville's 'Gulch' ~ Photograph Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman.
As Bill Freeman pointed out in the first mayoral debate, Nashville ranks #49 in American cities, size wise. The Top 48 cities all have REAL mass transit--meaning some sort of RAIL system, or a vast network of buses, or both. But Nashville hasn’t bothered to even consider anything on the scale that it desperately needs--and the sooner, the better. We are slowly watching our city strangle itself, with congestion and growth. “The way I figure it, we’re 10 years behind--and even if we start tomorrow, it’ll take that much more time just to fund, plan and build a mass transit system,” Freeman said. "So that's a total of 20 years behind, but we're still gonna need real mass transit connecting all these areas." A network of REGIONAL TRAINS linking one end of middle Tennessee to the other seems like the obvious answer--but no candidates besides Freeman showed even the slightest interest in it. Both Fox and Barry have continued to use generalities like “every neighborhood counts” in their stump speeches…but neither has offered anything substantive, that would effect real change. In my opinion, we've ended up with a runoff between amiable (Barry), goofy (Fox), but sadly unimaginative candidates. So it all boils down to this: If neither candidate is my cup of tea, which one do I think would do the LEAST damage to the city I love, during the next four years? Mr. Fox is diametrically opposed to my every stand on social issues, I’m sure. After all, he’s conservative--I am liberal. But Ms. Barry’s emphasis on social issues is an insult to our intelligence. (What the hell does the MAYOR have to do with a woman’s right to choose, gun control, or ANY of that stuff? The answer is “nothing.”) And yet, Barry’s ad campaign and debate fodder has been peppered with these topics, as if to obscure her voracious appetite for unfettered GROWTH. (She in fact supported Mayor Dean’s idea to move the jail out of downtown, and foist it upon South Nashville to clear the way for more downtown development--something she rarely talks about, and a direct indication of her intent to “continue” --her word--the Dean legacy.)
Have you had enough growth yet, Nashville? ...because I have! At this point, I've reluctantly decided I am ***anti-growth.*** We need to put the brakes on, and reconnoiter. Regroup. We need a plan. It's not that we have such a bad growth plan; it's that we have no plan. ('Just Keep Growing' is not aplan.)
I’m not sure how badly Mr. Fox's ‘austerity’ will affect this town, other than to slow it all down a bit. And seeing as how that’s not necessarily such a bad thing, I’m going to hold my nose and vote for him. Because fighting back against mindless growth is the real "fight worth fighting," Megan.
_________________________________________________________________________ This Opinion Column Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved.
There’s a certain comfort in knowing an artist’s sensibilities and tastes remain intact, even after 5 or 6 decades. The downside might be that you can hear echoes of their past work, in any of their new work. The upside is exactly the same.
Some critics might mistake predictability for rust, but that’s like saying a movie sequel should throw out all that came before it. (Or even that Gramps should never have processed the wisdom he accumulated, along the way.) Two new albums put the kibosh on that notion, to varying degrees and in entirely different ways. I thought you’d like to know...but first, if you will…a bit of history:
It's my belief that a reflexive fear of irrelevance knee-jerked the community of ‘rock critics’ into defending 'hip-hop' as the most wonderful thing since Elvis. Well, it ain’t. (But that discussion’s for another day.) I only bring it up here, because those same critics (Rolling Stone, for example) would rather be caught dead than to unabashedly praise a new James Taylor or Danny O’Keefe album. And that is precisely what I am here to do...with a few minor caveats. I didn't wish to engage in the usual “He’s a national treasure” banter here, but it's unavoidable. We kinda know that, about both of ‘em.
The questions for me, before hearing either of these new projects, were:
How will an entirely new set of original songs fare, as each artist enters his sunset years?
Can 60 and 70-somethings really create new work as relevant as the body of classic stuff that put them on the map, nearly a half century ago?
Are they doomed to merely re-recite the same set of music each and every night on the road, for the rest of their years on this planet?
The answers are, "Nicely, yes, and...yes."
When he was still in his twenties, Taylor wrote of this very phenomenon:
“See me singin' about ‘Fire and Rain?’
Let me just say it again:
I’ve seen fives, and I’ve seen tens!
It was strong hit
from the Money Machine
I was sittin' on top…
On top of the goddamn world…”
O'Keefe, too, had profound doubts about what it all meant, back in the ’70s:
“It ain’t for the money, and it’s only for awhile
You stalk about the rooms; you roll away the miles
Gamblers in the neon, clinging to guitars; ‘You’re right about the moon, you’re wrong about the stars’
And when you stop, to let ‘em know you got it down…
It’s just another town, along the road.”
With breathtaking self-awareness, these young men confided in their millions of fans--at the peak of their fame and fortune--about all the self-doubt success had brought them. Even more impressive was the cool absence of self-pity, in both Taylor's "Money Machine" and O'Keefe's "The Road." Each possessed a keen eye for taking that emotional ‘selfie’-- without any of the self-congratulatory posturing one might expect today.
All of which neatly brings us to "now."
How, I wondered, would these laser-like songwriting pens fare--especially after such lengthy absences from the studio, and (quite frankly) at such an advanced age? Had time dulled their swords? The answer to that one, delightfully, is “No.” Time has only brought each writer more wisdom--which is a writer’s personal knife sharpener.
Danny O’Keefe has just made the best album of his entire career. In fact, it’s got so many treasures, so much lyrical depth, and so many different personalities underneath the singer’s voice and the players' colorings, I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around all of it. This is how albums should be! Light Leaves the West isn't something you hear once and say, “Okay…got it.” It's a work of deceptive beauty that may not even grab you, on first listen--but return visits are as rewarding as a new glance at a favorite painting. You'll go back to the museum wondering how much you missed the first time, confident there’s more to discover. There is. This album dips into a rich palette of musical colors. O’Keefe began exploring most of its musical themes as a man in his twenties--jazzy minor sevenths, suspended riffs, knowing pauses before key punchlines--and longtime fans will be happy to hear this fully ripened version of his unique perspective on life...which amounts to a whimsical, sometimes wistful shrug.
Danny O'Keefe
The writer in him sees what we all see, and accepts it. It's his from-the-heart voice that provides the emotion. O’Keefe's fans will certainly recognize his arranging skills: At various times the musical ‘stops’ echo “The Road,” or his signature song, “Goodtime Charlie’s Got the Blues,” or even the more ethereal “Magdalena”-- but those were indeed Breezy Stories, compared to the deep thoughts O’Keefe has crafted here.
Light begins propitiously with "You Don't Have to Be Right (You Have to Be Ready)." The sprightly pop opening quickly draws you in with major chords, and just as quickly calms you down with jazzy colorings, like a Seattle sunset whose fuzzy beauty takes a few minutes to emerge. Danny begins to sing:
"Even the dreamers don't dream any dreams, any more.
Luxury items; now that's hard to afford..."
Almost immediately, you know you're listening to a poetic voice like no other. Old timers may actually feel as though they've been awakened-- Rumpelstiltskin-style--by some long-forgotten seer, making his long-awaited 'second coming.'
"They tell ya it's all done with wires; I don't think it's true
It's all done with mirrors, just between me and you..."
O'Keefe is quite obviously right and ready.
That opener makes a musical nod to 1972's "The Road," as O'Keefe sets up the payoff (title) line with a kind of 'wait for it...okay, here it comes' set-up...and I find in that more whimsy than redundance.
What's happening here is essentially a re-awakening. Danny O'Keefe has reached a level of comfort with his perplexed nature, and that acceptance seems to have pulled the shades up, and allowed more light in the writer's room.
The light that's left "the west" is shining in on his writer's heart, and it shows throughout this gem. Nowhere does he foresake his familiar styles; mostly, he just updates them.
(Fans of the ethereal "Magdalena" will find "Ultramarine" similar in feel but even more rewarding, and so on.) I might have liked his voice to be miked a bit closer, as the words are sometimes hard to hear--and always well worth hearing. In fact, the worst thing I can say about this album is that with a baker's dozen of the best lyrics I've heard in a long time, it's a shame there isn't a deluxe booklet with every single song lyric there, to pour over. They're available on his website, but it's not the same thing. I haven't told him this--and I have no idea how he'd feel about it--but I'm hoping some go-gettin' record company strikes a deal with him to "deluxify" this album, and give it the proper distribution, packaging and promotion it richly deserves. (Hey, Starbucks...how 'bout it?This'd be a perfect fit!)
On the plus side, I've heard nothing that sounds this close to Danny O'Keefe since...well...since Danny O'Keefe! Songs like "The Ice Cream Changes" are at once illuminating, romantic, and inspiring:
"Listenin' to those ice cream changes,
Time has turned us into strangers;
Still, the music sweeps along...
Turnin' memories into songs"
See what he did there? In O'Keefe's world, memories turn into songs, not the other way around. He's inviting you to view things from the writers' hard-earned perspective, which is way more interesting than some sort of cheesy nostalgia trip.
Likewise, in "Help Me Up" O'Keefe alludes to the "I've fallen and I can't get up" ads, but without the usual yucks...not an easy thing to do, especially insofar as he knew you'd wanna have a moment of snark there, and instead lasers in on your compassionate self. That is the gift of a great writer.
To be honest, I could probably write a whole blog about each song. To be merciful, I won’t...
I've heard way more than my share of song lyrics in this life, and not much strikes me as "new" anymore, but there are at least a couple head-turning thoughts in every single song, on Light Leaves the West. I am grateful for this visit with a mind we should all know better, and a voice that hasn't lost a step in all these years. They say even God came back down to Earth, to revise and update His previous book. This record is Danny O'Keefe's New Testament.
--HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
James Taylor never really went away. His summer shed tours have been packin' houses for decades, and in recent years he's done pared-down world tours, cover albums, concert albums, and Christmas records--pretty much all the things an artist does, when he's done everything else.
He is regularly feted with 'lifetime achievement' awards and blue ribbons, all very well deserved...but Before This World is his first collection of new, original songs in 13 years. As with most singers after a certain age, the voice is ever-so-slightly less supple than it once was, and the "funky James" part of his act is hit-and-miss these days, though still a highlight of any show. I have to confess too, I am often distracted by 'outside information' beyond the music, when listening to new material from an old favorite, or even somebody new. When JT first came around, for example, the back-story was that of an underdog--fresh out of in-patient therapy, and a chance meeting with Peter Asher that resulted in his first record contract.
James Taylor, then.
Fast-forward about a half-century, and you've got a 67 year old superstar who's weathered every trend (and every classic pitfall of stardom) to become (you guess it!)... a National Treasure. Why do I bring all this up again? Because it matters. Why even try to ignore his significance in our lives, as the first singer-songwriter of the whole era which helped define us? If Taylor was an underdog at the start, he's the obvious 'overdog' now--both artistically, financially, and practically.
James Taylor, recording Before This World in his home studio.
Not everyone can walk across their driveway to a world class studio they own, and find Steve Gadd (and the rest of JT's A-list band) waiting there to record. I suspect it took him some time to be entirely comfortable bringing his band into his studio, to record his songs...
"I was born singing, yes I am Grew up some kind of travelin' man;
Sunday morning, pack my things Say 'So long, Sweet Potato, I'm on the road again'..."
In one sense, this album is standard James fare, enhanced by note-perfect (at times almost sterile sounding) attention to detail. It's also a return to form, of sorts--echoing not so much his Apple or Columbia days, but the wintery albums he made for Warner Bros. (some of them recorded at another 'home studio') back in the mid '70s.
"And my favorite thing is to miss my home when I'm gone...soon as I'm gone..."
Despite its higher profile numbers (like "Angels of Fenway," which panders to Red Sox nation--annoying this Yankee fan, to no end!) the real gems on this album are hidden in the running order.
"I'm not smart enough for this life I've been livin' A little bit slow, for the pace of the game
It's not I'm ungrateful, for all I've been given
But nevertheless, just the same..."
"Montana" is a stone classic--worthy of your 'repeat' setting, and trust me, it will bear repeated listens, even if you don't immediately 'get' the line "over the ocean from here" being plunked into a song about such a landlocked place. (Is he missing Montana? Nope. Turns out that's An Extra Large Thought, about the tectonic formation of Montana.) Here's a recent performance of "Montana," followed by an oldie you'll know. His 'studio voice' is of course a lot less shaky than this live performance on a nationally televised morning show. Either way, the new song 'bests' the old one, for me.
Again, the album version of "Montana" is far better than the above clip. The studio is James's friend, more now than ever. When he sings note-perfect, and over a perfectly recorded electric bass, it's as if time has stood still. On this record, he's ageless. In person, not as much. When you hear the gorgeously double-tracked voice sing an extended "Ohhhhhh..." at the beginning of the "Montana" chorus, you ain't leavin'. It's an emotional high point...and would be for any artist, of any age. Figure out the lyrics to that song another day; once you hear the studio version, you're gonna wanna hear it again. This, I know.
"Snowtime" is an obvious sequel to "Only A Dream in Rio," at least in musical terms...and JT's background singers pretty much elevate things beyond anything mere mortals might do in their home studios. If it weren't James, you might wonder if it'd ever get recorded. He manages to rhyme "mamba, samba and "La Bamba," conjures "the frozen man" yet again, and begins the track with a line or two of Spanish--almost as if to throw everything into rescuing a so-so number. But in the end, you're glad he did. Because why not hear "Rio 2.0," applied to the Rio Grande? See? That's why the ancillary/background factors matter, in assessing an album like this. "You And I Again" is possibly the most melodic new song here, and it's terrific. Too many other tracks stay within a four or five note range--and while I understand why, it's hard to give our multi-millionaire friend a pass, on decorating just any mundane melody with tens-of-thousands of dollars, in production. Sorry...just bein' honest. Having said that (and I realize this'll sound incongruous), this is a GREAT album, compared to anything else out there today. My big problem (and James's) may be in comparing anything he does today, to the dude in his twenties and thirties, who was full o' nothin' but musical juice. That part is gone. This, on the other hand, is the dry James--an acquired taste, for connoisseurs who've stuck with him through it all--for those of us who've been with him a while...and by "a while," I mean 47 years or so.
As for value, it can't be beat. A well-to-do artist can easily afford to double your 'entertainment value' for less than 15 bucks, and this CD comes with not just a booklet but a bonus 'Making Of' DVD, which gives you a glimpse of James's process these days. I'm always grateful when an artist of this caliber gives us a peek behind the curtain, and into his creative process, though some might find it a bit much to see his cushy compound sold as matter-of-fact beauty anyone might have. (Any mere 'rustic' setting, this ain't...) Still, he's more than earned it--wouldn't you agree?
Some of the album ("Far Afghanistan") is the kind of stuff that relies on elaborate production techniques to decorate awkward songs that would never stand up, given a lesser voice. But that's just it:
James Taylor has earned not just his bounty, but our trust. And as an artist, he's rarely let us down.
This album fits nicely in his canon, alongside countless other things of beauty he's given us. Who knows? Maybe only two or three songs will last, but that's okay too. (It's a pretty good ratio, by today's standards.) Here is an American voice for the ages. James Taylor's voice is perhaps more expressive in its plaintive delivery and tonal inflections, than anyother in pop music.
That he isn't given more plaudits from rock's critical community is their loss, not ours...or his.
Fact is, they (and pretty much they alone, meaning the critics) missed (and thereby dissed) a great one.
This is our old friend, James. Maybe slightly less tuneful nowadays, but far more competent a recording artist than the kid we first met 47 years ago.
Before This World takes few chances, but that's a good thing. It's a breath of fresh air, a return to form, a comfortable pair of shoes, and a warm place to lay down.
NOTE: There were no videos or full songs available to post here from Danny O'Keefe's new album, but here's Amazon's '30 second preview' of a track from Light Leaves the West. You will need to scroll down and click "PLAY," once you get here: Amazon's "preview" snippet of "Help Me Up"
_______________________________ This opinion column is Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved. Opinions about music are by their very nature subjective; mine are no better than yours--that's what makes music so great! And it's why I rarely write "reviews" at all...but I was hoping this might help the curious, my age, who wondered about these new albums from our old faves.
By Peter Rodman Most of us like to 'joke' that every time we go downtown, Nashville seems to have changed into a completely different city.
Downtown Nashville, Tennessee: City, or Theme Park?
But it's no joke; that's how fast we've been growing. In retrospect, the recipe was fairly simple: Take one national TV show (Nashville), one very tourist-friendly mayor, lots of prime land, a dearth of residential properties downtown; Add several hundred thousand millennials, and stir. Nashville had the advantage--rare among cities our size--of having virtually no pre-existing residential housing in its core area, as recently as ten years ago. So in a way, this city was a blank jigsaw puzzle when Mayor Karl Dean took office, and nobody likes to move the pieces around more than our mayor.
Even the old standbys are harder to get to, now.
Let me be clear: I think Mayor Dean's done a fine job, picking every single piece of low-hanging fruit there was. Someone had to do it, and he did it very well. His main job, as he saw it, was to once-and-for-all establish our downtown area as a national, regional, and local destination. And guess what: It worked! The only problem is, the same square mile is like a pair of dress shoes he polishes over and over again, while the rest of the city gets treated like a forgotten pair of sneakers, way in the back of the closet. Again, much of what has happened has been for the better...but Mayor Dean's failure to redirect his loving gaze toward any other area of this vast city has been positively maddening.
The former 'Hickory Hollow Mall'--now hollow, indeed. I like to call it 'The Mayor Dean Mall.' Providing a mere few 'meeting rooms' among miles of empty storefronts shows his utter lack of interest in South Nashville.
Tiny sections of our newly vacant shopping malls have become libraries, or 'community meeting halls' ...but they still look like haunted ruins from a post-nuclear era. Greer Stadium is a ghost town now, having been abandoned for a gleaming new stadium--closer to downtown, of course. Nolensville Road has become, in Dean's own words, a favorite "ethnic corridor," instead of seeing any gleaming skyscrapers of its own--just 3 or 4 miles south of Broadway and 2nd Avenue. But who wants to be in a left-out-of-the-spoils "corridor?" It sounds like the children's table, at Thanksgiving. What's wrong with this picture? The answer is, "A lot."
Mindless, rampant construction of pricey condos--without any basic amenities other than bars and restaurants--does not bode well for Nashville's future, if we truly plan to be a "major city."
The real question should be "What do we want from our NEXT mayor?" More of the same? Many seem to think so...but one trip downtown usually has those same 'townies' swearing they personally won't be back, any time soon.
In
broad daylight, hordes of drunken revelers clank their way along the
hopelessly gridlocked streets, insistently blaring 'sing-alongs' out the sides of
every limo, tandem bike bar, or open-air tour bus in sight.
Downtown Nashville has become what my Mom used to call (insert NY accent here)... "a mawb scene."
I was at Mardi Gras several times during the '90s--before it all began to turn surly, when New Orleans newscasters and city officials began to use (I am not making this up) the "total nightly garbage tonnage" left in the streets, to measure their year-over-year success. That was the tipping point for me. That and the huge rats, openly feasting on piles of discarded fast food and vomit, as the sun rose over Royal Street. I haven't been back since. Nashville is thisclose to becoming that place; that safe haven for unruliness, uncivil behavior, and unfettered growth. It's morphed into the 'theme park' that party people have been longing for, ever since Hurricane Katrina brought the last one to its knees.
Downtown Nashville~ Summer, 2015 All Photographs Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman, except as indicated below.
The sheer numbers of tourists and downtown 'events' are sucking our police resources away from countless other neighborhoods, to serveasingle square mile of our 7,500 square mile city. Meanwhile, with close to 100,000 brand new downtown residents, there's still not a drug store, still not a grocery store, still no hardware store--none of the basic daily needs that tens of thousands who recently moved in must have, in order to stay downtown. (READ: In order to live there!)
Even The Boss wants to know: Who should be Nashville's next Mayor?
So here we are, with seven candidates, at least half of whom I'd vote for, if I had to--and all of whom I admire, for even trying. Very early on, I sorted out the ones who seemed to me to be either 'single issue' candidates, or ones whose political philosophy I found incompatible with my own politics, which are unabashedly liberal. Having said all that... Ahem...! I shall now list my preferences for Mayor, in reverse order. Those eliminated from consideration--even though they seem like good people, genuinely concerned for our city--begin here:
7.)Linda Eskind Rebrovick. Her message has been nothing, if not consistent:
I am a high tech person. I think almost everything from traffic flow to garbage collection can be done by installing better computer systems. Well, I don't. And it's not the pantsuits or the garbage truck or the fancy SUV or even the family McMansion, I swear. (Okay, it might've been the hairspray.) Either way... Goodbye, Linda.
6.) David Fox.
I saw my first David Fox ad on Fox News. (I should add "no relation"
here, but policy wise, I'm afraid there is.) While Mr. Fox pushes a lot
of local-friendly buttons, his underlying message has always been,
"Let's cut the budget. We need to worry about debt." To be fair, the precise words of his slogan are: "End reckless spending, balance the budget, hold the line on taxes." These are all code words for GOP "austerity," which is utter misery. Ask Greece. Right
wing capitalists always decry government spending and debt...unless
we're bailing them out. In truth, I prefer what they say behind closed
doors, and I think it applies to government even more than
business: You've got to spend money, to make money. So... "No thank you, Mr. Fox."
5.)Jeremy Kane. Some very smart people I know, almost all with school-aged kids, are voting for Mr. Kane. I respect their decision, but I can't do it. Here's why: Mr. Kane, too, is basically a 'one issue' candidate, whose experience is rooted in having established a highly successful series of (seven) "charter schools." Right there is where he and I have a problem. Understand, I'm totally for anyone establishing a new school--be it private, charter, religious, or even home! Where we part company is when Nashville's 'chosen few' get to siphon their school tax dollars out of our public school system, because "Hey, we're just gonna take the same amount you would have used to educate our kid, and find another option!" Where to begin, where to begin... This is one of the more ridiculous (and damaging) trends in America today. It says, "Public schools are failing, so let's drain the remaining money out of 'em, and redirect it where we want it, for our own kids, on an individual basis!" Think about this. I have no children, yet gladly pay my school taxes, and always have. But should I be allowed to reallocate my public school tax contributions? Of COURSE not! Jeremy Kane touts his flagship school as having a "100% graduation rate." That's marvelous. Also easy to do, if you only have one school to run...or seven. Our problems with public education will never be solved unless we ALL PITCH IN--each of us, with equal tax dollars, to the PUBLIC school system--not abandon it. In the airline business, pilots often say, "Sure, we can build a plane that is 100%crash proof. The science is there. But it would be theonly plane on Earth...because it would cost as much to make that one plane, as it does all other planes combined." Bingo. That, my friends, is why charter schools need to fund themselves. It's easy to make a few schools great; much harder to make every school better. I don't care what you do with your own money, but your school tax dollars are as much mine as they are yours. That original sense of "all in" seems lost on people today...but it's how we built what used to be the greatest school system on the planet. We need to go back to properly funding our public schools--all of us. We as a society should not be charged with helping you as a parent find that "perfect school." Pay for it yourself. That's why I have to say "Goodbye, Jeremy; nice school, though!"
4.)Howard Gentry. This is a guy I like a lot. He's honest, steadfast, caring, measured, cautious, gets along with everybody...did I mention he's careful? Safe, too. I have no doubt he is perfectly capable of running this town, and we share many of the same political leanings. He has more governmental experience here than any other candidate. But I've also gotten plenty of good naps during his televised hearings, and deep sleep--while an ongoing problem of mine--is not something I look for, from a Mayor. Great public servant, very nice guy, extremely competent. I can't say enough nice things. ...without getting verrry...verrry...sleeeeeeepy. G'night, Howard. 3.) Megan Barry. Megan was my first choice, in the early going...primarily because every townie I know said she should be. Unfortunately, I'm still a newbie--having "only" been here 25 years--but unless there's some secret-coded message they received at a White Elephants gig I missed, during the '80s... I'm sorry...I just don't get it. I've checked out all her ads and debate commentaries. Ms. Barry's first word is almost always "continue." She wants to continue
(my words here) Mayor Dean's myopic focus on easy stuff-- like gilding an already
gleaming downtown, or luring high profile developers and corporations to
that area to further brighten (and no doubt, whiten) our touristy theme
park. I do not dismiss my friends' choice lightly, nor do I doubt their good judgement. But when you ask why Megan Barry is the best candidate for mayor, most of the answers boil down to "Trust me. I've been here forever. It's Megan Barry you want." To say she's connected would be an understatement. If girls can be good ol' boys too, Megan's in the club. One drive through Belle Meade or Green Hills will show you where all the "BARRY" yard signs are. They're on the nice lawns. You know...the lawns that are manicured by immigrants from South Nashville, which hasn't changed that much at all under Mayor Dean, and certainly
not for the better. You can see them piling into rusty pickup trucks at dawn, where I live. Grown men,
sitting in the back of an open cab, squeezed between lawn tractors and
edgers, and shovels and such. That's because they have no cars, and
there's no damn trains that run from south to north, in these parts. And
even when Mayor Dean proposed his phony "mass transit" bus lane(the 'AMP'), he left out North and South Nashville altogether! Believe
it or not, our current Mayor had planned to spend $75 million connecting the already-connected...from East Nashville to West End. Once again, he dissed
the very people who need mass transit most--the hotel maids, the
landscapers, the office workers, the waiters, drivers, and valets--all
of 'em, apparently just not good enough to be fully included in the "It City."
Megan Barry supported that insulting 'AMP' bus program, and now claims she'll improve it. But to paraphrase Pink Floyd, if I may: "We don't need no... stinkin' bus lanes." Sorry, Megan. You were my first choice, because my well-connected pals told me you should be. Don't get me wrong, you seem real nice, and very sincere. But my friends aren't that much smarter than me... so I'm gonna listen to me, this time.
2. ) Charles Robert Bone. I gotta say, Megan Barry's finest hour as a candidate was when they asked her what her favorite song was, during that first debate, and she said, "All I can think of right now is Vote for Bone!" This guy got out front early, and blanketed the airwaves with a song we'll all remember for years to come. [see video, above] And he's right: "Donelson's connected to Creve Hall," etc. I love a lot of his message, and I think he's eminently qualified. I wouldn't be sad to see him elected, because at least there's a chance he'll do what he's saying he'd do. Improve public schools, mass transit, etc. I'm all for it. Oddly enough, the earworm which helped us forget how similar his name is to Bill Boner also made us forget Bone's first name! Quick. Close your eyes. What's Bone's full name? Gotcha! It's Charles Robert Bone. And to him I say, 'Close, but no cigar...' I thank he and all the other candidates, for putting themselves on the line for our fair city. But right now, we need more.
We need someone whose first priority is mass transit, and by this I mean REAL TRAINS, connecting everything from South Nashville to Hendersonville, to Bellevue to Hermitage, to downtown and back...every single day, all day long...just like real cities have. We need someone who recognizes how great downtown is, but realizes it's time to turn our attention (and tax dollars) toward other areas that have been seriously neglected by Mayor Dean--who's done a fabulous job, but only from the Gulch to Germantown. That's it. But it is not enough...not even for an "It" city.
When asked during the first debate, how he would fund mass transit, Bill Freeman won me over, right then and there: "We've got to start to work on this mass transit system. I like to say that we're 10 years late in getting started on the program, and it'll probably take 8 to 10 years to complete it. So we're 20 years behind, before we turn a spade of dirt. "But we've got to get started on a REAL mass transit system that connects all the communities in the mid-state area--Murfreesboro, Franklin, Lebanon--we've got to connect all those areas. They've got to participate in the solution, too. "It's gonna take help from everyone--from the courthouse to the White House, and everybody in between. "I know there's no funding available right now, for that...but that pendulum will swing, and it will change, and in two years, or three years, or four years, there will be funding...and we'll go after that funding, aggressively. "We can't not work on it today, just because there's no funding today. We'll find the funding! "If you rank the Top 50 Cities in the country in terms of population, Nashville ranks #49. "The Top 48 have one thing in common: They all have mass transit. We're #49. Don't have it. "It's our time. We need to start workin' on it, and we'll find the funding to do that." The entire quote above was Freeman's off-the-cuff, ad libbed answer to a question about how we could avoid "becoming Atlanta," in the first mayoral debate. (linked below) That's what sold me on him. Nashville needs to stop fooling itself. Just the wacky omission of basic retail essentials for its downtown residents says it all, about how painfully out-of-his-element our current mayor is, when it comes to truly understanding how big cities operate. Name me another major city without even a downtown Walgreen's, let alone a grocery store. You can't, because it doesn't exist!
The sad fact is, people can't live on hotel gift shop food, or Jack Daniels flavored beef jerky from a souvenir store. And they can't eat in restaurants, bars, and sidewalk cafes every day of their lives. It simply cannot be done. Mayor Dean (quite literally) forgot that. This city's downtown has indeed become a 'theme park,' based upon a naive Mayor's dream that will surely turn to a nightmare, unless we begin to accommodate the thousands of real live people suddenly living and working down there. This means addressing exactly the kinds of things Bill Freeman has been talking about:
Real mass transit, connecting outlying areas to downtown, and vice versa;
Real improvements in PUBLIC education; and a
Realistic view of how the core city 'fits in' with the vast majority of Nashville residents, who do not live downtown.
NO other candidate has had the guts to stand up and tell the blunt truth about what is wrong with Nashville, and how to fix it. That is why I am voting for Bill Freeman for Mayor of Nashville.
__________________________ This opinion column and all photographs herein(*except the photograph of Bill Freeman) are Copyright 2015 by Peter Rodman. All Rights Reserved. However...because this is a VERY important election, you are welcome to re-share this column. Thank you. ~PR Here's a link to the first Mayoral Debate, in its entirety. Make up your own mind...and please, no matter who you vote for...VOTE!!!
into The Land of Trump--wherein snark is king, disparaging comments pass for "intelligence," and everyone is...what's the word I'm looking for, here? Oh yeah: Nuts.
